The Bi-Coastal Times: J-ville to LA: My Sunbelt Mother Road

About Bi-Coastal Times Sunbelt Correspondent Steve Brodeur

Los Angeles writer Steve Brodeur is a native of Jacksonville, Florida, the last exit off the Santa Monica Freeway East.

Jacksonville, as Brodeur has reported in detail, was in the decades prior to the birth of Hollywood the defacto "Hollywood" East, the first center for theatrical film production all year around. With over two dozen silent film studios in operation at its peak, J-ville was Jurassic Hollywood.

More than half a century later, Brodeur would start his professional career as a journalist - and dinner theatre critic - on his hometown morning daily, The Florida Times-Union.

In the gathering twilight of the 70's Brodeur packed his belongings into his MGB and took the I-10 west out of J-ville. The interstate southern route to LA, with a single sign at the end of the trail in Santa Monica proclaiming it, The Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. His sunbelt Mother Road.

Brodeur has been based in LA since the day he first drove in on the Santa Monica Freeway West, arriving on or about the 4th of July 1978.

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