Throwback Thursday, Week 2: The ‘Southern Campus’ moves westward

I was on the roof of Kerckhoff Hall yesterday, and I just had to take the chance to look at how UCLA developed. It was hard to imagine that when UCLA moved to Westwood in 1929, there was no Bruin Walk, no grassy hills besides Janss Steps and I probably would have be able to see Beverly (now Sunset) Boulevard.

UCLA came to Westwood wanting more. It came wanting to accommodate its students and to grow as university independent of its older sibling in Berkeley.

On March 21, 1925, the University of California Board of Regents decided to move its Southern Branch on Vermont Avenue into what was known as the Beverly Site. It was probably the biggest piece of news a Daily Bruin (the California Grizzly, at the time) reporter could have dreamed of writing about.

The regents took months surveying potential sites for the future home of what would be UCLA, including Fullerton, Chino, Riverside, Pasadena, Burbank and more locations. They ultimately opted to go to with what brothers Edwin and Harold Janss offered: Westwood.

An article from March 24, 1925 said the regents chose the Beverly Site in part because it was secluded from the rest of the city, but still accessible to city life. The regents felt they had to choose a location that would not distract students from their studies.

Los Angeles also stood out to the regents because they felt there was need for a great university in a metropolitan area and almost 90 percent of the students at the Southern Branch went there because it was in the city.

The move was something all of campus anticipated. Then-director of the Southern Branch Ernest Moore said three days following the regents’ decision that they had done what was best for the 5,627-student college to grow and fulfill the mission that they had committed to when the Southern Branch started six years ago.

Even the Grizzly’s editorial board at the time thought that the decision would help the Southern Branch become one of the most renowned universities in the world.

“Those members of the student body of the Southern Branch … have exerted their best efforts to see that this institution will be the principal unit of the future educational center of the world – Los Angeles,” the board said.

The regents therefore bought the 385-acre plot of land from the Janss brothers, of which 100 acres would be used for athletic purposes, according to another article from the same date.

The same article included a graphic showing the new campus in relation to the rest of the city – it was a 35-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles and a 20-minute drive from Hollywood.

What was an endless world of possibilities is now a set-in-stone reality. In September 1929, UCLA opened its doors in Westwood with its four original buildings: Royce Hall, Powell Library, Haines Hall and the Humanities building. Soon thereafter came Moore Hall and Kerckhoff Hall, and the rest is history.

The Grizzly’s editorial board had incredible foresight about UCLA becoming one of the best universities in the world. UCLA had the faculty; students had the ability to expand UCLA with minimal restraints.

It took UCLA 90 years to fully develop its land, building a world-renowned hospital, luxurious residence halls and state-of-the-art research facilities.