@LAhistory
@lahistory.bsky.social
Jogging the collective memory of Los Angeles through social media since 2009. Some people think LA has no history. They just don't know where to look.
Yetta Stromberg's descendant is developing a documentary about her great-aunt -> www.orangegrovesandjailsfilm.com
Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 2d ago#OtD 3 Aug 1929 19-year-old communist Yetta Stromberg was arrested with six others for having a red flag in California, one of 24 states which banned socialist/anarchist flags. She took her case to the Supreme Court and won, overturning the ban stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1015...
100 years. Countless stories. Casa del Mar is celebrating a century as one of Santa Monica's most iconic landmarks. Read More: www.smdp.com/from-the-roari... #SantaMonica #CasaDelMar #HistoricLandmark #CaliforniaCoast #SMDP
"The first 'Ridge Route,' the one with nearly 700 curves cut out of the mountainsides by mule and horse teams dragging scrapers, had opened in 1916," @pattmlatimes.bsky.social. www.latimes.com/california/s... #highways
Commentary: Highway bandits, Charles Lindbergh and the 700 curves; The story of the Ridge Route over Tejon Pass
Two versions of the Ridge Route over the Tejon Pass were built before the Interstate 5 was completed in 1970, connecting L.A. to Central California.
latimes.com
Remembering the actress Dolores del Río, born #OTD in 1905, with the #DoloresdelRio mural in Hollywood by artist @alfredo-de-batuc.bsky.social. More info via the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles: www.themcla.org/node/53
in many cases, the train company was _also_ the bus company! the pacific electric railway in LA also owned the motor transit company, which ran the region's buses. 6/
Aug 2, 1942: José Gallardo Díaz died from his injuries sustained in Sleepy Lagoon. In response to his murder, the police rounded up 600 Mexican American suspects, mostly wearing zoot suits. www.pbs.org/wgbh/america... Portrait of Jose G. Diaz, from the larger mural at Maywood's Riverfront Park.
Aug 5: There are a few Fairfax Film Festival tickets left for the screening of the documentary “Acting Like Women” (about the Woman's Building). #performanceart Info: www.lookcinemas.com/glendale/mov...
"People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience," says Escott Norton, former executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation.
LA's legendary Cinerama Dome will reopen, bouncing back from pandemic bankruptcy
"People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience," says Escott Norton, former executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation.
n.pr
Aug 1, 1956: The City of La Puente was incorporated 70 years ago today. #SanGabrielValley "La Puente Valley attracted numerous settlers during the 1840s with the Gold Rush and again in the 1870s with railroad lines." Text/images via the #LACounty Library: lacountylibrary.org/lapuente-loc...
The Triforium in #DTLA should have AUX IN jacks so that local electronic musicians and DJs can perform under it and trigger its light displays. But y'allz know The City will never do that. 🙄
@LAhistory@lahistory.bsky.social · 5d ago"Joseph Young's Triforium is a musical instrument with lit glass prisms, in #DTLA. It was an experiment so far ahead of its time that it has stirred controversy since its 1975 unveiling." ICYMI: #PBSSoCal featured the Triforium in a recent episode of Artbound. www.pbs.org/video/the-tr... #publicart
🎡 Had a lovely time in Ontario last night hearing about the extensive Fairplex collection archived at @cpplibrary.bsky.social! Passing along CPP Library’s link to the vintage #LACountyFair video & audio footage posted on California Revealed -> californiarevealed.org/search?searc... #countyfair
Cal Poly Pomona University Library@cpplibrary.bsky.social · 4w ago📅 Mark your calendars! On Thursday, July 30, join Cal Poly Pomona Special Collections & Archives at the Ontario City Library for a free talk on the history of the Los Angeles County Fair. First come, first served. 📍 Ovitt Family Community Library, Ontario, CA
"It might be said of #EveBabitz, as Oscar Wilde said of his life, that she spent her talent on her writing & reserved her genius for her life. Sculpting her natural gifts of wit & brazenness into a living artwork dazzled all who came within her orbit." www.latimes.com/entertainmen... #writersky
"Joseph Young's Triforium is a musical instrument with lit glass prisms, in #DTLA. It was an experiment so far ahead of its time that it has stirred controversy since its 1975 unveiling." ICYMI: #PBSSoCal featured the Triforium in a recent episode of Artbound. www.pbs.org/video/the-tr... #publicart
Artbound | The Triforium’s Noisy History and Vision for the Future | Season 16 | Episode 2
Explore the Triforium, a controversial light-and-sound landmark in downtown LA.
pbs.org
The city of Los Angeles bulldozed Chavez Ravine in the 1950s, displacing thousands of Mexican American residents to make way for Dodger Stadium. A new digital archive, Chavez Ravine: An Unfinished History, preserves the story of the families who lived there. Read more: buff.ly/zltbWt5
New Chavez Ravine Digital Archive at LMU
Loyola Marymount University hosts digital archive that keeps history of Chavez Ravine, the neighborhoods demolished to make way for Dodger Stadium, alive.
lamaterial.com
Artist Betye Saar was born #OTD 100 years ago. “Few artists have been as emblematic of their time & place as Betye Saar. While her geography has technically remained the same…she has found a way to remain engaged & vital throughout her region's many eras.” CAAM (2019): caamuseum.org/learn/600sta...
CAAM | #blackhistory: On July 30, 1926, legendary artist Betye Saar was born
Few artists have been as emblematic of their time and place as Betye Saar. While her geography has technically remained the same—Saar (née Brown) was born in Los Angeles on July 30, 1926, and has live...
caamuseum.org
Challenging the ‘outsiders’ perception’ of the wealth of Pasadena through #HistoricalFiction :
Pasadena’s Japan: Crown City by Naomi Hirahara - Historical Novel Society
BY LOUISE TREE Naomi Hirahara is a mystery writer who has also written a non-fiction work on the Japanese gardeners of Southern California. Her novel Crown City (Soho Crime, February 2026) is the third...
historicalnovelsociety.org
Author #ChesterHimes was born #OTD in 1909. He wrote two novels set in wartime Los Angeles after working in San Pedro's shipyards during WW2. "His stories sing with a fire and light that comes from a simmering sense of loss. A loss of respect, of humanity, of honor." www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/b...
The Crime Novelist Who Was Also a Great American Novelist (Published 2024)
Chester Himes was on par with Ellison, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, S.A. Cosby writes.
nytimes.com
"She also usually pointed out one of the last Los Angeles citrus trees in Little Tokyo, a grapefruit tree named Sunny. I glanced at the historical, beautiful tree now as I ambled along," Emily Kimiko Gee. #LittleTokyo
Discover Nikkei@discovernikkei.bsky.social · 7d agoThe Little Tokyo Historical Society’s Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest - Youth category, honorable mention is Emily Kimiko Gee's "Oh Bachan." Click to read the story (translations available).
July 28, 1984: The 1984 Summer Olympics opening ceremony was held in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcWF...
Opening Ceremony Highlights - Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games
YouTube video by Olympic Games
youtube.com
Aug 15 @ 12pm: The #EastLA Library’s Chicano Resource Center is celebrating 50 years. Panelists Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, Patricia Nazario & Erick Galindo will discuss "Latinidad LA: 50 Years of Culture, Community, & #Chicano Legacy." #LACounty Library: lacountylibrary.org/chicano-reso... #LAEvents
I spent time behind the scenes reporting about Betye Saar’s “Drifting Toward Twilight” which incorporates an array of Saar’s signature found objects as well as flora from the Huntington’s grounds. Mysterious, layered, the piece feels like something out of antiquity. huntington.org/frontiers/be...
My favorite Betye Saar quote was in a story I did in 2015 about how LA museums were then failing to engage her work. Her response: "They can’t wait and wait because then I’ll die and it’ll cost big bucks. Then they will pay for their hesitation.” Love her. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
Column: Betye Saar's art on race couldn't be timelier. So why aren't more museums showing her work?
It's not for nothing that Betye Saar's traveling museum show is called "Still Tickin'."
latimes.com
So sorry to hear about the passing of Los Angeles artist Betye Saar, just a few days shy of her 100th birthday on July 30. She leaves behind such a tremendous legacy within the local (& national) arts community. #womenartists #womenshistory
Los Angeles Times@latimes.com · last wk.Pioneering L.A. assemblage artist Betye Saar, who ‘liberated’ Aunt Jemima, dies days before her 100th birthday https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2026-07-27/betye-saar-dead-artist-assemblage-aunt-jemima-99?utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky_
July 27, 1980: Lily Tomlin reprised her “Mildred, the Waitress" role for a Woman’s Building fundraiser. On Sunday, #LilyTomlin was in the Getty audience for the LA premiere of “Acting Like Women," a documentary about the legendary feminist art space in Los Angeles. #womenshistory #womenartists
In 1966, Ed Ruscha drove a car rigged with a motorized camera to capture Los Angeles’s most iconic street: Sunset Boulevard. He created a time capsule of its famed facades, beginning a 60-year-long commitment to documenting the changing urban landscape of postwar Los Angeles.
A 2021 and 2026 look at the historic Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round, as the beloved Los Angeles carousel turns (turned?) 100 this year. The Spillman #carousel was built in 1926, moved to #GriffithPark in 1937, and closed for repairs in 2022. #NationalCarouselDay
Iconic Los Angeles deli to mark 95 years with 95-cent pastrami deal
Iconic Los Angeles deli to mark 95 years with 95-cent pastrami deal
One of Los Angeles’ most enduring and recognizable delis will sell its famous pastrami sandwich with all the fixings for just 95 cents next month, but for one day only. Canter’s Deli, a…
ktla.com
On Wed, Long Beach officials hosted a public unveiling of the city’s 50-year-old time capsule that was sealed for the Bicentennial in 1976. In this photo, Mayor Rex Richardson is holding a model of the #DC10 that he pulled out of the #LongBeachCA time capsule. www.presstelegram.com/2026/07/22/l...
Long Beach reveals artifacts from 1976 during time capsule opening
The event included five Long Beach Unified School District graduates reading aloud letters they wrote for the time capsule in elementary school.
presstelegram.com
Aviator Amelia Earhart was born #OTD in 1897. A few images of #AmeliaEarhart as seen at Santa Monica's Museum of Flying, including one of her Lockheed Vega (this is a replica as the original is at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in DC: airandspace.si.edu/collection-o...). #womenshistory #aviation
