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Delmar Watson (back to camera) looks out over downtown Los Angeles. Courtesy of the Watson Family Photographic Archive.
A famous family of child actors became a family of news photographers, creating an indispensable visual record of 20th-century Los Angeles.
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Jack Lalanne, for better or for worse, revolutionized home cooking -- and peoples' understanding of nutrition -- in America.
The Long Beach plunge anchored the popular amusement zone known as the Pike. Courtesy of the Werner Von Boltenstern Postcard Collection, Department of Archives and Special Collections, Loyola Marymount University Library.
From the 1880s through the 1920s, Southern Californians plunged into large, indoor pools just steps away from the Pacific Ocean.
How did a real estate developer transform Mt. Washington's chaparral slopes into a residential community?
Elysian Parks' Fremont Gate entrance in 1909. Courtesy of the Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library.
Elysian Park, one of L.A.'s oldest parks, exists today because its rugged land was considered worthless.
A sycamore tree in South Pasadena in 1886. Courtesy of the USC Libraries - California Historical Society Collection.
Native to the Los Angeles area, sycamores can grow to massive proportions, inspiring romantic tales and standing as tangible connections to the region's past.
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The rose garden at USC has a long, and sometimes scandalous, history.
For a few short years, privately owned Second Street Park was once of Los Angeles' most popular outdoor retreats. Circa 1890 photo courtesy of the USC Libraries - California Historical Society Collection.
A popular outdoor retreat in the 1880s, Second Street Park became a casualty of industrial progress when L.A.'s first oil boom gripped the city in 1892. Today, not a trace of it remains.
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The common story of how the Joshua tree got its name is pretty, and very widespread. But is it true?
Detail of an 1877 lithograph commissioned by the Brooklyn Land and Building Company and advertising Brooklyn Heights' empty lots. Prospect Park appears in the foreground. Behind it, across the river, is central Los Angeles. Courtesy of the Big Map Blog.
In 1877, parts of Los Angeles' Eastside began to resemble New York's second borough -- in name, at least.
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When presented with the opportunity to explore it without the distraction of baseball, I stepped up to the plate, as it were.
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Angels Flight is a remnant of an earlier age. Incline railways once climbed hillsides and conquered steep grades across Southern California.
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