WHAT L.A. GAVE THE WORLD -- Stories
- 1
In 1510, a Spanish writer named Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo published a fantasist novel called “Las Sergas de Esplandian,” about a golden island ruled by a dark-skinned Amazon queen called Califia.
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The dubious Julian Petroleum Corp. crashed, spectacularly, in the 1920s. That event presaged the Depression but eventually helped to spur stock market reforms.
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Southern California’s development model has its critics, but it’s rooted in a powerful idea. As the world adopts our rampant growth, we are reassessing our civic structure.
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Freeways changed the region forever and created a blueprint for suburban life throughout the nation.
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LOS ANGELES reinvented the wheel.
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Big things happened -- for L.A. and for baseball -- when Walter O’Malley brought the Dodgers west. Not without controversy, he began the nationalization of what was America’s pastime.
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Pasadena and UCLA claimed Jackie Robinson as a sports sensation long before he stepped up to the plate.
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Images of tanned, fit bodies working out in the sand put L.A. beaches at the forefront of the early, and continuing, fitness frenzy.
- 9
This sport was born, crawled and burned through its training wheels in Southern California.
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A dark aesthetic that found a firm foothold in the movies -- fed by hard-boiled crime fiction and scandal-sheet journalism -- is a flourishing Los Angeles export.
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WE all live for the sun. At least, that’s the case in Southern California.
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Here, the glamorous wear sweats to swanky restaurants and flip-flops with gowns. Chalk one up for the lifestyle that redefined — and demystified — what chic meant.
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Photographs ushered in the modern era. But it was Hollywood that used the camera to make beautiful strangers into celebrities.
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Since Helen Gahagan Douglas traded the footlights for the hustings, a steady stream of Hollywood stars has sought public office.
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Fusing resentment of the police with violent films, N.W.A struck a raw nerve and created a new genre called gangsta rap.
- 16
KROQ ushered in a new era of music and changed what we wanted to hear.
- 17
Forget the huddled masses. L.A. became a migration magnet because of its shiny tourism and bustling growth. So it’s no wonder everybody here is from somewhere else.
- 18
BY the 1920s, one of Hollywood’s greatest cinematographers, James Wong Howe, was already a chief cameraman for the Lasky Studios.
- 19
What is it about Los Angeles that annoys people so much? Let’s face it -- everyone needs some place to despise. And we’re it.
- 20
Latinos have had a major influence on the L.A. of today. They still grapple with retaining a bit of their culture and winning acceptance.
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With a world of cultures and a bounty of fresh ingredients, it’s no wonder that California cuisine emerged as an inspirational celebration of food. And yes, it plays in Peoria.
- 22
In a wildly polyglot city — where Midwesterners live next to Oaxacans; Taiwanese, Armenians and Russians mingle with Hollywood hipsters; and Tongans live side by side with native Californians — is it any wonder that their various cuisines have blurred into each other too?
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GOING to the drive-in! What a breezy, James Dean-ish life!
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MESQUITE, nopal, maguey, wild maize: These were some of the foods eaten in Mexico 9,000 years ago by nomadic people.
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SUPERMARKETS can gnaw at the soul.
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From its earliest boom-town days, Los Angeles has always sold itself as the city of the future. Thanks to its changeable nature and international status, it’s still a model for how contemporary urban
- 27
The lure of Hollywood has raised the bar for what is beauty, feeding the explosive growth of cosmetic surgery that has become both a business and an art.
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The latest American religious movement had its genesis just outside the borders of Little Tokyo.
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Far from going the way of all flesh, the porn industry has worked its way from the Valley into the American mainstream -- particularly via the Internet.
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More than asphalt, the stretch of Sunset has fueled the myth of Hollywood.
- 31
Oranges. Oil. Movies. Surfing. Space flight. L.A.’s tangled history is tough to sum up.
