Victory Boulevard (Los Angeles)

Victory Boulevard
Maintained by Bureau of Street Services, City of L.A. DPW, City of Burbank, City of Glendale
West end Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve
Major
junctions
Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Canoga Park
Reseda Blvd. in Reseda
Balboa Blvd. in Van Nuys
I-405 in Van Nuys
Sepulveda Blvd. in Van Nuys
Van Nuys Blvd. in Van Nuys
SR 170 in N. Hollywood
Vineland Ave. in N. Hollywood
W. Burbank Blvd. in Burbank
W. Alameda Ave. in Burbank
Western Ave. in Glendale
East end SR 134 at Griffith Park

Victory Boulevard is a major east-west arterial road that runs 25 miles (40 km) traversing the entire length of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, Southern California. Through much of the San Fernando Valley, Victory Boulevard divides the affluent communities on the southern side of the Valley (Woodland Hills, Tarzana, and Encino), from the less affluent communities of the central Valley (Canoga Park, Reseda, Lake Balboa, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood), to the middle-class city of Burbank.

Geography

Traveling the 25-mile (40 km) length of Victory Boulevard reveals the diversity of the San Fernando Valley, from the undeveloped open rolling hills of Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve and the multimillion-dollar estates in the hills at the boulevard's western terminus in West Hills, past the West Valley's major malls at Fallbrook Center and Westfield Topanga, alongside the former Rocketdyne plant that built the rocket engines that sent Americans into space and to the moon, through the Warner Center business district, along a section of the Metro Orange Line and by three of its stations, past Pierce College, through the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Center with Lake Balboa, Pedlow Skate Park and golf courses, then through the largely ethnic diverse communities of Van Nuys, Valley Glen and North Hollywood in the center of the valley, crossing the Tujunga Wash, and continuing past Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery with its Portal of the Folded Wing, through Burbank's entertainment district, passing the Nickelodeon studios at Olive Avenue, then veering southeast to its eastern terminus at Griffith Park near the Los Angeles Zoo and Travel Town Museum (at the intersection of Riverside Drive & Sonora Avenue).

Victory Boulevard is one of three Los Angeles boulevards included in the lyrics of Randy Newman's song I Love LA: "...“Century Boulevard (We Love It!), Victory Boulevard (We Love It), Santa Monica Boulevard (We Love It)..."

History

Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys

When Van Nuys was plotted in 1911, Victory Boulevard was called 7th Avenue.[1] Around 1916, the name was changed to Leesdale Avenue.[1] Finally, Leesdale Avenue became Victory Avenue in the mid-1920s. In the mid-1920s, the Leesdale Improvement Association unveiled plans to expand Leesdale Avenue as an 80-foot (24 m)-wide "great east-and-west boulevard" through the Valley.[1] At that time, the City also changed the name to Victory Boulevard, in honor of soldiers returning from World War I,[2] and paved the boulevard as far west as Balboa Boulevard where it ended.[1] Victory Boulevard did not extend to the West Valley until the 1950s.[1][3]

Transportation

The Metro Local No. 164 bus line runs along Victory Boulevard.

Communities (west to east)

Notable landmarks (west to east)

Pedlow Skate Park, in Encino.

Gallery of landmarks

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Victory Boulevard (Los Angeles).

Route map: Bing / Google


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.