Dateline>City of Angels

Here’s a relatively easy one, straight out of the LAPL digital archives. Part of the California Historical Society  collection, the above image is the earliest known photo of a famous Southland landmark. So can you identify it? Click “Read More” for the answer (as if you don’t already know it). Read more

Today’s pop quiz is dedicated to Mission San Gabriel, which celebrates its 237th annual fiesta tomorrow through Sunday. Founded Sept. 8, 1771, it was fourth in California’s chain of 21 missions, and among the most prosperous. It can also be called L.A.’s Mother Church, since the pobladores set out from here to found the City of Angels. But the current site is not the mission’s first location.

The Question: Where was the original site of the mission? (Follow the “Read More” jump for the answer.) Read more

As the world celebrates the Beijing Olympic Games, it seems only fitting to serve up a pop quiz paying tribute to the City of Angels’ Chinese community, which has overcome tremendous adversity over the last 156 years…

The Question: Centered around North Broadway, New Chinatown is among L.A.’s most popular tourist attractions. However, as the name implies, it’s not the city’s original Chinese settlement. So where was the first Chinatown, and what occupies that site today? (Click the continuation link to find out.) Read more

Famous as the film capital of the world and home to L.A.’s mythic “Boulevard of Dreams,” Hollywood has come a long way since its founding in 1886. Carved from lands that once belonged to Ranchos La Brea and Los Feliz, the area was known to the region’s Californios as “La Nopalera” because of the huge cactus patches that grew there.

So here’s this week’s question: Why the change in monikers? How did modern Hollywood get its name? Click the continuation link for the answer… Read more

The Film: Sunset Blvd., the 1950 film noir classic co-written/directed by Billy Wilder and starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson.

The Scene: After leading two repo men on a high-speed car chase along a winding stretch of Sunset Blvd., down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis (Holden) ditches them with a quick turn into an old, rundown estate. Mistaken for a “pet mortician” by the mansion’s bizarre owner (Swanson), Gillis tries to explain his intrusion into her reclusive world as her identity begins to dawn on him…

“You’re Norma Desmond… You used to be in silent pictures… You used to be big.”

“I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!”

The Question: What was the address for this legendary exchange, (a) in the film, and (b) in real life? (Again, no fair Googling up hints.) Click the Read More link to see the answer… Read more

Question: Ask someone where you’ll find California’s steepest streets and they’ll likely guess San Francisco, where roadways like Filbert and 22nd sport a 31.5-percent grade. Hilly as the City by the Bay may be, however, it’s got nothing on the City of Angels, which actually lays claim to not one, but five of the state’s meanest climbs. Can you name them and the neighborhoods in which they’re found? Hit the “Read More” link to jump to the answer. And no fair peeking or Googling for hints… Read more