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KCET is running a marathon of Huell Howser episodes, and you get to pick which make the cut! Vote for your favorite Huell Howser episode here.

#kcet #huell howser #california's gold #los angeles #socal

Back in the day, Long Beach's Rainbow Pier was actually rainbow-shaped. Get the story and see more pictures here.

#long beach #rainbow #los angeles #history #1946

How beautiful are these old fruit crate labels? They're a lost art! See more here.

#food #california #fruit #illustration #vintage

elcomfortador

How beautiful is this menu? It’s the 1960 cover from L.A.’s Cocoanut Grove.

Via KCET Food.

#60s #cocoanut grove #ambassador hotel #history #restaurants

Before it was home to the Beverly Center, the corner of Beverly and La Cienega was home to an amusement park for children... that ultimately inspired Walt Disney to built Disneyland.

#beverly center #los angeles #walt disney #disneyland #history

Learn all about The Players, the Old Hollywood funplex where the stars partied and which connected to the Chateau Marmont via a secret underground tunnel.

The fact that this site is now the home to a Pink Taco only kind of ruins it.

#los angeles #sunset boulevard #chateau marmont #preston sturges #hollywood

Did you know there's a "French" castle in Alhambra? There is -- and the story of how it came it be is tragically overshadowed by the murder that would eventually play out there.

#alhambra #los angeles #phil spector #lana clarkson #history

It's better than Leimert Park for the alternative, I suppose.

Via KCET Departures' post on the success of Los Angeles's 1932 Olympics and the athlete quarters in Leimert Park.

#los angeles #olympics #leimert park #1932 #vintage

See that right there, just southeast of Hollywood? Yep, "Colegrove." Like so many would-bes that come to SoCal today, one was destined for stardom, while the other was doomed to obscurity.

Here, read about what Colegrove was before it faded off the map.

#1900 #maps #los angeles #history #cornelius cole

elcomfortador

A car wrecked by a 75-foot cypress tree, felled by strong winds in Palms in 1955. Via KCET’s write-up on the history of the Santa Ana winds, via the L.A. Library photo archive.

#los angeles #palms #l.a.#1950s #vintage

bazaardotco

Some Los Angeles Apartments, 1965 — Ed Ruscha

She was a brunette bombshell, a diabolical dame, a femme fatale with a sordid past and unsavory ties to Los Angeles' criminal underworld. They called her "Bloody Babs." And her trial, conviction and execution shaped modern Californian attitudes towards women and the law.

Read the story Barbara Graham, the third woman ever executed by the state of California.

#barbara graham #noir #los angeles #true crime #capital punishment

What Angeleno doesn't have a soft spot for Philippe's? Huell Howser did, and you can watch the hourlong episode detailing his visit to this iconic L.A. eatery here.

#huell howser #kcet #downtown la #la restaurants #french dip

We've posted the full episode of Huell Howser's visit to The Donut Man in Glendora. It's an oldie but a goodie! Watch it here.

#huell howser #kcet #glendora #donut #los angeles

elcomfortador

A very strange 1927 promo photo for Leimert Park, back when it was brand-new and organizers were trying to make it seem like Los Angeles’s new No. 1 neighborhood. It’s… sexy, I guess?

I… don’t get it, exactly. The woman pictured — Wanda Fontaine, about whom I’ve find nothing online — looks a little beat to hell, though how would you look if you had to lug a barrel up a ladder in a dress and heels?

Color tone slightly modified.

Original photo by Dick Whittington Studios, via the USC Library archives, via KCET.

Looking at L.A.'s many pre-WWII neighborhoods, it's easy to forget that many of them were created as pre-planned subdivisions, as manufactured as today's much-maligned suburban gated communities. We'd like to think of old charming blocks of bungalows and small businesses as having grown organically, with each new phase of development based on the notion of supply and demand, but most often than not, they have been results of careful planning.

KCET Departures gives the history behind Leimert Park -- which, yes, was a pre-planned community -- as well as the man for which it's named.

(Photos courtesy of the USC Library archives.)

#leimert park #los angeles history #los angeles #1920s

Did you know that Los Angeles County's first bike path was completed all the way back in 1900? In Santa Monica? L.A. as Subject gives you the history of this cycling first.

Image via Los Angeles Public Library.

#santa monica #los angeles #cycling #bicycle #biker

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