Mulholland Estates reneged on an agreed visitor center & EZ public access to Fossil Ridge. Security asks for your ID even though I brought a letter from SM Mtns' lawyers that it's not required. SM Mtns also has blown it. Circled part is ALL inaccessible due to blocked trailheads. #FreeFossilRidge!

Welcome to Fossil Ridge, the hardest-to-get-to park in the SM Mtns Recreation Area. Access only available via Mulholland Estates' gated security. The park is not maintained, leaving only a 30x30 ft. dirt lot; all trails to fossil-rich areas overgrown with shrubs. Willful neglect.

Before Trousdale Estates was subdivided in the 1950s, it could've become something else... In the '20s, land owner & oil tycnoon Ed Doheny commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a Hanging Gardens of Babylon community embedded in the hills. It got as far as the sketch phase.

Know what I miss? Thursdays and LA freebie rags. That's when LA Weekly & LA Reader (later New Times) dropped into record stores, eateries & newspaper stands. We'd tear into them to plan our weekend -- what movies to watch, concerts to see, events to attend. "Best Of" lists too!

Fun fact: You can also thank Lake Sherwood for Woody Woodpecker. In 1940 animator Walter Lantz & his wife Gracie were staying at a cabin along the lake's shore. An "annoying" woodpecker was pecking on their wood roof at night. Taking his wife's advice, Woody Woodpecker was born.

Lake Sherwood in the SM Mtns. has cameo'd in dozens of films. Its very name comes from doubling as Sherwood Forest in 1922's "Robin Hood." It was drained in the mid-'80s during a developer dispute, but heavy rains (& natural springs) refilled it for today's elite colony there.

A confession from an LA apologist: I had never eaten at The Galley (Santa Monica's oldest restaurant, est. 1934) until last night. Holy smokes, what a great experience. Owner Ron Shur & staff crush it. LA needs more fun eateries again. Great steaks & the fish is from SM Seafood.

Something I learned today: A reader told me my 2021 novel "Paradise Palms" is available through the LA Library. For fans of old LA, gangsters, noir, Hollywood... Book trailer here... www.youtube.com/watch?v=phoA...

Lomie Puckett made national news as the Golden State Grandma in 1958 when Caltrans ordered her home demo'd for the 5 Freeway. She refused and armed herself for 5 days. After she was arrested & given money, turns out she owned 17 properties in LA and didn't live at this address.

Doing a loop in Silver Lake, and Ivanhoe Reservoir is looking nicely van Gogh-esque this morning, a kind of daylight version of "The Starry Night."

The Golden Mall in Burbank lasted from 1967 to 1989. Similar to 3rd St. Promenade, it converted San Fernando Rd. to pedestrian-only. Many merchants hated it because it was a long schlep for shoppers to get to their cars. "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" was mocked by Johnny Carson.😄

Early streetlights, dangling over Long Beach Ave. at 42nd Street, looking north toward City Hall in 1928. I can't help but think this should be an album cover by an indie rock band...

Now that it's the off-season and the weather's getting cooler, time to bring back non-baseball sports to Dodger Stadium... like ski-jump competitions with fake snow!

This month marks the 1-year anniversary of a candid I was lucky to get that is totally LA in a nutshell. I was crossing Hollywood & Highland and saw a "just married" couple while a fire raged at Highland & Fountain against a purple twilight sky. Never found out who they were!

SoCAL FREEWAY FOLLIES No. 4. Nov. 19, 2021. San Diego Freeway, near Carlsbad. Bags of cash fell out of an armored Brink's truck, causing a free-for-all. The FBI ordered all money returned. Two folks armed with bills were arrested after they locked themselves out of their car.

When I was a kid, my go-to Halloween outfit was "hobo," replete with bindle stick, felt hat, tattered clothes. Honestly, I liked it for the bindle stick, a staple in cartoons. Haven't donned a costume lately but my wife & I had fun dressing as Saul Goodman & Kim Wexler in 2022.

Who remembers Dragon Cable Railway at Six Flags Magic Mountain? Honestly, someone should do a pic book of all the trolleys, trains, funiculars, skyways, people-movers & monorails that graced SoCal parks. It was nixed for Ninja roller coaster, whose queue integrated parts of it.

Marina del Rey is an odd duck... right by the water but hard to know where to walk. For you Fitbitters, my book tracks an easy 10,000-step circuit that takes in Mothers Beach, Chace Park, a dog park, Fisherman's Village, and food options, all while enjoying the picturesque docks.

In the '70s, during picnics, I used to pick up golf balls that overshot the range in Griffith Park... until I was spooked by a warning sign. The faded sign is STILL there, and it exudes the strident policies of that era 😆: TAKING RANGE BALLS IS STEALING. YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED.

The painted icons on the LA River bike route by the Glendale-Hyperion viaduct now sport energy domes. A nice reminder that we're all DEVO.

In January 1942 the Rose Bowl was not played in Pasadena. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were concerns about an attack on LA, so the game was moved to Durham, North Carolina. The game was also played elsewhere in 2021, when it moved to Arlington, TX during the pandemic.

1958: When you could be driving along in the Valley and see a missle being carried on a flatbed truck. The Atlas missile was America's first ICBM and propelled the Mercury space capsules... also later helped launch military and commerical satellites.

Dorksters, I wanna turn you onto a fun memoir by author Richard A. Lefkowitz. It's out now, and he's got a book event at Book Soup on Nov. 6. Think "Licorice Pizza" set in the bygone, carefree days of the Westside. fabulousangeles.com/book/

In a doctor's office waiting room and saw that they added a Xmas tree. Guys, seriously, put this away, and I don't want to see it until at least after Thanksgiving.

I've posted monorail pix before of Busch Gardens in Van Nuys (1966-1979). The park also had a 2nd elevated ride known as the Sky Trolley, which ran thru the park. I remember one time it had to stop for 5 mins. until a peacock was shooed off the track. Pix courtesy of View-Master!

Notice anything unusual about this near-completion of the northbound Ventura Freeway (101) in 1960? In addition to being black, street destination signs showed incremental miles in DECIMALS. By 1962, Caltrans began switching all miles to fractions and the signs green.

Greyhound bus terminal, LA, 1969. Who remembers coin-operated TVs? For that matter, indoor ashcans, newspapers, and nattily dressed commuters? 😎

Before settling in Spahn Ranch, Charles Manson and his "Family" hopscotched between dilapidated homes in Topanga Canyon. This one was known as the Spiral Staircase House (3924 Topanga Ln.), located in an area called the Snake Pit for its abundant snakes. The house has been razed.

Pan-Pacific's rink was also the home to the LA Monarchs of the Pacific Coast Hockey League and USC & UCLA's hockey(!) teams. The venue also hosted UCLA basketball games, horse shows, wrestling, roller derbies, car & boat shows, political rallies, tennis tournies. Seating: 6,000.

UNREMARKABLE POSTCARD SERIES, No. 98. Granada Hills, Calif. 1960.

How dominant was Blake Snell last night? Don Larsen-level dominant. After picking off the only runner who got on by a hit, Snell faced the minimum number of batters (24) thru 8 innings before coming out. Last time that happened in the postseason: Larsen's perfect game in 1956.

Pan-Pacific auditorium was one of LA's 1st large multi-use spaces. More posts coming on that... From 1942 to 1984 it ran movies. Streamline Moderne-meets-mid-Century decor, inside and out, graceful lines and curved seats. Just a stunner from Welton Becket.

Diane Keaton, besides being a great actress, director (and singer!) was a shining example of "fake it til you make it," adapting a unique, very-New York look. Johnny Carson and others always assumed she was a NYer, but she was a Calif. kid, graduating from Santa Ana High School.

Hiking in Agoura Hills and came across low-lying vines holding yellow-green melons. They're in the squash family -- known as coyote gourd. Alas, they're too bitter to eat, but Native Americans used them for soap & made rattles from their husks for ceremonial dances.

I sat along right field of Game 3's NLDS. Schwarber's home run LOUDLY clanked off the pavilion roof and beyond. I think only Willie Stargell hit HRs over that roof (twice, '69 and '73). Others to homer over LEFT field: Piazza ('97) McGwire ('99) Stanton ('15) Tatis, Jr. ('21)

From utopia to dystopia... 40 years after the opening of the 4-Level (1953), Michael Douglas expressed Angelenos' pent-up anger at this same junction in "Falling Down" (1993). The sightseeing fam in the previous post would've been standing in the grassy background.

When the 4-Level (world's first) opened in DTLA in 1953, it spawned tons of postcards. I love this "family" (with moody teenager) posing by the side of the 110-to-101-N connector. Sloppily photoshopped in, they look like giants, plus they're breaking the no-peds law of fwys.

In the 1920s, Wilshire and Western was one of the busiest intersections in LA. Chaos ensued when city planners adopted the use of a roundabout to control traffic in those pre-traffic signal days, and newspapers published graphic tutorials for motorists.

While still a teen, Edward James Olmos -- yes the actor -- once fronted a rock/psychedlia band. They were called Eddie James and the Pacific Ocean (cuz nothing's bigger than the Pacific Ocean!) & played the Sunset Strip, including Gazzarri's, in the 1960s. We need a reunion show!

At the Vista's screening of PTO's new movie (I enjoyed it), they're handing out business cards for moviegoers to "check off" seeing the film in 6 different formats. I propose these formats for when it hits the home market: -Beta -VHS -LaserDisc -DVD -BluRay -Streaming

MTA's proposal of a monorail over the 405? Been there, done that. After Disneyland opened its monorail in 1959, Alweg & other firms drafted monorails for freeways, like the 101 thru DTLA. But as new modes, there were concerns parts would be hard to come by if there were problems.

On the Sunset Strip, in the former House of Blues site (now a commercial bldg.), Roy's restaurant was a record exec & musician hangout from 1976-1982. Similar to steakhouses with lockers for your wine bottles, Roy's had private rooms to keep one's cocaine stash for "dessert."

UNREMARKABLE POSTCARD SERIES, No. 93. Compton, Calif. 1953. Compton Blvd., looking east from Willowbrook.

Decades before Disneyland trotted out its beloved Electrical Parade, the LA Coliseum hosted a stunning Motion Picture Electrical Parade with 20 lit-up floats. Produced by the studios, it showcased advances in technology & Hollywood's input in the recently completed 1932 Olympics.

Before it became Bossa Nova restaurant, the A-frame-facade building at 7181 Sunset Blvd. was a Famous Amos Cookies outlet, opened by Wally Amos in 1975. His son Shawn went to my school & we did a field trip, trying his new cookies before they went global! The store closed in '88.

For their first time, the Dodgers will hit 4 million in home attendance for 2025 today. Not technically true, though. In 1982, 3,608,881 fans went thru the turnstyles. But if one included no-shows, it was 4,000,000. Only in 1992 did the NL start going by "total tickets SOLD."

One thing I've always loved... the "Snoopy bridge"! In 1971 Charles M. Schulz donated 12 panels of Peanuts drawings to adorn the ped crossing over Wilbur Ave. near Tarzana Elementary School, where he had a connection. Tarnished over the years, the community restored them in 2024.

When Walt Disney died in December 1966, this was printed on the front pages of newspapers the next day.

My next book event...

Dear young'uns... in the wake of the 1st Earth Day, we oldtimers from the '70s used to have "paper drives." The whole fam would save & lug old newspapers to the school parking lot. The school raised funds by selling the papers to mills. Personal recycling bins ended the drives.