Burbank, California
Encyclopedia
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California
, United States
, 12 miles (19.3 km) north of downtown Los Angeles
. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340.
Billed as the "Media Capital of the World" and located only a few miles northeast of Hollywood, many media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment
, Warner Music Group
, NBC Universal
, The Walt Disney Company
, ABC
, Cartoon Network Studios
, and Nickelodeon
. The city is also home to Bob Hope Airport
.
Burbank is located in two distinct areas, with its downtown, civic center and key neighborhoods nestled on the slopes and foothills that rise to the Verdugo Mountains
, and other areas located in flatlands at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley
.
At one time it was referred to as "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Laugh-In and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
. The city was named after David Burbank, a New Hampshire
-born dentist
and entrepreneur
.
and Mexican
-era colonial land grants, the 36400 acres (147.3 km²) Rancho San Rafael
, granted to Jose Maria Verdugo
by the Spanish
Bourbon
government in 1784, and the 4063 acres (16.4 km²) Rancho Providencia
created in 1821. Historically, this area was the scene of a military skirmish which resulted in the unseating of the Spanish Governor of California, and his replacement by the Mexican leader Pio Pico
. Remnants of the military battle reportedly were found many years later in the vicinity of Warner Brothers Studio when residents dug up cannon balls.
Dr. David Burbank purchased over 4600 acres (18.6 km²) of the former Verdugo holding and another 4600 acres (18.6 km²) of the Rancho Providencia in 1867 and built a ranch house and began to raise sheep and grow wheat on the ranch. By 1876, the San Fernando Valley
became the largest wheat-raising area in Los Angeles County. But the droughts of the 1860s and 1870s underlined the need for steady water supplies.
A professionally trained dentist, Dr. Burbank began his career in Waterville, Maine
. He joined the great migration westward in the early 1850s and, by 1853 was living in San Francisco. At the time the American Civil War
broke out he was again well established in his profession as a dentist in Pueblo de Los Angeles
. In 1867, he purchased Rancho La Providencia from David W. Alexander and Francis Mellus
, and he purchased the western portion of the Rancho San Rafael (4,603 acres) from Jonathan R. Scott. Dr. Burbank's property reached nearly 9200 acres (37.2 km²) at a cost of $9,000. Dr. Burbank wouldn't acquire full titles to both properties until after a court decision known as the "Great Partition" was made in 1871 dissolving the Rancho San Rafael. He eventually became known as one of the largest and most successful sheep raisers in southern California, resulting in him stopping his practice of dentistry and investing heavily in real estate in Los Angeles.
Dr. Burbank also later owned the Burbank Theatre, which opened on November 27, 1893 at a cost of $150,000. Though the theater was intended to be an opera house, instead it staged plays and became known nationally. The theatre featured famous actors of the time including Fay Bainter
and Marjorie Rambeau
, until it had deteriorated into a burlesque house.
When the area that became Burbank was settled in the 1870s
and 1880s
, the streets were aligned along what is now Olive Avenue, the road to the Cahuenga Pass
and downtown Los Angeles. These were largely the roads the Indians traveled and the early settlers took their produce down to Los Angeles to sell and to buy supplies along these routes.
At the time, the primary long-distance transportation methods available to San Fernando Valley
residents were stagecoach and train. Stagecoaching between Los Angeles
and San Francisco through the Valley began in 1858. The Southern Pacific Railroad
arrived in the Valley in 1876, completing the route connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A shrewd businessman, foreseeing the value of rail transport
, Burbank sold Southern Pacific Railroad
a right-of-way
through the property for one dollar. The first train passed through Burbank on April 5, 1874. A boom created by a rate war between the Santa Fe
and Southern Pacific
brought people streaming into California
shortly thereafter, and a group of speculators purchased much of Dr. Burbank's land holdings in 1886 for $250,000. One account suggests Dr. Burbank may have sold his property because of a severe drought that year, which caused a shortage of water and grass for his livestock. Approximately 1,000 of his sheep died due to the drought conditions.
The group of speculators who bought the acreage formed the Providencia Land, Water, and Development Company and began developing the land, calling the new town "Burbank" after its founder, and began offering farm lots on May 1, 1887. The establishment of a water system in 1887 allowed farmers to irrigate their orchards and provided a stronger base for agricultural development. The original plot of the new townsite of Burbank extended from what is now Burbank Boulevard on the north, to Grandview Avenue in Glendale, California
on the south, and from the top of the Verdugo Hills on the east to what is now known as Clyborn Avenue on the west.
At the same time, the arrival of the railroad provided immediate access for the farmers to bring crops to market. Packing houses and warehouses were built along the railroad corridors. The railroads also provided access to the county for tourists and immigrants alike. A Southern Pacific Railroad
depot in Burbank was completed in 1887.
The boom lifting real estate values in the Los Angeles, California
area proved to be a speculative frenzy that collapsed abruptly in 1889. Much of the newly created wealthy went broke. Many of the lots in Burbank ended up getting sold for taxes. Vast numbers of people would leave the region before it all ended.
By 1904, Burbank received international attention for having world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries
become a major landowner in the town. Jeffries bought 107 acre (0.43301402 km²) to build a ranch on Victory Boulevard. He eventually raised cattle and sold them in Mexico and South America, becoming one of the first citizens to engage in foreign trade. He eventually built a large ranch home and barn near where Victory and Buena Vista Street now intersect. The barn was later removed and reassembled at Knott's Berry Farm
in Buena Park, California
.
Burbank's first telephone exchange, or telephone switch, was established in August 1900, becoming the first in the San Fernando Valley. Within 5 years, there were several telephone exchanges in the Valley and became known as the San Fernando Valley Home Telephone Company, based in Glendale. Home Telephone competed with Tropico, and in 1918 both were taken over by Pacific Telephone Company. At this time, there were an estimated 300 hand-cranked telephones in Burbank.
The town's first bank was formed in 1908 when Burbank State Bank opened its doors near the corner of Olive Avenue and San Fernando Road. On the first day, the bank collected $30,000 worth of deposits. In 1911, the bank was dissolved.
In 1911, wealthy farmer Joseph Fawkes settled in the burgeoning town of Burbank. He grew apricots and owned a house on West Olive Avenue. But he also had a fascination for machinery, and soon began developing what became known as the "Fawkes Folly" aerial trolley. He and E.C. Fawkes, likely a relative, secured a patent for the nation's first monorail
. The two formed the Aerial Trolley Car Company and set about building a prototype they believed would revolutionize transportation.
Joseph Fawkes called the trolley his Aerial Swallow, a cigar-shaped, suspended monorail driven by a propeller that he promised would carry passengers from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles in 10 minutes. The first open car accommodated about 20 passengers and was suspended from an overhead track and supported by wooden beams. In 1907, the monorail car made its first and only run through his Burbank ranch, with a line between Lake and Flower Streets. The monorail was considered a failure after gliding just a foot or so and falling to pieces. Nobody was injured but Joseph Fawkes pride was badly hurt as Aerial Swallow became known as "Fawkes' Folly." City officials viewed his test run as a failure and focused on getting a Pacific Electric Streetcar line into Burbank.
Laid out and surveyed with a modern business district surrounded by residential lots, wide boulevards were carved out as the "Los Angeles Express" printed:
The citizens of Burbank had to put up a $48,000 subsidy to get the reluctant Pacific Electric Streetcar officials to agree to extend the line from Glendale to Burbank. The first Red Car rolled into Burbank on Sept. 6, 1911, with a tremendous celebration. That was about two months after the town became a city. The "Burbank Review" newspaper ran a special edition that day advising all local residents that:
The Burbank Line was completed through to Cypress Avenue in Burbank, and by mid-1925 this line was extended about a mile further along Glenoaks Boulevard to Eton Drive. A small wooden station was erected in Burbank in 1911 at Orange Grove Avenue with a small storage yard in its rear. This depot was destroyed by fire in 1942 and in 1947 a small passenger shelter was constructed.
On May 26, 1942, the California State Railroad Commission proposed an extension of the Burbank Line to the Lockheed plant. The proposal called for a double track line from Arden Junction along Glenoaks to San Fernando Road and Empire Way, just northeast of Lockheed's main facility. But this extension never materialized and the commission moved on to other projects in the San Fernando Valley. The Red Car line in Burbank was abandoned and the tracks removed in 1956.
At the time of cityhood, Burbank had a voluntary fire department. Fire protection depended upon the bucket brigade and finding a hydrant. It wasn't until 1913 that the city created its own fire department. By 1916, the city was installing an additional 40 new fire hydrants but still relying on volunteers for fire fighting. In 1927, the city switched from a volunteer fire department to a professional one. The city marshal's office was changed to the Burbank Police Department in 1923. The first police chief was George Cole, who later became a U.S. Treasury prohibition officer.
In 1928, Burbank was one of the first 13 cities to join the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
, one of the largest suppliers of water in the world. By 1937, the first power from Hoover Dam was distributed over Burbank's own electricity lines. The city purchases about 55% of its water from the MWD.
and depression
that hit Los Angeles
in the 1890s and in 20 years, the community had a bank
, newspaper, high school
and a thriving business district with a hardware store, livery stable, dry goods
store, general store, and bicycle repair shop. The city's first newspaper, Burbank Review, established in 1906.
The populace petitioned the State Legislature
to incorporate as a city on July 8, 1911, with businessman Thomas Story as the mayor
. Voters approved incorporation by a vote of 81 to 51. At the time, the Board of Trustees governed the community which numbered 500 residents. The first city seal adopted by Burbank featured a cantaloupe, which was a crop that helped save the town's life when the land boom collapsed.
In 1931, the original city seal was replaced and in 1978 the modern seal was adopted. The new seal shows City Hall beneath a banner but no cantaloupe. An airplane symbolizes the city's aircraft industry, the strip of film and stage light represent motion picture production. The bottom portion depicts the sun rising over the Verdugo Mountains.
In 1915, major sections of the Valley capitulated, helping Los Angeles to more than double its size that year. But Burbank was among a handful of towns with their own water wells and remained independent. By 1916 Burbank had 1,500 residents. In 1927, five miles (8 km) of paved streets had increased to 125 miles (201.2 km). By 1930, as First National Studios
, Andrew Jergens Company, The Lockheed Company
, McNeill and Libby Canning Company
, the Moreland Company, and Northrop Aircraft Corporation
opened facilities there, the population jumped to 16,662.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
set off a period of hardship for Burbank where business and residential growth paused.
The effects of the Depression also caused tight credit conditions and halted home building throughout the area, including the city's Magnolia Park development. Around this time, major employers began to cut payrolls and some plants closed their doors forever.
Around this time, Burbank City Council responded by slashing 10% from the wages of city workers. Money was put into an Employee Relief Department to help unemployed. Local civic and religious groups sprang into action and contributed with food as homeless camps began to form along the city's Southern Pacific railroad tracks. Hundreds began to participate in self-help cooperatives, trading skills such as barbers, tailors, plumbers, or carpenters for food and other services.
Following a Valley
land bust during the Depression, real estate began to bounce back in the mid-1930s. In Burbank, a 100-home construction project began in 1934. By 1936, property values in the city exceeded pre-Depression levels. By 1950, the population had reached 78,577. It was no longer the "tiny little village" of Jane Russell
's song "Hollywood Cinderella"; it had become a major Los Angeles suburb.
In 1922, the Burbank Chamber of Commerce was organized. The Federal government officially recognized Burbank's status in 1923 when the United States Postal Service
reclassified the city from the rural village mail delivery to city postal delivery service. By this time, Burbank's population had grown significantly, from less than 500 people in 1908 to over 3,000 citizens. The city's business district grew on the west side of San Fernando Road and stretched from Verdugo to Cypress avenues, and on the east side to Palm Avenue.
In the late 1970s, Burbank became part of the Verdugo Fire District under a joint communications agreement with nearby cities, including Glendale and Pasadena. Under contract, Burbank provides a Hazardous Materials team, Glendale provides an Air and
Lighting unit as well as the dispatch center, and Pasadena provides a Heavy – Urban Search and Rescue team. The three city fire departments are all dispatched from the Verdugo Communications Center, located in Glendale. Each of the three cities shares the cost of operating and maintaining this dispatch facility.
As of June 2008, the city employee population in Burbank stood at 1,683. Of the total, 1,253 were full-time, 217 part-time, and 213 temporary employees. The Burbank City Employees Association represents workers in the city. The organization dates back to 1939, and its primary role was to secure civil service status for city workers. The BCEA, representing more than 750 city employees, is one of six bargaining unions in Burbank city government. Others include: the Burbank Fire Fighters Association, the Burbank Police Officers’ Association, the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 18, the Burbank Fire Fighters-Chief Officer’s Unit, and the Burbank Management Association.
Within the next several decades, factories, both large and small, would dot the area landscape. What had mainly been an agricultural and ranching area would get replaced with a variety of manufacturing industries. Moreland operated from 1917 to 1937. Aerospace supplier Menasco Manufacturing Company would later purchase the property. Menasco's Burbank landing gear factory closed in 1994 due to slow commercial and military orders, affecting 310 people. Within months of Moreland's arrival, Community Manufacturing Company, a $3 million tractor company, arrived in Burbank.
In 1920, the Andrew Jergens Company factory, located at Verdugo Avenue near the railroad tracks in Burbank. They began with a single product, coconut oil soap, but would later make face creams, lotions, liquid soaps and deodorants. Andrew Jergens Jr. along with his father, Cincinnati businessman Andrew Jergens, and business partners Frank Adams and Morris Spazier, purchased the site and built a single-story building. Despite the Depression, the Jergens company experienced an expansion. In 1931, new offices and shipping department facilities were built. In 1939, the Burbank corporation was dissolved and merged with his father's Cincinnati company. It then became known as the Andrew Jergens Company of Ohio. The company closed its Burbank plant in 1992 after renovations to improve its productivity were deemed unworthy of the money. The closing affected nearly 90 employees.
and well into the postwar era. Brothers Allan Loughead
and Malcolm Loughead
, founders of the Lockheed Aircraft Company, opened a Burbank manufacturing plant in 1928, and a year later famed aviation designer Jack Northrop built his historic Flying Wing airplane in his own plant nearby.
Dedicated on Memorial Day
Weekend (May 30– June 1), 1930, the United Airport
was the largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles area until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Municipal Airport
(now Los Angeles International Airport
) in Westchester
when that facility (the former Mines Field) commenced commercial operations. Amelia Earhart
, Wiley Post
and Howard Hughes
were among the notable aviation pioneers to pilot aircraft in and out of the original Union Air Terminal. By 1935, Union Air Terminal in Burbank ranked as the third-largest air terminal in the nation, with 46 airliners flying out of it daily. The airport served 9,895 passengers in 1931 and 98,485 passengers in 1936.
In 1931, Lockheed was then part of Detroit Aircraft Corp., which went into bankruptcy with its Lockheed unit. A year later, a group of investors acquired assets of the Lockheed company. The new owners staked their limited funds to develop an all-metal, twin engine transport, the Model 10 Electra. It first flew in 1934 and quickly gained world wide fame.
A brochure celebrating Burbank's 50th anniversary as a city touted Lockheed payroll having "nearly 1,200" by the end of 1936. The aircraft company's hiring contributed to what was a favorable employment environment at the time.
Moreland's truck plant was later used by the Lockheed's Vega Aircraft Corporation, which made what was widely known as "the explorer's aircraft." Amelia Earhart
flew one across the Atlantic Ocean
. In 1936, Lockheed officially took over Vega Aircraft in Burbank.
During World War II, the entire area of Lockheed's Vega factory was camouflaged to fool an enemy reconnaissance effort. The factory was hidden beneath a complete suburb replete with rubber automobiles and peaceful rural neighborhood scenes painted on canvas. Hundreds of fake trees and shrubs were positioned to give the entire area a three dimensional appearance. The fake trees and shrubs were created from chicken wire that had been treated with an adhesive and then covered with chicken feathers to provide a leafy texture. Air ducts disguised as fire hydrants made it possible for the Lockheed-Vega employees to continue working underneath the huge camouflage umbrella designed to conceal their factory.
Burbank's airport has undergone several name changes since opening in 1930. It had five runways that radiated in varying directions, each 300 feet (91.4 m) wide and 2600 feet (792.5 m) long. It remained United Airport until 1934, when it was renamed Union Air Terminal (1934–1940). Boeing built planes on the field. Lockheed Aircraft had its own nearby airfield. Lockheed bought the airport in 1940 and renamed it Lockheed Air Terminal, which it was known as until 1967, when it became Hollywood-Burbank Airport. In 1978 it was renamed Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978–2003) after Lockheed sold it to the three California cities for $51 million. In December 2003, the facility was renamed Bob Hope Airport
in honor of the comedian who lived in nearby Toluca Lake
. In 2005, the city of Burbank and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns and operates the airport, reached a development agreement. The agreement forbids further airport expansion until 2009. Unlike most other regional airports in California, Burbank's airport sits on land that was specifically zoned for airport use.
The growth of companies such as Lockheed, and the burgeoning entertainment industry drew more people to the area, and Burbank's population doubled between 1930 and 1940 to 34,337. Burbank saw its greatest growth during World War II
due to Lockheed's
presence, employing some 80,800 men and women producing aircraft such as the Hudson
, P-38 Lightning
, PV-1 Ventura
and America's first jet
fighter, the P-80 Shooting Star
. Lockheed later created the U2
, SR-71 Blackbird
and the F-117 Nighthawk
at its Burbank-based "Skunk Works
".
Dozens of hamburger stands, restaurants and shops appeared around Lockheed to accommodate the employees. Some of the restaurants operated 24 hours a day. At one time, Lockheed paid utility rates representing 25% of the city's total utilities revenue, making Lockheed the city's cash cow. When Lockheed left, the economic loss was huge. At its height during World War II
, the Lockheed facility employed up to 98,000 people. Burbank's growth did not slow as war production ceased, and over 7,000 new residents created a postwar real estate boom. Real estate values soared as housing tracts appeared in the Magnolia Park area of Burbank between 1945 and 1950.
Following the World War II
, homeless veterans lived in tent camps in Burbank, in Big Tujunga Canyon and at a decommissioned National Guard base in Griffith Park
. The government also set up trailer camps at Hollywood Way and Winona Avenue in Burbank and in nearby Sun Valley. But new homes were built, the economy improved, and the military presence in Burbank continued to expand. Lockheed employees numbered 66,500 and expanded from aircraft to include spacecraft, missiles, electronics and shipbuilding.
Lockheed's presence in Burbank attracted dozens of firms making aircraft parts. One of them was Weber Aircraft Corporation
, an aircraft interior manufacturer situated adjacent to Lockheed at the edge of the airport. In 1988, Weber closed its Burbank manufacturing plant, which then employed 1,000 people. Weber produced seats, galleys, lavatories and other equipment for commercial and military aircraft. Weber had been in Burbank for 37 years.
By the mid-1970s, Hollywood-Burbank Airport handled 1.5 million passengers annually. Airlines serving Bob Hope Airport include Alaska Airlines
, American Airlines
, Delta Air Lines
, JetBlue Airways
, Southwest Airlines
, and United Air Lines. , Southwest represents two-thirds of the airport's operations. In 2005, JetBlue Airways began the first non-stop coast-to-coast service out of the airport. Avjet Corporation, a private jet service, operates out of several hangars on the south side of the airport. Atlantic Aviation, (formerly Mercury Air Center) also provides jet services for several prominent companies. In 1987, Burbank's airport became the first to require flight carriers to fly quieter "Stage 3" jets.
Columbia Pictures
purchased property in Burbank as a ranch facility, used primarily for outdoor shooting. Walt Disney
's company, which had outgrown its Hollywood quarters, bought 51 acres (206,389.9 m²) in Burbank. Disney's million-dollar studio, designed by Kem Weber
, was completed in 1939 on Buena Vista Street. Disney originally wanted to build "Mickey Mouse Park," as he first called it, next to the Burbank studio. But his aides finally convinced him that the space was too small, and there was opposition from the Burbank City Council. One council member told Disney: "We don't want the carny atmosphere in Burbank." Disney later built his successful Disneyland in Anaheim.
Disney
and Warner
contributed to the war effort by producing both training and morale films for the armed services
and cartoon
s promoting the sale of war bond
s. Disney artists designed more than 1,000 unit mascot designs for the armed forces. Walt Disney
had authorized that these insignias were to be designed at no charge. By war's end, the cost to Disney was over $30,000.
Burbank saw its first real civil strife as the culmination of a six month labor dispute between the set decorator
's union and the studios
resulted in the Battle of Burbank on October 5, 1945.
By the 1960s and '70s, more of the Hollywood entertainment industry was relocating to Burbank. The National Broadcasting Company
moved its network television headquarters to its new location at Olive and Alameda avenues. The Burbank studio was purchased in 1951, and NBC arrived in 1952 from its former location at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. Although NBC promoted its Hollywood image for most of its West Coast telecasts (such as Ed McMahon
's introduction to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
: "from Hollywood"), comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin
began mentioning "beautiful downtown Burbank" on Laugh-in in the 1960s.
By 1962, NBC's multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art complex was completed. Rumors surfaced of NBC leaving Burbank after its parent company General Electric Company acquired Universal Studios and renamed the merged division NBC Universal. Since the deal, NBC has been relocating key operations to the 391 acres (1.6 km²) Universal property located in Universal City, Los Angeles, California, USA.
In the early 1990s, Burbank tried unsuccessfully to lure Sony Pictures Entertainment
, the Columbia and TriStar studios owner based in Culver City, and 20th Century Fox
, which had threatened to move from its West Los Angeles lot unless the city granted permission to upgrade its facility. Fox stayed after getting Los Angeles City approval on its $200 million expansion plan. In 1999 the city did manage to gain Cartoon Network Studios
which took up residence in an old commercial bakery building located on North 3rd St. when it separated its production operations from Warner Bros. Animation
in Sherman Oaks, CA.
On September 10, 2007, NBC Universal management informed employees that the company planned to end its 56-year relationship with Burbank and sell much of the 34 acres (137,593.2 m²) Burbank complex. NBC Universal will relocate its television and cable operations to the Universal City complex. Originally, management touted a major development located adjacent to the Universal City Red Line subway station. The company planned to take West Coast network and local news operations and other facilities such as the Access Hollywood
set to the new broadcast facility across the street from Universal Studios by 2011. Those controversial plans were altered in fall 2009 when Ron Meyer
, President and Chief Operating Officer of Universal Studios, announced the so-called NBC Universal Evolution Plan as part of the studios's $3 billion makeover. The new plan includes new studio space as well as a residential component.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
first announced his candidacy for governor of California on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
at NBC Studios in Burbank. U.S. President Barack Obama
made a visit to the set of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
on March 19, 2009, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to do so on the NBC show. Comic Conan O'Brien
took over hosting duties of NBC's iconic Tonight Show from Jay Leno
on June 1, 2009, becoming the fifth host to lead the storied franchise and the first to host the show from Universal City. But Conan's hosting role lasted only 7 months, due to his refusal to move "The Tonight Show" timeslot from its long-time 11:35 p.m. slot to 12:05 a.m. Leno, who launched a failed primetime 10pm show in fall 2009, was asked to resume his "Tonight Show" role after Conan left NBC. Leno's new "Tonight Show" launched March 1, 2010. The show returned to the NBC Burbank lot and will remain there until at least 2018 despite NBC's long-term plans to relocate its news operations to the Universal lot. O'Brien is now based in Burbank as well, taping his new TBS
talk show, Conan
, from the historic Stage 15 on the Warner lot. Stage 15, constructed in the late 1920s, is where classics such as Calamity Jane
(1953), Blazing Saddles
(1974), Ghostbusters
(1984) and A Star Is Born
were filmed. In the late 1990s, the Burbank stage also was utilized for The Rosie O'Donnell Show
(1942), starring Humphrey Bogart
. The movie began production a few months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor
. Due to World War II, location shooting was restricted and filming near airports was banned. As a result, Casablanca shot most of its major scenes on Stage 1 at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios, including the film's famous airport scene. It featured a foggy Moroccan runway created on the stage where Bogart's character doesn't fly away with Ingrid Bergman
. Bonnie and Clyde
(1967) was also filmed at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios.
The Gary Cooper classic High Noon
(1952) shot on a western street at the Warner Brothers "Ranch", then known as the Columbia Ranch. The ranch facility is situated less than a mile north of Warner's main lot in Burbank. The 1957 classic 3:10 to Yuma also filmed on the old Columbia Ranch, and much of the outdoor filming for the Three Stooges
took place at Columbia Ranch, including most of the chase scenes. In 1993, Warner Bros. bulldozed the historic Burbank-based sets used to film High Noon
and Lee Marvin's 1965 Oscar-winning Western comedy Cat Ballou
, as well as several other features and television shows.
Other classic live-action films shot in Burbank include Disney's Mary Poppins
(1964), filmed on Sound Stage 2 at the Walt Disney Studios. Julie Andrews returned 37 years later to make Disney's The Princess Diaries
(2001). As a tribute to the actress, Disney renamed the sound stage "The Julie Andrews Stage" in 2001. In 2002, a fire broke out on the Disney's Burbank lot, damaging a sound stage where a set was under construction for Disney's feature film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
(2003). No one was injured in the blaze.
During the filming of the movie Apollo 13
(1995) and also Coach Carter
(2005), the producers shot scenes at Burbank's Safari Inn Motel. True Romance
(1993) also filmed on location at the motel. Back to the Future
(1985) shot extensively on the Universal Studios backlot but also filmed band audition scenes at the Burbank Community Center.
The city's mall, Burbank Town Center
, is a popular backdrop for shooting movies, television shows and commercials. Over the years, it was the site for scenes in Bad News Bears (2005) to location shooting for Cold Case, Gilmore Girls
, ER
and even Desperate Housewives
. The ABC show Desperate Housewives
also is known to frequently use the Magnolia Park area for show scenes, along with the city's retail district along Riverside and adjacent to Toluca Lake, California.
During 2010, Burbank experienced a surge in on-location commercial and TV production. The city's film permit official reported 32 permits were issued in December 2010 alone, up from 24 permits in the year-earlier period. Among the 2010 commercials filmed in the city were spots for Baskin-Robbins
, Taco Bell
and U.S. Bank.
and television studios located in the area.
Entertainment has generally replaced the defense
industry as the primary employer, who are attracted by the relative safety and security offered by its own police and fire departments, highly rated schools and hospital. Other reasons cited are its small-town feel while located only 10 minutes away by car
to the hip
clubs
and restaurants of Hollywood.
The Bob's Big Boy Restaurant in Burbank
(est. 1949) is the oldest remaining Bob's Big Boy
in America, and in 1993 was designated a California Point of Historical Interest
. Located at 4211 Riverside Drive, it was designed by Wayne McAllister. The eatery features a soaring pylon sign, an open kitchen and big picture windows, all of which are elements of Googie architecture
. In 1992, the restaurant's new owner sought to raze the structure and replace it with an office building or shopping center, but the landmark designation made it legally more difficult to make significant changes.
Residents enjoy the music of the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, the Starlight Bowl
, fine restaurants, the city's Downtown Burbank Mall, a burgeoning "Burbank Village" shopping district, and many theatre
s, park
s, and libraries. Visitors to Burbank are attracted to the Warner Bros.
Studio VIP tour and close proximity to all other entertainments and attractions that Los Angeles offers.
Burbank became the first American city in 1991 to pass an ordinance requiring new buildings to ensure adequate first responder communications. Since then municipalities nationwide have copied Burbank's action. Burbank's ordinance allows for spot field-testing by police or fire department personnel. The ordinance required an in-building coverage system, adding expense but increasing safety for building occupants.
Burbank is considered a trailblazer of sorts in the anti-smoking area. In late 2010, Burbank passed an ordinance prohibiting smoking in multi-family residences sharing ventilation systems. The rule goes into effect in mid-2011. The new anti-smoking ordinance, which also prohibits smoking on private balconies and patios in multi-family residences, is considered the first of its kind in California
. Since 2007, Burbank has prohibited smoking at all city-owned properties, downtown Burbank, the Chandler Bikeway, and sidewalk and pedestrian areas.
The murder of Burbank police officer Matthew Pavelka in 2003 by a local gang known as the Vineland Boys sparked an intensive investigation in conjunction with several other cities and resulted in the arrest of a number of gang members and other citizens in and around Burbank. Among those arrested was Burbank councilwoman Stacey Murphy, implicated in trading guns in exchange for drugs. Pavelka was the first Burbank police officer to be fatally shot in the line of duty in the department's history, according to the California Police Association officials.
The city's namesake street, Burbank Boulevard, started getting a makeover in 2007. The city spent upwards of $10 million to put in palm trees and colorful flowers, a median, new lights, benches and bike racks.
Today, an estimated 100,000 people work in Burbank every day. The physical imprints of the city's aviation industry remain. In late 2001, the Burbank Empire Center opened with aviation as the theme. The center, built at a cost of $250 million by Zelman Development Company, sits on Empire Avenue, former site of Lockheed's "Skunk Works", and other Lockheed properties. By 2003, many of the center's retailers and restaurants were among the top national performers in their franchise, if not the top. The Burbank Empire Center now comprises over 11% of Burbank's sales tax revenue, not including nearby Costco, a part of the Empire Center development.
services 4.9 million travelers per year with seven carriers, with over 70 flights daily. The airport, located in the northwestern corner of the city, is the source of most street traffic in the city. Noise from the airport has been a source of concern for nearby decades. A bill introduced in early 2011 by three California congressmen would put into law an overnight curfew on flights from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration previously had rejected the airports' applications for a curfew.
In December 2008, a slowdown in passenger traffic led the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to curtail spending plans, including deferring multimillion-dollar construction projects. The weak economy continued to affect the airport in 2010, with figures showing a 6% decline in passengers for the fiscal year ending June 30. The slowdown is one reason the airport authority scrapped plans to spend $4 million to erect barriers at the west end of the runway. In 2000, a Southwest Airlines
flight overshot the runway and went through the fence with 142 persons aboard and came to a stop on Hollywood Way near a gas station.
The construction of major freeways through and around the city of Burbank starting in the 1950s both divided the city from itself and linked it to the rapidly growing Los Angeles region. Burbank is easily accessible by and can easily access the Southern California freeways
via the Golden State Freeway (I-5), which bisects the city from northwest to southeast, and the Ventura Freeway
which connects Burbank to the U.S. Route 101 on the south and the nearby Foothill Freeway
to the east. The Ventura Freeway was completed in 1960.
Burbank contains about 227.5 miles (366.1 km) of streets, nearly 50 miles (80.5 km) of paved alleys, 365.3 miles (587.9 km) of sidewalks, 181 signalized intersections and 10 intersections with flashing signals, according to city figures. Many of the current signals date back to the late 1960s when voters passed a major capital improvement program for street beautification and street lighting. The funding also helped upgrade dated park and library facilities.
The Metro
operates public transport
throughout Los Angeles County
, including Burbank. Commuters can use Metrolink
and Amtrak
for service south into Downtown
, west to Ventura and north to Palmdale
and beyond. For getting around Burbank, there is the Burbank Bus
. In 2006, Burbank opened its first hydrogen fueling station for automobiles.
epidemic in 1913 and helped it brace for possible air raids at the start of World War II
. The two-story hospital was located at Olive Avenue and Fifth Street. By 1925, the hospital was expanded to 50 beds and in the mid-1980s operated with 103 beds and a staff of over 175 physicians. For years, it also was the only hospital in Burbank where women could receive abortions, tubal ligations and other procedures not offered at what is now Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. A physicians group acquired the hospital for $2 million in 1990 and renamed it Thompson Memorial Medical Center, in honor of the hospital's founder, Dr. Elmer H. Thompson. He was a general practitioner who made house calls by bicycle and horseback. In 2001, Burbank Community Hospital was razed to make way for a senior housing complex. Proceeds from that sale went to the Burbank Health Care Foundation, which assists community organizations that cater to health-related needs.
In 1943, the Sisters of Providence Health System, a Catholic non-profit group, founded Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. Construction of the hospital proved difficult due to World War II restrictions on construction materials, and in particular the lack of structural steel. But the challenges were met and the one-story hospital was erected to deal with wartime restrictions. During the baby boom of the 1950s, the hospital expanded from the original 100 beds to 212. By 2008, the hospital featured 455 beds, over 2,300 employees and more than 650 physicians.
In the mid-1990s, Seattle-based Sisters of Providence Health System, which owns St. Joseph in Burbank, renamed the hospital Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. The medical center has several centers on campus with specialized disciplines. Cancer, cardiology, mammogram, hospice and children's services are some of the speciality centers. The newest addition to the medical center's offerings is the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center, scheduled to open Feb. 8, 2010. The cancer center features four stories of the latest in high-tech equipment to treat cancer patients and provide wellness services. The center, estimated to cost in excess of $36 million, was built with money from the family of Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney. Roy E. Disney
died in December 2009 of stomach cancer.
The city's Magnolia Park area, bordered by West Verdugo Avenue to the south and Chandler Boulevard to the north, is known for its small-town feel, shady streets and Eisenhower-era storefronts. Most of the homes in the area date to the 1940s, when they were built for veterans of World War II. Central to the community is Magnolia Boulevard, known for its antique shops, boutiques, thrift shops, corner markets, and occasional chain stores.
The neighborhood is in constant struggle with developers looking to expand and update Magnolia Boulevard. Independent merchants and slow-growth groups have fought off new construction and big-box stores. The neighborhood remains quiet despite being beneath the airport flight path and bordered by arterial streets.
One of the centerpieces of the area's attempted comeback is Porto's Bakery at the old Thrifty site located at 3606 and 3614 West Magnolia Boulevard. As part of the project, Burbank loaned Porto's funds for building upgrades. Under the agreement a portion of the loan will be forgiven over a 10-year period. East of Porto's is Antique Row, a hub for shopping in the city.
Other enhancements include converting the disused railroad right-of-way along Chandler Boulevard into a landscaped bikeway and pedestrian path. This project was part of a larger bike route linking Burbank's downtown Metrolink station with the Red Line subway in North Hollywood. The bike friendly neighborhood and vintage shops has made this a part of the San Fernando Valley that is frequented by Hipsters.
The neighborhood zoning allows residents to keep horses on their property. Single-family homes far outnumber multifamily units in the Rancho. Many of the homes have stables and stalls. There are about 785 single-family homes, 180 condos and townhomes and 250 horses.
The Rancho has traditionally been represented by the Burbank Rancho Homeowners, which was formed in 1963 by Floran Frank and other equestrian enthusiasts and is the oldest neighborhood group in the city. The community recently stopped the development of a Whole Foods store in the Rancho area.
Rancho real estate sells at a premium due to its equestrian zoning, numerous parks, connection to riding trails in Griffith Park and its adjacency to Warner Brothers and Disney Studios. Riverside Drive, its main thoroughfare, is lined with Sycamore and Oak trees, some more than 70 years old. It is quite common to see people on horseback riding along Riverside Drive's designated horse lanes. Of historical note, the Rancho was the home to T.V. star "Mr. Ed", the talking horse of the early 1960s show of the same name. Other notable former Rancho residents included Ava Gardner, Ronald Reagan and Tab Hunter as well as Bette Davis in the adjoining Glendale Rancho area.
The rancho is especially known for its parks and open space. This includes centrally located Mountain View Park, Johnny Carson Park, Los Angeles' Griffith Park and Equestrian Center, Bette Davis Park (in the adjoining Glendale Rancho) and the neighborhood's beloved Polliwog, extending along Disney's animation building and used by local residents to exercise their horses.
In the 1960s, General Motors Corporation opened training facilities in the Rancho area, but in 1999 decided to contract out dealer-technician training to Raytheon Company and axed a dozen employees. The facility is now primarily a meeting and training venue for automotive-related events. In 2006, GM confiscated EV1 electric-powered cars from drivers who had leased them and moved them to the GM facility in Burbank. When environmentalists determined the location of the cars, they began a month-long vigil at the facility. To challenge the company's line that that were unwanted, they found buyers for all of them, offering a total of $1.9 million. The vehicles were loaded on trucks and removed, and several activists who tried to intervene were arrested.
, United States
, serve as the international headquarters for media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company
. Disney staff began the move from the old Disney studio at Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake
on December 24, 1939. Designed primarily by Kem Weber
under the supervision of Walt Disney
and his brother Roy, the Burbank Disney Studio buildings are the only studios to survive from the Golden Age of filming. The Walt Disney Company is the last remaining Big Ten company to remain independent from a mother company. The Studios are also the only major film/animation studio not to run backlot tours.
area, marked on the map in yellow.
Nestor studios began using the ranch location, in 1911. The Providencia Ranch became part of the Universal Film Manufacturing operations on the Pacific/West coast, in 1912.
During years 1912 to 1914 - Universal's ranch studio, was also referred to as the Oak Crest Ranch . Carl Laemmle, called the ranch "Universal City" as recorded in issues of The Moving Picture World
Volume: 16 (Apr. - Jun. 1913).
Universal City existed on the Providencia Land and Water property from 1912 to 1914.
In 1914, the Oak Crest studio ranch and Hollywood studio operation would move to new Universal City located on the Lankershism Land and Water property.
Universal Ranch tract of land became smaller after the 1914 move to the Taylor Ranch.
The leased land surrounding the universal ranch would soon become the Lasky Ranch.
The Providencia property was used as a filming location for by other motion picture companies, most notably for battle scenes in the silent classic about the American Civil War, The Birth of a Nation (1915).
is a retail complex adjacent to the downtown core that was built in two phases between 1991 and 1992.
In 1979, the Burbank Redevelopment Agency entered into an agreement with San Diego-based Ernest Hahn Company to build a regional mall known as Media City Center. It would later get renamed Burbank Town Center
and undergo a $130 million facelift starting in 2004, including a new exterior streetscape facade. The agency, helped out with its powers of eminent domain, spent $52 million to buy up the 41 acres (165,921.3 m²) land in the area bounded by the Golden State Freeway, Burbank Boulevard, Third Street and Magnolia Boulevard.
Original plans were for Media City Center included four anchor tenants, including a J.W. Robinson's. But May Co. Department Stores later bought the parent company of Robinson's and dropped out of the deal. The other stores then dropped out as well and Hahn and the agency dropped the project in March 1987. Within months, Burbank entered into negotiations with the Walt Disney Company for a shopping mall and office complex to be called the "Disney MGM Backlot." Disney had estimated that it could spend $150 million to $300 million on a complex of shops, restaurants, theaters, clubs and hotel, and had offered to move its animation department and Disney Channel
cable network operation to the property as well. These plans ended in failure in February 1988 when Disney executives determined that the costs were too high.
In January 1989, Burbank began Media City Center project negotiations with two developers, the Alexander Haagen Co. of Manhattan Beach and Price Kornwasser Associates of San Diego. Eight months later, Haagen won the contract and commenced construction, leading to the $250 million mall's opening in August 1991. Under terms of the agreement with Haagen, the city funded a $18 million parking garage and made between $8 and $12 million in improvements to the surrounding area. Plans by Sheraton Corporation to build a 300-room hotel at the mall were shelved because of the weak economy.
The new mall helped take the strain off Burbank's troubled economy, which had been hard hit by the departure of several large industrial employers, including Lockheed Corp. The center was partially financed with $50 million in city redevelopment funds. Construction had been in doubt for many years by economic woes and political turmoil since it was first proposed in the late 1970s. In 2003, Irvine-based Crown Realty & Development purchased the 1200000 square feet (111,483.6 m²) Burbank Town Center from Pan Pacific Retail Properties for $111 million. Crown then hired General Growth Properties Inc., a Chicago-based real estate investment trust, for property management and leasing duties. At the time, the Burbank mall ranked as the No. 6 retail center in Los Angeles County in terms of leasable square footage, with estimated combined tenant volumes in excess of $240 million. One local standout was the Burbank Town Center's IKEA, with an estimated 30,000 shoppers weekly and rated No. 1 in Southern California with annual sales of $90 million.
In 1994, Lockheed selected Chicago-based Homart Development Company
as the developer of a retail center on a former P-38 "Skunk Works" plant near the Burbank Airport that was subject to a major toxic clean-up project. A year later, Lockheed merged with Martin Marietta
to become Lockheed Martin Corp.. Lockheed was ordered to clean up the toxics as part of a federal Superfund
site. The northern Burbank area also became identified as the San Fernando Valley's hottest toxic spot in 1989 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District
, with Lockheed identified among major contributors. Lockheed always maintained the site was never a health risk to the community.
The Lockheed toxic clean-up site, just east of the Golden State Freeway, later became home to the Empire Center. Four developers competed to be selected to build the $300 million outdoor mall on the site. In 1999, Lockheed picked Los Angeles-based Zelman Cos. from among other contenders to create the retail-office complex on a 103 acre (0.41682658 km²) site. Zelman purchased the land in 2000 for around $70 million. As part of the sales agreement, Lockheed carried out extensive soil vapor removal on the site. Lockheed had manufactured planes on the site from 1928 to 1991. Together with $42 million for demolition and $12 million for site investigation, Lockheed would eventually spend $115 million on the project.
Warner Brothers proposed building a sports arena there for the Kings and the Clippers on the former B-1 bomber plant site. Price Club wanted it for a new store. Disney considered moving some operations there too. The city used the site in its failed attempt to lure DreamWorks
to Burbank. Phoenix-based Vestar Development Company planned a major retail development and spent more than a year in negotiations to buy the property from Lockheed before pulling out late in 1998.
Less than eight months after breaking ground, the Empire Center's first stores opened in October 2001. Local officials estimated the complex would generate about $3.2 million a year in sales tax revenue for the city, and as many as 3,500 local jobs. Within a year of completion, the Empire Center was helping the city to post healthy growth in sales tax revenues despite a down economy. Alone, the Empire mall generated close to $800,000 in sales tax revenues in the second quarter of 2002. The outdoor mall's buildings hark back to Lockheed's glory days by resembling manufacturing plants. Each of the outdoor signs features a replica of a Lockheed aircraft, while the mall design brings to mind an airport, complete with a miniature control tower.
In 2009, work was finished on a $130-million office project adjacent to the Empire Center. The completion of the seven-story tower marked the final phase of the mixed-use Empire development near Bob Hope Airport.
:
Incheon
, South Korea
Ōta
, Japan
Solna
, Sweden
Gaborone
, Botswana
, Burbank has a total area of 17.4 square miles (45.1 km²). 17.4 square miles (45.1 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1035995244 km²) of it (0.12%) is water. It is bordered by Glendale
to the east, Toluca Lake
on the west, and Griffith Park
to the South. Hollywood is easily accessible from Burbank.
Elevations in the city range from 500 feet (152.4 m) in the lower valley areas to about 800 feet (243.8 m) near the Verdugo Mountains. Most of Burbank features a water table more than 100 feet (30.5 m) deep, more than the measures found in the 1940s when the water table was within 50 feet (15.2 m) of the ground surface in some areas of Burbank.
.
The Verdugo Fault, which can reach a maximum estimated 6.5 magnitude earthquake on the Richter Scale, is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the city of Burbank's civic center. This fault extends throughout the city, and is located in the alluvium just south of the Verdugo Mountains. The fault is mapped on surface in northeastern Glendale, and at various locations in Burbank. Other nearby faults include the Northridge Hills Fault (10 miles (16.1 km) northwest of Burbank), the Newport-Inglewood Fault (12.5 miles (20.1 km)), Whittier Fault (21 miles (33.8 km)), and lastly the San Andreas Fault
(28 miles (45.1 km)) with its 8.25 magnitude potential on the Richter Scale.
Burbank suffered $66.1 million in damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, according to the city's finance department. There was $58 million in damage to privately owned facilities in commercial, industrial, manufacturing and entertainment businesses. Another $8.1 million in losses included damaged public buildings, roadways and a power station in Sylmar that is partly owned by Burbank.
(Köppen climate classification
Csa). The highest recorded temperature in Burbank was 113 °F (45 °C) in 1971. The lowest recorded temperature was 22 °F (-5.6 °C) in 1978. The driest rainfall season on record was the 2006–2007 season with 2.83 inches (7.2 cm), beating the previous record of 5.12 inches (13 cm) set in 2001–2002. The months that receive the most precipitation are February and March, respectively.
was 5,946.3 people per square mile (2,295.9/km²). The racial makeup of Burbank was 75,167 (72.7%) White including Latino White, 2,600 (2.5%) African American, 486 (0.5%) Native American, 12,007 (11.6%) Asian, 89 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 7,999 (7.7%) from other races
, and 4,992 (4.8%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 25,310 persons (24.5%).
The Census reported that 102,767 people (99.4% of the population) lived in households, 291 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 282 (0.3%) were institutionalized.
There were 41,940 households, out of which 12,386 (29.5%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 18,388 (43.8%) were opposite-sex married couples
living together, 4,984 (11.9%) had a female householder with no husband present, 2,050 (4.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,177 (5.2%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships
, and 396 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 12,823 households (30.6%) were made up of individuals and 4,179 (10.0%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45. There were 25,422 families
(60.6% of all households); the average family size was 3.13.
The population was spread out with 20,488 people (19.8%) under the age of 18, 8,993 people (8.7%) aged 18 to 24, 32,513 people (31.5%) aged 25 to 44, 27,552 people (26.7%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,794 people (13.3%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.9 years. For every 100 females there were 93.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.6 males.
There were 44,309 housing units at an average density of 2,549.6 per square mile (984.4/km²), of which 18,465 (44.0%) were owner-occupied, and 23,475 (56.0%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.6%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.3%. 50,687 people (49.0% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 52,080 people (50.4%) lived in rental housing units.
As of the census
of 2000, there were 100,316 people, 41,608 households, and 24,382 families residing in the city. The population density
was 5,782.4 inhabitants per square mile (2,232.4/km²). There were 42,847 housing units at an average density of 2,469.8 per square mile (953.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 72.2% White
, 2.1% Black
or African American
, 0.6% Native American
, 9.2% Asian
, 0.1% Pacific Islander
, 9.9% from other races
, and 6.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 24.9% of the population.
There were 41,608 households out of which 28.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.8% were married couples
living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.4% were non-families. 33.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 3.14.
In the city the population was spread out with 22.3% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 35.4% from 25 to 44, 21.8% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 94.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $62,347, and the median income for a family was $67,767. Males had a median income of $41,792 versus $35,273 for females. The per capita income
for the city was $25,713. About 8.1% of families and 10.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.3% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.
The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in its preliminary Uniform Crime Reports
was 91 during the first half of 2010, down from 112 in the like period a year earlier. The violent crime rate was approximately 2.45 per 1,000 people in 2009, well below the national average of 4.29 per 1,000 people as reported by the U.S. Department of Justice in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Furthermore Burbank was named again in 2010 as One of the Nation's 100 Best Communities for Young People by America's Promise Alliance.
Criminal offenses are charged and locally prosecuted in the Burbank Courthouse. The Los Angeles District Attorney handles all of the felony violations which occur within Burbank city limits. The Burbank City Attorney, through its Prosecution Division, handles the remaining violations, which include all misdemeanors, and municipal code violations such as the Burbank Anti-Smoking Ordinance, as well as traffic offenses. The Burbank Superior Court is a high-volume courthouse; the City Prosecutor files approximately 5,500 cases yearly, and the Burbank Police Department directly files approximately 12,000 to 15,000 traffic citations per year. Burbank Court, Division Two, handles all of the misdemeanor arraignments for Burbank offenses. A typical arraignment calendar is between 100 and 120 cases each day, including 15 to 25 defendants who are brought to court in custody. Many cases are initiated by arrests at the Burbank (Bob Hope) Airport. Common arrests include possession of drugs such as marijuana, weapons, prohibited items, as well as false identification charges.
One of the most infamous crimes in the city took place in March 1953, when elderly widow Mabel Monahan was killed in her Burbank home. When Monahan, 64, opened the door to her house on West Parkside Avenue, she found herself confronted by a stranger, Barbara Graham
(also sometimes referred to as Barbara Wood). Graham, along with some other accomplices, had heard rumors of a Las Vegas gambling fortune hidden in Monahan's house. She was discovered by a gardener, who went to her front door and looked in to find a ransacked home and a grisly trail of blood. The gardener immediately called the Burbank Police, who discovered Monahan's badly beaten body, half in and half out of a closet.
On June 3, 1955, Graham and two of her partners in crime were executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin for their part in the brutal murder of Mabel Monahan. Graham had insisted she was innocent. Actress Susan Hayward
won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Graham in the 1958 classic movie I Want To Live
. Prior to filming, director Robert Wise had attended an actual execution at San Quentin Prison in order to help him authentically capture his film's climactic event. In 1983, ABC Television remade the movie, casting actress Lindsay Wagner
(known for her role as the Bionic Woman) as Barbara Graham.
In February 1981, serial killer Lawrence Bittaker
, a Burbank machinist, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1979 kidnapping and slaying of five teen-aged girls in a case that was the first felony trial in California to allow TV cameras into the courtroom over the objections of the defendant. As of April 2011, he was still on Death Row.
Previous to the murder of Burbank police officer Matthew Pavelka in 2003, the city experienced earlier cases of tragedy involving local law enforcement. Marshal Luther Colson and Deputy City Marshal Robert L. Normand were shot to death while patrolling the city. Their deaths in 1914 and 1920 marked the first time that Burbank police officers were killed in the line of duty. Colson was shot the evening of November 16, 1914, when he was walking on railroad tracks near what is now Victory Place and Lake Street. Six years later, Normand was killed when he responded to a call for help to check on three men in a vehicle with its lights out. The men began shooting as Normand and another officer approached the car. The other officer survived despite three bullet wounds, but Normand died at the scene. Additionally, two other Burbank officers have died on duty. They were motorcycle officers Joseph R. Wilson and Richard E. Kunkle, who were killed in separate accidents in 1961.
In 1916, the original Burbank City Hall was constructed after bonds were issued to finance the project and pay for fire apparatus. Burbank's current City Hall was constructed from 1941 to 1942 in a neo-federalist Moderne style popular in the late Depression era. The structure was built at a total cost of $409,000, with funding from the Federal Works Agency
and Works Project Administration programs. City Hall was designed by architects William Allen
and W. George Lutzi and completed in 1943.
Originally, the City Hall building housed all city services, including the police and fire departments, an emergency medical ward, a courthouse and a jail. One of the most distinctive features of the cream-colored concrete building is its 77 feet (23.5 m) tower, which serves as the main lobby. The lobby interior features more than 20 types of marble, which can be found in the city seal on the floor, the trim, walls and in the treads and risers of a the grand stairway. Artist Hugo Ballin created a "Four Freedoms" mural in Burbank's City Council chambers during World War II, although it was covered up for decades until art aficionados convinced the city to have the mural fully revealed. Ballin's work illustrates the "Four Freedoms" outlined in President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 speech at the signing of the Atlantic Charter
.
In 1996, the City Hall was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, becoming the second building in Burbank to be listed on the register. The first was Burbank's main post office just blocks away from City Hall on Olive Avenue. In 1998, Burbank's state-of-the-art Police/Fire facility opened.
In the state legislature
Burbank is located in the 21st Senate
District, represented by Carol Liu
, and in the 43rd Assembly
District, represented by Mike Gatto
. Federally, Burbank is located in California's 27th
and 29th
congressional districts, which have Cook PVIs
of D +13 and D +12 respectively and are represented by Democrats Brad Sherman
and Adam Schiff
respectively.
Burbank is a Charter City that operates under the City Council-City Manager form of government. In 1927, voters approved the Council-Manager form of government. The five-member City Council is elected for four-year overlapping terms, with the Mayor appointed annually from among the Council. The City Clerk and the City Treasurer are also elected officials.
Burbank is a full-service, independent city, with offices of the City Manager and City Attorney, and departments of Community Development, Financial Services, Fire, Information Technology, Library Services, Management Services, Police, Parks-Recreation & Community Services, Public Works, and Burbank Water and Power (BWP). The first power was distributed within the city limits of Burbank in 1913, supplied then by Southern California Edison Company. Today, the city-owned BWP serves 45,000 households and 6,000 businesses in Burbank with water and electricity. Additionally, the $382-million annual revenue utility offers fiber optic services. Burbank's city garbage pickup service began in 1920; outhouses were banned in 1922.
At the height of California's 2001 energy crisis, BWP unveiled a mini-power plant at its landfill. It marked the world's first commercial landfill power plant using Capstone microturbine technology. Ten microturbines run on naturally occurring landfill gas
, producing 300 kilowatts of renewable energy for Burbank. That's enough energy to serve the daily needs of about 250 homes. The landfill is located in the Verdugo Mountains in the northeastern portion of the city.
Most of Burbank's current power comes from the Magnolia Power Project, a 328-megawatt power plant located on Magnolia Boulevard near the Interstate 5
freeway. The municipal power plant, jointly owned by six Southern California cities (Burbank, Glendale, Anaheim. Pasadena, Colton and Cerritos), began generating electricity in 2005. It replaced a 1941 facility that had served the customers of Burbank for almost 60 years.
The Burbank City Council lost a court case in 2000 involving the right to begin meetings with a sectarian prayer. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that prayers referencing specific religions violated the principle of separation of church and state in the First Amendment. While invocations were still allowed, Burbank officials were required to advise all clerics that sectarian prayer as part of Council meetings was not permitted under the Constitution.
Like other California cities, Burbank took a financial hit after Californians passed Proposition 13 in 1977. The city dealt with the ramifications of maintaining service levels expected by the community but with lower tax revenues. As a result, Burbank officials opted to cut some services and implement user fees for specialized services.
operates the Glendale Health Center in Glendale
, serving Burbank.
The second-largest office space market in the San Fernando Valley is located in Burbank. Much of the space is utilized by the entertainment industry, which has among the highest office lease rates in the region.
More people work in Burbank each day than live in the city. The combined payroll for all of Burbank's private sector businesses totaled $6.7 billion in 2005, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University-Northridge. In 2005, Burbank employed 125,871 people in the private sector, while the neighboring city of Glendale, California
employed 74,149 people, according to CSUN's economic researchers. Burbank's media, entertainment, telecommunications and internet industries dominated the list in employment numbers and payroll, generating a combined $4.2 billion in payroll and accounting for 64,948 positions.
As the figures above show, much of Burbank's economy is based on the entertainment industry. While Hollywood may be a symbol of the entertainment industry, much of the actual production occurs in Burbank. Many companies have headquarters or facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment
, Warner Music Group
, NBC Universal
, The Walt Disney Company
, ABC
, Cartoon Network
, Nickelodeon
, Cookie Jar Entertainment
, New Wave Entertainment, and Insomniac Games
.
Many ancillary companies from Arri
cameras, to Cinelease, Entertainment Partners, JL Fisher, and Matthews Studio Equipment also maintain a presence in Burbank. Xytech Systems Corporation, a business software and services provider to the entertainment industry, is headquartered in Burbank.
Local IATSE union offices for the Stagehands Local 33, Grips
Local 80, Make-up and Hairstylist Local 706 and Set Painters Local 729 also make their home in Burbank with Teamsters
Local 399, IBEW Local 40 and many other IATSE locals nearby.
Burbank has not been immune to the U.S. economic and housing impacts from the severe recession. City officials prepared for severe cutbacks going into 2009. Burbank's new City Manager, Mike Flad, estimated the city's 2009-10 fiscal budget will suffer a 5% shortfall. For the city's 2010-11 fiscal year, the city projected a deficit of $5.8 million and projected the deficit will remain a problem at least until 2014-15 when it's projected to be $6.9 million. The current budget problems do not appear to compare to the revenue hit the city took in the early 1990s when Burbank was hemorrhaging aerospace jobs after Lockheed left.
California's state budget woes are expected to put more pressure on cities such as Burbank. State lawmakers have proposed eliminating the individual redevelopment agencies, a move that would force cities such as Burbank to eliminate much needed infrastructure projects. Local redevelopment agencies also may be forced to reimburse the state. For example, Burbank Redevelopment Agency could be forced to pay the state nearly $20 million.
As of June 2009, unemployment in the Burbank area stood at around 9.2%, just below the national rate of 9.5% and well below Los Angeles County, according to the state's Employment Development Department. By January 2011, the unemployment rate in Burbank reached 10.7%, up from 10.3% in December 2010, according to EDD.
One bright spot in the otherwise bleak job market was Kaiser Permanente's decision to relocate some administrative offices near the Burbank airport.
Burbank is within the Burbank Unified School District
. The district was formed on June 3, 1879, following a petition filed by residents S.W. White and nine other citizens. First named the Providencia School District, Burbank's district started with one school house built for $400 on a site donated by Dr. Burbank, the area's single largest landholder. The first schoolhouse, a single redwood-sided building serving nine families, is on what is now Burbank Boulevard near Mariposa Street. In 1887, a new school house was constructed at San Fernando Road and Magnolia Boulevard, which was in Burbank's center of commerce.
In 1908, local citizens passed a bond measure to raise money to build a high school. At the time, Burbank-area high school students were attending schools in Glendale. When it opened on September 14, 1908, the original Burbank High School had 42 students and just two instructors.
Burbank is home to several California Distinguished Schools including the confusingly named Luther Burbank
Middle School (see history above). Both its public and private
K-12 schools routinely score above state and national average test scores. The largest university in Burbank is Woodbury University
. Woodbury has a number of undergraduate and graduate programs, including business, architecture, and a variety of design programs. A number of smaller colleges are also located in Burbank, including several make up and beauty trade schools serving the entertainment industry.
During the early 1920s, Burbank was in the running to become the location for the southern branch of the University of California
campus. Specifically, planners were looking at locating the university in the Ben Mar Hills area near the intersection of Amherst Drive and San Fernando Blvd. The seaside community of Rancho Palos Verdes was another location considered for the new campus. But both sites were eventually passed up when the Janss Investment Company
donated property now known as Westwood to build the University of California, Los Angeles
.
PUC Schools
has its administrative offices in Burbank.
The Concordia Schools
Concordia Burbank, a K-6 private school, is in the city.
Burbank is home to Warner Brothers Studios.
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, 12 miles (19.3 km) north of downtown Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340.
Billed as the "Media Capital of the World" and located only a few miles northeast of Hollywood, many media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
, NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
, The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
, and Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
. The city is also home to Bob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport is a public airport located 3 miles northwest of the central business district of Burbank, a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
.
Burbank is located in two distinct areas, with its downtown, civic center and key neighborhoods nestled on the slopes and foothills that rise to the Verdugo Mountains
Verdugo Mountains
The Verdugo Mountains are a small, rugged mountain range of the Transverse Ranges system, located just south of the western San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, Southern California...
, and other areas located in flatlands at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
.
At one time it was referred to as "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Laugh-In and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
. The city was named after David Burbank, a New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
-born dentist
Dentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
.
Early history
The city of Burbank occupies land that was originally part of two SpanishSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
-era colonial land grants, the 36400 acres (147.3 km²) Rancho San Rafael
Rancho San Rafael
Rancho San Rafael was a Spanish land grant bordering the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco in present day Los Angeles County, California, given in 1784 to Jose Maria Verdugo. The rancho includes the present day cities of Glendale, Eagle Rock, La Cañada, Montrose, and Verdugo City...
, granted to Jose Maria Verdugo
Jose Maria Verdugo
José María Verdugo was a soldier from the Presidio of San Diego who was assigned to the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel at the time his land was granted by the Spanish Empire in 1784.-Spanish soldier:...
by the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
government in 1784, and the 4063 acres (16.4 km²) Rancho Providencia
Rancho Providencia
Rancho La Providencia was a Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given by governor Juan B. Alvarado in 1843 to Vincente de la Osa. The majority of Rancho Providencia land north of the modern channel of the Los Angeles River is now part of Burbank. The street grid...
created in 1821. Historically, this area was the scene of a military skirmish which resulted in the unseating of the Spanish Governor of California, and his replacement by the Mexican leader Pio Pico
Pío Pico
Pío de Jesús Pico was the last Governor of Alta California under Mexican rule.-Origins:...
. Remnants of the military battle reportedly were found many years later in the vicinity of Warner Brothers Studio when residents dug up cannon balls.
Dr. David Burbank purchased over 4600 acres (18.6 km²) of the former Verdugo holding and another 4600 acres (18.6 km²) of the Rancho Providencia in 1867 and built a ranch house and began to raise sheep and grow wheat on the ranch. By 1876, the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
became the largest wheat-raising area in Los Angeles County. But the droughts of the 1860s and 1870s underlined the need for steady water supplies.
A professionally trained dentist, Dr. Burbank began his career in Waterville, Maine
Waterville, Maine
Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The population was 15,722 at the 2010 census. Home to Colby College and Thomas College, Waterville is the regional commercial, medical and cultural center....
. He joined the great migration westward in the early 1850s and, by 1853 was living in San Francisco. At the time the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
broke out he was again well established in his profession as a dentist in Pueblo de Los Angeles
Pueblo de Los Angeles
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles was the Spanish civilian pueblo founded in 1781, which by the 20th century became the American metropolis of Los Angeles....
. In 1867, he purchased Rancho La Providencia from David W. Alexander and Francis Mellus
Francis Mellus
Francis Mellus , brother of Henry Mellus, was a Los Angeles County Supervisor and a successful California business man....
, and he purchased the western portion of the Rancho San Rafael (4,603 acres) from Jonathan R. Scott. Dr. Burbank's property reached nearly 9200 acres (37.2 km²) at a cost of $9,000. Dr. Burbank wouldn't acquire full titles to both properties until after a court decision known as the "Great Partition" was made in 1871 dissolving the Rancho San Rafael. He eventually became known as one of the largest and most successful sheep raisers in southern California, resulting in him stopping his practice of dentistry and investing heavily in real estate in Los Angeles.
Dr. Burbank also later owned the Burbank Theatre, which opened on November 27, 1893 at a cost of $150,000. Though the theater was intended to be an opera house, instead it staged plays and became known nationally. The theatre featured famous actors of the time including Fay Bainter
Fay Bainter
Fay Okell Bainter was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:She was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Charles F. Bainter and Mary Okell. In 1910, she was a traveling stage actress...
and Marjorie Rambeau
Marjorie Rambeau
Marjorie Rambeau was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Rambeau was born in San Francisco, California to Marcel Rambeau and Lilian Garlinda Kindelberger. Her parents split up when she was a girl. She and her mother went to Nome, Alaska where young Marjorie dressed as a boy, sang and...
, until it had deteriorated into a burlesque house.
When the area that became Burbank was settled in the 1870s
1870s
The 1870s continued the trends of the previous decade, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. America was recovering from the Civil War. Germany declared independence in 1871 and began its Second Reich. Labor unions and strikes occurred worldwide in the later part of...
and 1880s
1880s
The 1880s was the decade that spanned from January 1, 1880 to December 31, 1889. They occurred at the core period of the Second Industrial Revolution. Most Western countries experienced a large economic boom, due to the mass production of railroads and other more convenient methods of travel...
, the streets were aligned along what is now Olive Avenue, the road to the Cahuenga Pass
Cahuenga Pass
The Cahuenga Pass is a mountain pass through the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Hollywood district of the City of Los Angeles, California....
and downtown Los Angeles. These were largely the roads the Indians traveled and the early settlers took their produce down to Los Angeles to sell and to buy supplies along these routes.
At the time, the primary long-distance transportation methods available to San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
residents were stagecoach and train. Stagecoaching between Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and San Francisco through the Valley began in 1858. The Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
arrived in the Valley in 1876, completing the route connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A shrewd businessman, foreseeing the value of rail transport
History of rail transport
The history of rail transport dates back nearly 500 years and includes systems with man or horse power and rails of wood or stone. Modern rail transport systems first appeared in England in the 1820s...
, Burbank sold Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
a right-of-way
Right-of-way (railroad)
A right-of-way is a strip of land that is granted, through an easement or other mechanism, for transportation purposes, such as for a trail, driveway, rail line or highway. A right-of-way is reserved for the purposes of maintenance or expansion of existing services with the right-of-way...
through the property for one dollar. The first train passed through Burbank on April 5, 1874. A boom created by a rate war between the Santa Fe
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
and Southern Pacific
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
brought people streaming into California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
shortly thereafter, and a group of speculators purchased much of Dr. Burbank's land holdings in 1886 for $250,000. One account suggests Dr. Burbank may have sold his property because of a severe drought that year, which caused a shortage of water and grass for his livestock. Approximately 1,000 of his sheep died due to the drought conditions.
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
on the south, and from the top of the Verdugo Hills on the east to what is now known as Clyborn Avenue on the west.
At the same time, the arrival of the railroad provided immediate access for the farmers to bring crops to market. Packing houses and warehouses were built along the railroad corridors. The railroads also provided access to the county for tourists and immigrants alike. A Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
depot in Burbank was completed in 1887.
The boom lifting real estate values in the Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
area proved to be a speculative frenzy that collapsed abruptly in 1889. Much of the newly created wealthy went broke. Many of the lots in Burbank ended up getting sold for taxes. Vast numbers of people would leave the region before it all ended.
By 1904, Burbank received international attention for having world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries
James J. Jeffries
James Jackson Jeffries was a world heavyweight boxing champion.His greatest assets were his enormous strength and stamina. Using a technique taught to him by his trainer, former welterweight and middleweight champion Tommy Ryan, Jeffries fought out of a crouch with his left arm extended forward...
become a major landowner in the town. Jeffries bought 107 acre (0.43301402 km²) to build a ranch on Victory Boulevard. He eventually raised cattle and sold them in Mexico and South America, becoming one of the first citizens to engage in foreign trade. He eventually built a large ranch home and barn near where Victory and Buena Vista Street now intersect. The barn was later removed and reassembled at Knott's Berry Farm
Knott's Berry Farm
Knott's Berry Farm is a theme park in Buena Park, California, now owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, and a line of jams, jellies, preserves, and other specialty food, now part of The J. M. Smucker Company based in Placentia, California....
in Buena Park, California
Buena Park, California
Buena Park is a city in northwestern Orange County, California. As of Census 2010 the population was 80,530. The city is adjacent to the city of Anaheim and is 12 miles northwest of downtown Santa Ana. The Current OMB metropolitan designation for Buena Park and the Orange County Area is "Santa...
.
Burbank's first telephone exchange, or telephone switch, was established in August 1900, becoming the first in the San Fernando Valley. Within 5 years, there were several telephone exchanges in the Valley and became known as the San Fernando Valley Home Telephone Company, based in Glendale. Home Telephone competed with Tropico, and in 1918 both were taken over by Pacific Telephone Company. At this time, there were an estimated 300 hand-cranked telephones in Burbank.
The town's first bank was formed in 1908 when Burbank State Bank opened its doors near the corner of Olive Avenue and San Fernando Road. On the first day, the bank collected $30,000 worth of deposits. In 1911, the bank was dissolved.
In 1911, wealthy farmer Joseph Fawkes settled in the burgeoning town of Burbank. He grew apricots and owned a house on West Olive Avenue. But he also had a fascination for machinery, and soon began developing what became known as the "Fawkes Folly" aerial trolley. He and E.C. Fawkes, likely a relative, secured a patent for the nation's first monorail
Monorail
A monorail is a rail-based transportation system based on a single rail, which acts as its sole support and its guideway. The term is also used variously to describe the beam of the system, or the vehicles traveling on such a beam or track...
. The two formed the Aerial Trolley Car Company and set about building a prototype they believed would revolutionize transportation.
Joseph Fawkes called the trolley his Aerial Swallow, a cigar-shaped, suspended monorail driven by a propeller that he promised would carry passengers from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles in 10 minutes. The first open car accommodated about 20 passengers and was suspended from an overhead track and supported by wooden beams. In 1907, the monorail car made its first and only run through his Burbank ranch, with a line between Lake and Flower Streets. The monorail was considered a failure after gliding just a foot or so and falling to pieces. Nobody was injured but Joseph Fawkes pride was badly hurt as Aerial Swallow became known as "Fawkes' Folly." City officials viewed his test run as a failure and focused on getting a Pacific Electric Streetcar line into Burbank.
Laid out and surveyed with a modern business district surrounded by residential lots, wide boulevards were carved out as the "Los Angeles Express" printed:
"Burbank, the town, being built in the midst of the new farming community, has been laid out in such a manner as to make it by and by an unusually pretty town. The streets and avenues are wide and, all have been handsomely graded. All improvements being made would do credit to a city ... Everything done at Burbank has been done right."
The citizens of Burbank had to put up a $48,000 subsidy to get the reluctant Pacific Electric Streetcar officials to agree to extend the line from Glendale to Burbank. The first Red Car rolled into Burbank on Sept. 6, 1911, with a tremendous celebration. That was about two months after the town became a city. The "Burbank Review" newspaper ran a special edition that day advising all local residents that:
"On Wednesday, the first electric car running on a regular passenger-carrying schedule left the Pacific Electric station at Sixth and Main streets, Los Angeles, for Burbank at 6:30 a.m. and the first car from Burbank to Los Angeles left at 6:20 a.m. the same day. Upon arrival of this car on its maiden trip, many citizens gave evidence of their great joy by ringing bells and discharging firearms. A big crowd of both men and women boarded the first car and rode to Glendale and there changed to a second car coming from Los Angeles and rode home again. Every face was an expression of happiness and satisfaction."
The Burbank Line was completed through to Cypress Avenue in Burbank, and by mid-1925 this line was extended about a mile further along Glenoaks Boulevard to Eton Drive. A small wooden station was erected in Burbank in 1911 at Orange Grove Avenue with a small storage yard in its rear. This depot was destroyed by fire in 1942 and in 1947 a small passenger shelter was constructed.
On May 26, 1942, the California State Railroad Commission proposed an extension of the Burbank Line to the Lockheed plant. The proposal called for a double track line from Arden Junction along Glenoaks to San Fernando Road and Empire Way, just northeast of Lockheed's main facility. But this extension never materialized and the commission moved on to other projects in the San Fernando Valley. The Red Car line in Burbank was abandoned and the tracks removed in 1956.
At the time of cityhood, Burbank had a voluntary fire department. Fire protection depended upon the bucket brigade and finding a hydrant. It wasn't until 1913 that the city created its own fire department. By 1916, the city was installing an additional 40 new fire hydrants but still relying on volunteers for fire fighting. In 1927, the city switched from a volunteer fire department to a professional one. The city marshal's office was changed to the Burbank Police Department in 1923. The first police chief was George Cole, who later became a U.S. Treasury prohibition officer.
In 1928, Burbank was one of the first 13 cities to join the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is the largest supplier of treated water in the US. The name is usually shortened to the "Metropolitan Water District" or simply "MWD". It is a cooperative of 14 cities and 12 municipal water districts that indirectly provides water to 18...
, one of the largest suppliers of water in the world. By 1937, the first power from Hoover Dam was distributed over Burbank's own electricity lines. The city purchases about 55% of its water from the MWD.
The City of Burbank
The town grew steadily, weathering the droughtDrought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
and depression
Depression (economics)
In economics, a depression is a sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies. It is a more severe downturn than a recession, which is seen by some economists as part of the modern business cycle....
that hit Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
in the 1890s and in 20 years, the community had a bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
, newspaper, high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and a thriving business district with a hardware store, livery stable, dry goods
Dry goods
Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...
store, general store, and bicycle repair shop. The city's first newspaper, Burbank Review, established in 1906.
The populace petitioned the State Legislature
California State Legislature
The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of California. It is a bicameral body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members...
to incorporate as a city on July 8, 1911, with businessman Thomas Story as the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
. Voters approved incorporation by a vote of 81 to 51. At the time, the Board of Trustees governed the community which numbered 500 residents. The first city seal adopted by Burbank featured a cantaloupe, which was a crop that helped save the town's life when the land boom collapsed.
In 1931, the original city seal was replaced and in 1978 the modern seal was adopted. The new seal shows City Hall beneath a banner but no cantaloupe. An airplane symbolizes the city's aircraft industry, the strip of film and stage light represent motion picture production. The bottom portion depicts the sun rising over the Verdugo Mountains.
In 1915, major sections of the Valley capitulated, helping Los Angeles to more than double its size that year. But Burbank was among a handful of towns with their own water wells and remained independent. By 1916 Burbank had 1,500 residents. In 1927, five miles (8 km) of paved streets had increased to 125 miles (201.2 km). By 1930, as First National Studios
First National
First National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio, called First National Pictures, Inc. It later merged with Warner Bros.-Early history:The First National...
, Andrew Jergens Company, The Lockheed Company
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
, McNeill and Libby Canning Company
Libby's
Libby's is a U.S.-based food company known for its canned food.The company was founded as Libby, McNeill & Libby in Chicago, Illinois, by Archibald McNeill and the brothers Arthur and Charles Libby. The business began with a canned meat product, beef in brine, or corned beef...
, the Moreland Company, and Northrop Aircraft Corporation
Northrop Corporation
Northrop Corporation was a leading United States aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman in 1994. The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, although only a few of these have entered service.-History:Jack...
opened facilities there, the population jumped to 16,662.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
set off a period of hardship for Burbank where business and residential growth paused.
The effects of the Depression also caused tight credit conditions and halted home building throughout the area, including the city's Magnolia Park development. Around this time, major employers began to cut payrolls and some plants closed their doors forever.
Around this time, Burbank City Council responded by slashing 10% from the wages of city workers. Money was put into an Employee Relief Department to help unemployed. Local civic and religious groups sprang into action and contributed with food as homeless camps began to form along the city's Southern Pacific railroad tracks. Hundreds began to participate in self-help cooperatives, trading skills such as barbers, tailors, plumbers, or carpenters for food and other services.
Following a Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
land bust during the Depression, real estate began to bounce back in the mid-1930s. In Burbank, a 100-home construction project began in 1934. By 1936, property values in the city exceeded pre-Depression levels. By 1950, the population had reached 78,577. It was no longer the "tiny little village" of Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
's song "Hollywood Cinderella"; it had become a major Los Angeles suburb.
In 1922, the Burbank Chamber of Commerce was organized. The Federal government officially recognized Burbank's status in 1923 when the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
reclassified the city from the rural village mail delivery to city postal delivery service. By this time, Burbank's population had grown significantly, from less than 500 people in 1908 to over 3,000 citizens. The city's business district grew on the west side of San Fernando Road and stretched from Verdugo to Cypress avenues, and on the east side to Palm Avenue.
In the late 1970s, Burbank became part of the Verdugo Fire District under a joint communications agreement with nearby cities, including Glendale and Pasadena. Under contract, Burbank provides a Hazardous Materials team, Glendale provides an Air and
Lighting unit as well as the dispatch center, and Pasadena provides a Heavy – Urban Search and Rescue team. The three city fire departments are all dispatched from the Verdugo Communications Center, located in Glendale. Each of the three cities shares the cost of operating and maintaining this dispatch facility.
As of June 2008, the city employee population in Burbank stood at 1,683. Of the total, 1,253 were full-time, 217 part-time, and 213 temporary employees. The Burbank City Employees Association represents workers in the city. The organization dates back to 1939, and its primary role was to secure civil service status for city workers. The BCEA, representing more than 750 city employees, is one of six bargaining unions in Burbank city government. Others include: the Burbank Fire Fighters Association, the Burbank Police Officers’ Association, the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 18, the Burbank Fire Fighters-Chief Officer’s Unit, and the Burbank Management Association.
Early manufacturing
In 1887, the Burbank Furniture Manufacturing Company was the town's first factory. After the land boom downturn in 1888, the building was abandoned and transients slept in the empty factory. In 1917, the arrival of the Moreland Motor Truck Company changed the town and resulted in a manufacturing and industrial workforce begin to take root in the city. Within a few years Moreland trucks were seen bearing the label, "Made in Burbank." Watt Moreland, its owner, had relocated his plant to Burbank from Los Angeles. He selected 25 acres (101,171.5 m²) at San Fernando Road and Alameda Avenue. Moreland invested $1 million in the factory and machinery, and employed 500 people.Within the next several decades, factories, both large and small, would dot the area landscape. What had mainly been an agricultural and ranching area would get replaced with a variety of manufacturing industries. Moreland operated from 1917 to 1937. Aerospace supplier Menasco Manufacturing Company would later purchase the property. Menasco's Burbank landing gear factory closed in 1994 due to slow commercial and military orders, affecting 310 people. Within months of Moreland's arrival, Community Manufacturing Company, a $3 million tractor company, arrived in Burbank.
In 1920, the Andrew Jergens Company factory, located at Verdugo Avenue near the railroad tracks in Burbank. They began with a single product, coconut oil soap, but would later make face creams, lotions, liquid soaps and deodorants. Andrew Jergens Jr. along with his father, Cincinnati businessman Andrew Jergens, and business partners Frank Adams and Morris Spazier, purchased the site and built a single-story building. Despite the Depression, the Jergens company experienced an expansion. In 1931, new offices and shipping department facilities were built. In 1939, the Burbank corporation was dissolved and merged with his father's Cincinnati company. It then became known as the Andrew Jergens Company of Ohio. The company closed its Burbank plant in 1992 after renovations to improve its productivity were deemed unworthy of the money. The closing affected nearly 90 employees.
Aviation
The establishment of the aircraft industry and a major airport in Burbank during the 1930s set the stage for major growth and development, which was to continue at an accelerated pace into World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and well into the postwar era. Brothers Allan Loughead
Allan Loughead
Allan Haines Loughead , later changed to Allan Haines Lockheed, was an American aviation pioneer and engineer. He formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Malcolm Loughead that became Lockheed Corporation.Loughead legally changed his name to Allan Lockheed in 1934...
and Malcolm Loughead
Malcolm Loughead
Malcolm Loughead formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Allan Loughead. This company went on to become the Lockheed Corporation....
, founders of the Lockheed Aircraft Company, opened a Burbank manufacturing plant in 1928, and a year later famed aviation designer Jack Northrop built his historic Flying Wing airplane in his own plant nearby.
Dedicated on Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
Weekend (May 30– June 1), 1930, the United Airport
Bob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport is a public airport located 3 miles northwest of the central business district of Burbank, a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
was the largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles area until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Municipal Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
(now Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
) in Westchester
Westchester, Los Angeles, California
Westchester is a suburban neighborhood in western Los Angeles, California, United States. It is home to Los Angeles International Airport , Loyola Marymount University , and Otis College of Art and Design.-Geography:...
when that facility (the former Mines Field) commenced commercial operations. Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
, Wiley Post
Wiley Post
Wiley Hardeman Post was a famed American aviator, the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits. His Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae, was on display at the National Air and Space Museum's...
and Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
were among the notable aviation pioneers to pilot aircraft in and out of the original Union Air Terminal. By 1935, Union Air Terminal in Burbank ranked as the third-largest air terminal in the nation, with 46 airliners flying out of it daily. The airport served 9,895 passengers in 1931 and 98,485 passengers in 1936.
In 1931, Lockheed was then part of Detroit Aircraft Corp., which went into bankruptcy with its Lockheed unit. A year later, a group of investors acquired assets of the Lockheed company. The new owners staked their limited funds to develop an all-metal, twin engine transport, the Model 10 Electra. It first flew in 1934 and quickly gained world wide fame.
A brochure celebrating Burbank's 50th anniversary as a city touted Lockheed payroll having "nearly 1,200" by the end of 1936. The aircraft company's hiring contributed to what was a favorable employment environment at the time.
Moreland's truck plant was later used by the Lockheed's Vega Aircraft Corporation, which made what was widely known as "the explorer's aircraft." Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
flew one across the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. In 1936, Lockheed officially took over Vega Aircraft in Burbank.
During World War II, the entire area of Lockheed's Vega factory was camouflaged to fool an enemy reconnaissance effort. The factory was hidden beneath a complete suburb replete with rubber automobiles and peaceful rural neighborhood scenes painted on canvas. Hundreds of fake trees and shrubs were positioned to give the entire area a three dimensional appearance. The fake trees and shrubs were created from chicken wire that had been treated with an adhesive and then covered with chicken feathers to provide a leafy texture. Air ducts disguised as fire hydrants made it possible for the Lockheed-Vega employees to continue working underneath the huge camouflage umbrella designed to conceal their factory.
Burbank's airport has undergone several name changes since opening in 1930. It had five runways that radiated in varying directions, each 300 feet (91.4 m) wide and 2600 feet (792.5 m) long. It remained United Airport until 1934, when it was renamed Union Air Terminal (1934–1940). Boeing built planes on the field. Lockheed Aircraft had its own nearby airfield. Lockheed bought the airport in 1940 and renamed it Lockheed Air Terminal, which it was known as until 1967, when it became Hollywood-Burbank Airport. In 1978 it was renamed Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978–2003) after Lockheed sold it to the three California cities for $51 million. In December 2003, the facility was renamed Bob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport is a public airport located 3 miles northwest of the central business district of Burbank, a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
in honor of the comedian who lived in nearby Toluca Lake
Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California
Toluca Lake is a district, north of downtown Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, and a "community within two communities, North Hollywood and Burbank"....
. In 2005, the city of Burbank and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns and operates the airport, reached a development agreement. The agreement forbids further airport expansion until 2009. Unlike most other regional airports in California, Burbank's airport sits on land that was specifically zoned for airport use.
The growth of companies such as Lockheed, and the burgeoning entertainment industry drew more people to the area, and Burbank's population doubled between 1930 and 1940 to 34,337. Burbank saw its greatest growth during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
due to Lockheed's
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
presence, employing some 80,800 men and women producing aircraft such as the Hudson
Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson was an American-built light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built initially for the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and primarily operated by the RAF thereafter...
, P-38 Lightning
P-38 Lightning
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament...
, PV-1 Ventura
Lockheed Ventura
The Lockheed Ventura was a bomber and patrol aircraft of World War II, used by United States and British Commonwealth forces in several guises...
and America's first jet
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...
fighter, the P-80 Shooting Star
P-80 Shooting Star
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces. Designed in 1943 as a response to the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter, and delivered in just 143 days from the start of the design process, production models were flying but...
. Lockheed later created the U2
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
, SR-71 Blackbird
SR-71 Blackbird
The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence "Kelly" Johnson was responsible for many of the...
and the F-117 Nighthawk
F-117 Nighthawk
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was a single-seat, twin-engine stealth ground-attack aircraft formerly operated by the United States Air Force . The F-117A's first flight was in 1981, and it achieved initial operating capability status in October 1983...
at its Burbank-based "Skunk Works
Skunk works
Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs , formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor...
".
Dozens of hamburger stands, restaurants and shops appeared around Lockheed to accommodate the employees. Some of the restaurants operated 24 hours a day. At one time, Lockheed paid utility rates representing 25% of the city's total utilities revenue, making Lockheed the city's cash cow. When Lockheed left, the economic loss was huge. At its height during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Lockheed facility employed up to 98,000 people. Burbank's growth did not slow as war production ceased, and over 7,000 new residents created a postwar real estate boom. Real estate values soared as housing tracts appeared in the Magnolia Park area of Burbank between 1945 and 1950.
Following the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, homeless veterans lived in tent camps in Burbank, in Big Tujunga Canyon and at a decommissioned National Guard base in Griffith Park
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America...
. The government also set up trailer camps at Hollywood Way and Winona Avenue in Burbank and in nearby Sun Valley. But new homes were built, the economy improved, and the military presence in Burbank continued to expand. Lockheed employees numbered 66,500 and expanded from aircraft to include spacecraft, missiles, electronics and shipbuilding.
Lockheed's presence in Burbank attracted dozens of firms making aircraft parts. One of them was Weber Aircraft Corporation
Weber Aircraft LLC
Weber Aircraft LLC is an American manufacturer of airline seats headquartered in Gainesville, Texas. The company is a subsidiary of Zodiac Aerospace of France, and is one of the largest manufacturers of airline seats in the world, competing with companies such as Recaro, B/E Aerospace, and...
, an aircraft interior manufacturer situated adjacent to Lockheed at the edge of the airport. In 1988, Weber closed its Burbank manufacturing plant, which then employed 1,000 people. Weber produced seats, galleys, lavatories and other equipment for commercial and military aircraft. Weber had been in Burbank for 37 years.
By the mid-1970s, Hollywood-Burbank Airport handled 1.5 million passengers annually. Airlines serving Bob Hope Airport include Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is an airline based in the Seattle suburb of SeaTac, Washington in the United States. The airline originated in 1932 as McGee Airways. After many mergers with and acquisitions of other airlines, including Star Air Service, it became known as Alaska Airlines in 1944...
, American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
, Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major airline based in the United States and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta and its subsidiaries operate over 4,000 flights every day...
, JetBlue Airways
JetBlue Airways
JetBlue Airways Corporation is an American low-cost airline. The company is headquartered in the Forest Hills neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens. Its main base is John F. Kennedy International Airport, also in Queens....
, Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co. is an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas. Southwest is the largest airline in the United States, based upon domestic passengers carried,...
, and United Air Lines. , Southwest represents two-thirds of the airport's operations. In 2005, JetBlue Airways began the first non-stop coast-to-coast service out of the airport. Avjet Corporation, a private jet service, operates out of several hangars on the south side of the airport. Atlantic Aviation, (formerly Mercury Air Center) also provides jet services for several prominent companies. In 1987, Burbank's airport became the first to require flight carriers to fly quieter "Stage 3" jets.
Entertainment industry
The motion picture business arrived in Burbank in the 1920s. In 1926, First National Pictures bought a 78 acres (315,655.1 m²) site on Olive Avenue near Dark Canyon. The property included a 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) hog ranch and the original David Burbank house, both owned by rancher Stephen A. Martin. In 1928-29, First National was taken over by a company founded by the four Warner brothers.Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
purchased property in Burbank as a ranch facility, used primarily for outdoor shooting. Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's company, which had outgrown its Hollywood quarters, bought 51 acres (206,389.9 m²) in Burbank. Disney's million-dollar studio, designed by Kem Weber
Kem Weber
Kem Weber was a furniture and industrial designer, architect, art director, and teacher who created several iconic designs of the 'Streamline' style.-Early career:...
, was completed in 1939 on Buena Vista Street. Disney originally wanted to build "Mickey Mouse Park," as he first called it, next to the Burbank studio. But his aides finally convinced him that the space was too small, and there was opposition from the Burbank City Council. One council member told Disney: "We don't want the carny atmosphere in Burbank." Disney later built his successful Disneyland in Anaheim.
Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
and Warner
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
contributed to the war effort by producing both training and morale films for the armed services
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
and cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s promoting the sale of war bond
War bond
War bonds are debt securities issued by a government for the purpose of financing military operations during times of war. War bonds generate capital for the government and make civilians feel involved in their national militaries...
s. Disney artists designed more than 1,000 unit mascot designs for the armed forces. Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
had authorized that these insignias were to be designed at no charge. By war's end, the cost to Disney was over $30,000.
Burbank saw its first real civil strife as the culmination of a six month labor dispute between the set decorator
Set decorator
A set decorator is in charge of the set dressing on a film set, which includes the furnishings, wallpaper, lighting fixtures, and many of the other objects that will be seen in the film. Props and set dressing often overlap, but are provided by different departments...
's union and the studios
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
resulted in the Battle of Burbank on October 5, 1945.
By the 1960s and '70s, more of the Hollywood entertainment industry was relocating to Burbank. The National Broadcasting Company
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
moved its network television headquarters to its new location at Olive and Alameda avenues. The Burbank studio was purchased in 1951, and NBC arrived in 1952 from its former location at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. Although NBC promoted its Hollywood image for most of its West Coast telecasts (such as Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon
Edward Peter "Ed" McMahon, Jr. was an American comedian, game show host and announcer. He is most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson's sidekick and announcer on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992. He also hosted the original version of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995...
's introduction to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
: "from Hollywood"), comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin
Dick Martin (comedian)
Thomas Richard "Dick" Martin was an American comedian and director, best known for his role as the cohost of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.-Early life and career:...
began mentioning "beautiful downtown Burbank" on Laugh-in in the 1960s.
By 1962, NBC's multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art complex was completed. Rumors surfaced of NBC leaving Burbank after its parent company General Electric Company acquired Universal Studios and renamed the merged division NBC Universal. Since the deal, NBC has been relocating key operations to the 391 acres (1.6 km²) Universal property located in Universal City, Los Angeles, California, USA.
In the early 1990s, Burbank tried unsuccessfully to lure Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
, the Columbia and TriStar studios owner based in Culver City, and 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, which had threatened to move from its West Los Angeles lot unless the city granted permission to upgrade its facility. Fox stayed after getting Los Angeles City approval on its $200 million expansion plan. In 1999 the city did manage to gain Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
which took up residence in an old commercial bakery building located on North 3rd St. when it separated its production operations from Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
in Sherman Oaks, CA.
On September 10, 2007, NBC Universal management informed employees that the company planned to end its 56-year relationship with Burbank and sell much of the 34 acres (137,593.2 m²) Burbank complex. NBC Universal will relocate its television and cable operations to the Universal City complex. Originally, management touted a major development located adjacent to the Universal City Red Line subway station. The company planned to take West Coast network and local news operations and other facilities such as the Access Hollywood
Access Hollywood
Access Hollywood is a weekday television entertainment news program covering events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was created by former Entertainment Tonight executive producer Jim Van Messel, and is currently directed by Robert Silverstein. In previous years, Doug Dougherty and...
set to the new broadcast facility across the street from Universal Studios by 2011. Those controversial plans were altered in fall 2009 when Ron Meyer
Ron Meyer
-References:...
, President and Chief Operating Officer of Universal Studios, announced the so-called NBC Universal Evolution Plan as part of the studios's $3 billion makeover. The new plan includes new studio space as well as a residential component.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
first announced his candidacy for governor of California on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...
at NBC Studios in Burbank. U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
made a visit to the set of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...
on March 19, 2009, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to do so on the NBC show. Comic Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....
took over hosting duties of NBC's iconic Tonight Show from Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
on June 1, 2009, becoming the fifth host to lead the storied franchise and the first to host the show from Universal City. But Conan's hosting role lasted only 7 months, due to his refusal to move "The Tonight Show" timeslot from its long-time 11:35 p.m. slot to 12:05 a.m. Leno, who launched a failed primetime 10pm show in fall 2009, was asked to resume his "Tonight Show" role after Conan left NBC. Leno's new "Tonight Show" launched March 1, 2010. The show returned to the NBC Burbank lot and will remain there until at least 2018 despite NBC's long-term plans to relocate its news operations to the Universal lot. O'Brien is now based in Burbank as well, taping his new TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
talk show, Conan
The Conan O'Brien Show
Conan is an American late-night talk show airing each Monday through Thursday on TBS in the United States. The hour-long show premiered on November 8, 2010, and is hosted by writer, comedian and performer Conan O'Brien...
, from the historic Stage 15 on the Warner lot. Stage 15, constructed in the late 1920s, is where classics such as Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
Martha Jane Cannary Burke , better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, and professional scout best known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok, but also for having gained fame fighting Native Americans...
(1953), Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles is a 1974 satirical Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, the film was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft. The movie was nominated for three...
(1974), Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
(1984) and A Star Is Born
A Star Is Born (1976 film)
A Star Is Born is a 1976 American rock music musical film telling the story of a young woman, played by Barbra Streisand who enters show business, and meets and falls in love with an established male star, played by Kris Kristofferson, only to find her career ascending while his goes into decline...
were filmed. In the late 1990s, the Burbank stage also was utilized for The Rosie O'Donnell Show
The Rosie O'Donnell Show
The Rosie O'Donnell Show is an Emmy Award-winning American daytime television talk show hosted and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2002...
Cinema history
Burbank has a rich cinematic history. Hundreds of major feature films have filmed in Burbank over the years, but perhaps none more famous than CasablancaCasablanca
Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...
(1942), starring Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
. The movie began production a few months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
. Due to World War II, location shooting was restricted and filming near airports was banned. As a result, Casablanca shot most of its major scenes on Stage 1 at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios, including the film's famous airport scene. It featured a foggy Moroccan runway created on the stage where Bogart's character doesn't fly away with Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
. Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...
(1967) was also filmed at the Warner Bros. Burbank Studios.
The Gary Cooper classic High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
(1952) shot on a western street at the Warner Brothers "Ranch", then known as the Columbia Ranch. The ranch facility is situated less than a mile north of Warner's main lot in Burbank. The 1957 classic 3:10 to Yuma also filmed on the old Columbia Ranch, and much of the outdoor filming for the Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
took place at Columbia Ranch, including most of the chase scenes. In 1993, Warner Bros. bulldozed the historic Burbank-based sets used to film High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
and Lee Marvin's 1965 Oscar-winning Western comedy Cat Ballou
Cat Ballou
Cat Ballou is a 1965 comedy/Western film which tells the story of a woman who hires a famous gunman to protect her father's ranch, and later to avenge his murder, but finds that the man she hires is not what she expected...
, as well as several other features and television shows.
Other classic live-action films shot in Burbank include Disney's Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins (film)
Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, produced by Walt Disney, and based on the Mary Poppins books series by P. L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with songs by...
(1964), filmed on Sound Stage 2 at the Walt Disney Studios. Julie Andrews returned 37 years later to make Disney's The Princess Diaries
The Princess Diaries (film)
The Princess Diaries is a 2001 comedy film produced by singer and actress Whitney Houston and directed by Garry Marshall. It is based on Meg Cabot's 2000 novel of the same name...
(2001). As a tribute to the actress, Disney renamed the sound stage "The Julie Andrews Stage" in 2001. In 2002, a fire broke out on the Disney's Burbank lot, damaging a sound stage where a set was under construction for Disney's feature film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 adventure fantasy film based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney theme parks. It was directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
(2003). No one was injured in the blaze.
During the filming of the movie Apollo 13
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...
(1995) and also Coach Carter
Coach Carter
Coach Carter is a 2005 American film directed by Thomas Carter. It is based on a true story, in which Richmond High School basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his MVP and undefeated team due to poor academic results....
(2005), the producers shot scenes at Burbank's Safari Inn Motel. True Romance
True Romance
True Romance is a 1993 American romance crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. The film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast consisting of Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin...
(1993) also filmed on location at the motel. Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
(1985) shot extensively on the Universal Studios backlot but also filmed band audition scenes at the Burbank Community Center.
The city's mall, Burbank Town Center
Burbank Town Center
Burbank Town Center is a large shopping mall that opened in August 1991, located on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, California, USA, with three levels of interior shopping anchored by Macy's, Burlington Coat Factory and Sears, and outdoor shopping anchored by Ikea, Loehmann's, and Office Depot...
, is a popular backdrop for shooting movies, television shows and commercials. Over the years, it was the site for scenes in Bad News Bears (2005) to location shooting for Cold Case, Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
, ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
and even Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...
. The ABC show Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...
also is known to frequently use the Magnolia Park area for show scenes, along with the city's retail district along Riverside and adjacent to Toluca Lake, California.
During 2010, Burbank experienced a surge in on-location commercial and TV production. The city's film permit official reported 32 permits were issued in December 2010 alone, up from 24 permits in the year-earlier period. Among the 2010 commercials filmed in the city were spots for Baskin-Robbins
Baskin-Robbins
Baskin-Robbins is a global chain of ice cream parlors founded by Burt Baskin and Irvine Robbins in 1953, from the merging of their respective ice cream parlors, in Glendale, California. It claims to be the world's largest ice cream franchise, with more than 5,800 locations, 2,800 of which are...
, Taco Bell
Taco Bell
Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
and U.S. Bank.
Burbank today
Burbank is home to many employees of the motion pictureFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and television studios located in the area.
Entertainment has generally replaced the defense
Defense contractor
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
industry as the primary employer, who are attracted by the relative safety and security offered by its own police and fire departments, highly rated schools and hospital. Other reasons cited are its small-town feel while located only 10 minutes away by car
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
to the hip
Hipster (contemporary subculture)
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with musical interests mainly in alternative rock that appeared in the 1990s...
clubs
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
and restaurants of Hollywood.
The Bob's Big Boy Restaurant in Burbank
Bob's Big Boy Restaurant of Burbank, California
Bob's Big Boy is a restaurant chain that Bob Wian founded in Southern California in 1936, originally named Bob's Pantry. It is now part of the Big Boy Corporation, which also owns several other chain restaurants.-Oldest remaining restaurant:...
(est. 1949) is the oldest remaining Bob's Big Boy
Big Boy (restaurant)
Big Boy is a restaurant chain with its headquarters in Warren, Michigan.Big Boy was started in 1936 by Bob Wian, in partnership with Arnold Peterson in Glendale, California, USA. Marriott Corporation bought the chain in 1967...
in America, and in 1993 was designated a California Point of Historical Interest
California Point of Historical Interest
California Points of Historical Interest are sites, buildings, features, or events that are of local significance and have anthropological, cultural, military, political, architectural, economic, scientific or technical, religious, experimental, or other value...
. Located at 4211 Riverside Drive, it was designed by Wayne McAllister. The eatery features a soaring pylon sign, an open kitchen and big picture windows, all of which are elements of Googie architecture
Googie architecture
Googie architecture is a form of modern architecture, a subdivision of futurist architecture influenced by car culture and the Space and Atomic Ages....
. In 1992, the restaurant's new owner sought to raze the structure and replace it with an office building or shopping center, but the landmark designation made it legally more difficult to make significant changes.
Residents enjoy the music of the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, the Starlight Bowl
Starlight Bowl (Burbank)
The Starlight Bowl is an amphitheater located in Burbank, California. Originally built in 1950, today it seats 3,000 in chairback seating and 2,000 more on the lawn for a total capacity of 5,000.-External links:*...
, fine restaurants, the city's Downtown Burbank Mall, a burgeoning "Burbank Village" shopping district, and many theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
s, park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
s, and libraries. Visitors to Burbank are attracted to the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Studio VIP tour and close proximity to all other entertainments and attractions that Los Angeles offers.
Burbank became the first American city in 1991 to pass an ordinance requiring new buildings to ensure adequate first responder communications. Since then municipalities nationwide have copied Burbank's action. Burbank's ordinance allows for spot field-testing by police or fire department personnel. The ordinance required an in-building coverage system, adding expense but increasing safety for building occupants.
Burbank is considered a trailblazer of sorts in the anti-smoking area. In late 2010, Burbank passed an ordinance prohibiting smoking in multi-family residences sharing ventilation systems. The rule goes into effect in mid-2011. The new anti-smoking ordinance, which also prohibits smoking on private balconies and patios in multi-family residences, is considered the first of its kind in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Since 2007, Burbank has prohibited smoking at all city-owned properties, downtown Burbank, the Chandler Bikeway, and sidewalk and pedestrian areas.
The murder of Burbank police officer Matthew Pavelka in 2003 by a local gang known as the Vineland Boys sparked an intensive investigation in conjunction with several other cities and resulted in the arrest of a number of gang members and other citizens in and around Burbank. Among those arrested was Burbank councilwoman Stacey Murphy, implicated in trading guns in exchange for drugs. Pavelka was the first Burbank police officer to be fatally shot in the line of duty in the department's history, according to the California Police Association officials.
The city's namesake street, Burbank Boulevard, started getting a makeover in 2007. The city spent upwards of $10 million to put in palm trees and colorful flowers, a median, new lights, benches and bike racks.
Today, an estimated 100,000 people work in Burbank every day. The physical imprints of the city's aviation industry remain. In late 2001, the Burbank Empire Center opened with aviation as the theme. The center, built at a cost of $250 million by Zelman Development Company, sits on Empire Avenue, former site of Lockheed's "Skunk Works", and other Lockheed properties. By 2003, many of the center's retailers and restaurants were among the top national performers in their franchise, if not the top. The Burbank Empire Center now comprises over 11% of Burbank's sales tax revenue, not including nearby Costco, a part of the Empire Center development.
Transportation
The Bob Hope AirportBob Hope Airport
Bob Hope Airport is a public airport located 3 miles northwest of the central business district of Burbank, a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
services 4.9 million travelers per year with seven carriers, with over 70 flights daily. The airport, located in the northwestern corner of the city, is the source of most street traffic in the city. Noise from the airport has been a source of concern for nearby decades. A bill introduced in early 2011 by three California congressmen would put into law an overnight curfew on flights from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration previously had rejected the airports' applications for a curfew.
In December 2008, a slowdown in passenger traffic led the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to curtail spending plans, including deferring multimillion-dollar construction projects. The weak economy continued to affect the airport in 2010, with figures showing a 6% decline in passengers for the fiscal year ending June 30. The slowdown is one reason the airport authority scrapped plans to spend $4 million to erect barriers at the west end of the runway. In 2000, a Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co. is an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas. Southwest is the largest airline in the United States, based upon domestic passengers carried,...
flight overshot the runway and went through the fence with 142 persons aboard and came to a stop on Hollywood Way near a gas station.
The construction of major freeways through and around the city of Burbank starting in the 1950s both divided the city from itself and linked it to the rapidly growing Los Angeles region. Burbank is easily accessible by and can easily access the Southern California freeways
Southern California freeways
The Southern California freeways are a network of interconnected freeways in the Megaregion of Southern California with a population of 22 million. A comprehensive freeway plan was produced in 1947 and with construction beginning in the 1950s...
via the Golden State Freeway (I-5), which bisects the city from northwest to southeast, and the Ventura Freeway
Ventura Freeway
The Ventura Freeway is a freeway in southern California running from Ventura to Pasadena. It is the principal east-west route through Ventura County and in the southern San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. From Ventura to its intersection with the Hollywood Freeway in the southeastern San...
which connects Burbank to the U.S. Route 101 on the south and the nearby Foothill Freeway
Interstate 210 (California)
Interstate 210 and State Route 210 together form a contiguous highway, called the Foothill Freeway, in the Greater Los Angeles area of the U.S. state of California. The western portion of the route is an auxiliary Interstate Highway, while the eastern portion is a state highway...
to the east. The Ventura Freeway was completed in 1960.
Burbank contains about 227.5 miles (366.1 km) of streets, nearly 50 miles (80.5 km) of paved alleys, 365.3 miles (587.9 km) of sidewalks, 181 signalized intersections and 10 intersections with flashing signals, according to city figures. Many of the current signals date back to the late 1960s when voters passed a major capital improvement program for street beautification and street lighting. The funding also helped upgrade dated park and library facilities.
The Metro
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is the California state-chartered regional transportation planning agency and public transportation operating agency for the County of Los Angeles formed in 1993 out of a merger of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the...
operates public transport
Public transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
throughout Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 9,818,605, making it the most populous county in the United States. Los Angeles County alone is more populous than 42 individual U.S. states...
, including Burbank. Commuters can use Metrolink
Metrolink (Southern California)
Metrolink is a commuter rail system serving Los Angeles and the surrounding area of Southern California; it currently consists of six lines and 55 stations using of track....
and Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
for service south into Downtown
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
, west to Ventura and north to Palmdale
Palmdale, California
Palmdale is a city located in the center of northern Los Angeles County, California, United States.Palmdale was the first community within the Antelope Valley to incorporate as a city on August 24, 1962; 47 years later, voters approved creating a charter city in November, 2009. Palmdale is...
and beyond. For getting around Burbank, there is the Burbank Bus
Burbank Bus
The Burbank Bus is Burbank, California's transportation service, providing local routes that serve the need of those commuting within the city itself or who plan on using the bus to connect with rail service to Los Angeles or surrounding suburbs. The Burbank Bus compliments the Los Angeles County...
. In 2006, Burbank opened its first hydrogen fueling station for automobiles.
Hospitals
In 1907, Burbank's first major hospital opened under the name "Burbank Community Hospital". The 16-bed facility served the community during a deadly smallpoxSmallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
epidemic in 1913 and helped it brace for possible air raids at the start of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The two-story hospital was located at Olive Avenue and Fifth Street. By 1925, the hospital was expanded to 50 beds and in the mid-1980s operated with 103 beds and a staff of over 175 physicians. For years, it also was the only hospital in Burbank where women could receive abortions, tubal ligations and other procedures not offered at what is now Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. A physicians group acquired the hospital for $2 million in 1990 and renamed it Thompson Memorial Medical Center, in honor of the hospital's founder, Dr. Elmer H. Thompson. He was a general practitioner who made house calls by bicycle and horseback. In 2001, Burbank Community Hospital was razed to make way for a senior housing complex. Proceeds from that sale went to the Burbank Health Care Foundation, which assists community organizations that cater to health-related needs.
In 1943, the Sisters of Providence Health System, a Catholic non-profit group, founded Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. Construction of the hospital proved difficult due to World War II restrictions on construction materials, and in particular the lack of structural steel. But the challenges were met and the one-story hospital was erected to deal with wartime restrictions. During the baby boom of the 1950s, the hospital expanded from the original 100 beds to 212. By 2008, the hospital featured 455 beds, over 2,300 employees and more than 650 physicians.
In the mid-1990s, Seattle-based Sisters of Providence Health System, which owns St. Joseph in Burbank, renamed the hospital Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. The medical center has several centers on campus with specialized disciplines. Cancer, cardiology, mammogram, hospice and children's services are some of the speciality centers. The newest addition to the medical center's offerings is the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center, scheduled to open Feb. 8, 2010. The cancer center features four stories of the latest in high-tech equipment to treat cancer patients and provide wellness services. The center, estimated to cost in excess of $36 million, was built with money from the family of Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney. Roy E. Disney
Roy E. Disney
Roy Edward Disney, KCSG was a longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, which his father Roy Oliver Disney and his uncle Walt Disney founded. At the time of his death he was a shareholder , and served as a consultant for the company and Director Emeritus for the Board of Directors...
died in December 2009 of stomach cancer.
Magnolia Park area
Magnolia Park, established on Burbank's western edge in the early 1920s, had 3,500 houses within six years after its creation. When the city refused to pay for a street connecting the subdivision with the Cahuenga Pass, real estate developer Earl L. White did it himself and called it Hollywood Way. White was owner of KELW, the San Fernando Valley's first commercial radio station, which went on the air February 13, 1927.The city's Magnolia Park area, bordered by West Verdugo Avenue to the south and Chandler Boulevard to the north, is known for its small-town feel, shady streets and Eisenhower-era storefronts. Most of the homes in the area date to the 1940s, when they were built for veterans of World War II. Central to the community is Magnolia Boulevard, known for its antique shops, boutiques, thrift shops, corner markets, and occasional chain stores.
The neighborhood is in constant struggle with developers looking to expand and update Magnolia Boulevard. Independent merchants and slow-growth groups have fought off new construction and big-box stores. The neighborhood remains quiet despite being beneath the airport flight path and bordered by arterial streets.
One of the centerpieces of the area's attempted comeback is Porto's Bakery at the old Thrifty site located at 3606 and 3614 West Magnolia Boulevard. As part of the project, Burbank loaned Porto's funds for building upgrades. Under the agreement a portion of the loan will be forgiven over a 10-year period. East of Porto's is Antique Row, a hub for shopping in the city.
Other enhancements include converting the disused railroad right-of-way along Chandler Boulevard into a landscaped bikeway and pedestrian path. This project was part of a larger bike route linking Burbank's downtown Metrolink station with the Red Line subway in North Hollywood. The bike friendly neighborhood and vintage shops has made this a part of the San Fernando Valley that is frequented by Hipsters.
Rancho Equestrian area
Perhaps the most famous collection of neighborhoods in Burbank is the Rancho Equestrian District, flanked roughly by Griffith Park to the south, Victory Boulevard to the east, Olive Avenue to the west and Alameda Avenue to the north. Part of the Rancho community extends into neighboring Glendale.The neighborhood zoning allows residents to keep horses on their property. Single-family homes far outnumber multifamily units in the Rancho. Many of the homes have stables and stalls. There are about 785 single-family homes, 180 condos and townhomes and 250 horses.
The Rancho has traditionally been represented by the Burbank Rancho Homeowners, which was formed in 1963 by Floran Frank and other equestrian enthusiasts and is the oldest neighborhood group in the city. The community recently stopped the development of a Whole Foods store in the Rancho area.
Rancho real estate sells at a premium due to its equestrian zoning, numerous parks, connection to riding trails in Griffith Park and its adjacency to Warner Brothers and Disney Studios. Riverside Drive, its main thoroughfare, is lined with Sycamore and Oak trees, some more than 70 years old. It is quite common to see people on horseback riding along Riverside Drive's designated horse lanes. Of historical note, the Rancho was the home to T.V. star "Mr. Ed", the talking horse of the early 1960s show of the same name. Other notable former Rancho residents included Ava Gardner, Ronald Reagan and Tab Hunter as well as Bette Davis in the adjoining Glendale Rancho area.
The rancho is especially known for its parks and open space. This includes centrally located Mountain View Park, Johnny Carson Park, Los Angeles' Griffith Park and Equestrian Center, Bette Davis Park (in the adjoining Glendale Rancho) and the neighborhood's beloved Polliwog, extending along Disney's animation building and used by local residents to exercise their horses.
In the 1960s, General Motors Corporation opened training facilities in the Rancho area, but in 1999 decided to contract out dealer-technician training to Raytheon Company and axed a dozen employees. The facility is now primarily a meeting and training venue for automotive-related events. In 2006, GM confiscated EV1 electric-powered cars from drivers who had leased them and moved them to the GM facility in Burbank. When environmentalists determined the location of the cars, they began a month-long vigil at the facility. To challenge the company's line that that were unwanted, they found buyers for all of them, offering a total of $1.9 million. The vehicles were loaded on trucks and removed, and several activists who tried to intervene were arrested.
Notable locations
- Burbank Public Library
- Burbank City Hall
- Buena Vista Branch Burbank Public Library
- De Bell Municipal Golf Course
- Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center
- Northwest Park Branch Burbank Public Library
- Southern California Genealogical Society Library
- Nicktoons StudiosNicktoons StudiosThe Nickelodeon Animation Studio is an American animation studio. The studio is owned and operated by Nickelodeon, and the studio produces many of the network's most popular animated series, including SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Planet Sheen, and T.U.F.F. Puppy...
- NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
-TV Studios - Disney StudiosWalt Disney Studios (Burbank)The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, United States, serve as the international headquarters for media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Studio's house offices for each of the company's divisions along with creative spaces designed for movie production. The Walt Disney...
- Cartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network StudiosCartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio. A subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System , Cartoon Network Studios focuses on producing and developing animated programs only for and related to Cartoon Network...
- Columbia Ranch
- Warner Brothers Studios
- Providencia RanchProvidencia RanchProvidencia Ranch, part of 'Providencia Land and Water Development Company' property, was a piece of land in California, USA that was used as a filming location for some early motion pictures; most notably for battle scenes in the silent classic about the American Civil War, The Birth of a Nation...
area - 1911 to 1960 - Nestor Ranch 1911
- Universal CityUniversal CityUniversal City may refer to:In the entertainment industry:* Universal City Studios, an alternate name of Universal Studios* Universal City RecordsThe following places owned by Universal Studios:* Universal City, California...
1912 to 1914 - Lasky Ranch
- Forest Lawn Hollywood Hill
- Hudkins Stables of Hollywood (Providencia)
Walt Disney Studios (Burbank)
The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, serve as the international headquarters for media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
. Disney staff began the move from the old Disney studio at Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake
Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
Silver Lake is a hilly neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California east of Hollywood and northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Silver Lake is inhabited by a wide variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, but it is best known as an eclectic gathering of hipsters and the creative class.The...
on December 24, 1939. Designed primarily by Kem Weber
Kem Weber
Kem Weber was a furniture and industrial designer, architect, art director, and teacher who created several iconic designs of the 'Streamline' style.-Early career:...
under the supervision of Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
and his brother Roy, the Burbank Disney Studio buildings are the only studios to survive from the Golden Age of filming. The Walt Disney Company is the last remaining Big Ten company to remain independent from a mother company. The Studios are also the only major film/animation studio not to run backlot tours.
Providencia Ranch
Filmmaking began on the Providencia RanchProvidencia Ranch
Providencia Ranch, part of 'Providencia Land and Water Development Company' property, was a piece of land in California, USA that was used as a filming location for some early motion pictures; most notably for battle scenes in the silent classic about the American Civil War, The Birth of a Nation...
area, marked on the map in yellow.
Nestor studios began using the ranch location, in 1911. The Providencia Ranch became part of the Universal Film Manufacturing operations on the Pacific/West coast, in 1912.
During years 1912 to 1914 - Universal's ranch studio, was also referred to as the Oak Crest Ranch . Carl Laemmle, called the ranch "Universal City" as recorded in issues of The Moving Picture World
The Moving Picture World
The Moving Picture World was an influential early trade journal for the American film industry, from 1907 to 1927. By 1914, it had a reported circulation of approximately 15,000.The publication was founded by James Petrie Chalmers, Jr...
Volume: 16 (Apr. - Jun. 1913).
Universal City existed on the Providencia Land and Water property from 1912 to 1914.
In 1914, the Oak Crest studio ranch and Hollywood studio operation would move to new Universal City located on the Lankershism Land and Water property.
Universal Ranch tract of land became smaller after the 1914 move to the Taylor Ranch.
The leased land surrounding the universal ranch would soon become the Lasky Ranch.
The Providencia property was used as a filming location for by other motion picture companies, most notably for battle scenes in the silent classic about the American Civil War, The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Universal City Providencia vs Universal City Lankershim
The official Public opening occurred March 15, 1915 on the Lankershim Property. The new Universal City (three tracts of land ) was much larger than the old Universal (Oak/Providencia) Ranch).Shopping
The revitalized downtown Burbank provides an urban mix of shopping, dining, and entertainment. The San Fernando Strip is an exclusive mall designed to be a modern urban village, with apartments above the mall. An upscale shopping district is located in the state-of-the-art Empire Center neighborhood. The Burbank Town CenterBurbank Town Center
Burbank Town Center is a large shopping mall that opened in August 1991, located on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, California, USA, with three levels of interior shopping anchored by Macy's, Burlington Coat Factory and Sears, and outdoor shopping anchored by Ikea, Loehmann's, and Office Depot...
is a retail complex adjacent to the downtown core that was built in two phases between 1991 and 1992.
In 1979, the Burbank Redevelopment Agency entered into an agreement with San Diego-based Ernest Hahn Company to build a regional mall known as Media City Center. It would later get renamed Burbank Town Center
Burbank Town Center
Burbank Town Center is a large shopping mall that opened in August 1991, located on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, California, USA, with three levels of interior shopping anchored by Macy's, Burlington Coat Factory and Sears, and outdoor shopping anchored by Ikea, Loehmann's, and Office Depot...
and undergo a $130 million facelift starting in 2004, including a new exterior streetscape facade. The agency, helped out with its powers of eminent domain, spent $52 million to buy up the 41 acres (165,921.3 m²) land in the area bounded by the Golden State Freeway, Burbank Boulevard, Third Street and Magnolia Boulevard.
Original plans were for Media City Center included four anchor tenants, including a J.W. Robinson's. But May Co. Department Stores later bought the parent company of Robinson's and dropped out of the deal. The other stores then dropped out as well and Hahn and the agency dropped the project in March 1987. Within months, Burbank entered into negotiations with the Walt Disney Company for a shopping mall and office complex to be called the "Disney MGM Backlot." Disney had estimated that it could spend $150 million to $300 million on a complex of shops, restaurants, theaters, clubs and hotel, and had offered to move its animation department and Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
cable network operation to the property as well. These plans ended in failure in February 1988 when Disney executives determined that the costs were too high.
In January 1989, Burbank began Media City Center project negotiations with two developers, the Alexander Haagen Co. of Manhattan Beach and Price Kornwasser Associates of San Diego. Eight months later, Haagen won the contract and commenced construction, leading to the $250 million mall's opening in August 1991. Under terms of the agreement with Haagen, the city funded a $18 million parking garage and made between $8 and $12 million in improvements to the surrounding area. Plans by Sheraton Corporation to build a 300-room hotel at the mall were shelved because of the weak economy.
The new mall helped take the strain off Burbank's troubled economy, which had been hard hit by the departure of several large industrial employers, including Lockheed Corp. The center was partially financed with $50 million in city redevelopment funds. Construction had been in doubt for many years by economic woes and political turmoil since it was first proposed in the late 1970s. In 2003, Irvine-based Crown Realty & Development purchased the 1200000 square feet (111,483.6 m²) Burbank Town Center from Pan Pacific Retail Properties for $111 million. Crown then hired General Growth Properties Inc., a Chicago-based real estate investment trust, for property management and leasing duties. At the time, the Burbank mall ranked as the No. 6 retail center in Los Angeles County in terms of leasable square footage, with estimated combined tenant volumes in excess of $240 million. One local standout was the Burbank Town Center's IKEA, with an estimated 30,000 shoppers weekly and rated No. 1 in Southern California with annual sales of $90 million.
In 1994, Lockheed selected Chicago-based Homart Development Company
Homart Development Company
Homart Development Company, a subsidiary of Sears, was one of the largest builders of shopping centers and malls in the United States from 1959 to 1995.-Company history:...
as the developer of a retail center on a former P-38 "Skunk Works" plant near the Burbank Airport that was subject to a major toxic clean-up project. A year later, Lockheed merged with Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of The Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. The combined company became a leader in chemicals, aerospace, and electronics. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. The...
to become Lockheed Martin Corp.. Lockheed was ordered to clean up the toxics as part of a federal Superfund
Superfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...
site. The northern Burbank area also became identified as the San Fernando Valley's hottest toxic spot in 1989 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District
South Coast Air Quality Management District
The South Coast Air Quality Management District , formed in 1976, is the air pollution agency responsible mainly for regulating stationary sources of air pollution for most of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside County, and all of Orange County...
, with Lockheed identified among major contributors. Lockheed always maintained the site was never a health risk to the community.
The Lockheed toxic clean-up site, just east of the Golden State Freeway, later became home to the Empire Center. Four developers competed to be selected to build the $300 million outdoor mall on the site. In 1999, Lockheed picked Los Angeles-based Zelman Cos. from among other contenders to create the retail-office complex on a 103 acre (0.41682658 km²) site. Zelman purchased the land in 2000 for around $70 million. As part of the sales agreement, Lockheed carried out extensive soil vapor removal on the site. Lockheed had manufactured planes on the site from 1928 to 1991. Together with $42 million for demolition and $12 million for site investigation, Lockheed would eventually spend $115 million on the project.
Warner Brothers proposed building a sports arena there for the Kings and the Clippers on the former B-1 bomber plant site. Price Club wanted it for a new store. Disney considered moving some operations there too. The city used the site in its failed attempt to lure DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
to Burbank. Phoenix-based Vestar Development Company planned a major retail development and spent more than a year in negotiations to buy the property from Lockheed before pulling out late in 1998.
Less than eight months after breaking ground, the Empire Center's first stores opened in October 2001. Local officials estimated the complex would generate about $3.2 million a year in sales tax revenue for the city, and as many as 3,500 local jobs. Within a year of completion, the Empire Center was helping the city to post healthy growth in sales tax revenues despite a down economy. Alone, the Empire mall generated close to $800,000 in sales tax revenues in the second quarter of 2002. The outdoor mall's buildings hark back to Lockheed's glory days by resembling manufacturing plants. Each of the outdoor signs features a replica of a Lockheed aircraft, while the mall design brings to mind an airport, complete with a miniature control tower.
In 2009, work was finished on a $130-million office project adjacent to the Empire Center. The completion of the seven-story tower marked the final phase of the mixed-use Empire development near Bob Hope Airport.
Sister cities
Burbank is also affiliated with the following sister citiesTown twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
:
Incheon
Incheon
The Incheon Metropolitan City is located in northwestern South Korea. The city was home to just 4,700 people when Jemulpo port was built in 1883. Today 2.76 million people live in the city, making it Korea’s third most populous city after Seoul and Busan Metropolitan City...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
Ōta
Ota, Gunma
is a city 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, in eastern Gunma prefecture, Japan. This city is located between the Tone and Watarase rivers. As a result, the new city reached a total population of 219,789, making it the third most populous city in Gunma....
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
Solna
Solna Municipality
Solna Municipality is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden, located just north of the capital Stockholm. Its seat is located in the 'city' of Solna....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
Gaborone
Gaborone
' is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 191,776 based on a 2006 survey, about 10% of the total population of Botswana....
, Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
Geography
According to the United States Census BureauUnited States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
, Burbank has a total area of 17.4 square miles (45.1 km²). 17.4 square miles (45.1 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1035995244 km²) of it (0.12%) is water. It is bordered by Glendale
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
to the east, Toluca Lake
Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California
Toluca Lake is a district, north of downtown Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, and a "community within two communities, North Hollywood and Burbank"....
on the west, and Griffith Park
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America...
to the South. Hollywood is easily accessible from Burbank.
Elevations in the city range from 500 feet (152.4 m) in the lower valley areas to about 800 feet (243.8 m) near the Verdugo Mountains. Most of Burbank features a water table more than 100 feet (30.5 m) deep, more than the measures found in the 1940s when the water table was within 50 feet (15.2 m) of the ground surface in some areas of Burbank.
Geology
Burbank is located within a seismically active area. At least 8 major faults are mapped within 13.5 miles (21.7 km) of Burbank's civic center. The San Fernando Fault, located 6 miles (9.7 km) northwest of Burbank's downtown, is the fault that caused the 6.6 magnitude 1971 San Fernando EarthquakeSylmar earthquake
The 1971 San Fernando earthquake struck the San Fernando Valley near Sylmar, California at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on February 9, 1971, with a magnitude of 6.6....
.
The Verdugo Fault, which can reach a maximum estimated 6.5 magnitude earthquake on the Richter Scale, is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the city of Burbank's civic center. This fault extends throughout the city, and is located in the alluvium just south of the Verdugo Mountains. The fault is mapped on surface in northeastern Glendale, and at various locations in Burbank. Other nearby faults include the Northridge Hills Fault (10 miles (16.1 km) northwest of Burbank), the Newport-Inglewood Fault (12.5 miles (20.1 km)), Whittier Fault (21 miles (33.8 km)), and lastly the San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...
(28 miles (45.1 km)) with its 8.25 magnitude potential on the Richter Scale.
Burbank suffered $66.1 million in damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, according to the city's finance department. There was $58 million in damage to privately owned facilities in commercial, industrial, manufacturing and entertainment businesses. Another $8.1 million in losses included damaged public buildings, roadways and a power station in Sylmar that is partly owned by Burbank.
Climate
Burbank has a Mediterranean climateMediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate is the climate typical of most of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, and is a particular variety of subtropical climate...
(Köppen climate classification
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...
Csa). The highest recorded temperature in Burbank was 113 °F (45 °C) in 1971. The lowest recorded temperature was 22 °F (-5.6 °C) in 1978. The driest rainfall season on record was the 2006–2007 season with 2.83 inches (7.2 cm), beating the previous record of 5.12 inches (13 cm) set in 2001–2002. The months that receive the most precipitation are February and March, respectively.
- Highest Recorded Temperature: 45 °C
- Lowest Recorded Temperature: -6 °C
- Warmest Month: August
- Coolest Month: December
- Highest Precipitation: February
- Lowest Precipitation: July
Demographics
Burbank experienced a 3% increase in population between 2000 and 2010, bringing its total population in 2010 to 103,340. Population growth was influenced by Burbank's expanding employment base, high quality public schools, and access to regional transportation routes and metropolitan Los Angeles. According to the Southern California Association of Government's 2007 Regional Transportation Plan growth forecasts, the population of Burbank is expected to grow to approximately 116,500 by 2015 and 125,000 by 2025, a 15% increase over the 18-year period.2010
The 2010 United States Census reported that Burbank had a population of 103,340. The population densityPopulation density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 5,946.3 people per square mile (2,295.9/km²). The racial makeup of Burbank was 75,167 (72.7%) White including Latino White, 2,600 (2.5%) African American, 486 (0.5%) Native American, 12,007 (11.6%) Asian, 89 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 7,999 (7.7%) from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 4,992 (4.8%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 25,310 persons (24.5%).
The Census reported that 102,767 people (99.4% of the population) lived in households, 291 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 282 (0.3%) were institutionalized.
There were 41,940 households, out of which 12,386 (29.5%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 18,388 (43.8%) were opposite-sex married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 4,984 (11.9%) had a female householder with no husband present, 2,050 (4.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,177 (5.2%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships
POSSLQ
POSSLQ is an abbreviation for "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters," a term coined in the late 1970s by the United States Census Bureau as part of an effort to more accurately gauge the prevalence of cohabitation in American households....
, and 396 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 12,823 households (30.6%) were made up of individuals and 4,179 (10.0%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45. There were 25,422 families
Family (U.S. Census)
A family or family household is defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes as "a householder and one or more other people related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. They do not include same-sex married couples even if the marriage was performed in a state...
(60.6% of all households); the average family size was 3.13.
The population was spread out with 20,488 people (19.8%) under the age of 18, 8,993 people (8.7%) aged 18 to 24, 32,513 people (31.5%) aged 25 to 44, 27,552 people (26.7%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,794 people (13.3%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.9 years. For every 100 females there were 93.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.6 males.
There were 44,309 housing units at an average density of 2,549.6 per square mile (984.4/km²), of which 18,465 (44.0%) were owner-occupied, and 23,475 (56.0%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.6%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.3%. 50,687 people (49.0% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 52,080 people (50.4%) lived in rental housing units.
2000
While white residents continue to comprise the majority of Burbank's population, this proportion has decreased substantially from almost 80% in 1980 to approximately 72% in 2000. In contrast, the share of Hispanic residents increased steadily over the past two decades, growing from 16% in 1980 to 25% in 2000. Although Asian residents represent a smaller segment of the population, the share of Asian residents more than tripled since 1980, increasing from 3% in 1980 to 9% in 2000. The black population remained limited, rising from less than 1% in 1980 to almost 2% in 2000.As of the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 2000, there were 100,316 people, 41,608 households, and 24,382 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 5,782.4 inhabitants per square mile (2,232.4/km²). There were 42,847 housing units at an average density of 2,469.8 per square mile (953.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 72.2% White
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 2.1% Black
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
or African American
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 0.6% Native American
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 9.2% Asian
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 0.1% Pacific Islander
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, 9.9% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 6.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 24.9% of the population.
There were 41,608 households out of which 28.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.8% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.4% were non-families. 33.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 3.14.
In the city the population was spread out with 22.3% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 35.4% from 25 to 44, 21.8% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 94.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $62,347, and the median income for a family was $67,767. Males had a median income of $41,792 versus $35,273 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the city was $25,713. About 8.1% of families and 10.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.3% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.
Crime
Burbank's overall crime rate fell 1% during 2010, and the city made it through the year without any homicides, according to figures released by the police. That contrasts with two homicides in 2008 and one in 2009.The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in its preliminary Uniform Crime Reports
Uniform Crime Reports
The Uniform Crime Reports are published by the United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program...
was 91 during the first half of 2010, down from 112 in the like period a year earlier. The violent crime rate was approximately 2.45 per 1,000 people in 2009, well below the national average of 4.29 per 1,000 people as reported by the U.S. Department of Justice in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Furthermore Burbank was named again in 2010 as One of the Nation's 100 Best Communities for Young People by America's Promise Alliance.
Criminal offenses are charged and locally prosecuted in the Burbank Courthouse. The Los Angeles District Attorney handles all of the felony violations which occur within Burbank city limits. The Burbank City Attorney, through its Prosecution Division, handles the remaining violations, which include all misdemeanors, and municipal code violations such as the Burbank Anti-Smoking Ordinance, as well as traffic offenses. The Burbank Superior Court is a high-volume courthouse; the City Prosecutor files approximately 5,500 cases yearly, and the Burbank Police Department directly files approximately 12,000 to 15,000 traffic citations per year. Burbank Court, Division Two, handles all of the misdemeanor arraignments for Burbank offenses. A typical arraignment calendar is between 100 and 120 cases each day, including 15 to 25 defendants who are brought to court in custody. Many cases are initiated by arrests at the Burbank (Bob Hope) Airport. Common arrests include possession of drugs such as marijuana, weapons, prohibited items, as well as false identification charges.
One of the most infamous crimes in the city took place in March 1953, when elderly widow Mabel Monahan was killed in her Burbank home. When Monahan, 64, opened the door to her house on West Parkside Avenue, she found herself confronted by a stranger, Barbara Graham
Barbara Graham
Barbara Graham was an American criminal and convicted murderess. She was executed in the gas chamber on the same day as two convicted accomplices, Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins. Nicknamed "Bloody Babs" by the press, Graham was the third woman in California to die by gas.-Early life:Graham was born...
(also sometimes referred to as Barbara Wood). Graham, along with some other accomplices, had heard rumors of a Las Vegas gambling fortune hidden in Monahan's house. She was discovered by a gardener, who went to her front door and looked in to find a ransacked home and a grisly trail of blood. The gardener immediately called the Burbank Police, who discovered Monahan's badly beaten body, half in and half out of a closet.
On June 3, 1955, Graham and two of her partners in crime were executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin for their part in the brutal murder of Mabel Monahan. Graham had insisted she was innocent. Actress Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind . Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting...
won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Graham in the 1958 classic movie I Want To Live
I Want to Live!
I Want to Live! is a 1958 film noir produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Wise which tells the heavily fictionalized story of a woman, Barbara Graham, convicted of murder and facing execution. It stars Susan Hayward as Graham, and also features Simon Oakland, Stafford Repp, and Theodore...
. Prior to filming, director Robert Wise had attended an actual execution at San Quentin Prison in order to help him authentically capture his film's climactic event. In 1983, ABC Television remade the movie, casting actress Lindsay Wagner
Lindsay Wagner
Lindsay Jean Wagner is an American actress. She is probably best known for her portrayal of Jaime Sommers in the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman , though she has maintained a lengthy career in a variety of other film and television productions since.-Early life:Wagner was born in Los...
(known for her role as the Bionic Woman) as Barbara Graham.
In February 1981, serial killer Lawrence Bittaker
Lawrence Bittaker
Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker and Roy Lewis Norris AKA The ToolBox Killers are two American serial killers who together kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered five young women over a period of five months in California in 1979.-Lawrence Bittaker:...
, a Burbank machinist, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1979 kidnapping and slaying of five teen-aged girls in a case that was the first felony trial in California to allow TV cameras into the courtroom over the objections of the defendant. As of April 2011, he was still on Death Row.
Previous to the murder of Burbank police officer Matthew Pavelka in 2003, the city experienced earlier cases of tragedy involving local law enforcement. Marshal Luther Colson and Deputy City Marshal Robert L. Normand were shot to death while patrolling the city. Their deaths in 1914 and 1920 marked the first time that Burbank police officers were killed in the line of duty. Colson was shot the evening of November 16, 1914, when he was walking on railroad tracks near what is now Victory Place and Lake Street. Six years later, Normand was killed when he responded to a call for help to check on three men in a vehicle with its lights out. The men began shooting as Normand and another officer approached the car. The other officer survived despite three bullet wounds, but Normand died at the scene. Additionally, two other Burbank officers have died on duty. They were motorcycle officers Joseph R. Wilson and Richard E. Kunkle, who were killed in separate accidents in 1961.
Government
Federal Works Agency
The Federal Works Agency was an independent agency of the Federal government of the United States which administered a number of public construction, building maintenance, and public works relief functions and laws from 1939 to 1949...
and Works Project Administration programs. City Hall was designed by architects William Allen
William Allen
- Politicians :* William Allen , Canadian politician from Toronto* William Allen , American congressman from Ohio* William Allen , American politician from Ohio...
and W. George Lutzi and completed in 1943.
Originally, the City Hall building housed all city services, including the police and fire departments, an emergency medical ward, a courthouse and a jail. One of the most distinctive features of the cream-colored concrete building is its 77 feet (23.5 m) tower, which serves as the main lobby. The lobby interior features more than 20 types of marble, which can be found in the city seal on the floor, the trim, walls and in the treads and risers of a the grand stairway. Artist Hugo Ballin created a "Four Freedoms" mural in Burbank's City Council chambers during World War II, although it was covered up for decades until art aficionados convinced the city to have the mural fully revealed. Ballin's work illustrates the "Four Freedoms" outlined in President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 speech at the signing of the Atlantic Charter
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. It was drafted by Britain and the United States, and later agreed to by all the Allies...
.
In 1996, the City Hall was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, becoming the second building in Burbank to be listed on the register. The first was Burbank's main post office just blocks away from City Hall on Olive Avenue. In 1998, Burbank's state-of-the-art Police/Fire facility opened.
In the state legislature
California State Legislature
The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of California. It is a bicameral body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members...
Burbank is located in the 21st Senate
California State Senate
The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. There are 40 state senators. The state legislature meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The Lieutenant Governor is the ex officio President of the Senate and may break a tied vote...
District, represented by Carol Liu
Carol Liu
Carol Liu is a Democratic politician in the state of California who served in the State Assembly from 2000 until she was termed out in 2006. Liu was elected to succeed termed-out Jack Scott in 2008 to gain entrance to the California State Senate....
, and in the 43rd Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...
District, represented by Mike Gatto
Mike Gatto
Michael Anthony "Mike" Gatto is an American public official. In June 2010, after a series of three elections in eight weeks , the voters of the 43rd Assembly District elected Gatto to the California State Assembly...
. Federally, Burbank is located in California's 27th
California's 27th congressional district
California's 27th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California based in Los Angeles County. The district includes a large portion of the San Fernando Valley and Burbank, as well as the communities of Northridge and Reseda in the Greater Los Angeles Area.The...
and 29th
California's 29th congressional district
California's 29th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California based in Los Angeles County. The district takes in Alhambra, San Gabriel, Burbank, Glendale, South Pasadena, Temple City, Monterey Park, and Pasadena in Greater Los Angeles.The district is...
congressional districts, which have Cook PVIs
Cook Partisan Voting Index
The Cook Partisan Voting Index , sometimes referred to as simply the Partisan Voting Index , is a measurement of how strongly an American congressional district or state leans toward one political party compared to the nation as a whole...
of D +13 and D +12 respectively and are represented by Democrats Brad Sherman
Brad Sherman
Bradley J. "Brad" Sherman is an American politician. He has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1997, representing ....
and Adam Schiff
Adam Schiff
Adam Bennett Schiff is the U.S. Representative for . He has served in Congress since 2001. He is a member of the Democratic Party...
respectively.
Burbank is a Charter City that operates under the City Council-City Manager form of government. In 1927, voters approved the Council-Manager form of government. The five-member City Council is elected for four-year overlapping terms, with the Mayor appointed annually from among the Council. The City Clerk and the City Treasurer are also elected officials.
Burbank is a full-service, independent city, with offices of the City Manager and City Attorney, and departments of Community Development, Financial Services, Fire, Information Technology, Library Services, Management Services, Police, Parks-Recreation & Community Services, Public Works, and Burbank Water and Power (BWP). The first power was distributed within the city limits of Burbank in 1913, supplied then by Southern California Edison Company. Today, the city-owned BWP serves 45,000 households and 6,000 businesses in Burbank with water and electricity. Additionally, the $382-million annual revenue utility offers fiber optic services. Burbank's city garbage pickup service began in 1920; outhouses were banned in 1922.
At the height of California's 2001 energy crisis, BWP unveiled a mini-power plant at its landfill. It marked the world's first commercial landfill power plant using Capstone microturbine technology. Ten microturbines run on naturally occurring landfill gas
Landfill gas
Landfill gas is a complex mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill.-Production:Landfill gas production results from chemical reactions and microbes acting upon the waste as the putrescible materials begins to break down in the landfill...
, producing 300 kilowatts of renewable energy for Burbank. That's enough energy to serve the daily needs of about 250 homes. The landfill is located in the Verdugo Mountains in the northeastern portion of the city.
Most of Burbank's current power comes from the Magnolia Power Project, a 328-megawatt power plant located on Magnolia Boulevard near the Interstate 5
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific Ocean coastline from Canada to Mexico . It serves some of the largest cities on the U.S...
freeway. The municipal power plant, jointly owned by six Southern California cities (Burbank, Glendale, Anaheim. Pasadena, Colton and Cerritos), began generating electricity in 2005. It replaced a 1941 facility that had served the customers of Burbank for almost 60 years.
The Burbank City Council lost a court case in 2000 involving the right to begin meetings with a sectarian prayer. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that prayers referencing specific religions violated the principle of separation of church and state in the First Amendment. While invocations were still allowed, Burbank officials were required to advise all clerics that sectarian prayer as part of Council meetings was not permitted under the Constitution.
Like other California cities, Burbank took a financial hit after Californians passed Proposition 13 in 1977. The city dealt with the ramifications of maintaining service levels expected by the community but with lower tax revenues. As a result, Burbank officials opted to cut some services and implement user fees for specialized services.
Burbank Mayors
| Name | Term |
|---|---|
| Thomas Story | July 13, 1911April 15, 1912 |
| Charles J. Forbes | April 15, 1912 November 16, 1912 |
| Charles H. Kline | November 16, 1912April 20, 1914 |
| Willard A. Blanchard | April 20, 1914April 17, 1922 |
| James C. Crawford | April 17, 1922April 19, 1926 |
| John D. Radcliff | April 19, 1926April 11, 1927 |
| J. T. Lapsley | April 11, 1927April 8, 1929 |
| H. E. Bruce | April 8, 1929April 7, 1931 |
| James L. Norwood | April 7, 1931April 10, 1933 |
| Mark L. Stanchfield | April 10, 1933January 30, 1934 |
| Eugene M. Goss | January 30, 1934March 19, 1934 |
| Frank C. Tillson | March 20, 1934April 14, 1941 |
| Walter R. Hinton | April 14, 1941April 9, 1945 |
| Paul L. Brown | April 9, 1945April 11, 1949 |
| Floyd J. Jolley | April 11, 1949April 9, 1951 |
| Ralph H. Hilton | April 9, 1951January 22, 1952 |
| Walter W. Mansfield | January 22, 1952March 12, 1953 |
| Paul L. Brown | March 12, 1953May 1, 1953 |
| Carl M. King | May 1, 1953August 17, 1954 |
| Earle C. Blais | August 17, 1954January 31, 1956 |
| H. B. “Jerry” Bank | January 31, 1956May 1, 1957 |
| Edward C. Olson | May 1, 1957May 13, 1958 |
| Dallas M. Williams | May 13, 1958May 1, 1959 |
| Earle Wm. Burke | May 1, 1959May 3, 1960 |
| Newell J. Cooper | May 3, 1960May 1, 1961 |
| Dr. Robert F. Brandon | May 1, 1961May 1, 1962 |
| Charles E. Compton | May 1, 1962May 1, 1963 |
| John B. Whitney | May 1, 1963May 5, 1964 |
| Dallas M. Williams | May 5, 1964May 3, 1965 |
| George W. Haven | May 3, 1965May 3, 1966 |
| Robert F. Brandon | May 3, 1966May 1, 1967 |
| Charles E. Compton | May 1, 1967May 7, 1968 |
| John B. Whitney | May 7, 1968May 1, 1969 |
| George W. Haven | May 1, 1969May 5, 1970 |
| Jarvey Gilbert | May 5, 1970April 13, 1971 |
| Robert R. McKenzie | April 13, 1971May 3, 1971 |
| Robert A. Swanson | May 3, 1971May 2, 1972 |
| D. Verner Gibson | May 2, 1972May 1, 1973 |
| Byron E. Cook | May 1, 1973April 30, 1974 |
| Vincent Stefano, Jr. | April 30, 1974May 1, 1975 |
| William B. Rudell | May 1, 1975May 3, 1976 |
| Leland C. Ayers | May 3, 1976May 2, 1977 |
| D. Verner Gibson | May 2, 1977May 2, 1978 |
| Byron E. Cook | May 2, 1978May 1, 1979 |
| E. Daniel Remy | May 1, 1979May 1, 1980 |
| Leland C. Ayers | May 1, 1980May 1, 1981 |
| Robert E. Olney | May 1, 1981May 1, 1982 |
| Mary Lou Howard | May 1, 1982May 1, 1983 |
| Larry L. Stamper | May 1, 1983May 1, 1984 |
| E. Daniel Remy | May 1, 1984May 1, 1985 |
| Mary Lou Howard | May 1, 1985May 1, 1986 |
| Mary E. Kelsey | May 1, 1986May 1, 1987 |
| Michael R. Hastings | May 1, 1987May 2, 1988 |
| Al F. Dossin | May 2, 1988May 1, 1989 |
| Robert R. Bowne | May 1, 1989May 1, 1990 |
| Thomas E. Flavin | May 1, 1990May 1, 1991 |
| Michael R. Hastings | May 1, 1991May 1, 1992 |
| Robert R. Bowne | May 1, 1992May 1, 1993 |
| George Battey, Jr. | May 1, 1993May 1, 1994 |
| Bill Wiggins | May 1, 1994May 1, 1995 |
| Dave Golonski | May 1, 1995May 1, 1996 |
| Bill Wiggins | May 1, 1996May 1, 1997 |
| Bob Kramer | May 1, 1997May 1, 1998 |
| Dave Golonski | May 1, 1998May 1, 1999 |
| Stacey Murphy | May 1, 1999May 1, 2000 |
| Bill Wiggins | May 1, 2000May 1, 2001 |
| Bob Kramer | May 1, 2001Feb. 25, 2002 |
| David Laurell | March 4, 2002May 1, 2002 |
| David Laurell | May 1, 2002May 1, 2003 |
| Stacey Murphy | May 1, 2003May 3, 2004 |
| Marsha Ramos | May 3, 2004May 2, 2005 |
| Jef VanderBorght | May 2, 2005May, 1, 2006 |
| Todd Campbell | May 1, 2006May 1, 2007 |
| Marsha Ramos | May 1, 2007May 1, 2008 |
| Dave Golonski | May 1, 2008May 1, 2009 |
| Gary Bric | May 1, 2009May 3, 2010 |
| Anja Reinke | May 3, 2010May 2, 2011 |
| Jess Talamantes | May 2, 2011Present |
County representation
The Los Angeles County Department of Health ServicesLos Angeles County Department of Health Services
Health services to over 10 million residents in the Los Angeles County are provided by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Mental health services are provided by the County Department of Mental Health...
operates the Glendale Health Center in Glendale
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
, serving Burbank.
Economy
More people work in Burbank each day than live in the city. The combined payroll for all of Burbank's private sector businesses totaled $6.7 billion in 2005, according to the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University-Northridge. In 2005, Burbank employed 125,871 people in the private sector, while the neighboring city of Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
employed 74,149 people, according to CSUN's economic researchers. Burbank's media, entertainment, telecommunications and internet industries dominated the list in employment numbers and payroll, generating a combined $4.2 billion in payroll and accounting for 64,948 positions.
As the figures above show, much of Burbank's economy is based on the entertainment industry. While Hollywood may be a symbol of the entertainment industry, much of the actual production occurs in Burbank. Many companies have headquarters or facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
, NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
, The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (United States)
Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
, Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, Cookie Jar Entertainment
Cookie Jar Entertainment
The Cookie Jar Group is an American and Canadian producer of children’s entertainment, consumer products and educational materials...
, New Wave Entertainment, and Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games, Inc. is an American video game developer headquartered in Burbank, California. Founded in 1994, Insomniac has released titles for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. It created Disruptor, the first three Spyro the Dragon games, and the Ratchet &...
.
Many ancillary companies from Arri
Arri
-History:Arri was founded in Munich, Germany as Arnold & Richter Cine Technik in 1917, named after founders August Arnold and Robert Richter. They produce professional motion picture equipment, digital and film cameras and cinematic lighting equipment...
cameras, to Cinelease, Entertainment Partners, JL Fisher, and Matthews Studio Equipment also maintain a presence in Burbank. Xytech Systems Corporation, a business software and services provider to the entertainment industry, is headquartered in Burbank.
Local IATSE union offices for the Stagehands Local 33, Grips
Grip (job)
In the U.S. and Canada, grips are lighting and rigging technicians in the filmmaking and video production industries. They constitute their own department on a film set and are directed by a key grip. Grips have two main functions...
Local 80, Make-up and Hairstylist Local 706 and Set Painters Local 729 also make their home in Burbank with Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
Local 399, IBEW Local 40 and many other IATSE locals nearby.
Burbank has not been immune to the U.S. economic and housing impacts from the severe recession. City officials prepared for severe cutbacks going into 2009. Burbank's new City Manager, Mike Flad, estimated the city's 2009-10 fiscal budget will suffer a 5% shortfall. For the city's 2010-11 fiscal year, the city projected a deficit of $5.8 million and projected the deficit will remain a problem at least until 2014-15 when it's projected to be $6.9 million. The current budget problems do not appear to compare to the revenue hit the city took in the early 1990s when Burbank was hemorrhaging aerospace jobs after Lockheed left.
California's state budget woes are expected to put more pressure on cities such as Burbank. State lawmakers have proposed eliminating the individual redevelopment agencies, a move that would force cities such as Burbank to eliminate much needed infrastructure projects. Local redevelopment agencies also may be forced to reimburse the state. For example, Burbank Redevelopment Agency could be forced to pay the state nearly $20 million.
As of June 2009, unemployment in the Burbank area stood at around 9.2%, just below the national rate of 9.5% and well below Los Angeles County, according to the state's Employment Development Department. By January 2011, the unemployment rate in Burbank reached 10.7%, up from 10.3% in December 2010, according to EDD.
One bright spot in the otherwise bleak job market was Kaiser Permanente's decision to relocate some administrative offices near the Burbank airport.
Education
Burbank Unified School District
Burbank Unified School District is a school district headquartered in Burbank, California, United States.-High Schools:* Burbank High School* John Burroughs High School* Monterey High School-Middle Schools:* David Starr Jordan Middle School...
. The district was formed on June 3, 1879, following a petition filed by residents S.W. White and nine other citizens. First named the Providencia School District, Burbank's district started with one school house built for $400 on a site donated by Dr. Burbank, the area's single largest landholder. The first schoolhouse, a single redwood-sided building serving nine families, is on what is now Burbank Boulevard near Mariposa Street. In 1887, a new school house was constructed at San Fernando Road and Magnolia Boulevard, which was in Burbank's center of commerce.
In 1908, local citizens passed a bond measure to raise money to build a high school. At the time, Burbank-area high school students were attending schools in Glendale. When it opened on September 14, 1908, the original Burbank High School had 42 students and just two instructors.
Burbank is home to several California Distinguished Schools including the confusingly named Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science.He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 54-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables...
Middle School (see history above). Both its public and private
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
K-12 schools routinely score above state and national average test scores. The largest university in Burbank is Woodbury University
Woodbury University
Woodbury University, founded as "Woodbury Business College", is a private, non-profit, coeducational, nonsectarian university located in Burbank, California.-History:...
. Woodbury has a number of undergraduate and graduate programs, including business, architecture, and a variety of design programs. A number of smaller colleges are also located in Burbank, including several make up and beauty trade schools serving the entertainment industry.
During the early 1920s, Burbank was in the running to become the location for the southern branch of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
campus. Specifically, planners were looking at locating the university in the Ben Mar Hills area near the intersection of Amherst Drive and San Fernando Blvd. The seaside community of Rancho Palos Verdes was another location considered for the new campus. But both sites were eventually passed up when the Janss Investment Company
Janss Investment Company
The Janss Investment Company was a family run, Los Angeles, California, real estate development company that operated from 1895 to 1995.-First generation:...
donated property now known as Westwood to build the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
.
PUC Schools
PUC Schools
PUC Schools is a charter school operator in Greater Los Angeles. It has its headquarters in Burbank. The charter school systems operates schools in northeast Los Angeles and the northeast San Fernando Valley.-Schools:High schools:...
has its administrative offices in Burbank.
The Concordia Schools
The Concordia Schools
The Concordia Schools is a system of K-12 Lutheran schools in the San Fernando Valley region of Greater Los Angeles. The system headquarters are on the property of Concordia Junior Senior High School in Sylmar, Los Angeles.-Schools:...
Concordia Burbank, a K-6 private school, is in the city.
Community organizations
The city of Burbank includes and supports a variety of nonprofit organizations that enhance the quality of life in Burbank. Extremely strong links between local residents, business owners, and government have created a network of organizations that provide support in the areas of education, employment, homeless services, after-school activities, health services, and social services. Local organizations include:- Burbank Tournament of Roses AssociationTournament of Roses ParadeThe Tournament of Roses Parade, better known as the Rose Parade, is "America's New Year Celebration", a festival of flower-covered floats, marching bands, equestrians and a college football game on New Year's Day , produced by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association.The annual...
- The Salvation ArmyThe Salvation ArmyThe Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
of Burbank - Burbank Fire Corps
- The Kiwanis Club of Burbank
- The Burbank Rotary Club
- Burbank Community Health Clinic
- The Elk Lodge of Burbank
- The Burbank Joslyn Adult Center
- The Boys & Girls Club of Burbank
- The Burbank Temporary Aid Center
- Burbank Masonic Lodge
Notable residents
- Tim BurtonTim BurtonTimothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
(b. 1958), film director and producer. The Nightmare Before ChristmasThe Nightmare Before ChristmasThe Nightmare Before Christmas, often promoted as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a 1993 stop motion musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to...
, BeetlejuiceBeetlejuiceBeetlejuice is a 1988 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Burton, produced by The Geffen Film Company and distributed by Warner Bros...
, Edward ScissorhandsEdward ScissorhandsEdward Scissorhands is a 1990 romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter...
, Alice in WonderlandAlice in Wonderland (2010 film)Alice in Wonderland is a 2010 American computer-animated/live action fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton, written by Linda Woolverton, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
. - Glenn Davis (1924–2005), football player. Heisman Trophy winner, special events director, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
- Debbe DunningDebbe DunningDebbe Dunning, sometimes credited as Debra Dunning, is an American actress. A native of Burbank, California, she graduated from John Burroughs High School, the same school her parents graduated from exactly twenty years earlier. She was a cheerleader and her school's Homecoming Queen, also winning...
(b. 1966), actress. Home Improvement, Leprechaun 4: In SpaceLeprechaun 4: In SpaceLeprechaun 4: In Space is a 1997 direct-to-video horror science fiction comedy film directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. It is the fourth film in the series, which began with the 1993 film Leprechaun about an evil leprechaun...
, The Spiral StaircaseThe Spiral Staircase (2000 film)The Spiral Staircase is a 2000 television film remake of the 1946 film The Spiral Staircase based on Ethel Lina White's novel Some Must Watch... - Andrew GoldAndrew GoldAndrew Maurice Gold was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" , as well as the singles "Thank You for Being a Friend" , and "Never Let Her Slip Away" ....
(1951–2011), singer-songwriter, born in Burbank - Ron HowardRon HowardRonald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
(b. 1954), director/actor. The Andy Griffith ShowThe Andy Griffith ShowThe Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
, American GraffitiAmerican GraffitiAmerican Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age film co-written/directed by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford...
, Happy DaysHappy DaysHappy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
. - Mark HarmonMark HarmonMark Harmon is an American actor who has been starring in American television programs and films since the mid-1970s, after a career as a collegiate football player with the UCLA Bruins. Since 2003, Harmon has starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the CBS series NCIS.-Early life:Harmon was born Thomas...
(b. 1951), actor. St. ElsewhereSt. ElsewhereSt. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series is set at fictional St. Eligius, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood...
, Stealing HomeStealing HomeStealing Home is a 1988 movie, starring Mark Harmon, Jodie Foster, Jonathan Silverman, and Harold Ramis. The film is directed by Steven Kampmann and William Porter.-Plot summary:...
, NCISNCIS (TV series)NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S... - Ryan LavarnwayRyan LavarnwayRyan Cole Lavarnway is an American professional baseball catcher with the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball....
(b. 1987), major league baseball catcher (Boston Red SoxBoston Red SoxThe Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
) - Blake LivelyBlake LivelyBlake Christina Lively is an American actress and model who stars as Serena van der Woodsen in the television teen drama series Gossip Girl...
(b. 1987) actor. Gossip GirlGossip GirlGossip Girl is an American young adult novel series written by Cecily von Ziegesar and published by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of the Hachette Group. The series revolves around the lives and romances of the privileged teenagers at the Constance Billard School for Girls, an elite...
, The TownThe TownThe Town is a novel written by Conrad Richter in 1950. It is the third installment of his Awakening Land trilogy. The Trees and The Fields were the earlier installments in the series. The Town was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1951.In September 1966, Alfred A. Knopf reissued the...
, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Elvis & Anabelle - Debbie ReynoldsDebbie ReynoldsDebbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
(b. 1932), actress, singer and dancer. Singin' in the RainSingin' in the RainSingin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
, Two Weeks with LoveTwo Weeks with LoveTwo Weeks with Love is a 1950 romantic musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Roy Rowland, based on story by John Larkin who co-wrote the screenplay with Dorothy Kingsley.Set in the early 1900s, the film focuses on the Robinson family...
, MotherMotherA mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
, The Unsinkable Molly BrownThe Unsinkable Molly BrownThe Unsinkable Molly Brown is a 1964 American musical film directed by Charles Walters. The screenplay by Helen Deutsch is based on the book of the 1960 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown by Richard Morris. The song score was composed by Meredith Willson. The plot is a fictionalized account of the...
. - Ryan ShoreRyan ShoreRyan Shore is a Grammy Award nominated composer for film, television, records and games. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and is the nephew of Academy Award winning composer Howard Shore.-Music career:...
(b. 1974), film composer. PrimePrime (film)Prime is a 2005 American romantic comedy film starring Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep and Bryan Greenberg. It was written and directed by Ben Younger...
, The Girl Next DoorThe Girl Next Door (2007 film)The Girl Next Door is a 2007 horror film adaptation of the 1989 novel of the same name by Jack Ketchum. The film is loosely based on true events surrounding the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Gertrude Baniszewski during the summer of 1965.-Plot:...
, Cabin Fever 2 - Anton YelchinAnton YelchinAnton Viktorovich Yelchin is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis...
(b. 1989), actor. Alpha DogAlpha DogAlpha Dog is a 2007 crime drama film written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, first screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2006, with a wide release the following year on January 12, 2007. The film is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas...
, Star Trek, Terminator SalvationTerminator SalvationTerminator Salvation is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by McG and starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. The fourth installment in the Terminator series, the film is set in 2018 and focuses on the war between Skynet and humanity, with the human Resistance fighting...
In popular culture
With several national television shows produced in Burbank, the City is routinely referenced.Burbank is home to Warner Brothers Studios.