


Last updated 3/1/21 9:24 PM PT—video embed from Bob Baker Day added at bottom.
Updated 1/31/21 7:39 PM PT—nighttime photos added at bottom.
Because of the pandemic, I haven't been able to get inside the circa 1916 Looff's Hippodrome, the building that houses the Santa Monica Pier Carousel.
I couldn't believe my little world of adventure would be compelling enough for a club full of scuba divers, anthropologists, island hoppers, and treasure hunters.
Back in November, the larger-than-life biomorphic buildings known as the Cabazon Dinosaurs were kicked up a notch by being painted in Christmas colors—green for Dinney, the 150-foot-long Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus, and a Santa suit for Mr. Rex, the three-story concrete Tyrannosaurus rex.
Pea Soup Andersen's is for sale. And it appears that it's being pitched as a "development opportunity."
Preservationists know what that means. Somebody might buy it just to tear it down.
But how could that be?
Unlike on Hawaii's black sand beaches, the black you'll find on certain SoCal beaches—especially at the southernmost section of Carpinteria State Beach, just south of Santa Barbara—isn't exactly exotic or romantic.
As I embark on this new year—one that's not so different from last year, at least so far—I feel inclined to record some of my personal accomplishments of 2020.
In 2013, then-City Councilmember Tom LaBonge had helped arrange a tour of Griffith Observatory for the Los Angeles City Historical Society—but he'd gotten called away and couldn't join us there until the very end.
[Last updated 6/3/23 4:15 PM PT—The new name of the bridge has been added below.]
Back in 2019, I took a tour of the construction site of the as-yet-unnamed Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge in Long Beach (now called the "Long Beach International Gateway")—a project that first began in 2013.