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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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“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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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 swapwistful stories about the streetcar that would take you to the beach, deep into the Inland Empire, or all the way…
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Decades before Walt Disney moved his studio there and dreamed up Tomorrowland, Burbank glimpsed another man’s futuristic vision in 1910, when a colorful inventor named Joseph Fawkes built an experimental monorail, the Aerial Swallow.
Keep reading the full post at Los Angeles magazine's City Think blog.
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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 California…
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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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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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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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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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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 retreats.
Located…
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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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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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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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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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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…
