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History

Photo Op: Colma Monuments

On my recent holiday jaunt to San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to visit the nearby city of Colma. Founded in 1924 and billed as the “City of Souls,” Colma has a unique history — it’s basically San Francisco’s necropolis, boasting 16 crowded cemeteries within its approximately 2-square-mile jurisdiction.
In 1900, San Francisco outlawed burials within [...]

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Those Devilish Santa Ana Winds

Whether summery hot or wintry tepid like the ones shown above that are currently ravaging Pasadena and the Greater Los Angeles area, Southern California’s fiendish Santa Ana winds are the stuff of legends.
In his story Red Wind, Raymond Chandler described them as “those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain [...]

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Hanging With the Legendary Tiburcio Vasquez

Names and Faces

Today marks the 136th anniversary of the hanging of Tiburcio Vasquez, notorious California outlaw and folk legend.
According to Los Angeles A-Z, my bible for everything L.A., he was the “last of the Mexican bandit leaders who roamed Southern California from the 1850s to the 1870s. Along with Joaquin Murrieta and Juan Flores, Vasquez was the [...]

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Lost and Found: Original 1927 Grauman’s Chinese Theatre Footprints

Life in Angel City

NBC Los Angeles reports that concrete slabs bearing the original footprints of Sid Grauman, Douglass Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have been found in — of all places — a local airport hanger. Along with the still-lost footprints of Norma Talmadge, the silent-era imprints date to 1927 and, through a quirk of fate, were the very [...]

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An Out-of-This-World Moonsuit

The year was 1960 when NASA development engineer Allyn B. “Hap” Hazard donned his stellar design creation to take a runway strut around Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
According to the Kevitivity blog, where I stumbled across this vintage photo, the goofy suit was the inspiration for Mattel’s Major Matt Mason, the action figure for Space [...]

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Photo Op: Some Eaton Canyon Ramblings

Angeleno Sights

A black-and-white view of Eaton Canyon — chaparral, poison oak and all. Situated in the San Gabriel Mountains near Altadena, the area was originally named El Precipicio for its steep gorges, the result of its location along what was once a main sector of the San Andreas Fault.
The bridge at the lower left is part [...]

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Caution: Never, Never Wake the Dead!

Not to beat a dead horse, but having unearthed numerous pioneer skeletons at the abandoned Placita churchyard, LA Plaza officials might want to think twice before messing with the spot any further. Construction crews assembling an amusement ride in Britain have apparently disturbed a similar old cemetery, resulting in menacing visits by a headless monk.
Here [...]

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Grave Controversy Continues at La Plaza

Novena candles glow gently in the courtyard of Los Angeles’ Old Plaza Church. They seem a fitting enough symbol, given news a little over a week ago that construction crews working on a new LA Plaza de Cultura y Arte recently unearthed numerous remains of our city’s founding families.
The ensuing chaos has become a slapstick [...]

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The Rise and Decline of Historic Route 99

Angeleno Sights

We’ve all heard you can “get your kicks on Route 66,” but would you feel just as fine on Route 99?
While less iconic than its cross-country cousin, Route 99 also has a storied past. It began as a dusty stagecoach trail running from Baja California to British Columbia, via California, Oregon and Washington. With [...]

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L.A. Auto Show a Trip Down Memory Lane

Life in Angel City

Unless you’re totally pedestrian, you probably know the L.A. Auto Show has made its yearly return to the Los Angeles Convention Center, running Nov. 19-28. I’m headed that way tomorrow, filled with anticipation. It’s always hard to say which I enjoy most — seeing the exciting new automotive technologies and concept cars or bumping into [...]

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More Trash Talk From Victorian Los Angeles

Ever eager to view our region’s current events through the prism of its off-the-wall history, Friday’s garbage post (below) got me thinking: How did Angelenos handle their refuse problems, say, a century or so ago?
As you might expect, the answer isn’t very pretty.
Ralph Shaffer, history professor emeritus at Cal Poly, Pomona, has written an interesting [...]

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Time Warp: William Desmond Taylor’s Sensational Death Scene

Today it’s a Ross parking lot, but on the evening of Feb. 1, 1922, the tract at 404. S. Alvarado was a Mediterranean bungalow court — and the setting for Movieland’s first real-life murder mystery.
Sometime before midnight, two shots rang out, killing famed actor-turned-Paramount-director William Desmond Taylor from behind. Neighbors shrugged off the noise as [...]

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L.A.’s Ouija-Inspired Bradbury Building

“Take Bradbury Building. It will make you famous…” That was the message George Wyman supposedly received from his dead brother, courtesy a Ouija board.
A mere draftsman, Wyman had been approached by millionaire Lewis Bradbury, who desired a structural marvel bearing his name in the downtown Los Angeles area. Wyman fretted over the assignment, but the [...]

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Detail Shot: Million Dollar Bison

Angeleno Sights

A close-up of the many bison and gargoyle reliefs adorning the old Metropolitan Water District (MWD) headquarters at 307 S. Broadway, Los Angeles. Designed by architect Albert C. Martin and dating to 1917, the MWD tower was part of the Million Dollar Theater complex, which also housed Edison Co. offices. The fanciful sculptures are the [...]

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Check It Out: The Haunting of America

From time to time your humble blogger likes to share some of his library finds with Dateline>City of Angels visitors. This week I finished The Haunting of America, a fascinating look at our nation’s ongoing obsession with the paranormal, from the Salem Witch Trials to Harry Houdini’s attempts to unmask modern Spiritualism.
It’s a strangely perfect [...]

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Time Warp: Hollywoodland’s Immortal Gates

Angeleno Sights

Brand spanking new 87 years ago, the Hollywoodland real estate development welcomes a handful of vintage automobiles through its Beachwood Canyon gates in this 1923 Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) digital archives photo. Likely carrying property buyers, the cars are parked outside the new neighborhood’s sales headquarters.
Although not visible, the world-famous “Hollywoodland” Sign loomed over [...]

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Tripping Out to Pentecostalism’s Birthplace

Angeleno Sights

Believe it or not, this little Victorian in Los Angeles’ historic Filipino Town is widely recognized as the birthplace of Pentecostalism.
Yes, before Aimee Semple McPherson’s celebrity revivalism, the Spirit took hold of a small band of fervent religionists here at 216 N. Bonnie Brae in 1906, allegedly inspiring them to speak in tongues not heard [...]

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Friday Forum: Name Your Lost Landmark

Angeleno Sights

From the Temple Theater, to the Brown Derby, to the Garden of Allah, Southern California seems to boast more bulldozed landmarks than living historical structures. (Joni Mitchell’s 1970 pop lyrics, “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot” make a really apropos Angeleno theme song.)
Starting today, I’d like to introduce a new Friday Forum [...]

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Then and Now: Temple City’s Lost Theater

Angeleno Sights

Opened circa 1940 and named for land developer and Temple City founder Walter P. Temple, this proud single-screen theater once stood on the corner of Rosemead and Las Tunas Blvds. Seating 750, it was designed by S. Charles Lee, a prolific Southern California architect with more than 70 movie houses to his credit, almost all [...]

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The Bricks and Mortar of Feminist Power

Angeleno Sights

Who says L.A. has no history? Open your eyes (or in this case your camera lens) wide enough, and you’ll literally discover it in the most out-of-the-way corners of town.
While shooting the Broadway viaduct the other day, I parked my Jeep in front of this old brick building on N. Spring Street, thinking little of [...]

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