Imperial Highway: Downey, My Last Stop on the Highway

In case anyone is reading this blog, which I highly doubt, I thought I'd explain again what it's about. I'm going through LA street-by-street and taking photos and videos of whatever catches my eye. The first street I explored was Imperial Highway, and these last 10 or so posts have been about that street. Today, I'm posting the final Imperial Highway entry about things I saw while traveling the highway through the city of Downey. Tomorrow, I will begin posting sights and sounds from Glendale Blvd.

Imperial Highway does not end in Downey. It actually goes all the way into Anaheim. I, however, have made an arbitrary decision that I'm going to make the 605 Fwy the eastern boundary of my travels. So here's what I saw in Downey.

Get Faded. I just thought the name of this barber shop was funny.

As described in the Urban Dictionary:

a phrase used to offer someone to smoke marijuana or to let other know that you are high.

it is a comand telling some one to get faded is telling them to off their ass high [sic]

At the Imperial Highway Church of Christ, DEAF WELCOME!

I'm curious as to why this church is targeting deaf people. Maybe they already have deaf members so they're just encouraging more to come. But after doing a little research on the area I found that there was a place called Awakenings near by, which is an alcohol and drug treatment center that has a program for hearing impaired people, so I'm wondering if its going after them.





My final pictures from Imperial Highway are of a little bar called the Hully Gully.

This place looks like it should be full of old men having beer for breakfast, but apparently it is a pretty happening 80's bar that goes by the name Club Addiction. And since this place looks like a shit hole, I'm sure it's a fun place to get drunk. Behind the club, are a bunch of attached apartments. It makes me think that at one time this place was a hotel and the Hully Gully was the lounge. One day, I'm going to make it out here for a night.

By the way, Hully Gully, was originally a dance-craze from the 60's.






While this blog started out being about curiosities of the LA streets, it's also become about LA trivia and history. So here's what I know about Downey. It was named in 1865 after John G. Downey (1827-1894), who was a former governor of California, a founding father of the Universtity of Southern California, and who helped establish the first banks in southern California. John Downey had a facinating life. He was pro-slavery, but also pro-Union during the Civil War. He was a self made millionaire, and the until Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was the only foreign-born governor of California. He survived a horrible train wreck that killed his first wife, and was never the same afterwards. His second wife was a young 24 year-old author and journalist named Yda Hillis Addis, who became well known for translating Mexican oral histories into English. Downey's sisters didn't like the marriage to Addis, who would inherit all his money upon his death, so they kidnapped Downey and sent him to Ireland and broke up the marriage. This crazy plot actually worked and Downey ended up marrying a third woman eventually, Rosa Kelly.

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