[Aliska]

Richard and Karen Carpenter lived in Downey when they got their start in the music business. Maybe they ate there. Richard is still alive and living in Thousand Oaks so maybe he is on the conservation committee.

One problem is I think I read somewhere that the first home the Carpenter family purchased and lived in after they moved from New Haven, CT, was demolished for some urban development project, maybe a freeway.

Time marches on. America has demolished a lot of the old heritage in the name of progress. Fortunately some still remains. Europe has managed to modernize and preserve much of the Old World charm.

[Vendome]

He might have eaten there but, no way she did...

[PJ-Comix]

Richard and Karen Carpenter lived in Downey when they got their start in the music business. Maybe they ate there.

Karen Carpenter was just one beef burrito away from still being alive.

[Fiji Hill]

Downey was also the site of Downey Records. The biggest hit to come out of the studio at Wenzel's Music Town, a record store at Lakewood and Gardendale was Pipeline by the Chantays, in 1963.

By the late 1970's, Wenzel's Music Town was specializing in collectible records and became well-known to collectors throughout the Southland until it closed in the 1990's.

[chrisinoc]

The Carpenters’ father used to shop at the now abandoned Gemco on Florence in northeast Downey as they lived nearby.

Their first home was in the general area as my family's home in southern Downey and was taken out by the Century Freeway.

The Carpenters attended Long Beach State (just before me) and have the Performing Arts Center named after them.

[Robert A Cook PE]

“The McDonald’s #1 Store Museum is housed in a replica of the former McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, opened by Ray Kroc in April 1955. The company usually refers to this as The Original McDonald’s, although it is not the first McDonald’s restaurant but the ninth; the first was opened by Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California, in 1940, while the oldest McDonald’s still in operation is the third one built, in Downey, California, which opened in 1953. However, the Des Plaines restaurant marked the beginning of future CEO Kroc’s involvement with the firm. “

So Downey has several famous places.

[Dr. Sivana]

Time marches on. America has demolished a lot of the old heritage in the name of progress.

The first Taco Bell is not exactly the Old North Church in terms of heritage.

[jttpwalsh]

I used to work at the Anaheim Theme Park. One of my co workers was from Downey. He told a story about coming home from work on the swing shift, and stopping off at Alpha Beta (Remember them?) and running into Richard Carpenter in the frozen foods aisle. How surreal/cool must that have been ?

[chrisinoc]

I will take a guess why the Carpenters moved from their first Downey home: that part of Downey was in the Paramount Unified School District which meant they would have gone to Paramount HS and not Downey or Warren HS, which had a better reputation at the time.