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Downey audio report by Adolfo Guzman – Lopez 89.3 KPCC Radio Reporter
And
Jerry Blackburn
(? Speaker) A page in Southern California Aerospace History turned last month, NASA transferred it over to the City, the plant in Downey, that turned out, the Apollo Space Craft, and parts of the Space Shuttle. The 160 acre site will be the new home for a complex of movie sound studios, stores, a hospital, and a museum, focusing on the sites role of air and space exploration, KPCC Adolfo Guzman – Lopez, took a tour of the site.
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) 80 years ago the site was a caster bean farm next to orange groves, but since than the plant, owned by NASA, since the 1960’s has seen everything from Barn Stormmer to Space Shuttles, and housed companies from North American Aviation to Rockwell, and Boeing, in fact doing the Rockwell era the Apollo Command Modular was assembled here.
(Jerry Blackburn) The one that looks like a big Hershey kiss. That was the Vehicle that came in here…
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) Jerry Blackburn had top secret clearance at the plant.
(Jerry Blackburn) It came in, in pieces and components as set assemblies and then it would go….
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) …Assembly line was flooded with lights and Engineers walking around in so called bunny suits to avoid contamination. He said the space race made workers fill anything was possible. But today the electricity is shut off in the Cabinets room and things aren’t as clean and well lighted as they use to be.
(Jerry Blackburn) When, …when I look at this room, …mentally I can see the days when,..a.. their were people all over the place and hardware, …and… bright lights from the ceiling and so forth, and so now its, its like visiting a… maybe a home that you had live in all your childhood, and now its vacant and you walk through and you can smell the,..you know the dust and the mold….
(? Speaker) 7, 6, 5, we have main engine start 3, 2, 1, lift off…..
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) Blackburn remembers most of the Space Shuttle Launches too. That’s because parts of the Discovery were assembled here, after the Apollo program was cancelled.
(? Speaker) Tower clear the Vehicle now turning around to the proper….
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) Blackburn’s retired now but he’s researching the plants history for a new museum that will be at the site. He points to one of the oldest buildings a 1929 brick structure designed by the Architect of Hoover Dam and the Santa Anita Race Track.
(Jerry Blackburn) This area you see here where the trees are along the fence here back in the early Aircraft days they used to have a small stage and a boxing ring there and the story that I was told by some of the old aircraft employees is that doing lunch hour they used to come out here and have boxing matches I don’t know if they were using that to resolve management differences or if it was just the sport and the fun of it….
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) Jerry Blackburn says the depression was tough on early aircraft builder in southern California, only at the beginning of World War II did The Vultee Aircraft Corporation then based at the site benefit from President Franklin Roosevelt Pledge.
(President Franklin Roosevelt) The United States must build Planes …and Tanks …and Guns …and Ships, to the up most limit …of our national capacity. We must raise our sites all …along …the production line.
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) And in deed the Downey plant was the first to employ Rose the “Riveter” and other female aircraft workers. The war ended and things slowed at the facility, even as housing grow up around it. But President Kennedy’s call to put a man on the moon got the plants assembly line rolling again at full steam.
(Jerry Blackburn) Right about here, on this spot,… is where Ronald Regan came in and spoke to all of the employees in the facility….
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) Doing that speech a Rockwell worker asked if the President was going to increase the space budget. (?unknown person) didn’t give a definite yes. The plant closed four years ago after Boeing moved operations to Huntington Beach. Today the site is not entirely empty, film crews build sets here and shoots scenes for films such as Terminator III and Catch Me If You Can.
(Jerry Blackburn) With people back on the site doing things and creating things especially something new and different which it should be, we’ve had our time from the Aerospace side, now it’s time for…
(Adolfo Guzman – Lopez) So far he found photographs signed by Astronauts, Video tapes, models and reams of reports, while it was open Blackburn says most people even those living across the street didn’t know what went on here, but soon he ads, their learn once and for all how significant that work was. In Downey Adolfo Guzman – Lopez 89.3 KPCC.
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