Ventura Boulevard runs continuous low stucco storefronts under queen palms, and the Galleria corner where Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Valley Girl shot their mall scenes.
What Sherman Oaks looks like
Ventura Boulevard is the commercial spine of the neighborhood, one and two storey stucco storefronts set behind queen palms and a center turn lane. Roll down security gates and canvas awnings cover most ground floor shops, with painted signs and a few surviving neon pole signs above them. Two glass office towers rise where the boulevard meets Sepulveda, the only break in an otherwise low skyline.
keeps its 1937 streamline moderne facade and marquee at 14626 Ventura Boulevard, though the auditorium behind it was replaced by a retail building. , a few blocks west, has sold cars from the same streamline moderne showroom since 1949. Both keep a period front on a boulevard that is otherwise one and two storey postwar storefronts.
South of the boulevard, streets climb into the Sherman Oaks Hills, where mid century houses and larger newer houses are terraced into the slope for valley views. On , seventeen Platform Houses sit on slender steel posts over the canyon, each with a full width balcony facing out.
At Sepulveda, the Galleria is now an open air shopping center built around the surviving theater court of the enclosed mall it replaced. , a Mexican restaurant at 13301 Ventura Boulevard, has kept its dark dining room and red vinyl booths since 1956.
Shot in Sherman Oaks
Buffy the Vampire Slayer shot a basketball game and a motorcycle chase at 14612 Ventura Boulevard. Valley Girl used a storefront at 14543 Ventura Boulevard, a few doors from the Galleria, as a health food store. The same film shot a date scene at Casa Vega. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood shot two more scenes at Casa Vega. One dressed it as a restaurant near Almeria, Spain. The other, at the film's end, played it as itself.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982
Played Ridgemont Mall, 1982
The enclosed mall here played the fictional Ridgemont Mall in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, its food court and stores worked by the film's whole cast. Valley Girl shot the same building's exterior and escalators the next year, ending on a limo pulling onto the freeway outside. That 1980 mall was demolished down to its theater court and rebuilt as the open air center standing on the corner today. Street View
What Sherman Oaks can double for
El Camino Real in San Mateo, California
El Camino Real has the same low stucco storefront strip as Ventura Boulevard, one and two storeys behind a center turn lane. Both were rezoned for continuous commercial frontage in the same postwar decades. San Mateo's palms sit shorter and more widely spaced than Sherman Oaks queen palms, and hills sit farther back from the road. Try searching stucco storefront strip now.
Camelback Road in Phoenix, Arizona
Camelback Road runs the same kind of stucco storefronts and center turn lane, with mountains at its western end much like the Santa Monica Mountains at Ventura Boulevard's southern end. Nothing there has the same run of vintage neon pole signs. Camelback's palms are shorter and its curb parking reads differently, so a tight storefront frame works better than a wide street shot. Try searching stucco storefronts center turn lane now.
Miracle Mile in Coral Gables, Florida
Miracle Mile keeps the same low two storey storefront scale along a palm lined sidewalk, though its buildings run to Mediterranean stucco arches rather than Ventura's plain postwar boxes. A wide frame would need to avoid the fountain plaza at its center. The pastel colonnades and arcaded sidewalks are a giveaway in anything but a tight storefront crop. Try searching two storey palm lined storefronts now.
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