D.J. Waldie
D. J. Waldie is the author of "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" and "Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles," among other books about the social history of Southern California. He is a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times.
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The opportunity to get and stay healthy was a major draw for people to both visit and move to Los Angeles — whether it was during the tuberculosis epidemic (a.k.a. the "forgotten plague") during the 19th century or the health and wellness boom of the early 20th century. Both of these topics are explored in Season 6 of the PBS SoCal Original Series Lost LA.
The early days of the movies in Los Angeles inadvertently allowed visitors to experience the largest collection of animals in the western United States. When animals weren't appearing in a movie, they were rented out to other film companies, performed for studio visitors, or in the case of filmmaker William Selig's collection — an opportunity to create one of Los Angeles' first zoos.
Forgetting is famously what Los Angeles does best. But despite erasure, memories do have a place in Los Angeles. Some are official monuments. Some are in ruins and need critical excavation. Some require the imagination to be seen. Here are some places of memory lost to time.
Booster optimism, unregulated stock speculation, a culture of civic corruption, the power of new advertising media and the cunning of stock promoters fed the Julian Pete swindle — a scandal that defrauded tens of thousands of investors of over $150 million.
On May 22, 1958, a series of oil spills and explosions ignited the Hancock Oil Refinery in Signal Hill, burning for two days and sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air. Writer D.J. Waldie, who was 9-years-old at the time of the fires, recalls the explosive event.
The socially and historically complex Terminal Island has become a mono-culture of standardized, containerized commerce. Writer D.J. Waldie recounts a personal history of a once scruffy seaside that is now the nation’s top cargo port.
The history of commercial avocados in California comes from a collection of chance discoveries, Indigenous heritages exploited and improbable survivals that were ultimately hitched to the power of California's industrialized agriculture.
The deaths of early Angelenos didn't always lead to eternal rest. When the first Catholic, Jewish and Protestant cemeteries in Los Angeles were abandoned by 1910, the displaced dead were scattered to other cemeteries — but not all were found and reburied.
In November 1935, Los Angeles Times reporter Timothy Turner and staff artist Charles Owens began a year-long ramble through the historic core of downtown. The Times published more than 40 vignettes of the city's aging Victorian mansions, derelict theaters and other survivals of the 19th century.
When Los Angeles first installed incandescent street lamps, or electroliers, it illuminated the streets with a soft glow, with each street light having distinct decorative features that reflected class distinctions.
By the end of 1883, Los Angeles became the first city in America to abandon gas for street lighting, opting for electricity.
In the 19th century, efforts in making Los Angeles more modern made the city more dependent on burning a fossil fuel.