Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
14
when shipyar ds and munitions factories,
as w ell as aer ospace giants M cDonnell
Douglas, Lockheed, R ockwell, and G en-
eral Dynamics, opened their doors in
Southern California and the wor kers who
flocked here needed affordable housing.
THE POSTWAR ERA
After the war, the
threat of television put the movie industry
into a tailspin. B
businesses pr ospered, and the enter tain-
ment industry boomed.
THE NE W MILLENNIUM
T oday, as
always, Angelenos are on the leading edge
of American pop cultur e. But they've dis-
covered, as the world wags its finger and
shakes its collective head, that success isn't
always all it 's cracked up to be. The
nation's economic, social, and envir on-
mental pr oblems hav e become the city 's
own, and ev en become amplified in this
larger-than-life ar ena. The 1991 R odney
King beating and subsequent 1992 riot-
ing, the 1994 N orthridge earthquake, the
1996 acquittal of O. J. Simpson, the 1998
El Niño
floods, the L APD Rampart scan-
dal in 2000—half the city pr oclaimed
these disasters as signaling the beginning
of the end, declaring each time that L.A.
would never fully r ecover. The other half
optimistically pr edicted that adv ersity
would unite the fragmented city and it
would emerge, phoenix-like, stronger than
ever. Both factions were partially correct—
but mostly the city has just gone on with
the business of being L.A.
ut instead of being
destroyed b y the “ tube,” H ollywood was
strengthened when that industr y made its
home here as well. Soon afterward, in the
1950s and 1960s, the av ant-garde discov-
ered Los Angeles, too; the city became
popular with artists, beatniks, and hippies,
many of whom settled in Venice.
The 1970s gav e rise to a number of
exotic religions and cults that found eager
adherents in S outhern California. The
spiritual “N ew Age ” born in the “M
e”
decade found life into the 1980s, in the
face of a population growing beyond man-
ageable limits, an incr easingly polluted
environment, and escalating social ills. A t
the same time, California became v ery
rich. Real-estate values soared, banks and
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3
ART & ARCHITECTURE
The movie industr y, more than anything
else, has defined Los Angeles. The process
of moviemaking has nev er been confined
to studio offices and back lots; it spills into
the city 's str eets and other public spaces.
The city itself is an extension of the movie
•
1940
L.A.'s first freeway, the
Arroyo Seco Parkway, connects
Hollywood and Pasadena.
•
1947
The first TV station
west of the Mississippi, KTLA,
begins broadcasting.
•
1950
L.A.'s population is
nearly two million.
•
1955
Disneyland opens.
•
1961
Hollywood's Walk of
Fame is started by the Holly-
wood Chamber of Commerce.
•
1962
California overtakes
New York as the nation's
most populous state.
•
1965
Tension between
white LAPD officers and the
African-American commu-
nity fuels riots in Watts.
•
1968
Robert F. Kennedy is
fatally shot at the Ambassa-
dor Hotel after winning Cali-
fornia's Democratic Party
presidential primary.
•
1980
L.A.'s population is
nearly three million.
•
1984
Los Angeles hosts the
Summer Olympic Games.
•
1992
More than 40 die and
hundreds are injured in the
race riots resulting from the
acquittal of the police offi-
cers involved in the Rodney
King beating.
•
1994
An earthquake mea-
suring 6.8 on the Richter
scale shakes the city.
•
1996
At the conclusion of
the “Crime of the Century”
trial, O. J. Simpson is found
