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In this land of newcomers and transplants, Ernest Marquez can trace his California lineage back further than most. Born in 1924 on land that the Mexican government granted to his great-grandparents in 1839, Marquez has devoted much of his life to documenting a family history that began in 1771, when his…
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Had one of Tomorrowland's flying saucers gone missing? When the Anaheim Convention Center's arena opened in the summer of 1967, it looked as if a spacecraft from another world had touched down directly opposite Katella Avenue from Disneyland.
Designed by Los Angeles-based architects Adrian Wilson and Associates,…
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Palm trees arc across cans of Golden Road’s Point the Way IPA, and a haloed Los Angeles City Hall peeks through the logo of Angel City Brewery. As craft brewers embrace the city’s unique iconography, transform historic downtown buildings into meeting houses, and find other ways to establish a connection with Los…
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From CicLAvia to a new comprehensive bike plan, Los Angeles has been imagining new ways to get around the city on two wheels. But perhaps nothing today matches the ambition behind a Pasadena millionaire’s turn-of-the-20th-century scheme: a bicycle freeway connecting the Crown City to Los Angeles.
Southern…
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Call it 19th-century L.A.’s idea of a thrill ride. Leaving the safety of the granite slopes, trolley cars raced out onto a creaking, cantilevered wooden trestle, soaring over a 1000-foot sheer drop—with no reassuring seat belts or safety bars.
Keep reading the full post on Los Angeles Magazine's CityThink blog.
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Without the handwritten caption reading "Part of Los Angeles," it might be difficult to place the above drawing -- generally considered to be the oldest extant drawing of the city. The Los Angeles that William Rich Hutton saw when he first arrived on July 7, 1847, is virtually unrecognizable today.
Hutton came to…
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“Decade of Dissent, Democracy in Action, 1965-1975″ opened with a lovely reception on Sunday, February 23rd at The Santa Monica Art Studios’ Arena 1 Gallery. Curated by Carol A. Wells, executive director and founder of The Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the exhibit of digitally reproduced protest…
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On Thursday, May 30, a new web video series showcasing L.A. as Subject member collections and the archivists, librarians, and experts who care for them debuts on KCET.org.
Through photographs, maps, films, and other resources from L.A. as Subject member collections, Incline L.A. tells the story of incline railways…
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Angels Flight: a downtown Los Angeles landmark. Its orange, beaux-arts archways and simple, Edwardian technology stand in contrast to the modern skyscrapers of the financial district. This cherished historical monument is a remnant of an earlier age. In the early decades of the twentieth century, from downtown…
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It lacks the native charm of the sycamore or oak. It wants for the palm's exotic appearance. It doesn't have the pepper tree's romantic associations with California's mission past. It never enjoyed, unlike the eucalyptus, the passionate advocacy of a forester like Abbot Kinney. But the fig…
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Nominations for the L.A. as Subject (LAAS) Executive Committee members are now being accepted. There are 5 seats that need to be filled for the incoming 2013-2015 Executive Committee term, including the Executive Committee Chairperson. Please send your nominations for Executive Committee members and/or chair…
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Surfers. Palatial estates. Soul-crushing traffic. Pacific Coast Highway treats motorists to many iconic Southern California views and experiences. But two distinctively shaped rocks have been missing from the Pacific Palisades shoreline for decades, victims of the scenic highway's development.
For as…
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Like many of Los Angeles' first public parks, Eastlake (now Lincoln) Park began as unwanted land: a fifty-acre site rejected by a railroad and given to the city for free. But like its crosstown rival, Westlake (now MacArthur) Park, Eastlake soon grew into one of the city's most popular outdoor…
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Wrigley Field: baseball fans will forever associate the name with the Windy City. But for decades the City of Angels boasted a Wrigley Field of its own—the longtime home of the minor-league Los Angeles Angels.
Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field was, in fact, the first to bear the name. Though it had been open since…
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It was a spectacle no Angeleno had witnessed before: a caravan of fourteen Arabian camels ambling through the streets of Los Angeles. Arriving in town January 8, 1858, the humped and hoofed animals represented an ambitious U.S. government experiment to introduce the so-called “ship of the desert” to the…
