Photo Essay: Riding the D (Or, Bringing the D to Beverly Hills)

When you move from New York City to Los Angeles, everybody outside of LA says, "Oh, but you have to drive." 

That's not a bad thing to me. I often wished I had a car when I lived in three of the five boroughs. And by the time I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 2003, I'd been avoiding the subway ride home late at night for years already. At one point when I was making enough money, I took cabs to work every day. 

But living in Beverly Hills since 2011, I have felt the pinch of not even having the option to ride the subway. If I wanted to, say, ride the Expo line to an event at the Coliseum (so as to avoid traffic and high parking fees), I'd still have to drive five miles (or 20 minutes) and park my car in the Metro lot. 

Thank goodness for the bus lines, which have gotten me where I've needed to go many times when my car has been in the shop and I couldn't afford rideshare.

So even though public transit has not been part of my daily routine, I was still excited that the LA subway was finally coming to Beverly Hills, thanks to the Purple Line Extension—or what's now known as "the D." 

Photo Essay: Lloyd Wright's Legacy Lives On at the Henry O. Bollman House

The construction of the Henry O. Bollman house in Los Angeles' Sunset Square Historic District is very much a story of sons. 

Henry's father was a prominent Hollywood man, Otto Bollman, president of the Dial Film Company (perhaps best known for the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat). 

Henry forged his own path as a builder/developer—and when he was planning for his own home to be built on North Ogden Drive in the early 1920s, he commissioned it from the son of one of the most notorious architects of the time. 

Photo Essay: A Promise Kept—Woolworth's Is Serving Lunch Again (And More) in Bakersfield, California

Back in 2019, when I first dined at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Bakersfield...

 

...the adjacent Five & Dime Antique Mall was still open and chock full of vintage wares, from furniture to clothing. 

Photo Essay: A Red Car Cabin in the Woods

It didn't take much for me to throw all my Saturday plans out the window last weekend—just the discovery that a mountain cabin built out of a Red Car trolley is for sale, and I could see it for myself during a two-hour open house.

 

Photo Essay: Baseball Buzz Returns to Ontario, California With the Opening of ONT Field

Ontario Airport in California's Inland Empire has been staging a major comeback—and it may have launched its biggest flex yet.

I remember when the only way for me to fly JetBlue from New York City to the West Coast was from JFK to ONT or LGB (Long Beach)—and then JetBlue ceased operations out of ONT in 2008 and the mid-sized airport's business declined by nearly half. 

That was back when Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) controlled ONT and didn't prioritize regional air transport. But then ownership of the Ontario airport transferred to the locally-focused Ontario International Airport Authority in 2016—and when JetBlue returned in 2018, that seemed to be a major sign of an upswing. 

By the end of 2019, the number of passengers passing through the airport rebounded to its 2008 numbers. And in the following years, ONT continued to break its own records, celebrate more milestones, and welcome more airlines to its runways and gates. 

 

Now, ONT holds the naming rights for the new baseball stadium in Ontario, called ONT Field. 

Photo Essay: The Troll Takeover of South Coast Botanic Garden

I missed out on a lot going on around town when I was writing the centennial history book for The Los Angeles Breakfast Club (which is coming out later this year). I was too busy, too overwhelmed to maintain my baseline level of vigilance and diligence when it comes to avoiding regret. 

So when the six wooden sculptures of Thomas Dambo’s TROLLS: Save the Humans arrived at South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes in late 2023—and only stuck around for just over three months—I didn't have the bandwidth to figure out what they were or why I should go until it was too late. 

Until my coauthor pointed out that Thomas Dambo is Danish and would be bringing a permanent troll installation to California's Danish town, Solvang. 

I still haven't made it up north to see that one—which debuted in early 2025—but I got a second chance at the South Coast Botanic Garden this spring, with the arrival of 12 brand new trolls as part of Thomas Dambo’s Trolls: A Field Study, which runs through October 4.

I wasn't going to miss it this time. 

 

The Only Place You Can Ride—And Drive!—Pacific Electric Red Cars From LA's Historic Streetcar System

I had no idea when I first visited the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, California in 2015 (then called the Orange Empire Railway Museum) and saw the Pacific Electric Red Cars there...

circa 2015

...that just over 10 years later, I'd be in the driver's seat of not one but two of those very same streetcars. 

Photo Essay: A Spring Bloom on the Largest Channel Island—And Its Rare Standout

Many things have fascinated me about Southern California, since before I even moved here—but one of the biggest standouts among those fascinations has been Channel Islands National Park. 

And I treasure each opportunity I get to go. 

I'm not talking so much about Catalina Island, and its charming beachside town of Avalon—but the wild isles of the archipelago, the national park islands, like San Miguel, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz. (Unfortunately, Santa Barbara Island is currently hard to get to because of damage to the dock.)

 

At nearly 100 square miles, the largest of those is Santa Cruz Island—and its multiple anchorages call for many return trips to see as much of it as possible. 

Photo Essay: A Daylight Exploration of the Variety Arts Theatre

Back in 2012, I didn't have the lay of the land in Los Angeles yet—so, I just tried to take every opportunity to go anywhere that seemed cool, even if I'd never heard of it before. 

That's how I ended up at Variety Arts Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, thanks to a haunted house/immersive theater show for Halloween by horror movie producer Jason Blum called Blumhouse of Horrors. 

I only had one photo of the night, and I could barely recall any real details, so I was thrilled to be able to return for Julia Stoschek Foundation's six-week run of "What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem" video art installation during its opening weekend last month.

Only thing was, it was pretty dark in there. I didn't feel like I could really see the building (which was the main reason I went in the first place).

 

So I scheduled myself on another day, after Spring Forward, right when the place opens at 5 p.m., so I could partake in the playhouse under some daylight illumination. 

Photo Essay: A Final Look at the Stahl House Before It's Sold (For the First Time Ever)

"Nothing important ever happened here," our docent told us on a recent tour of the Stahl House, which I got a last-minute ticket to so I could finally see it in daylight before it gets sold.