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Entire towns have vanished from the Southland.
The street grid of Morocco once stretched across the same gilded real estate occupied today by Beverly Hills. The ruins of a town named Minneapolis lie beneath Atwater Village. The independent city of Tropico melded with Glendale.
In an earlier age, geographic names were…
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Woodbury ranch superintendent Thomas Hoag had no idea the three-foot seedlings he was planting would someday become a major Yuletide attraction. It was 1885, and Hoag and his Chinese American ranch hands were building a driveway that climbed a steady grade from the Pasadena city limit up to the ranch house of Altadena…
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Earlier this month, the Los Angeles City Historical Society (LACHS) honored LA as Subject with the J. Thomas Owen History Award. The award was given in recognition of LA as Subject's work in advocating for the region's archival collections held in institutions both large and small.
"Both the LA as Subject website and…
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Visit the California State University Channel Islands archives library at the 10th Annual Archives Bazaar.
The 1990s saw a small publishing revolution in the form of zines: independently- or self-published magazines that sought to give voice to underrepresented people or groups. These zines ran the gamut from…
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It was announced on Saturday, July 26 that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“Metro”) won an Emmy in the public programming category for the Metro Motion show on Union Station’s 75th Anniversary. The 30-minute episode aired just prior to the Union Station anniversary celebration on May 3,…
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Like some of the very people who drive on them, a few Los Angeles streets have achieved the height of fame. Sunset Boulevard lent its evocative name to Billy Wilder's classic film noir. Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard appears on millions of television screens each New Year's Day as the route of the Rose Parade. And to…
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Water, Power, and Technology: The Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1913-2013
Exhibit will run from September 9 through December 20, 2013 Honnold/Mudd Library, inside North Entrance (909) 607-3977
In November 1913, the City of Los Angeles completed construction of the first Los Angeles Aqueduct. In commemoration of the…
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Imagine the Los Angeles River before its metamorphosis into a concrete flood control channel, and Mark Twain’s quip about falling into a California river and coming out “all dusty” might come to mind. But the historical record, including photos like the shown here, paints a much different picture.
Keep reading the…
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Petroleum provided the raw materials for the gasoline that powered Angelenos’ automobiles as well as the asphalt on which they drove, so in one sense the middle of La Cienega Boulevard was a fitting place for an oil derrick. But many failed to see the logic. For decades, photos of this bizarrely located well, which…
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J. Michael Walker, give an illustrated talk on my map, this Thursday, February 28, at 6:45pm, at the Los Feliz Public Library, as part of its tenth annual "Architecture & Beyond" series. J. Michael created a large-scale (23' wide by 5' high) "Literary Map of LA " that was exhibited at the Hammer Museum, in Los…
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This installation highlights the work of local and award winning photographer Shelley Gazin and is featured in the "Light and Shadows: The Story of Iranian Jews" exhibit at the Fowler Museum.
"Becoming Persian: Photographs & Text Threads Illuminating the Iranian-Jewish Community" is a photographic study by Gazin…
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Early photographs of Los Angeles surprise for many reasons, but often what's most striking is how empty the city looks. Open countryside surrounds familiar landmarks. Busy intersections appear as dusty crossroads.
Southern California entered the photographic record at the cusp of a dramatic transformation in the…
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A spiraling, 1,290-foot tower built of magnesium. A rapid-transit system with hundreds of miles of subways and elevated tracks. A comprehensive network of parks, beaches, and open spaces linked by greenbelts and parkways. These are just a few unrealized visions for Los Angeles featured in an upcoming exhibition at the…
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Established in 1856, St. Vincent Medical Center is the oldest medical institution in Los Angeles and celebrated operating for 157 years on January 6, 2013. The hospital’s sisters have collected more than a century of hospital photos, medical records and artifacts to create a conservancy to share the hospital’s rich…
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From 1955 until 2009, when most staff moved to a new administrative building a block away, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Parker Center was as a proud symbol of police modernization and a focal point for controversy. Last week Chief Charlie Beck padlocked its front doors, and the aging building now stands vacant.
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