A Flood in the Streets of L.A.

Fifty Years Ago, the Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster Put Entire Neighborhoods Underwater

My grandpa bought me a Honda 50 minibike for my 10th birthday. It was 1972, when the sight of a 10-year-old driving a motor bike raised few eyebrows, and I rode that Honda all over the Westside neighborhood where I lived at the time. I roared up and down the alley behind the UCLA married students’ housing on Sawtelle Boulevard and around the church parking lot at the end of the block. That was fun, but I really wanted to take it off-road. A month later, my cousin Marc got …

by Drew de la Houssaye | December 13, 2013

When Rabid Dogs Roamed the Streets of L.A.

Seventy-Five Years Ago, Rabies Was a Public Health Menace. Its Eradication Is a Public Health Triumph.

by Emily Beeler | November 22, 2013

In 1937 you could take a Red Car from Pomona all the way to Venice Beach. City Hall was the tallest building in L.A. The Los Angeles Bulldogs won every …

The Helicopter Pests Of L.A.’s Skies

We Were Supposed To Love These New Flying Machines. It Worked Out a Little Differently.

by D. J. Waldie | September 13, 2013

Sometime in the mid-1980s, while he figured out the week’s patrol schedule, the former chief pilot of the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station helicopter patrol program—begun in 1966 and among the first …

Surfboard Shaping Is Back, Dude

The Art of Shaping Survives, In New Forms, After Some Difficulties

by Dashel Pierson Plesa | August 7, 2013

I first stood up on a surfboard not long after I learned to walk. But until recently, I’d never shaped my own surfboard, personally molding it and altering its design, …

How’d That German-Owned House Get Up on An L.A. Hill?

The Villa Aurora’s Long Journey from Newspaper Demonstration to Intellectual Haven of Pacific Palisades

by Katja Gimpel and Mona Leirich | June 26, 2013

In 1927, the Los Angeles Times, in cooperation with the investors Arthur A. Weber and George Ley, built a “demonstration home” in Pacific Palisades. The project was supposed to attract …

When Santa Monica Was Still Oshkosh By the Sea

In 1973, Real Estate and Business Interests Ran the City. My Fellow Activists and I Helped Change That.

by Ernie Powell | June 20, 2013

I can’t think of a song about an apartment. Nor can I recall a single poem or novel about one. (I do remember a great little movie many years ago …

Los Angeles Who We Were