Unearthing L.A.’s Improvised Past
In a City That Constantly Builds Over Itself, You Can Still Find the Last Century in Certain Light and Certain Pockets
by Lynell George
For some time now, I’ve been thinking and talking about Los Angeles in the past tense. Not in a nostalgic way—rather, my memory of place had become an overlay, filtering the way I see and move through the here-and-now city.
Vanished landmarks are still active points on my personal map of the city where I was born and raised—touchstones I remember from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. That old Westside bookstore with the sleeping cats and sagging shelves? It’s still there in my imagination, waiting for me to …
