CALIFORNIA FILMING LOCATIONS BACK TO THE FUTURE BURGER KING VICTORY BOULEVARD - DESENMASCARANDO LAS FALSAS DOCTRINAS

Los Angeles plays host to many of the locations from ‘Back To The Future’ which starts off at Doctor Emmett Brown’s workshop where all the clocks go off 25 minutes early meaning Marty is late for school. What follows was an inspiration for me as a child as I took up skateboarding though being towed on the back of vehicles didn’t happen too often!

The workshop (below) was a temporary facade and can be made-out thanks to a diagonal stripe on the car park.

The Burger King (below) next to the workshop, which Marty skateboards past, is at 535 N. Victory Boulevard in Burbank.

The skateboard route continue through Courthouse Square at Universal Studios Hollywood and finishes at Whittier High School at 12417 E. Philadelphia Street in Whittier. This was of course used as Hill Valley High School and appears on screen a few times during the film.

Having failed his audition for ‘Battle of the Bands’ Marty skateboards down his home street past going through the famous Lyon Estate signs which by luck I saw at Universal Studios due to the failure of our tram which lead to a slight detour. The street in the picture below is Sandusky Avenue.

In reality though, Marty’s home (below) is a few streets away. The address for his home is 9303 Roslyndale Avenue in Arieta and is private property.

Marty agrees to meet the Doc at Twin Pines Mall (below) at 1.15am and the DeLorean time-machine is introduced to him. This was filmed at Puente Hills Mall at 1600 Asuza Avenue though sadly the JCPenney store has been replaced by a coat factory one. Whilst snapping away a cop wound down his window and said “Back to the future?” to which I replied “Of course” before he started going on about some event to mark the films 25th anniversary last year.

This location was the furthest out of the way for myself and Ethan but I felt it had to be seen as it played such an important part by way of being where Marty escapes from the hostile Libyan terrorists by driving at 88mph resulting in him being transported back to 1955.

On his entrance to 1955 Marty crashed into a barn and soon after that he discovers his 1985 street being built. All that exists is the “Lyon Estates” gates (below) and across the road from them is a sign saying its 2 miles to Hill Valley where the all-important clock tower is. The gates are at Universal Studios.

The clock tower (below) was damaged in a fire a few years ago and is no more but here is a photo I took of it back in 2002.

Having met his father George, Marty follows him and finds him up a tree (below) being a peeping Tom. The person he is spying on is his future wife Lorraine who is of course Marty’s mother. That house is at 1727 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena.

George’s house (below) is a few doors down the road at 1711 Bushnell Avenue.

Marty later tracks down the Doc who lives at The Gamble House (of Proctor & Gamble fame) which is a Japanese-influenced wood shingle house at 4 Westmoreland Place in Pasadena.

The film ends back on Marty’s street at Roslyndale Avenue where the Doc arrives from 2015 and utters the classic line to Jennifer and Marty “Roads. Where we’re going we don’t need roads!”. With that, the three of them shoot off into future (and the sequel film!) bringing my all-time favourite film to an end.

Bonus: Of course many of the above locations also featured in the two sequels ‘Back To The Future Part II’ and ‘Back To The Future Part III’. The tunnel below can be seen in the second film and is very close to Griffith Observatory (of ‘Terminator‘ fame) in Griffith Park and is where Marty recovers the Sports Almanac from Biff on his hoverboard.

Many thanks to the following sites: seeing-stars and movie-locations

Burbank, California
City
Looking northwest over Burbank from Griffith Park
Flag Seal
Motto(s): "A city built by People, Pride, and Progress"
Wikimedia \| © OpenStreetMap Show BurbankShow Los Angeles CountyShow CaliforniaShow the United StatesShow all
Coordinates: 34°10′49″N 118°19′42″W
Country	United States
State	California
County	Los Angeles
Founded	May 1, 1887; 138 years ago
Incorporated	July 8, 1911; 113 years ago^[1]
Named after	David Burbank
Government
• Type	Council–manager^[2]
• Mayor	Nikki Perez^[3]
• Vice mayor	Tamala Takahashi^[3]
• City council	Christopher Rizzotti Zizette Mullins Konstantine Anthony^[3]
• Row Officials	City Officers
Area ^[5]
• Total	17.35 sq mi (44.94 km²)
• Land	17.32 sq mi (44.85 km²)
• Water	0.04 sq mi (0.09 km²) 0.22%
Elevation ^[6]	607 ft (185 m)
Population (2020)
• Total	107,337
• Rank	14th in Los Angeles County 68th in California
• Density	6,198.72/sq mi (2,393.34/km²)
Demonym	Burbanker
Time zone	UTC−8 (Pacific)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−7 (PDT)
ZIP Codes^[7]	91501–91508, 91510, 91521–91523, 91526
Area codes	747/818
FIPS code	06-08954
GNIS feature IDs	1652677, 2409939
Website	www.burbankca.gov

Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located 7 miles (11 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank had a Census-estimated population of 102,755 as of 2023.^[8] The city was named after David Burbank, who established a sheep ranch there in 1867. Burbank consists of two distinct areas: a downtown/foothill section, in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains, and the flatland section.

Numerous media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank—often called the "Media Capital of the World"^[9] and only a few miles northeast of Hollywood—including Warner Bros. Entertainment, the Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, The Burbank Studios, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network, and Insomniac Games. Universal plays a key role in attractions and entertainment in Burbank, with its theme park Universal Studios Hollywood and the NBCUniversal building. The broadcast network The CW is also headquartered in Burbank. "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" was stated often as a joke on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, as both shows were taped at NBC's former studios. The Hollywood Burbank Airport was the location of Lockheed's Skunk Works, which produced some of the most secret and technologically advanced airplanes, including the U-2 spy planes. The city contains the largest IKEA in the U.S.^[10]

History

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Indigenous peoples and Spanish era

[edit]

The history of the Burbank area can be traced back to the Tongva people, the indigenous people of the area, who lived in the region for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.^[11]^[12]^[13] In the late 18th century and the early 19th century, Spanish explorers and mission priests arrived in the Los Angeles area. The city of Burbank occupies land that was previously part of two Spanish and Mexican-era colonial land grants: the 36,400-acre (147 km²) Rancho San Rafael, granted to Jose Maria Verdugo by the Spanish Bourbon government in 1784, and the 4,063-acre (16.44 km²) Rancho Providencia created in 1821. This area was the scene of a military skirmish which resulted in the unseating of the Spanish Governor of California, and his replacement by the Mexican leader Pio Pico.^[14]

Mexican rancho era and early American era

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New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and from 1824, Rancho San Rafael existed within the new Mexican Republic.

David Burbank

David Burbank purchased over 4,600 acres (19 km²) of the former Verdugo holding and another 4,600 acres (19 km²) of the Rancho Providencia in 1867. Burbank built a ranch house and began to raise sheep and grow wheat on the ranch.^[15] By 1876, the San Fernando Valley became the largest wheat-raising area in Los Angeles County. But the droughts of the 1860s and 1870s underlined the need for steady water supplies.

The Jonathan R. Scott tract, forming eastern Burbank along San Fernando Boulevard, called here the "Camino Real"

A professionally trained dentist, Burbank began his career in Waterville, Maine. He joined the great migration westward in the early 1850s and, by 1853 was living in San Francisco. At the time the American Civil War broke out, he was again well established in his profession as a dentist in Pueblo de Los Angeles. In 1867, he purchased Rancho La Providencia from David W. Alexander and Francis Mellus, and he purchased the western portion of the Rancho San Rafael (4,603 acres) from Jonathan R. Scott. Burbank's property reached nearly 9,200 acres (37 km²) at a cost of $9,000.^[16] Burbank would not acquire full titles to both properties until after a court decision known as the "Great Partition" was made in 1871 dissolving the Rancho San Rafael. He eventually became known as one of the largest and most successful sheep raisers in southern California, and as a result, he closed his dentistry practice and invested heavily in real estate in Los Angeles.^[15]

California Filming Locations #2: Back To The Future (1985)

Toys "R" Us

uguetes "R" Us

Burbank, California

History

Indigenous peoples and Spanish era

Mexican rancho era and early American era

‘Back to the Future’ fans plan retro tour for Oct. 21, 2015