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Pop Culture

Memory Lane: 1950s Los Angeles

Automobiles with fins cruising broad boulevards and open freeways; street cars and paper boys; well-dressed people lining up to dine at the Pantry; industry and commerce — these are just a few of the sights recorded in this nostalgic view of 1950s Los Angeles. If you grew up Angeleno during that era, enjoy the trip [...]

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L.A.’s Forgotten Lizard People

The KCRW Shortcuts blog has a new post exploring the facts and fiction surrounding Los Angeles’ oft-ignored network of underground tunnels. The post includes links to several in-depth features on the topic by local news outlets.
Worthwhile as the item is, however, it unfortunately left out an entertainingly bizarre story about L.A.’s subterranean landscape: the mysterious [...]

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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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Imlay Name Goes Hollywood in Battle:LA

Names and Faces

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but friends report that Battle:LA features a character named USMC Corporal Lee Imlay. (They also take great joy in telling me he’s a motor-mouth who gets blown to smithereens by aliens.)
Apparently, there’s also a newly released video game based on the movie in which players can take on 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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If You’ve Ever Wondered How an Urban Legend Gets Started…

Here at Dateline>City of Angels we love to dissect and examine historic ghostlore and other longstanding urban legends. However, it’s not very often that we get to see a real, living example of an oddball tale taking root. Yet here you have it, a Hollywood Hills mansion on its way to being known as “cursed.”
Perched [...]

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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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The Lights Are On in Hastings Ranch!

Life in Angel City

Well, sort of… With the rain pouring and the troubled economy encouraging drastic energy conservation, the annual Upper Hastings Ranch Light Up seems more of a hit-or-miss event this year.
Driving through the soggy Pasadena enclave during a 10 p.m. deluge, I saw plenty of houses wired up with lights and displays, but few were actually [...]

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Sorry, These AREN’T the 12 Days of Christmas

Everyone has a pet holiday peeve. Mine is the ongoing misconception that the song The Twelve Days of Christmas is a countdown to December 25.
Gritting my teeth in L.A. freeway traffic this morning, I heard this popular mistake repeated again and again by local radio ads, newspeople, and rock stations announcing the start of their [...]

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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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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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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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Hollywood’s Legendary Bronson Caves Are Just a Stone’s Throw Away

Angeleno Sights

Recognize this gaping oriface in the Hollywood Hills? If you don’t, you obviously weren’t a fan of the 1960s Batman television series or numerous other Hollywood productions hearkening back to the Silent Era.
This is one of a handful of man-made excavations at the southwestern corner of Griffith Park known as the Bronson Caves. Featured prominently [...]

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SoCal Kitsch: Pink Panther Muffler Man

Muffler sculptures are a staple of auto garages everywhere, but thanks to our Car Culture, they’re especially ubiquitous here in Southern California.
As an art form, more often than not they lack imagination, frequently resembling uninspired robots or clunky mechanical aliens. When you come across one that’s truly whimsical — like this Pink Panther near the [...]

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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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Metropolis: A Must-See for Cinema Buffs!

Seeking 2 hours and 45 minutes of golden silence on the silver screen? You can’t do any better than Fritz Lang’s historic 1927 film masterpiece Metropolis, now playing on the Laemmle’s Theatre circuit.
Set in the 21st Century, the silent classic envisions a futuristic world in which a seductive female android goads subterranean proletariat workers to [...]

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Winter Wonderland, SoCal-Style

Life in Angel City

The return of these tumbleweed snowmen to Stadium Way can only mean one thing: It’s officially Christmas time in the City of Angels.
It’s amusing how ingrained the concept of a White Christmas is in our pop culture. Even here, at the edge of the Mojave Desert, these are the lengths we’ll go to in “recreating” [...]

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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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A Tale of Two City Murals

Life in Angel City

It’s either the best of wall art or it’s the worst of wall art, depending upon your perspective. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But if you ever needed a demonstration of the self-evident principle that murals mirror the life and cultural assumptions of their respective communities, this is it.
This first [...]

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