E-Books →Los Angeles An Illustrated History

Here the spectacular visual variety and richness of Los Angeles is fully projected in a single volume. We see the exuberant, sometimes chaotic growth of the city as the Los Angeles panorama opens out, from the days of the Californios who built the first missions and pueblos in the 1770s, through the cityscape of the 1880s (revealed in a contemporary series of color lithographs) to the latest avant garde art and architecture . . . the incredible landscape of the film world to the no less central and fascinating oil and aircraft industries, from the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains to the rows of blue-collar cottages. Here are Venice's striking WPA murals the 1932 Olympics . . . the first Tournament of Roses. Here are the vast constructions so typical of Los Angeles-the endless freeways, the historic aqueduct bringing water from the Owens Valley the Hollywood Bowl. In marvelous rare photographs we see the city dominated and shaped by transportation-from the horse and stagecoach to the railroads and streetcar railways and ships to the automobile and airplane. And finally we see Los Angeles, the brave new city spreading out across the face of Southern California; effecting and altering everything in its path, the splendid metropolis moving into its third century.