On the Brink of the 1960s

Hedda Hopper tapes a “Ben-Hur” segment with Stephen Boyd, Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Novarro, but not Charlton Heston. Los Angeles officials struggle once more to deal with congested streets. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: Traffic in Los Angeles is 100-year-old problem.

Dec. 30, 1959:  “Americans came to the end of the 1950s with more of everything, more wealth, more cars, more schools and churches, more gadgets, more babies--and more self-doubt--than ever before. “A vague shadow of uneasiness spread across the land. “ ‘There is an overwhelming feeling here that somehow we have lost our way,’ wrote James Reston, Washington correspondent of the New York Times. ‘Nobody seems to know just how or why. But everybody feels that something's wrong.’ ”