Previously, in writing about Pershing Square I neglected to describe the essential role the place had in the Gay history of Los Angeles. This post is an attempt to redress that lack of research and to…
If you drive through the neighborhood around the intersection of Adams and San Pedro Street today, you will see a strip mall and on the opposite corner a clothing store. Everywhere you look, there are…
This year, 2016, marks the 30th anniversary of the most catastrophic fire of a library building in the U.S. It occurred at our Central Library.Fire and library experts had been warning for years that…
On the morning of April 29, 1986, librarian Dan Dupill was answering telephone calls at the Literature Reference Desk at Central Library. The antiquated phone system was slow, and the volume of calls…
What’s in a name? The stories behind the names of the streets, avenues, roads, and boulevards of Los Angeles reveal much about the history of our city, from its beginning as a tiny pueblo to today's…
As a mainstream news outlet in the 20th Century, it's probably not surprising that the Los Angeles Herald Express (later Herald Examiner) newspaper gave little coverage to the LGBTQIA community. The…
To honor LGBT Heritage Month at the library we present this pictorial map of West Hollywood, one of America’s most enlightened cities. Street maps from as recently as the 1970’s ignored the growing…
A funicular railway or incline railway is a short railway located over a steep incline and operates by a cable wire and pulley system in which two tram-like cars on parallel rail tracks almost counter…
Driving, biking or even walking! around LA we see many place names that we have come to take for granted. Many of these place names were inspired by Angelenos who helped create them. These are just a…
As the start of winter draws near (the winter solstice will be on December 21 in 2012 and it happens at 3:12 am on the West Coast according to the U.S. Naval Observatory), most of us will see snow. It…
