Monterey "Trailer" Park, Cal.

The old Monterey Park was dotted with trailer courts that proliferated with the popularity of traveling trailer vacations in the 1920s.  In the late 1940s trailers provided a small solution to the wide housing shortage for homecoming World War II soldiers.

Many of the trailer properties came under city scrutiny in the early 1970s.  Slum conditions existed alongside the trailer encampments.  The trailer locations were targeted for commercial development.  Some of the parks were clustered near Atlantic Boulevard and Garvey Avenue, and a few were northward on the Atlantic Boulevard strip between Emerson and Hellman Avenues.

They had names like "Cosmo", "Redtop" and "Royal."  Another, Hallman Trailer Court, was operated by D.A. Hallman, who called the city council's plans a "dictatorship."  Mr. Hallman, who was over 65 years of age at the time, fought against the city.  He succeeded, because the property was torn down only in recent years.  Visit an early page to see the Hallman Trailer Court sign.

Paradise in Rosemead, Cal.

Tree and foliage-laden Paradise Trailer Park at 8069 Garvey Avenue has stood the years as its surroundings have absorbed the march of mini malls, Chinese markets, Chinese restaurants, and store signs that spell out CVS, Starbucks, and Phó.  Garvey Avenue was a major east-west corridor before the placement of the San Bernardino Freeway.

The sign is frozen in time.

The earliest structure at the address was built in 1922, and improvements continued in the 1930s and 1940s.
An additional property further back and ending at Whitmore Street was constructed in 1956.

The river rock wall runs along the front on Garvey Avenue.

The L.A. Times reported that in 1989 there were 740 such parks in the county of Los Angeles.  The state's Housing and Community Development statistics show that the number of parks has fallen to 644 in July, 2008.  In Rosemead there have been other recent activities by developers that have threatened or have displaced mobile home residents.

Adjacent to the east of Paradise, a tract of land at 3053 San Gabriel Boulevard, where another mobile home park had been, was demolished without permit in 2007.


To the west at 8001 Garvey sits 18 vacant acres formerly the site of Los Angeles Dealer Auto Auction.  It closed at the end of March in 2009 after over 60 years in business.  In August, 2010 when this photo was taken, no new development has taken place.

Beyond the fence is the expansive field of the former L.A. Dealer Auto Auction.

Monterey Park, Cal.

Atlantic Times Square nearing completion.
(Click on images to zoom in)

614 N. Atlantic Boulevard in this San Gabriel Valley city is no longer a valid address. At the east side of the boulevard, near Hellman Avenue, and just south of the San Bernardino Freeway, Hallman Trailer Court, along with its neighboring structures, went away in very recent times, and the multi-storied, mix-use Atlantic Times Square will take on an imposing presence.

This must have been the trailer court section of Monterey Park:  in 1925, just south of here at 512 to 520 Atlantic Blvd. there stood another trailer court double the size of this one. Hallman Trailer Court was listed in the 1950 travel guide, a decent resting spot for vacationers hitching a trailer to stop off in Southern California.  (The Hallman Trailer photos were taken in 2002.)

Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas Map, 1925-1949

Atlantic Times Square view from the north.

In 1958 with a view of hillside homes.  Monterey Park has at least four mountain peaks, two of which are separated by Monterey Pass Road from the other two peaks.  The mountains were known as Coyote Hills.  Another mountainous area close to Potrero Grande Drive is the Garvey Hills.

Were neighborhoods were taken away for this development?  The only literature I have found that might discuss this is Guadalupe Compean's 1983 UCLA Masters thesis The Los Angeles Corporate Center, Its Probable Impact on North East Los Angeles : a Client Project but I have not gotten hold of a copy, yet.

Update 7.9.2022

A reader wrote today and generously provided this:  Next to the old Hallman trailer park was Barry Frey Pontiac-GMC Truck-Subaru, which was also taken out as part of the Atlantic Times Square project. Atlantic also had some huge ugly looking SoCal Edison 66KV transmission lines that were removed during the ATS project as well. Across the street, the Great Wall Supemarket opened as a Raisin Market in 1947 as the Alhambra Midwick neighborhood off Emerson was being converted from Country Club to tract homes, then Alpha Beta bought out Raisin and lasted until the mid 1990's when Shun Fat/Great Wall Supermarket took over as part of the new wave of Chinese businesses taking over much of Atlantic Blvd. Ralphs was built as a Hughes Market, which merged into Ralphs in 1996 by way of its corporate parent (QFC bought Hughes, then Fred Meyer bought QFC and Ralphs, then Fred Meyer decided to merge Hughes into Ralphs because Hughes was only in SoCal but at first, Ralphs didn't want Hughes but later agreed to take over). As for the 99 Ranch Market, it first opened as a Vons sometime in the 1970's until it closed, then it became T&T Supermarket, a Canadian Asian chain with its first USA location in Monterey Park, that partnered with 99 Ranch until the partnership dissolved and the store converted to 99 Ranch. The adjacent Chinese herbs & gift retailer Wing Hop Fung was Thrifty Drug that later became Rite Aid.