Golden Gopher? Must be run by a wayward Minnesota grad.
Thanks to Johnny Socko for the link to this thread. I've been perusing through for at least a week, now, and I signed up for an account just so I could contribute.
The history of Venice is very interesting, especially all the old canals that were filled and turned into streets. Jeffery Stanton came to one of my architecture classes and talked to us about Venice and talked about his book and showed us a number of great photographs. His book has a lot of great information that he's dug up.:
http://www.westland.net/venice/stanton.htm
http://www.westland.net/venicehistor...acificBook.htm
(Jeffery Stanton)
And this website about former airfields is also amazing. I am especially keen on the former Howard Hughes Airport (now "Playa Vista") because I used to live across the street for a couple years and subjected my wife many times to pointing out the "location where the Spruce Goose was built":
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_...ds_CA_LA_W.htm
(USGS)
And what talk of LA wouldn't be complete without Campo de Cahuenga, the location of the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga (wish i could find some old pictures of that adobe) :
(wikipedia)
I've been gone from LA for 2 years and haven't missed it at all until I started looking at all these pictures. This thread is incredible. I can't wait to see more great old photographs!
I've seen some photos from the 1960's that actually showed yellow smog thick enough to be rolling INTO some downtown office buildings through open windows. If anybody can find those photos, I'd love to see them, too.