Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles
Sunland-Tujunga /təˈhʌŋɡə/ is a Los Angeles city neighborhood within the Crescenta Valley and Verdugo Mountains.[1] Sunland and Tujunga began as separate settlements and today are linked through a single police station, branch library, neighborhood council, chamber of commerce, city council district, and high school.[2] The merging of these communities under a hyphenated name goes back as far as 1928.[3] Sunland-Tujunga contains the highest point of the city, Mount Lukens.
For the Native American village, see Tuyunga, California.
Sunland-Tujunga
Geography[edit]
Setting[edit]
The neighborhood lies between the Verdugo Hill Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains. It is contiguous on the east with La Crescenta-Montrose. Sunland and Tujunga are divided by Mount Gleason Avenue, with Sunland on the west and Tujunga on the east. Mount Lukens, located within Tujunga, is the highest point in Los Angeles, at 5,074 ft (1,547 m).[4][5]
History[edit]
Pre-colonial and Mexican eras[edit]
Sunland and Tujunga were originally home to the Tongva people. In 1840, the area was part of the Rancho Tujunga Mexican land grant, but later developers marked off a plot of land known as the Tejunga Park, or the Tujunga Park Tract.[11][12] The name "Tujunga" (or Tuxunga) is assumed to have meant "old woman's place" in the Fernandeño language, a dialect of the extinct Tongva language, where tuxu, "old woman", is a term for Mother Earth in Tongva mythology.[13] The term is thought to relate to an ethnohistoric narrative, known as Khra'wiyawi, collected by Carobeth Laird from Juan and Juana Menendez at the Leonis Adobe in 1916. In the narrative, the wife of Khra'wiyawi (the chief of the region) is stricken with grief over the untimely loss of her daughter. In her sadness, she retreats to the mountains and turns to stone. It is this event that is thought to be the basis for the village name. [14] In fact, a large rock in Little Tujunga Canyon looks like an old woman in a sitting position.[15]
Parks and recreation[edit]
Sunland Park was originally known as Monte Vista Park.
The Haines Canyon Park in Tujunga is an undeveloped park used for brush clearance. It is open to visitors from dawn to dusk; however, the Los Angeles Park Department said that it does not recommend the park for public
use.[97]
The Sunland Recreation Center serves as a police department stop-in center. It has a 250-seat gymnasium that is also used as an auditorium. In addition, the facility has a lighted baseball diamond, lighted outdoor basketball courts, a children's play area, a community room, a lighted athletic field, picnic tables, and tennis courts. Annual events there include the Easter Carnival and the Watermelon Carnival in mid-August.[98] In addition, the Verdugo Mountain Park is east of central Sunland and south of La Tuna Canyon Road.[99]
Howard Finn Park, named after the city council member who died in 1986, is a 2-acre (8,100 m2) park opened in late 1990 behind the Sunland-Tujunga Municipal Building.[100]
Fehlhaber-Houk Park was built at the northwest corner of Tujunga Canyon Boulevard and Elmhurst Drive on a 1.2-acre (4,900 m2) vacant lot donated by brother and sister J.L. Houk and Elizabeth Swanson in 1975. The parcel had been part of a 58-acre (230,000 m2) ranch owned by Raymond and Irene Fehlhaber.[101]
Media[edit]
The Sunland-Tujunga area is served by the newspapers the Voice, the Foothill Record, the North Valley Reporter, and the Crescenta Valley Weekly.
Filming location[edit]
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was filmed in some parts of Tujunga, including the house in which Elliot lived. Portions of Corvette Summer starring Mark Hamill were filmed at Verdugo Hills High School.
In the past, Ben-Hur raced his chariot in Big Tujunga Canyon, and Lancaster Lake (now long since gone) adjacent to Sunland Park was home to Tarzanwhich? in the jungle hunk's first silver screen epics. All The King's Menwhich?, Mildred Pierce, The Birth of a Nation, Meet John Doe, The Craft, Ernest Goes to Camp, and River's Edge (1986, with Keanu Reeves) are a few of the numerous films shot in Sunland-Tujunga.[106]
Also, parts of Teen Wolf and Sons of Anarchy were shot there.[107]
The Travel Inn, located on Foothill Blvd in Tujunga, is one of the filming locations for both Seven Pounds and Memento.[108]
A CHiPs episode of season five (1981) was filmed at the Foothill Blvd and Mather Avenue intersection.
Nearby communities, cities or areas
Other articles
Organizations
Other