Simulpocalypse #4- Vacant and abandoned places in Southern California

There can't be many abandoned places in a place where real estate is so expensive, can there? You might be surprised...

Sitting on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Southern California, the old First National Bank building in Hollywood has been sitting vacant since 2008. The 13 story office building on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, the center of the Hollywood tourist area, can’t find someone willing to spend the needed money to make it viable again. #steveemigphotos

Disclaimer:

In this post I write about urban exploring, also known as “UrbEx.” Urban exploring can be dangerous in a multitude of ways. If you decide to explore some urban, rural, or abandoned location watch out for snakes, spiders, fire ants, scorpions, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, chupacabras, grey aliens, feral dogs, tweekers, and any other potentially dangerous creatures. Beware of weak floors, steps, stairways, protruding nails, glass, and any other potentially dangerous parts of structures. While several of these locations below can be accessed legally, others may involve trespassing, which is a crime. You can be ticketed or even arrested for trespassing. You all possible care if you decide to explore any abandoned or unusual locations.

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Simulpocalypse- (SIGH-mole-pock-uh-lips): A word I coined to describe how we have a growing number of vacant and abandoned buildings, and post-apocalyptic looking locations in the U.S., while “normal,” everyday life goes on simultaneously.

This whole “Simulpocalypse” idea is about abandoned buildings. There are already tens of thousands of empty buildings and houses here in the United States, and more being vacated on a regular basis. Many of these places are already dilapidated beyond repair. But thousands of of these buildings are in decent shape, and could be given a new life. The underlying questions of this whole series of posts is, “How can we put these buildings back into viable use? What new uses can we find for as many of these properties as possible?” Keep that in mind as your read this series.

If you have read the previous posts, you may be thinking, “OK Steve, yes… there are a lot of abandoned and dilapidated buildings in the U.S. these days, but they are mostly all those factories that closed down 30 years ago in the Midwest, and a few dead malls and empty retail stores in small towns. There aren’t any abandoned places in major cities or in expensive areas like Southern California. Except for the houses burned in those recent big fires were near L.A., all those thrashed, abandoned places are back East, right?” Actually, no. There are lots of abandoned, and even some fully apocalyptic-looking places, right here in Southern California. There are Simulpocalypse locations, modern urban ruins, all over the country, including in some of the cities with the most expensive real estate.

For all of you out here in SoCal, or any UrbEx people headed this way, here are just some of the abandoned and post-apocalyptic looking places in Southern California. I made this list just to show a good variety of the different types of abandoned places that exist here. Some of these you can just view from the outside, and some you can actually wander around freely and explore. A few of these may involve trespassing, which is, of course, illegal. If you do some research, there are plenty more UrbEx and Simulpocalypse type places in Southern California.

What I’m not including on this list are a whole bunch of abandoned retail and office buildings I know of that are vacant, but not covered in graffiti, that haven’t been broken into and vandalized, and hide among active businesses. Off the top of my head, I know of a Guitar Center, a Big 5, and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond, a 6-plex movie theater, a couple of small office buildings, and an office building that probably has 50-80 offices, all completely vacant. There’s also a Big Jo Ann Fabrics store here in The Valley, that is currently clearing out inventory, that will join that list soon. These are just some of the vacant buildings I know of personally, that are vacant, but still in good condition. Then there’s the Westfield Promenade, a dead mall in upscale Woodland Hills, farther west here in The Valley, where I live. There are all kinds of other vacant and abandoned buildings in Southern California that are not on the list below. This list is some of the more odd and post-apocalyptic looking places around SoCal.

Bombay Beach/the Salton Sea - The Salton Sea is a huge, accidentally made lake, in the Imperial Valley of Southern California. Have you heard of the Coachella music festival? The Salton Sea is just south of Coachella. In the mid 20th century, it was a popular resort area, even celebrities went boating, water skiing, fishing, and partying there. This region is a slow moving environmental disaster, the giant salt lake is evaporating, and becoming saltier as it does. This has led to millions of fish dying, and wide patches of toxic soil on the edges of the Salton Sea, that turns into toxic dust during wind storms. Bombay Beach and the crazy squatter area of Slab City are two places you can check out, if you dare.

First National Bank Building in Hollywood- As you can tell from this short news helicopter piece, no one seems to be quite sure why this 13 story building is abandoned. It’s a striking, stylish, 20th century building literally on one of the most expensive pieces of property in all of California. Right at the top tourist corner in Hollywood, the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, stands this building, vacant for about 15 years now. It’s closed, don’t even try to get inside, there are about 17,000 security cameras in that area. But you can take cool pics of the building from the outside, then walk half a block and see all the celebrity hand and footprints at TCI (aka Grumman’s) Chinese Theater, and do other touristy things. I’ve heard the building is haunted by a guy who gives haunted Hollywood walking tours. There just doesn’t seem to be anybody willing to spend the big bucks to bring this cool building back up to code, and put it back to use.

Old L.A. Zoo- Learning that this place existed a few years ago is what really got me interested in learning about, visiting, and blogging about, odd locations in the L.A. area. I still haven’t made it there, though. Many years ago, the old Los Angeles Zoo, located in part of Griffith Park, closed down. The old zoo exhibits are still there, and you can explore the cages and former animal enclosures. It’s free, and totally legal, with just a bit of hiking involved. The new Los Angeles Zoo is a few miles away.

The Bolsa Chica Gun Club /WWII 5”inch cannon foundations- I don’t think ruins of this old duck hunter’s lodge in Huntington Beach are on any UrbEx people’s radar. Just the foundations and the trees that grew around the lodge are left now. The location is a corner of the Bolsa Chica Mesa, just inland of Bolsa Chica State Beach, about a mile north of Pacific Coast Highway (aka PCH) and Warner, on the north tip of Huntington Beach. You can hike in about a mile from PCH and Warner, or park on Graham, near the end of Slater, and ride a bike along the canal banks to the spot. Again, there’s not much to explore, but there’s a lot of wildlife in that area, dozens of different kinds of birds, fence lizards, and you might even glimpse a coyote. There are several miles of trails around the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, and a few BMX jumps tucked away there, as well.

California City- Think you know California? The third biggest city in California, by total land area, has only 14,000 people living there. Really. A developer with huge dreams started building a city way out in the Mojave desert, expecting tens of thousands of people to want to leave crowded cities like L.A.. Nat Mendelsohn got started in 1958, and went to town, scrawling out and building over 200 square miles of roads and infrastructure. Then he started selling lots in the town. Was it just a big get rich quick scheme? Or was it a well-intentioned development that just ran out of steam? People can argue what really happened, but there are now many miles of streets in a huge grid pattern, across the desert, and the actual town of California City that has survived. Here’s a longer video documenting the huge city that never was. When you start digging into Simulpocalypse locations, most exist because of regional “economic apocalypses.” Financial crises of all kinds have led to most of the vacant and abandoned buildings in America. California City is one of the best examples of that in the western states. California City is a few miles north of Edwards Air Force Base, and about 75-80 miles north of Los Angeles.

Oceanwide Plaza- aka “The L.A. Graffiti Towers”- These partially built skyscrapers became famous in 2024 because L.A. Graffiti writers suddenly started tagging the windows up and down all three tall buildings. The site got graffitied because it had become an abandoned, a permanently stalled condo/hotel/retail business project. Eventually taggers found a way in, and soon tagged nearly every floor. Plans for developing the high priced piece of land next to L.A.’s Staples Center, on the edge of downtown Los Angeles, began in the early 2000’s. The initial development project fell apart in the Great Recession of 2007-2009. By the mid 2010’s, a large Chinese developer came in, altered the initial plans, and began to build. They soon ran into financial problems, as well. Construction stopped as they were unable to pay large debts owed. Check the link for a really good documentary on this whole project. The partially constructed, now abandoned towers are just sitting there, waiting for some new plan, and financing, to salvage the project and finish it someday.

Lake Dolores/Rock-a-Hoola- abandoned water park between L.A and Las Vegas- Originally opened in 1962, Lake Dolores was the first water park anywhere, according to this short documentary. Located about halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, in the middle of the Mojave desert, it featured stand up water slides with a fifteen foot drop at the end, lay down water slides, rope swings, zip lines and lots of other not-so-safe fun. That eventually closed down. Completely redesigned, it opened again as Rock-a-Hoola Water Park in 1998. That never generated a profit. An unfortunate accident led to a big lawsuit, and it closed within four years. It was re-opened yet again, but not for long. This water park has been closed in 2004. It never reopened, and has been an UrbEx spot for many years now. Freestyle motocrosser Colby Raha recently re-did a big acid drop on his motorcycle off the tower. That’s nuts, definitely do not try to recreate his stunt.The abandoned water park is full of graffiti, and seems to be visited pretty much daily at this point.

This is the Nude Bowl, with miles of desert spread out below. This is a video still from my 1990 BMX video, The Ultimate Weekend. You can see the segment at 26:54 in the video. This was a well-watched, low budget, VHS tape, so the audio quality is really bad. Sorry. The walls of the upper building, and a couple of the lower buildings, were still standing back in 1990. #steveemigphotos

The Nude Bowl- A weird compound on a hill, way out in the desert, later became a nudist resort in the 1960’s and 1970’s, was abandoned, and then became a pool skating spot in 1982. It’s famous around the world in the skateboard and BMX worlds now. I’m proud to say I was the first person to feature the Nude Bowl in a BMX video, way back in 1990, three years after it first appeared in a Santa Cruz Skateboards video featuring Steve Alba. Here’s a Substack post with my history of the place. I always felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic movie when we went there to ride in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. It’s located out in the desert, in the region of Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs. These days, YouTubers, adventurer tourists, BMXers, and skaters all make treks out there.

Fort MacArthur-Concrete batteries that held cannons that protected L.A./Long Beach harbor in World War II- These guns were the big brothers to the small, 5 inch cannons, near the Bolsa Chica Gun Club (see above). They were built to shoot at any enemy battleships that could have showed up during World War I and World War II. The guns shot 14 inch diameter, 1,500 pound projectiles, as far as 27 miles, out over the ocean. The huge cannons are long gone now, but the concrete bunkers still exist and can be visited. Fort MacArthur, luckily, never had to fire at enemy ships. It’s located in San Pedro, California, on the south end of the Palos Verdes peninsula.

Abandoned train cars in the desert- These are graffitied old passenger train cars, sitting on unused tracks, a few miles from the U.S./Mexico border, near Jacumba, California. That’s 25-30 miles west of Calexico, near Interstate 8. They actually show up on Google Maps. Check the video for more details.

The Scary Dairy- Camarillo, CA- Opened in the 1930’s, the Camarillo State Mental Hospital housed over 7,000 patients at one time. The hospital grounds included a working dairy farm, where patients worked with staff at farm work to help find meaning and purpose during their time there. The dairy farm was closed in the 1960’s, and the mental hospital closed in 1997, according to this video. The hospital later became part of Channel Islands University. According to this video, the Scary Dairy north of Los Angeles is one of the 5 most haunted places in California.

Trona, California- Trona is a small mining town next to a dried lake called Searles Lake, where borax, postash, soda ash, salt, and other industrial minerals have been mined since the 1800’s. It’s not an abandoned town, rather one that’s much less busy with mining than it once was. People do still live in the town, but there are also many abandoned homes, and industrial buildings. Trona is west of route 395, southeast of Lone Pine, for those of you who’ve driven to Mammoth from the L.A. area. This video is a 5 minute documentary of Trona’s history.

Surfridge/Palisades Del Rey- Most of you have seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and many others. A man named Mel Blanc did that voice, the voice of Daff Duck, Yosemite Sam, and dozens of others. For a while, he lived in a development right by the Pacific Ocean. He was just one of the residents of Surfridge and Palisades Del Rey, located west of the LAX airport runways today. It’s all fenced off now, you quickly get arrested if you try to get in, because of the airport. But the streets and street lights are still there. Here’s a four minute documentary of these once elite developments. You can just peer through the fence now, no real exploring, but it’s a little known part of Los Angeles history whose streets still exist.

Mrs. Orcutt’s Driveway- This one is more of a cool story than a great place to explore. A wealthy and somewhat eccentric widow moved to the desert, west of Barstow after her husband died. She lived right off the well known Route 66, the popular east/west highway across the U.S.A in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Then the new freeway, Interstate 40 was built, which chopped her driveway in half. She no longer had a way to drive into the nearby town of Newberry without doing some offroading. So Mrs. Orcutt wrote to both President Johnson and his wife. In time, the U.S. government rectified the situation by building a perfectly straight, 4 mile long road, to the next on/off ramp on I-40 Mrs. Orcutt’s new driveway was maintained by the federal government, and went to her house, and nowhere else.

At some point, hot rodders realized the straight, smooth, four mile long road made a great place to go really, really fast, more or less legally. In time, even Car and Driver magazine learned of the place, and used it to both test drive fast cars, and even for shooting photos, including a cover shot or two. Reportedly, some cars got close to 200 mph on Mrs. Orcutt’s driveway. About 25 miles west of Barstow, just off the I-40 by Newberry Springs, you can check out the now run down road/driveway, and the remains of Mrs. Orcutt’s handmade adobe house. Watch the video for the story of Mrs. Orcutt, “the world’s fastest driveway,” and her other antics.

Royal Hawaiian Motel- near Baker, California- This is closer to a “traditional” UrbEx site, compared to many of those above. Near Baker, California, way over on the east side of Southern California, by I-15,stands the remains of the Royal Hawaiian motel. The whole thing is vandalized and has graffiti, and there’s even a skateable and rideable empty pool, for skateboarders and BMXers. This place seems to be easily accessible, and doesn’t appear to be fenced off in this video. Check the video for a good walk-around of the property. You can also check out the enigmatic Zzyzyx Road, which isn’t far away. That’s another small semi-abandoned spot.

George Air Force Base- Victorville, California- While I was compiling this list of UrbEx locations in Southern California, I was a little bit bummed that there aren’t any huge areas of modern ruins, like the old Packard plant in Detroit, for example. But I kept checking out videos after finishing this post. It turns out, there is one HUGE abandoned, fully post-apocalyptic looking place in Southern California. In this video above, Bethany and Drew of Oddity Odysseys channel explore what looks like a full blown zombie apocalypse location. The abandoned George Air Force Base in Victorville, CA has over 250 buildings and over 5,300 acres. Enjoy.

Like other “simulpocalypse” sites across the country, the vacant and abandoned buildings and sites in Southern California range from recently vacated business properties waiting for a new tenant or a new owner in today’s slowing economy, to fully apocalyptic-looking sites dating back decades, and even to the gold rush days in places. Many vacant buildings are hiding in plain site in retail and business areas. Other places are spread all around the thousands of square miles of mostly empty desert and mountains, across the parts of Southern California that most people don’t realize exist.

Even out here, in one of the ultra-high value real estate areas of the U.S., there are a wide variety of abandoned places. Can we find new uses for many of the still decent properties? Or will most of them wind up like the hundreds of dilapidated factories and thousands of abandoned houses in parts of the Midwest and the East? Time will tell. The first step is realizing how many of these places exist, and seeing what their stories are. Then comes the brainstorming for ideas for buildings and locations that still have the potential for a new life in the fast changing 21st century.

Simulpocalypse Series- Post #5- “Why do we have so many abandoned buildings in the United States?”

Back to Simulpocalypse post #1

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