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Bodie

Ghost Towns

Season 3 Episode 4
26:40
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Venice

Season 3 Episode 5
26:40
Fantasyland Banner

Fantasyland

Season 3 Episode 6
26:40
Young men walking with a view of Griffith Observatory | Courtesy of the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California Library

Griffith Park - The Untold History

Season 4 Episode 1
26:48
A Monument in the Cemetery at Manzanar Relocation Center | Ansel Adams, Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Three Views of Manzanar - Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake

Season 4 Episode 2
26:40
Men and women toasting farewell to the 18th Amendment during Prohibition | Los Angeles Examiner Photographs Collection,University of Southern California Libraries

Bootlegger Tunnels - A Journey Through LA’s Prohibition Lore

Season 4 Episode 3
26:40
Paul Revere Williams opposite a man explaining a project | Courtesy of J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Paul Revere Williams - An African-American Architect in Jet-Age L.A.

Season 4 Episode 4
26:17
Mount Wilson Observatory | Image from "Lost LA" S4 E5: Discovering the Universe

Discovering the Universe - Exploring the Cosmos Atop Mount Wilson

Season 4 Episode 5
24:52
Shindana Dolls | Still from "Lost LA" S4 E6: Shindana Toy Company

Shindana Toy Company - Changing the American Doll Industry

Season 4 Episode 6
26:40
Who Killed the Red Car?

Who Killed the Red Car?

Season 5 Episode 1
26:46
Winemaking

Winemaking

Season 5 Episode 2
26:41
Lost LA Season 5

Prehistoric Landscapes

Season 5 Episode 3
26:46
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Lost LA

Beach Culture

Season 3 Episode 3

One of Southern California’s great international exports has been its beach culture. This episode explores how surfers, bodybuilders and acrobats taught Californians how to have fun and stay young at the beach — and how the 1966 documentary “The Endless Summer” shared the Southern California idea of the beach with the rest of the world.

In this episode, we cover the evolution of surfing with surfer Dick Metz, including the contributions made by legendary early Hawaiian surfers George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku. Metz inspired Bruce Brown’s film “The Endless Summer,” and his collection at the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center covers every development in surf technology, which has been heavily influenced by aerospace. We also chat with the first female professional surfer, Joyce Hoffman, about the appeal of Southern California beach culture and its export to the rest of the world.
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Looking like "a brown Mercury (whose) heels are winged," as Jack London had called him years before in Hawaii, George Freeth aquaplaned with apparent effortlessness in September 1916 in San Diego.
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George Freeth: King of the Surfers and California's Forgotten Hero
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Women surfboarders form a star as they lie on their huge hollow surfboards on Santa Monica beach | Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images
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How Southern California’s Aerospace Industry Helped Revolutionize Surfing
Mr. Muscle Beach, 1951 | Los Angeles Examiner Negatives Collection, 1950-1961/University of Southern California. Libraries
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How Muscle Beach Started in Santa Monica — But Ended Up in Venice
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Bruce Brown at work | Bruce Brown Films, LLC
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Selling the Stoke: Surfing Toward the “The Endless Summer”
Prema Sampat with Melissa Ip and Ramdasha Biceem surfboard realness
Artbound
Sea Sick in Paradise: An Art Show That Connects Surfers and Artists
press image for lost la season 2
23:50
Season 2 Episode 4
Dream Factory
Los Angeles is often identified with Hollywood, but there's more to the entertainment industry than its facade of movie stars and blockbuster films.
Steel frame of building being erected
25:32
Season 2 Episode 3
Building the Metropolis
Wood, iron, steel, concrete -- these are the materials that gave form to Los Angeles and shaped its identity in the national imagination. This episode also questions the cultural legacy and environmental costs of the city's relentless growth.
Calle de los Negros, Los Angeles, 1871
26:12
Season 2 Episode 2
Wild West
Long before Hollywood imagined the Wild West, Los Angeles was a real frontier town of gunslingers, lynch mobs, and smoke-belching locomotives.
Pio Pico
26:50
Season 2 Episode 1
Borderlands
American history has long been told as a triumphant march westward from the Atlantic coast, but in southern California, our history stretches back further in time.
Reshaping L.A.
28:32
Season 1 Episode 3
Reshaping L.A.
In this episode, "Lost LA" examines how the modern metropolis has reshaped its own topography. The program explores downtown L.A.'s lost hills and tunnels, as well as the vanished canals of Venice Beach.
Before the Dodgers
20:57
Season 1 Episode 2
Before The Dodgers
In this episode, "Lost LA" explores the various ways Southern California's inhabitants have used the hills around Dodger Stadium.
Wild L.A.
23:28
Season 1 Episode 1
Wild L.A.
In this episode, Lost L.A. explores the complicated relationship between the city and its natural environment.
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