San Gabriel Valley Small Business Spotlight

Two San Gabriel Valley businesses which this blogger patronized as a customer - one has flourished (Howard's TV & Appliance) and the other has vanished (Yama Japanese Restaurant).

Howard's TV & Appliance

Founder Howard Roach began his business as a radio repair shop in 1946 at 303 E. Valley Boulevard in the city of San Gabriel - you can read some company history at their website; the San Gabriel Tribune's Lauren Gold wrote a piece on Mr. Roach in 2012.  Today Howard's has numerous locations throughout southern California.

In 2011 it was announced that the company would relocate from their oldest store at 300 E. Valley and head further west onto Main Street in Alhambra.  The new store finally opened sometime last year.  Here are some pictures of the former store in 2012:

The former store at 300 E. Valley Boulevard is now Hawaii Home Center.
 

In the 1980s, Howard established his business as a 100% employee-owned store according to the website.  1981 was also the year that their second block-long superstore opened in the city of La Habra.  Here are some ads of years past:



Ad from March, 1957, listing another of Roach's early stores at 213 E. Valley Blvd.



Ad from October 1958

Ad from July 1959

Ad from August 1959

 



Ad from September 1959



Ad from November 1960, informing of the store move from 303 to 300 E. Valley Blvd.

Ad from March 1973

Yama Japanese Restaurant

One of the oldest remaining "old school" Japanese eateries in San Gabriel Valley (established in the 1960s) is pictured below taken about September, 2012.  Shortly after these photos were taken, the business must have changed hands - the dining room was remodeled, the old 1960s era booths were gone.  About a year later, the restaurant was gone, too. 

A Dining Spot in Alhambra, Cal.

Henry's was located not far from Garfield Avenue and Valley Boulevard.  Its family chain of restaurants included Henry's of Glendale, Henry's Famous Rite Spot in Pasadena, and Carpenter's in Arcadia.

"All Featuring that Nationally Famous Chicken in the Rough."  (Somehow that does not sound very tasty.)

(Click on images to zoom in)

Where Henry's once stood, Gourmet Island opened for business at the beginning of 2010.  In May, restaurant critic Jonathan Gold pronounced these adjectives on the cuisine:  "sweetness" and "light."

Gourmet Island's interior is clean and fresh, and the food is very decent.

Places to Stay n' Play in the San Gabriel Valley

Monterey Park, Cal.

A 1957 advertisement.
(Click on images to zoom in)

The motel in August, 2010.

The motel is flanked by requisite palm trees as seen from Garvey Avenue, a main road heading east and west before the Ramona Freeway (San Bernardino) came in by 1954.  The freeway ended in the east at Rosemead Boulevard, but an extension was completed around July, 1956.

Alhambra, Cal.

Further west these motels are also on Garvey Avenue, in Alhambra.
(I previously posted this location as Monterey Park in error.)

An earlier postcard look at the Midwick Motor Hotel, located at 2436 W. Garvey Avenue.
Present-day address is 1901 Garvey Avenue.

Montebello, Cal.

A motel right on the busy boulevard long before the Pomona Freeway came through.

The motel in August, 2010, its Californian moniker dropped.

Dolgeville in Alhambra, Cal.

The northwestern corner of Alhambra (generally east of Fremont Avenue and west of Marengo Avenue) has an interesting manufacturing past prior to its 1908 annexation into the city.  This area, including where big box businesses Costco and Target currently stand, was once an expansive vineyard operated by the San Gabriel Wine Company.  Manufacturing took over a portion of the former vineyard and became known as Dolgeville.

Poplar and Primrose is one of the intersections immediately north of the former manufacturing tracts of the Alfred Dolge Manufacturing Company.  (Click on images to zoom in)

 A home situated on a Dolgeville subdivision.

Palm tree-lined Primrose Avenue.

Alfred Dolge, a German-born industrialist, arrived in California sometime soon after departing New York in 1898.  By 1904 he developed a manufacturing town called Dolgeville, which became Southern California's first experiment in city planning for the working class.

Decades early in New York state, Dolge in 1875 developed a similar town for the manufacture of felt, piano materials and lumber products.  He also developed a system of labor insurance, old age and disability pensions, and endowments.  By 1881 the eastern town of Dolgeville was incorporated, and in 1898 Dolge went bankrupt.

After arriving out west, Dolge proposed to Henry E. Huntington for the creation of a felt manufacturing plant on a portion of the 500-acre Shorb San Marino Ranch, including the San Gabriel Winery, which Huntington bought in 1903.  By the following year, Huntington agreed to transfer winery buildings and a surrounding 20 acres to the Alfred Dolge Manufacturing Company.

Dolge sought to develop a model city whereby nearby homes could be built (through his own Dolge Land Company) and then be purchased by his employees.  His plan for the city included 8 parks!  Dolge's ideals were at odds with Huntington's, who owned most of the surrounding land in the western San Gabriel Valley. Town-building escalated in 1904, and Huntington was credited with the birth of the town called Dolgeville.

The Dolge Land Company's homebuyers, however, tended to be more affluent, non-employees, while actual workers commuted from other parts of town, including nearby Alhambra!  By 1908, Dolgeville was annexed into the city of Alhambra, but not without a fight from Alfred Dolge.  Alhambra, though, was able to offer a city hall, public library, fire department and public works.  In 1910, Dolge resigned from the company under pressure by Huntington.

The felt manufacturing center of Dolgeville was bordered by Poplar Avenue on the north, Cypress Avenue on the west, Palm Avenue on the east.  The southern boundary was Pepper Street, but currently it is where the parking lot that serves Costco.

Page ad for Dolgeville from a Pacific Electric Grill booklet
profiling southern California sights and businesses
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research, GC-1299-2ov)

The above ad for the Alfred Dolge Manufacturing Company shows a section of the Piano Hammer Factory, a General View of the Plant, and a section of the Felt Shoe Factory.

Added 1/10/2018:

Caption reads:  "Hand cutting novelty patterns from felt used in the manufacturing of slippers.  West Alhambra, Calif."
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center, P-021-1)

A Look at Some San Gabriel Valley Businesses

Some noticeable changes to a couple of long-time businesses prompted me to document their existence in case they close up and their signs are taken down.  Their longevity in the area deserves recognition.  They represent the ways we used to shop in an earlier time when shopkeepers were independent.

Rosemead Pharmacy

Rosemead Pharmacy faces a Rite-Aid store directly across the street on Valley Boulevard.
(Click on images to zoom in)

Bob Peterson owned Bob's Rosemead Pharmacy at an earlier location one block east at the corner of Rosemead and Valley, at 9001 Valley Boulevard, where the Citibank is currently located.  As early as 1953, Rosemead Pharmacy advertised in the paper, along with dozens and dozens of independent pharmacies.

Only animal figurines living in this drug store.

Above is an ad from the year 1957 for an Alhambra pharmacy.

Jenkins Products, Inc.

Jenkin's Carpets, at 1841 So. San Gabriel Boulevard was a store that was easy to overlook.

Until recently this San Gabriel store, long having been at this location, was still open for business.

This store was easy to bypass.  There were plenty of store windows, but the store exterior lacked appeal.  I shopped here in the early 1980s for beige mini-blinds.  In those years neither Home Depot nor 3-Day Blinds existed.  Maybe the store is just getting a face-lift.


Bob's Wondries Motors in Alhambra

A familiar car dealer from a 1957 ad.
(Click on image to zoom in)

From Studebakers to Toyotas, this business has survived.