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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 long as Southern…
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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 directly…
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Since 2002, Library Journal has recognized those who are changing libraries and the services they provide, “librarians and others in the library field who are doing extraordinary work to serve their users and to move libraries of all types and library services forward.” Now in its 137th year of publication, Library…
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Los Angeles remembers its Red Cars with an almost mythic reverence. Replicas of the Pacific Electric Railway’s red-liveried trolleys now transport tourists through a Disney theme park, while Angelenos swap wistful stories about the streetcar that would take you to the beach, deep into the Inland Empire, or all the way…
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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 posters…
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Orange County was more farmland than suburb—a landscape of orange groves and cow pastures rather than tract houses and fairytale castles—when Walter Knott opened his first roadside produce stand in 1923. The dusty highway passing through Knott’s berry farm was fast becoming the principal route between Los Angeles and…
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L.A. as Subject has honored private collector Wally Shidler with its 2013 Avery Clayton Spirit Award.
Wally Shilder has been amassing his “Historical Collection of Southern California Ephemera” since he was a teenager. He is a third generation Angeleno and his interest in history was piqued by his grandmother who…
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Los Angeles history comes alive at the 8th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Organized by L.A. as Subject and presented by the USC Libraries, the annual event celebrates the diversity of Southern California’s history. For scholarly researchers, journalists, history buffs, and those simply interested in exploring the…
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Glance at an old map of the Hollywood area like the one above and two things stand out. First, the land is remarkably empty. There are few roads and even fewer structures. Second, two separate towns appear where we would expect one: Hollywood, destined for stardom, and Colegrove, destined for obscurity. What happened to…
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Today, shopping malls hang garland, pipe in holiday tunes, and build showy reproductions of St. Nicholas' polar hideout, attracting customers to their privately owned concourses and encouraging the buying spirit. But before malls, holiday shoppers flocked to Los Angeles' downtown and suburban retail districts where…
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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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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 Los…
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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 Angeles…
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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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Along Highway 101 between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, cast metal bells spaced one or two miles apart mark what is supposedly a historic route through California: El Camino Real. Variously translated as "the royal road," or, more freely, "the king's highway," El Camino Real was indeed among the state's first…
