Which City Would You Like to Visit in The 40's??

None of those people filmed ever thought that I would see them 80 years later on my hand held computer

This is the closest thing to time travel we might ever experience. Beautiful

It’s astounding how slowly and calmly folks drove back then, I wish drivers today had that same patience

I grew up in California during the 40's and 50's. It was a good time and I still love California.

Let’s just appreciate the random person who decided to film a drive through a town for 8 uninterrupted minutes of history

i like how everything is clean - no traffic jams - people are driving slower then they should... everything seems so chill and relaxed

40's California Dreamin >>>>> 2020's California nightmare.

What a great look into the past! Having grown up in SoCal, specifically Newport Beach, I was able to recognize a lot. First segment is Balboa Fun Zone area, that’s Balboa Blvd then pans towards Palm street where you would get onto the Ferry. Second segment is 101 Fwy then transition to 101 NB thru that tunnel. I’ve gone that route 100’s of times. It’s still the same!! 3rd segment is the view of the Balboa Island bridge, then pans right towards the cliffs and up Jamboree road towards PCH. Probably wasn’t called Jamboree back then. Jamboree was named from the Boy Scout Jamboree held in Newport in 1953, on land that is now Fashion Island. To the left of Jamboree, the bluffs are where Promontory Point apartments are now, and the land below it is a shopping center now. It was a SAFEWAY (now Pavilions) and a bank at the other end next to Jamboree. The rest was filled in with little shops. Bayside drive was the intersection there. Looked like most people as today did rolling stops thru Stop signs!!😂

L.A Noire really captured the vibe of LA during this time, just magnificent!

It's interesting how the addition of color makes the 40s seem not so far removed from the present day, or somehow easier to conceptualize or more tangible. The effect of seeing old film in black and white on the other hand enshrines it in the past - makin it unquestionably of a different time and place. Nice work!

Always found it amazing that someone thought it would be important to make films like these back then. Such a treasure! 🎉

This is one of those videos where you just have to drop everything you were doing and just stare in awe as you watch from beginning to the end. There is just something fascinating about watching old footage in color. It really makes you feel more connected with the people in the past, makes you think that yeah, just like you living right now, there were people living their everyday lives 80, 100, 200... years ago, and that It's not just a random black&white footage.

You have to take a moment to appreciate the people who captured these videos and the people like NASS who went through the efforts of finding them and giving us literally a snapshot of time from the 1940s. ♥

This may be your best one yet, it's the next best thing to a time machine

This is truly incredible and hard to believe! Lived in SoCal 45 years. I felt completely at home from the first day. I was 23. Newport Beach was so pristine. Lived in Corona Del Mar, and I surely wish I could have seen it then! Thanks for posting this piece of history. It made me cry! We love LA ... and every inch of Southern California,,,,,!

The only thing missing from the sound effects is the sound of STICK SHIFTS in all the cars. Shifting gears all the time as you pick up from a stop. I remember it well from the early 50s when I was a very little kid. All the cars left the stop at different speeds as everyone shifted through the gears, and I heard their engines alternately roar and quiet as they fed the gas pedal between gear shifts.

5:04 the fact that those kids would now be in their 80's and 90's, if even alive, is mind-blowing. To see something so close to real life, yet so far from it. It's truly an experience in itself.

One of the “cleanest” colorized videos I’ve ever seen. Good job!

My father would of been about 14 then ..Passed at 95 ❤️..Mother still going at 93 tough as old boot leather 👍

In Huntington Beach CA , they drilled a lot of oil wells. There was such a low number of people living in southern California that they could build the housing for the well workers right next to where they were working. I lived in one of those old places last summer. There was an well head right out side the front door. And the beach was across the street 30 yards away.

I love how if you see it in color, you feel like you're there, but if its not, its just simply a memory

I can't believe how clean LA looked! So amazing. It wasn't crowded and none of the downtown buildings we see today were there. This is what my grandmother described to me. I imagine that this is what it looked like shortly after she bought her house there. I wish things had of stayed that way. Thanks for sharing this awesome drive before my time.

It must have been perfection to live in California back then. It was so beautiful and so few people.

I love how the people of this era dressed "up" to go anywhere. They took pride in how they presented themselves and the way they represented their families. So beautiful! ( Wouldn't they cringe at a Walmart visit w the people in PJs and some in, let's just say costumes)

What’s craziest to me is seeing someone walking along the side of the road, living their life. To think that that was 80 years ago and that they lived their whole life between them and now, thinking about what their life was like then, what they were doing that day, where they were walking, what they were thinking about, etc is all so mind bending. And to think 80 years from now is 2100….

It's always interesting to see the world as my great grandparents would've seen it. Makes me wonder what they were doing at these exact moments

Wow, that was SO cool. I’ve been transported back in time. I wasn’t around in the ‘40s but it makes me feel nostalgic. So few cars on the roads and cars driving much slower. Fabulous cars. Thanks for posting. ❤

Amazing footage. Even when driving into LA at 3:00am which I occasionally do, do I see the kind of traffic levels shown here. This is what it SHOULD be like driving in. Interesting to know that even in the 40's folks were doing "Californian stops" at stop signs!

Oil wells right at the beach! Crazy California. Beautiful restoration.

80 years and still a better camera than our security cameras today.

0:50 I take this freeway often to get to work. Looks remarkably different but still familiar, especially that little tunnel to merge heading north. The lack of traffic on that freeway is mind boggling. There was no way to predict how reliant we would be on cars.

Masterpiece. Thanks to the person who was filming this back then & thanks to you for this beauty.

Its amazing seeing this and realising just how accurate the video game L.A Noire is.

It be real cool if you could do a then and now drive through. I’d love to see how these areas have changed over the decades.

Wow! I watch a lot of these 1940s and 50s videos, and this is the first time I spotted a backyard INCINERATOR! When I was a little kid in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, we had a backyard incinerator. My mother burned all our trash that wasn’t metal in the incinerator - boxes, egg cartons, egg shells, coffee grinds, food waste, dog poop, even wooden boxes - I can still picture all that stuff burning in the incinerator in our backyard, and I remember the odor. We moved to the suburbs when I was 4, and no more incinerator. I don’t know exactly when people stopped using them, but I am sure they added greatly to air pollution with everyone burning their trash in the backyard in cities instead of putting the can out for the trash collector to pick up. That’s wild. I haven’t seen one of those in 67 years!

Thank you for your excellent work. The care taken in the layering of sound is particularly wonderful I think, because it's practically unnoticeable - It just seems so real and such a natural accompaniment to the picture. Outstanding! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AMAZING!! To those that don't know at 2:25 that white narrow building on the left is LA city hall and it looks the same to this day. That curving tunnel before you see city hall is also the same accept it looks terribly old. This recording is pure gold👌 I greatly appreciate this upload. Los Angeles looks its age now when you take the same drive.

I love footage like this especially cleaned up to this extent... It's almost like peering thru a window back in time... You can almost feel like you are looking in at the world of a different time.

This is incredible. I was born and raised here in southern California and know some of these areas. That clip of driving into los Angeles blew my mind. 2 lanes and hardly anyone there. Paradise! Now it's 4 lanes each side and a million cars moving 3 mph...HELL!

Absolutely amazing. Literally like going back in time!

Born in 45. Grew up in Long Beach. I truly miss those days.

Yet another great video, NASS! And even though you gave some info in the comments, I was able to find some more specific locations for part of it. The footage beginning at 2:49 is located in Newport Beach and the camera is on the southeast corner of Bayside Drive and Marine Avenue. The film begins looking south on Marine Avenue. You can see the bridge crossing the Balboa Bay - North Channel to Balboa Island. Some of the facades of houses to the right of the bridge can still be seen little changed today on Street View - the fourth house on the right, above the white car, still has the same roofline, with a tiny triangular gable right at the top. The house to its right is basically unchanged, and you can see Onyx Avenue to its right with the same vintage streetlamp there today. The camera then swings west to north, crossing Bayside Drive at 3:05 and shows the bluffs that were still undeveloped on Historic Aerials in 1963. The cars then ascend to the north side of Bayside - once it crosses Bayside, Marine Avenue becomes Jamboree Road starting at 3:16 where you can still see the bluffs on today's Street View. Jamboree Road intersects with Pacific Coast Highway just 1/4 of a mile north of Bayside and from there you travel to L. A., Huntington Beach and Long Beach. The directional sign was what clued me in - it shows that Los Angeles, Huntington Beach and Long Beach are straight ahead from Bayside, so therefore the cross-street shown at 3:05 can't be Pacific Coast Highway. Also, the sign shows Corona Del Mar going what would be east, in a different direction than the others, and is one mile away, so this is the correct location. Coordinates are: 33.610324, -117.889829 if you want to check it out.

I'm on a trip through time. I started with videos from the 1900's. Then 1910's. Then 20's. Then 30's. And now I'm here. Pretty cool.

California then and now. Like heaven and hell.

I love how everybody drives slow and they don't mind it one bit.

Your enhancement of these videos is amazing. You make them so immersive that I feel like I’m there. Your sound engineering is great too.

This film is amazingly beautiful and I am transformed in time, thank you for this marvelous colorization and sounds that are perfectly in synch!!!!

Thank you for taking us back to a bye-gone era! It was truly awesome!

What I love about this is it reflects that reality they mostly avoid in movies because it flattens everything - that intense and bleaching noon sun power, that reaches right into the back of your eyeballs, some days in LA: that pure, dry and fierce, mid-day California light.....Watching this, I felt pure heat on my face and neck, my throat got dry, and the image of an ice cold root beer with a question mark next to it, floated into my mind. Just beautiful.

It's interesting to see the homes among the industrial oil fields. Also, a car runs the stop sign at 3:28. Some things never change :-). Fun video!

My jaw is on the floor. This is basically time travel. I’m legit blown away. So beautiful. I wish things were this simple and innocent still.

I very much enjoyed time traveled back. Thank you for sharing ☺️

Man, those cars look just absolutely amazing, beautiful deep curves, bright and really different colors. Wish the 40s-50s era style of car would come back, everything was so unique

Respect to those who traveled back in time to record this in colorul HD 😘

Yet another beautiful piece of work by NASS! Very high quality.

This is GREAT thanks for posting!

That narrow street part with all the oil rigs is likely what is now Seashore Drive in Newport Beach. There was one frame that had a street sign, but it was too small to read. The houses today sit next to the street just like in the video. Love this view into LA's past!

0:41 The first part is the Babloa Peninsula in Newport Beach. The side street gives way to Balboa Boulevard, then there are very short streets that dead-end to the beach. 100% positive at 2:27 that is Los Angeles City Hall and the Spring Street Courthouse. 100% positive 2:52 is the south end of the 55 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway - the current south-bound hilled off-ramp that takes you onto PCH. There are not a lot of hills in that area, and the small bridge shown goes over a modern-day canal. You can also see the sign pointing to Corona Del Mar which is to the left of view and would be PCH south-bound . 3:52 EDIT: Split consensus: The last section might be Long Beach. There were a lot of oil rigs in the area, it is clearly along the coast but the key is you can see a tall hill in the background which is likely modern-day Signal Hill. Some say it's Playa Del Rey, another coastal area that has a hill nearby.

Wonderful..I miss California. I was stationed at Ft Ord just as it was closing in 1993. I went overseas with the army and never have been back. I have good memories there

this stuff is always so fascinating, i could watch it like a marathon

I'd give up all the luxuries today to go back to these times. In a heartbeat.

I recognized Balboa right away, the Fun Zone gave it away! I worked on the Newport pier as a teen. That is the best colorization I have seen in a long time. LA was easy to pick up on too. What a great ride-along!!!

This is the most impressive restored footage I have ever seen. Impressive work!

incredible roads and infra in the 40s itself! wow, really well made!

I gotta admit, California in the 40's looks like it was a paradise

This is as close as you can get to a time machine. Kudos to the editing! Great sound and color. It feels more like a memory being played by those sci-fi machines from comics in those days.

You did such a beautiful job with this!!!

I love these videos, it's like seeing in front of you a world that no longer extist

And 80 years later…. Truly amazing and mesmerising

I always love seeing these old films of my city, it’s exciting to see landmarks I know, freeways as they once were, and I enjoy trying to guess the locations. Very cool!

That was frickin cool!....Colorized and great imagery made this feel like yesterday even though it was decades before I was born. In this respect it shows how much the same we really are.

Wow that was cleaned and beautiful.❤

I wouldn't know, I'm 22. But seems like these were simpler times or at least that's the feeling this video gave me, would be super awesome to go back in time and experience this for real.

Stunning work here - these are SO important to keep, and so enjoyable to watch.

Thanks for sharing these wonderful images!

I recognize the drive from East LA into downtown. The Friedman Bag Company building is still here! I loved it as a kid, those towers on top were painted different colors and I enjoyed seeing them. What are they for, ventilation? The houses at the beach haven’t changed much. We are still living in them today! Loved this time travel to the past. Thank you

Saludos desde Argentin. Me encanta ver esto videos. Tengo 50 años y ver estas imagnes, me hace pensar que no nos damos cuenta, que antes de nostros habia gente, hermanos que ya estaban haciendo historia y un camino, para que las siguientes generaciones disfruten lo que hoy se tiene. Si no hibieran existido los anteriores, nosotros no existiriamos y deberiamos dar las gracias a Dios y a ellos, por estar hoy donde estamos. Bendiciones a todos. Excelentes videos.

What a great time to be alive around then. No smartphones, no influencers at any streetcorner. No huge traffic jams, no ghetto's, no unaffordable houses. Just the good life, I would trade my life in this era any day to live in the era from the 40s to 70s.

Keep posting these videos, so many memories

So peaceful. I wonder why.. :D

I moved to Los Angeles about 30 years after this was filmed in 1972. How different it was by then. Moved away 30 years ago in 1992. How different it is now is amazing !! Great job restoring this. Much of it looks like it was filmed recently !!

The quality of the movie is abolutely stunning. Watching it is like you are actually in it.

This was great! I didn't realize that Ca., had oil fields on the beach! I felt like I was in the car driving along the highway. This is wonderful! All those people in the background all long deceased, and all that open property along Huntington Beach with sand dunes was spectacular. The 4 way, just tooting a horn to let someone know you were going across, no stop signs! WOW! This video impressed me!

It’s like a looking out of the window of a Time Machine, so cool!

This is beyond fabulous. I previously had no idea family dwellings existed right atop the oil wells!

I feel like I literally went back in time. I think this is the closest I’ll get to a Time Machine.AMAZING !!!!!!!! Thanks for your hard work and posting this masterpiece.👍🏽

amazing feels like the video was taken yesterday!

To think how far not only CA but the United State as a whole has fallen, really makes my heart mourn

I lived in SoCal all my life, and the 1940’s version of Orange County looks like a peek into another world.

Awesome video thanks for the restoration

The oil wells are like right next to homes. That's crazy! Love this video ❤

Incredible footage! At 2:45 you can clearly see a Pacific Electric Railway "Big Red Car" ahead of the white Ford the camera car is trailing. Both vehicles are heading west on Aliso Street, about to pass the south side of Los Angeles Union Station before the railcar turns south onto San Pedro Street and eventually end its trip at the railroad's main terminal at the southeast corner of Sixth and Main streets. When Aliso Street was turned into the westward extension of the 101 freeway through Downtown L.A., Pacific Electric lost its only easterly route into and out of Downtown (despite having paid a portion of the cost to rebuild the Aliso Street viaduct over the river just a decade or so earlier), prompting the company to end all passenger rail service to Pasadena, Monrovia, Glendora, and the rest of the San Gabriel Valley.

People walking, no traffic, beautiful Californian sun. Wish we can go back in time and live there.

"On the 101 freeway, we pass through a tunnel, and we see a HUGE chimney." On the left (south) side of the bag factory were big natural gas storage tanks. They were bladder-like affairs that rose and fell with the change in gas pressure as it was used. Before the tunnel there is a sign, "Ramona Parkway," an offramp to which is now the San Bernardino (I10) freeway going to the east. Just before that in the video was Boyle Heights on the right, and on the left, not visible, an area on the left known as Flats, which was demolished and replaced with a public housing development around this time. Thanks for the effort done with this movie!

The last footage of driving through Houses and oil wells is where I spent most of my childhood. To run across this is simply amazing. The neighborhood now is called the Marina Del Rey Peninsula. South of Washington Blvd. in Venice. Road was (is) called Speedway. Race cars ran there in the early 1920's . My family moved there in 1965. More houses had been torn down by then and just a few small wells were still pumping. The huge houses on the sand were empty or just flop houses. Every thing in the area was rusting and decayed. Great [;ace for kids to grow up in. And the beach itself was fantastic and usually empty. I wish I could return. This helped. Thanks

Thank you so much for those fantastic feel-good videos. Whenever I am stressed out, I watch one or two and I feel better about the world. ❤😊

What's funny is, that what we consider modern day today, will also be looked at the same way 80 years from now! Time really does fly! Enjoy your lives people, because we do not get to stay here very long! Great video of the now long past!

I love watching these old films! It's like going back in time!

I'm stuck on thinking how those areas look today. It would be very interesting to play a video of these same areas now next to this video you've posted in a split screen way. Thanks for what you've done.