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L.A. Stories: Community Spotlight

Places

"As 'virtual' spaces and communities transform our understanding of urban culture, we must continue to explore the 'actual' places, artifacts, and cultural practices located in the diverse and changing neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Archives, collections, monuments, and cultural traditions are all vehicles through which individuals and communities, past and present, speak to us." -- Karen L. Stokes, Foreword to "Cultural Inheritance/L.A."

A sprawling metropolis, Los Angeles is often perceived and described as a city on the move – a place that is more future oriented than rooted in the past. Yet there is a strong sense of place in many of LA’s neighborhoods and communities. Sites throughout Southern California have rich and important stories to tell about the communities who live there, or who lived there in the past. Buildings and other landmarks are imbued with the stories of those who inhabited them or of events that took place there.

These contributions from the LA as Subject member collections highlight places in Southern California that tell significant stories about the region’s history – stories that perhaps are not widely known. These stories, places, and events reflect a slice of Southern California’s diversity, spotlight innovations and new developments that occurred in the region, and offer insight into the lives of Angelenos past and present.

Contents of this path:

Although Los Angeles is ever-evolving and shifting the world around it, sites, landmarks, photos and postcards remind us of what the city used to be. Sometimes they are all that remain. Whether a site was once a bee ranch, a homestead, sanitorium, or the Port of Los Angeles, the places shared here set the stage for the eventual growth, change, and expansion documenting the passage of time. Before the Santa Monica Pier was developed, Angelenos enjoyed the seaside at Pacific Ocean Park, built to rival Disneyland. After falling into disrepair, it was demolished. Generations of Angelenos traversed the iconic Sixth Street Bridge linking separate parts of the city. Once a major engineering feat but now demolished due to structural weaknesses, we can still see it on screen in movies and TV shows. The LA region was a military outpost long before it was a metropolis, as seen in the remains of Fort Drum from the Civil War era and Fort Moore from the Mexican-American War. And the old Pueblo de Los Angeles reminds us of the many people who have called this city home - Native American communities, Mexican peoples and Spanish colonial settlers. Despite the renewal and change inherent in the region, there is also room for remembering and honoring the past.
Los Angeles is known for its recognizable entertainment landmarks such as the Hollywood sign, the TCL Chinese Theatre, and the Santa Monica Pier, just to name a few. But the hundreds of landmarks of Los Angeles are also rich in culture and have added to the diverse and unique history of southern California.

Featured here are places in which significant developments and innovations occurred. In 1925 at Pasadena’s Throop College of Technology (now known as Caltech), for instance, the Cosmopolitan Club was founded to promote fellowship among students from different nationalities such as Japan, Australia, Costa Rica, Denmark, the Philippines, and Mexico. In 1901, at Pasadena’s popular tourist attraction Cawston Ostrich Farm, founded in 1886, the farm made history as the world’s first successful experiment using a solar-powered motor for commercial use.

Explore the gallery to discover other landmarks and significant events from the Natural History Museum, downtown Burbank, and downtown Los Angeles.