[HN Gopher] Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town
___________________________________________________________________
Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town
Author : ecliptik
Score : 53 points
Date : 2024-07-30 16:36 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noemamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noemamag.com)
| litoE wrote:
| Even in Beverly Hills. Here's a street view of Beverly Hills High
| School's athletic field a couple of years ago. The oil derrick
| has been removed since then, but they are still extracting oil
| there.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0597113,-118.4099141,3a,75y,...
| ikety wrote:
| Baldwin Hills is my favorite part of LA. Historically rich
| African American neighborhood. Tons of great views, really good
| location overall in LA. Nice access to LAX, the water and
| downtown isn't too far. And of course tons of oil derricks near
| Kenneth Hahn. Highly recommend.
| kcrwfrd_ wrote:
| Culver City Stairs (aka Baldwin Hills Scenic Outlook) is an
| amazing outdoor workout destination as well.
| ikety wrote:
| Definitely, I would have done it more often if I didn't have
| asthma.
| forgot-im-old wrote:
| Baldwin Hills over Griffith?
| vondur wrote:
| Huntington Beach located in Orange County, south of Los Angeles
| used to have oil wash up on the beach due to it seeping from the
| ocean bottoms. Signal Hill located near Long Beach California
| used to be completely covered with oil pumping rigs. Even in Long
| Beach close to PCH and 2nd street there are still active oil
| wells.
| sroussey wrote:
| Tar on the beach was a mainstay of my childhood, and now almost
| completely gone. No more pressure pushing oil naturally on to
| the beach. Turpentine on my feet post beach was never fun.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| I walked my dog on manhattan beach last year and he got tar
| everywhere. Never again.
| nox101 wrote:
| Long beach also has those oil well islands.
|
| https://la.curbed.com/2018/9/28/17858248/history-long-beach-...
| analyte123 wrote:
| It really shouldn't be a point of pride for any kind of
| "researcher" to have the revelation as an adult that oil has been
| important in the history of the California economy. I could
| understand this level of naive astonishment and bitter
| demonization if all your education came from an elementary school
| textbook, but this author is supposed to be some kind of public
| intellectual.
|
| From the tone of this article, you would think that oil is some
| kind of purely toxic, useless substance that fiendish villains
| decided to dig up for fun and hate, "boosterish paper[s]
| smirk[ing]" all along. I imagine the state of the world if the
| oilfields in LA and elsewhere had been "left fallow" as the
| author's misapplied metaphor desires. It is not good: starvation,
| deprivation, no modern materials or planes, extremely restricted
| technology development. On the other hand, those of us who still
| managed to be born likely wouldn't have computers and we'd be
| spared from having to read this.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The difference between medicine and poison is the dose.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I agree with the first part of what you said, I mean, every
| native angelino has at one point made a field trip to the tar
| pits. What did he think the tar was?
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| People like the writer of TFA that lament the historical and
| ongoing production of oil really show just how ignorant people
| are of how our insanely high standard of living came to be. Oil
| production is a net benefit for the world in ways that can't be
| overstated.
| moshun wrote:
| *net benefit to humans, certainly not the world
| ctoth wrote:
| Without humans, who cares about the world? Serious
| question.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Those who come next
| linotype wrote:
| If you can believe it, there are people that don't give a
| shit what happens to the world after their kids die.
| ttymck wrote:
| I don't think everyone subscribes to sentiocentrism
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| He doesn't say he's unaware of the history, he says that
| despite the visible infrastructure he didn't realise it was
| _still_ an oil town:
|
| > But before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town. And
| though the oil wells that loom even today atop the nearby
| Baldwin Hills should have been a clue, it never really dawned
| on me that LA still is
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I have lived in LA my whole life and it pushes my suspension
| of disbelief a lot to hear a native say they didn't realize
| that oil was still being extracted - the derricks are
| _everywhere,_ not just on-shore either.
| linotype wrote:
| Right? It's like where do people think Doheny (Greystone
| Mansion) and Getty got all their money?
| colechristensen wrote:
| > but that was over 20 years ago. We've made scant progress.
|
| Ugh.
|
| At this moment, 74.2% of California's electricity is coming from
| renewables, overwhelmingly solar. Nearly 8% of new cars sold in
| the US are electric, a similar number of total cars on the road
| are electric. In ten years it will be nearly 100%.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> At this moment, 74.2% of California's electricity is coming
| from renewables, overwhelmingly solar._
|
| It's even better than that! The rest is mostly nuclear and
| hydro so at this moment only 12% of California's power supply
| produces significant amounts of CO2 [1].
|
| [1] https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply
| fcccccbjjv wrote:
| Unless I'm missing something this is the instantaneous
| generation, ie it needs to be averaged over 24hr (actually
| over the year) to get a real picture of CA's energy mix.
|
| (Also, I wouldn't put hydro in the clean energy in CA)
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's a bit misleading to say Hydro doesn't tackle climate
| change, though it is environmentally unfriendly.
|
| One particular political party loves to make jokes about
| "clean" energy, by conflating different definitions of
| clean. Generally, I think it's fair to say climate change
| is the biggest concern, so I am comfortable when "clean" or
| "green" refers to CO2 free.
| fcccccbjjv wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| This link from 2021 says the net power consumed in CA was less
| than 34% renewables, and the in-state generated renewables are
| about the same.
|
| https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
|
| EDIT: pedantic physics moment. When I say "power" consumed I
| actually mean the time integral of power over the course of a
| year, i.e. energy, expressed as GWh
| colechristensen wrote:
| I wrote "at this moment", which meant instantaneously, not
| overall, or for 2021 as there has been very fast buildout.
|
| Data can be found here: https://www.caiso.com/todays-
| outlook/supply
|
| It has gone up a couple of points since I posted.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I heard the movie business started there to get out of reach of
| enforcement of movie camera patents back east. If true that's
| pretty ironic since the whole industry is built on IP rights.
| kyleee wrote:
| Win by any means necessary and then lock it down to prevent
| upstarts and competition. A time tested strategy
| Clamchop wrote:
| And in part because of the diversity of landscapes to film in.
| Westerns and such were never going to be filmed in the east.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| And then the TMZ came into limit those landscapes. For good
| reason though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone
| JohnMakin wrote:
| In addition to other sibling comments - often this
| "enforcement" heavily involved the mafia, which had less of a
| foothold on the west coast.
| gxs wrote:
| Interesting, I always heard it was started by Jews looking to
| get away from racism back east.
|
| I might have to do a little reading myself to clear this up
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Like many victims of bullying, they learned the wrong lesson:
| that it's better to be on the other side of the bullying.
| keiferski wrote:
| Many/most of Raymond Chandler's works are set in the time period
| when LA was gradually shifting from oil to film as its
| predominant industry. I believe oil executives were in a few of
| the stories as villains too.
|
| Great reads if you're interested in the era.
| no_exit wrote:
| Upton Sinclair's _Oil!_ is pretty good too.
| mezentius wrote:
| Absolutely. Chandler was in fact employed by an oil company
| before he tapped a richer vein (sorry) with his fiction.
|
| Incidentally, while re-reading Chandler's "The Lady in the
| Lake," I realized that the scene in which Marlowe meets his
| employer, dozing off in a "high-backed chair" in his club's
| library, was a description of the library at the Los Angeles
| Athletic Club. Today, if you're a member (or know one), you can
| pop up to the third floor, still preserved in all of its
| interwar ersatz-Gilded-Age splendor, and doze off in one of
| those distinctive high-backed chairs after a drink and schvitz.
|
| It turns out that Chandler had worked across the street when
| employed by Dabney Oil, and visited the L.A. Athletic Club
| frequently.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Perhaps that means that there's hope for Houston when oil
| inevitably declines.
| keernan wrote:
| My dad was transferred to LA when I was in 9th grade in 1967. I
| was excited at the thought of living in warmth amid enormous palm
| trees. Alas, I was shocked to see so many oil rigs yards from the
| land side of the coast highway.
|
| PS: I absolutely loved living in LA. Alas, we only stayed 2
| years.
| marc1 wrote:
| Oil Wells are hidden around LA:
| https://lamag.com/lahistory/hidden-oil-wells
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-30 23:01 UTC)