A couple of the chapters in my 2001 book, The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb, deal with the history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and how abundant water changed the city and the valley. It holds ...

Women in MacArthur Park in 1968. William Reagh took 40,000 photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California from the 1930s until 1991, chronicling a time of huge change in the cityscape and the ...

Wilshire Boulevard is a natural place for Sunday's Ciclavia — it runs through the heart of the city's geography, history and culture. I'm a bit biased. I wrote a book on the role of Wilshire Boulevard ...

David Davis, who writes about sports for Los Angeles Magazine, the LA Times and other publications — and an emeritus contributor to LA Observed — has a new ebook published this week about a fairly ...

Willie Nelson, beardless and braidless, at the Palomino in 1970. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images at LA Magazine's website Before everyone forgets that LA's music lore includes North Hollywood, Los ...

Top photo: Gary Leonard. Others: LA Observed. Click on any photo to see it larger. There wasn't much to see or buy — it was the second weekend of the sale at the Bob and Dolores Hope estate, and there ...

Sandstone Retreat was a clothing-optional refuge in Topanga Canyon that began in the late 1960s and survived efforts by the county to shut it down. John Williamson opened the retreat with his wife, ...

Johnny Perez came out of San Antonio as the drummer of the 1960s band Sir Douglas Quintet, which had hits with 'She's About a Mover" and "Mendocino." Perez landed in Topanga Canyon and more recently ...

Even the Mayans didn't believe the world would end today. But there is a cool semi-ancient, quasi-celestial event that happens around here on the winter solstice. By legend, anyway, today is when the ...

Richard Fausset will become the new Atlanta Bureau chief. Read more in this note from Alison Mitchell, Ethan Bronner and Peter Applebome. If the National Desk wanted to dream up the perfect person to ...

You might remember that Jose Rios, who had been the news director at Channel 2 in Los Angeles before he became the top news executive at Fox 11, moved over a year ago to a corporate job as vice ...

The December issue of Los Angeles Magazine has a nice fat piece on County Fed leader Maria Elena Durazo: how the daughter of immigrant farmworkers came to be a union organizer in Los Angeles, marry ...