Results tagged “history”

We've been biting our tongue all season so far and not running to the keyboard to spew forth our behemoth recaps of The CW's re-tooled 90210, now in its second year on the air. But we're still watching--and encouraging you to watch, too, like our TV Junkie did yesterday--and last night's episode had just enough on-location action to get our tongues, and fingers wagging.

They've done Wilshire, Pico, and Santa Monica, and this year the Great LA Walk will take you and your two feet from Downtown to the shore via Adams and Washington on Saturday November 21st.

This week, the Metro Transportation Library debuted an impressive set of historical maps depicting transit lines and proposals for routes and systems. Among the multiple versions of our current subway system and systems long come and gone is a proposed monorail from 1960, the transit vision for LA in 1974, the map produced based on the Kelker-Deleuw study of 1925 (when the city's first subway was built), and a map from the time when the Red Line was called the Orange Line.

Spanish, Colonial, Mid-Century Modern, Craftsman, Streamline Moderne, Art Deco...Los Angeles is packed end to end with architecture reflective of so many different styles. Sometimes we pause to celebrate a building, its design, and designers only when it reaches a milestone or when we say goodbye to it. But this month the American Institute of Architects: Los Angeles (AIA) wants to encourage all of us to celebrate architecture for all 31 days of October.

       

This weekend brings the opportunity to check out many of our area museums for a can't-beat-it price: Absolutely free. If you've got more time than dimes these days, hit up as many of our amazing art, history, science, and culture museums at no charge.

On September 9th, the Santa Monica Pier celebrated its Centennial. Fireworks lit up the sky and thousands of people gathered to honor a landmark that seems to be synonymous not only with Santa Monica, but with Los Angeles, and our love affair with having fun at the edge of the Pacific Ocean

Just a quick reminder, tomorrow is the pier's 100th birthday. Wish it well or join the festivities tomorrow night beginning at 6 p.m.

       

Signage on buildings and along thoroughfares has evolved, as has the move to prohibit them in recent months. But the origin of the roof sign in Los Angeles reflects one aspect of our rich local history that runs the risk of being elbowed out by the more bully-like presence of neon-lit ads that now top buildings all over the city.

Last week came the news that the Clinton family (yes, Clinton) had decided to sell the building that has housed Clifton's Cafeteria, known as Clifton's Brookdale because of its whimsical forest themed decor, since 1935. Although few people admit to finding the food offered at the last of the Clifton's Cafeterias a gastronomic revelation, the news brought the immediate fear that this would bring about the end altogether of a decades-long institution in Los Angeles. While the Clinton family hopes to just unload the property but continue to operate the cafeteria (they actually only bought the building at 648 S Broadway in Downtown outright in 2006) now seems like a fitting time to fill in the gaps of local history when it comes to the Clintons and their Clifton's Cafeterias...and maybe, if you're hungry, prompt a trip with a tray down the lanes of the eatery--the last of a dying breed.

Next weekend the Los Angeles Zoo is hosting a reception as part of the centennial celebration of Selig Studios, Hollywood’s first film studio, and its founder, movie pioneer “Colonel” William Selig. Presented by the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA) in conjunction with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the evening will include a screening (accompanied by period music) of two jungle-themed 1913 silent films, "The Adventures of Kathlyn" and "Thor - Lord of the Jungle," produced by Selig, whose passion for making these movies led to his collection of a vast animal menagerie which he later opened to the public as the Selig Zoo.

On August 1, 1939, California Attorney General Earl Warren sent 250 local and state officers to raid four gambling ships anchored off the coast of Santa Monica and Long Beach. The Tango and Showboat idled off Long Beach while the Texas and the Rex anchored off Santa Monica. Local and state authorities, riding in Fish and Game boats and 16 rented water taxis, easily boarded the Tango, the Showboat and the Texas. Once aboard, raiding officers eagerly threw roulette wheels, dice tables, black jack tables and slot machines into the Pacific Ocean. Upon approaching the S.S. Rex, officers were greeted with armed gunmen and high-pressure fire hoses. A nine-day standoff ensued, which newspaper men dubbed "The Battle of Santa Monica Bay."

It's been a rough few years for the Clinton family, who remain the owners and operators of the last of their once-booming set of cafeteria eateries in Los Angeles, Clifton's Cafeteria. It was just three years ago that the death of Jean Clinton Roeschlaub, described as the cafeteria family's heiress, was ruled homicide; the 83-year-old who was thought to be the heart and soul of the restaurant was found dead inside her penthouse apartment.

A year ago, the LA Times was predicting a major comeback of sorts for Westwood, the Los Angeles neighborhood most associated with UCLA. But if the comeback is to involve classic movie houses, the comeback looks grim. This week the Mann Festival closed down, and preservationists are on standby, prepared to battle the possible loss of the Mann's Village and Bruin, according to the Times.

Now this is a recession buster: The Glendale Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department is holding a one-day "penny carnival" today until 5 pm at Montrose Park (3529 Clifton Place). The carnival includes games, face painting, balloons, popcorn and snow cones for 5 to 25 cents.

Last weekend, it was over 100 hidden staircases between downtown and the Hollywood sign. This Sunday the Location Managers Guild of America will bring the second of a series of six walks along Route 66, says the blog Franklin Avenue.

Once upon a time, Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley boasted its own theme park. The theme, ostensibly: Beer. Well, what else would you make the central focus of an amusement park located on the property of a major brewery?

Don't buy into the old notion that there's no history in Los Angeles. If anything, our weekly LAistory series will handily prove otherwise. But, fine, don't take our word for it. Why not take some experts' words and get out and about for yourself in the remarkably historic North Hollywood neighborhood, where you can learn about the days when the grounds were swollen with flood waters, the park was instead a massive dried-fruit operation, and Lankershim Boulevard was--okay, well, it was still Lankershim Boulevard, but it had all sorts of different shops and stops.

The location of the first See's Candy shop located at Western and 1st Street (see it in Street View), was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument by City Council today. The 1921-built structure has character-defining features of Italian Renaissance Revival architecture, according to city documents, which continue to say "the See family developed their distinctive store design and aesthetic: white colored storefronts and interiors, black-on-white lettering and font, black and white tiled foor, as well as their advertising slogans." The shop isn't there any more, but since it was used as the prototype for all future shops and has surviving character-defining features, it was eligible for the local designation.

These days we're all a-Twitter about food on wheels. From comforting classics like ice cream novelties to tacos with an Korean twist, we seem to love the idea of finding food on our own two feet and the vendors' four wheels. But before Los Angeles was a tangle of freeways and cars getting food items from a truck was actually a way of life. While some of us may still live in neighborhoods frequented by produce and grocery trucks issuing familiar beckoning musical calls, beeps, and horn toots, once upon a time in L.A. our city's bread and other baked treats could be found driving around SoCal 'hoods in the form of the Helms Bakery Coaches.

For the right buyer, a piece of $15 million Frank Lloyd Wright history could be theirs. The famous Ennis House, tucked up in the hills above Los Feliz, has sat quiet, unopened to the public as a non profit tried to bring it back. About $5 to $7 million is what they needed, but they never got and now it's for sale. "Our goal has always been to be a good steward of the house. We've made a lot of progress, but at this point a private owner with the right vision and sufficient resources can better preserve the house than we can as a small nonprofit," said Ennis House Foundation's president, James DeMeo. Just last week, LAist presented a feature history piece on the home.

       

Boy, who knew something as simple as a banana was such a big thing? Politics, murder, pop culture, this fruit has it all and the boys from the locally based Fallen Fruit Collective journeyed down to South America to explore the subject and came back with an art exhibit that opened last Tuesday with an event called "Are You Happy to See Me?"

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and across the nation, museums will be opening exhibits about the famous event. The Grammy Museum downtown is taking a new twist and when their exhibit opens this August, it will be through the eyes of festival goers--the people's history of Woodstock, in a sense.

     

Yesterday was officially National Doughnut (or Donut) Day, but there's no reason to not carry the spirit of celebration over to your weekend, which is why today we're looking at the story behind one of our city's most well known structures.

L.A.'s master of puppets officially became a part of history as the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre was declared an historic cultural monument by the city of Los Angeles yesterday. "At age 85, he’s still the star of his company," Steve Meltzer, president of the L.A. Guild of Puppetry, told the LA Times. "There are performances where his presence is requested.”

June 3, 1943 marked the start of just over a week of violence on the streets of Los Angeles that would come to be known as the Zoot Suit Riots. You may have hummed along to the old Cherry Poppin' Daddies song of the same name, but do you know the story?

A brush fire broke out in the Mount Olympus neighborhood off Laurel Canyon last night that left approximately 1-acre burned. The blaze began shortly after 7 p.m. on the 2100 block of Laurel Canyon Road the and was knocked down in less than an hour, reportedly leaving no people injured or structures damaged.

      

Tomorrow afternoon, the Los Angeles Conservancy will honor nine projects and one individual representative of the best achievements in preservation of last year. In its 28th year, the list offers a variety of undertakings, from the successful bid to recognize our sprawling and magnificent Griffith Park as a Historic Cultural Monument to the refurbishing of longstanding meccas of culture like the Mark Taper Forum, the revitalization of the eatery behind some much-loved sandwiches, and the re-purposing of a onetime giant of industry as a place to call home. [Full list after the jump.]

                     

Los Angeles' central rail transit hub is a modest 70 years old; a baby compared to many train depots in other major cities. Union Station was designed by John B. and Donald D. Parkinson, and "opened in 1939, with a dedication ceremony featuring both the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of California, amidst three days of pageants, parades and other celebrations," according to our very own LAistory entry on the "last of the great train stations built in this country."

Imagine a structure hailed for its exterior design that took 60 days to build, was trafficked by hundreds of thousands of people for almost four decades, spent 17 years abandoned with an uncertain fate, contributed to the launch of LA's preservation movement, and took one night to burn to the ground.

       

The Owens Valley, some 250 miles away, may be steeped in controversial Los Angeles history because of our water aqueduct, but it is a little less known for its role during World War II. The small town of Manzanar became one of the ten detainee military-style camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were sent. Another one was in Newell, California with the rest in other states. Locally, Santa Anita was an assembly site "where Japanese Americans were sent in preparation for eventual removal from the Pacific Coast," says the Japanese American National Museum.