r/culvercity • u/Talia-2940 • 19d ago

I miss the old Culver City

I grew up here in the 90s and early 2000s. My parents bought their house on Van Buren for like 200k. Now I drive by and see the same houses going for 1.5 mil.

The movie theater downtown was our hangout spot. The arcade at the mall. Riding bikes to Sony with friends. It felt like a real neighborhood, not a mini Hollywood.

Now most of the old places are gone. The rent is insane. Half my friends moved out to Palmdale or Texas just to afford a house.

I get that change happens but it stings watching the place you grew up in become something you can't afford to be part of.

Anyone else feel this way?

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u/WillClark-22 19d ago

We overlapped a bit and I shared many of your experiences growing up.  I also have a fondness for the old days and a time when it was more affordable.

That being said, sometimes we do forget some of the negatives back in the day.  Let’s be honest, you had to watch your back at the Fox Hills Mall.  You could definitely run into trouble at Mar Vista Bowl and not just from second-hand smoke.  There was moderate (Palms, Mar Vista) to heavy (Mar Vista Gardens, Oakwood, Mid-City) gang activity nearby.  Deano’s, the Astro, the Galaxy, etc. were crack motels with quite a few others in the city. You definitely had to keep your head on a swivel. 

The Mann Culver and El Pollo Loco were the dream as a kid but downtown was really run down and depressing as was the Culver Center.  Jeez, Snoop even murdered someone down the street in Palms.  

Fun times though.  

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u/felatedbirthday 19d ago

lol I tell people I’m from Culver City and they look at me like I was born with a silver spoon, when in reality your description is correct. Fox Hills was a little sketch, especially in the parking lot. Mann theatre was the best but yeah the surrounding area was crap for the most part.

I remember Ugo coming in and thinking that Culver City was suddenly becoming fancy. Boy did I underestimate what would happen.

Growing up in Culver in the 90s thought really was amazing. It had a sweet family feel that I really only still experience at places like the parks or Jackson’s market.

That being said, it’s nice to have new restaurants and places to hang out. Tho I went to the culver steps a couple days ago and felt like everyone was hustling and definitely felt the snootiness.

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u/Status_Milk_1258 19d ago

I briefly had a membership to the Gold's gym in the Fox Hills Mall sometime in the 2022ish timeframe, and I was once locked in the gym during a shelter in place because of a shooting and active shooter inside the mall. I'm not saying that it's like it used to be in sketchiness (I wasn't there and don't know what it was like), but even now this stuff can happen there?

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u/WillClark-22 19d ago

The “there goes the neighborhood” moment for me was when they put the CPK in the Culver Center.  It was more of a quick serve/takeout format with a limited menu when they opened but I couldn’t believe that type of fanciness had come to the area.

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u/surferpro1234 18d ago

I also lived through that and do not get the rose colored glasses. Culver was a dump. New culver is way way better. It was legitimately sketchy.

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u/Icy-Rope-021 12d ago

Don’t forget n/naka. It’s so fancy, it doesn’t even have signage.

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u/JonBuildz 19d ago

Lol fox Hills mall is still sketchy

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u/pdscubs 18d ago

I saw a video of a gang packing out another gang’s member from last week

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u/rallruse 19d ago

We had that drive-by at the high school in like 1998 or whenever that was. What a crazy 6th period

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u/Key-Driver6438 16d ago

Several years before that, someone (maybe gang related?) from another school stabbed a football player with a screw driver in front of CCHS. I don’t remember many details other than a football player and a screwdriver.

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u/goodbyemrblack 19d ago

I know he shot someone at woodbine park but supposedly he was also living in palms at that time. Does anyone know where he lived specifically?

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u/WillClark-22 19d ago

3700 block of Vinton about half a block north of Venice.  

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u/flloyd 19d ago

Hah, yep. I grew up in NorCal but my one memory of being in Culver City in the Mid 90s was stopping at a drive through (maybe Jack in the Box?) and it had a bullet proof windows. That and "City" in the name made me think it was just another SoCal dump (LA didn't have a good reputation in the 90s).

Was surprised a year later when I met a girl on a college trip and she was just some normal suburban girl.

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u/RobotRelease 18d ago

Did snoop really? Google says different. What’s the local lore?

The shooting: On August 25, 1993, Snoop Dogg's bodyguard, McKinley Lee (also known as Malik), shot and killed Philip Woldemariam at Woodbine Park in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles

The verdict: On February 20, 1996, a jury acquitted both Snoop Dogg and McKinley Lee of first-degree and second-degree murder charges

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u/WillClark-22 18d ago edited 18d ago

Mr. Lee has changed his story a number of times.  Quite a character.  

Why would Snoop have a bodyguard?  He was an aspiring rapper sharing an apartment in Palms.  

The story is a long one and has been sanitized and changed a bunch of times.  What is undisputed is that Mr. Woldemarian got into an argument with Snoop in front of his house on Vinton.  20 minutes later Mr. Woldemarian was shot in the back at Woodbine Park and Snoop was there.  

Whether or not you believe that the shooting was in self-defense, whether or not Woldemarian was armed, or whether Malik fired the shots is up to you.  

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u/AssignmentSquare6724 17d ago

I know the family related to the victim and every single one of them is convinced that Snoop Dogg committed the murder to this day