1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Metro Local (Los Angeles County)
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Metro Local is a bus system in Los Angeles County operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This retronym designation was placed to differentiate it from the Metro Rapid service, Metro Local buses cover both local, limited-stop, and shuttle bus services. Metro Local buses are distinguished by their prominent orange color, based on availability of equipment, units in non-Metro Local livery may be placed into service on lines that normally use Metro Local buses. There are bus lines that are operated under contract with MV Transportation, Southland Transit, Metro Local buses can also be found on 400-series and 500-series routes, which are Metro Express routes with different fare structures and routing. Metro buses are given numbers that indicate the type of service offered. This method was devised originally by the SCRTD, Metros predecessor, all service operated by Metro as of June 26,2016. Local bus service to/from Downtown Los Angeles and other areas, the line numbering begins at line 2 and proceeds counterclockwise around Downtown Los Angeles, ending at line 96 East/west service, not necessarily serving Downtown Los Angeles. North/south service, not necessarily serving Downtown Los Angeles, limited-stop versions of traditional local routes, which make fewer stops and generally operate during peak times. Most limited-stop routes are designated by placing a 3 before a line number. Most limited-stop routes have been replaced by Metro Rapid routes, shuttles, special routes and local service within one or two adjacent neighborhoods and/or jurisdictions
3.
Metro Rapid
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Metro Rapid is a local express bus service in Los Angeles County, California with bus rapid transit characteristics. It operates in mixed traffic environments and has fewer stops than the Metro Local service, the system is mainly operated by Metro. Two routes are operated by Big Blue Bus, one by Culver CityBus, the Rapid program speeds up travel time for passengers, complementing the Metro Local bus network operated by the Metro as well as other bus routes operated by smaller agencies. Metro Rapid buses also stop less frequently than Metro Local buses, with Rapid stops located only at major intersections, the frequency of Metro Rapid buses is increased as well, as more buses on a line translates to less wait time at each station. All Metro Rapid buses are low-floor CNG buses for faster boarding and alighting, some Rapid routes operate on weekends as well. The Metro Rapid Program was implemented in June 2000-December 2002 with the goal of improving bus speeds within urbanized Los Angeles County, Lines 720,745,754 and 750 were the pilot routes of the program. Metro claims travel times were reduced by as much as 29%, Metro Rapid buses are distinguished by their red and silver livery. Some Rapid stops are equipped with NextBus technology which indicates the time before the next bus arrives. NextBus displays were installed mostly at stops on Lines 720 and 750, Metro Rapid Lines 720,770 and 780 are the only lines that complement multiple lines, Lines 720 and 780 are the longest routes in the Metro Rapid system. They take roughly 2 hours from start to end during rush hours, also, line 720 is the most frequent of all Rapids. In the morning rush hour, the Rapid 720 ranges from every 2–10 minutes, months later, marquees were switched back to their original format. The fare is the same as other Metro bus and rail service, routes are numbered in the 700 series. Critics see the Metro Rapid system as not sufficient to meet Los Angeles growing transit needs, limited funds, they say, would be better spent on extending the regions rail network. Rapid buses do not have the capacity or efficiency of light- or heavy-rail technology, other critics claim that Metro Rapid is a triumph of marketing over substance. For many years, Metro and its predecessor, the SCRTD, operated routes, which were similar to Metro Rapid service in the middle of their routes. Rapid buses do not change traffic signals outside of the City of Los Angeles because only the City has tied the transponders to the signal network, in addition, only Rapid-branded buses have transponders, which causes problems when not enough Rapid buses are available. Another complaint concerns the placement of Local and Rapid stops at separate locations at the same intersection, in response, some Rapid stops are placed adjacent to Local bus stops. In addition, civil rights organizations like the Bus Riders Union complain about cutbacks in Local service required to implement Rapid service, generally, between 25 and 50% of Local service is cut and replaced by Rapid service
4.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
5.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
6.
J. Paul Getty Museum
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The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in California housed on two campuses, the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and is the location of the museum. The collection features Western art from the Middle Ages to the present and its estimated 1.3 million visitors annually make it one of the most visited museums in the United States. The museums second location, the Getty Villa, is in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and displays art from ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. In 1974, J. Paul Getty opened a museum in a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum on his property in Pacific Palisades, in 1982, the museum became the richest in the world when it inherited US$1.2 billion. In 1997, the moved to its current location in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Detailed information about the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collections is provided on GettyGuide, at the GettyGuide stations in the Museum, visitors can get information about exhibitions, interact with a timeline, watch videos on art-making techniques, and more. Also available at the Museum, the GettyGuide multimedia player features commentary from curators and conservators on many works of art, with GettyGuide on the Web, one may browse the Museum’s collection and bookmark works of art to create a customized tour and printable map. In 1984, Frel was demoted, and in 1986, he resigned, the Getty is involved in a controversy regarding proper title to some of the artwork in its collection. The museums previous curator of antiquities, Marion True, was indicted in Italy in 2005 on criminal charges relating to trafficking in stolen antiquities, similar charges have been addressed by the Greek authorities. The primary evidence in the case came from the 1995 raid of a Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005 True was forced to tender her resignation by the Board of Trustees, which announced her early retirement. Italy allowed the statute of limitations of the charges filed against her to expire in October 2010, True is currently under investigation by Greek authorities over the acquisition of a 2, 500-year-old funerary wreath. The wreath, along with a 6th-century BC statue of a woman, have returned to Greece and are exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The Getty Museum resisted the requests of the Italian government for two decades, only to admit later that there might be problems attached to the acquisition. In 2006, Italian senior cultural official Giuseppe Proietti said, The negotiations havent made a step forward. Only after he suggested the Italian government to take cultural sanctions against the Getty, suspending all cultural cooperation, in another unrelated case in 1999, the Getty Museum had to hand over three antiquities to Italy after determining they were stolen. A Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum was published in 2001, indeed, some discrete works are provided with annotations, e. g. In 2016, the head of the Greek god Hades was returned to Sicily
7.
J. Paul Getty Trust
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The J. Paul Getty Trust is the worlds wealthiest art institution with an estimated endowment in 2011 of $US5.6 billion. Its other programs are the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, with an estimated 1.6 million visitors per year, the trust operates one of the most visited museums in the United States. The trust also provides grants and training to other museums and cultural institutions, the trust has a library, publications program and visiting scholar program. The trusts conservation program is dedicated to advancing conservation practice through the creation, however, since 2008, the trust has scaled back the scope of its activities in response to financial challenges. The J. Paul Getty Museum Trust was established by oilman J. Paul Getty in 1953, Getty founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American. At his death, he was more than $2 billion. Getty died in 1976 and left the bulk of his estate, including nearly $660 million worth of stock in Getty Oil, legal conflicts over the will took years to resolve, but in 1982 the trust finally received Gettys full bequest. The trust began to add a number of new programs in 1982, in 1997 Barry Munitz was named the president and CEO of the trust. He began work in January 1998, succeeding Harold M. Williams, the first president of the Getty Trust, with an endowment of $4.2 billion, the Getty Trust is the wealthiest art institution in the world. Early in his tenure, Munitz reorganized the Getty Trust, closing two of the institutions six programs—the Getty Information Institute and the Getty Education Institute, to deal with long-run financial issues, he sought to cultivate relationships with donors and corporate partners. In 2009, after a drop in the trusts assets, Wood cut nearly 100 employees at the trusts various operations. Fees for parking at the museum and the Getty Villa were raised by 50% to $15, Wood died suddenly of natural causes on June 12,2010. In May 2011 James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, was named president and chief executive of the Getty Trust, the J. Paul Getty Museum is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. The museum at the Getty Center contains Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, the museum at the Getty Villa contains art from ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The museum started as J. Paul Gettys personal art collection, the Getty Foundation was originally called the Getty Grant Program, which began in 1984 under the direction of Deborah Marrow. For example, a grant funded the restoration of the Cosmati Pavement in the floor of Westminster Abbey. For many years, the foundation conducted the Getty Leadership Institute, the Getty Research Institute, located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts
8.
Hovertrain
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The concept aims to eliminate rolling resistance and allow very high performance, while also simplifying the infrastructure needed to lay new lines. Hovertrains were seen as a relatively low-risk and low-cost way to develop high-speed inter-city train service, by the late 1960s, major development efforts were underway in France, the UK and the USA. While they were being developed, British Rail was running an extensive study of the problems being seen at speeds on conventional rails. This led to a series of new high-speed train designs in the 1970s, although the hovertrains still had reduced infrastructure costs compared to the APT and similar designs like the TGV, in practice this was offset by their need for entirely new lines. Conventional wheeled trains could run at low speed on existing lines, interest in hovertrains waned, and major development had ended by the mid-1970s. Hovertrains were also developed for systems, including personal rapid transit systems that were a hot topic in the late 1960s. In this role their ability to float over small imperfections and debris on the rails was a practical advantage, the only hovertain to see commercial service was the Otis Hovair system. Originally developed at General Motors as an automated guideway transit system, the design eventually ended up at Otis Elevator who later replaced its linear motor with a cable pull and sold the resulting design for people mover installations all over the world. News sources often conflate maglev trains with hovertrains, as both are levitated above the surface, hovering over them. It was noticed early on that the energy needed to lift a hovercraft was directly related to the smoothness of the surface it traveled on. What was surprising was that the amount of energy lost through this process could be lower than steel wheeled vehicles and that meant that for travel above some critical speed, a hovercraft could be more efficient than a wheeled vehicle of the same weight. Better yet, such a vehicle would also all of the positive qualities of a hovercraft. Small imperfections in the surface would have no effect on the ride quality and this could dramatically reduce infrastructure capital costs of building new lines and offer a path to widespread use of high-speed trains. This led to the Levapad concept, where compressed air was blown out of metal disks. The Levapad required extremely flat surfaces to work on, either metal plates, or as originally intended, kucher eventually became VP in charge of the Ford Scientific Laboratory, continuing development of the Levapad concept throughout. A1958 article in Modern Mechanix is one of the first popular introductions of the Levapad concept, a 1960 Popular Mechanics article notes a number of different groups proposing a hovertrain concept. There were various proposals using air ducted from the fans, propeller, or even jet engines. At about the time, Eric Laithwaite was building the first practical linear induction motors
9.
Funicular
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Funiculars of one sort or another have existed for hundreds of years and continue to be used for moving both passengers and goods. Its name derives from the latin, funiculus, diminutive of funis, the basic idea of funicular operation is that two cars are always attached to each other by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the top of the slope. Counterbalancing of the two cars, with one going up and one going down, minimizes the energy needed to lift the car going up, winching is normally done by an electric drive that turns the pulley. Sheave wheels guide the cable to and from the drive mechanism, early funiculars used two parallel straight tracks, four rails, with separate station platforms for each vehicle. The tracks are laid with sufficient space between them for the two cars to pass at the midpoint, the wheels of the cars are usually single-flanged, as on standard railway vehicles. Examples of this type of track layout are the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, layouts that require less width have been developed, with only two or three rails for the most part of the slope and four rails only at the passing section. In layouts using three rails, the rail is shared by both cars. The three-rail layout is wider than the layout, but the passing section is simpler to build. If a rack for braking is used, that rack can be mounted higher in a three-rail layout, some four-rail funiculars have the upper and lower sections interlaced and a single platform at each station. The Hill Train at Legoland, Windsor, is an example of this configuration, until the end of the 1870s, the four-rail parallel-track funicular was the normal configuration. Carl Roman Abt developed the Abt Switch allowing the two-rail layout, in the United States, the first funicular to use a two-rail layout was the Telegraph Hill Railroad in San Francisco, which was in operation from 1884 until 1886. The Mount Lowe Railway in Altadena, California, was the first mountain railway in the United States to use the three-rail layout, three- and two-rail layouts considerably reduced the space required for building a funicular, reducing grading costs on mountain slopes and property costs for urban funiculars. These layouts enabled a funicular boom in the half of the 19th century. The cars can be attached to a cable running through a pulley at the bottom of the incline in case the gravity force acting on the vehicles is too low to operate them on the slope. One of the pulleys must be designed as a wheel to avoid slack in the ropes. In this case, the winching can also be done at the end of the incline. Funiculars used in mines were sometimes unpowered gravity planes, also known as self-acting inclines or brake inclines, the weight of descending loaded wagons was used to pull the empty mine wagons. A few funiculars have been using water tanks under the floor of each car that are filled or emptied until just sufficient imbalance is achieved to allow movement
10.
Brentwood, Los Angeles
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Brentwood is an affluent neighborhood in the Westside of Los Angeles, California. It is the home of seven private and two public schools, originally part of a Mexican land grant, the neighborhood began its modern development in the 1880s and hosted part of the pentathlon in the 1932 Summer Olympics. It was the site of the 1994 O. J. Simpson murder case, Brentwood is also home to many celebrities such as actors and actresses. Brentwood was part of the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, Modern development began after the establishment of the 600-acre Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors in the 1880s. A small community sprang up outside that facilitys west gate, taking on the name Westgate, annexed by the City of Los Angeles on June 14,1916, Westgates 49 square miles included large parts of what is now the Pacific Palisades and a small portion of todays Bel-Air. Westgate Avenue is one of the last reminders of that namesake, the Sunset Fields Golf Club, known as the Brentwood Country Club since 1941, hosted the running part of the modern pentathlon event in the 1932 Summer Olympics. The preceding statement is incorrect and caused by a confusion of Olympic events & locations, Brentwood Country Club was known as Brentwood Country Club at the time of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. It appears as Brentwood Country Club at 590 Burlingame Avenue in the Los Angeles City Directory for 1933, a 1927 Los Angeles Times article describes the beginning of construction on Sunset Fields Golf Course near Crenshaw Boulevard between Vernon Avenue and Santa Barbara Avenue. The book, Leimert Park, states, The Sunset Fields Golf Course in Leimert Park was also the location of another official Olympic venue, the close proximity of the Olympic games to the neighboring community of Leimert Park brought much attention to the development. The Xth Olympiad, Los Angeles,1932 - Official Report says, The Cross Country Run of the Modern Pentathlon was held at 9,00 A. M. on the course of Sunset Fields Golf Club of Los Angeles. The remainder involved the climbing of a steep hill, to the level of the Olympic Village, thence down a narrow draw by a winding path. The start and finish were a short distance in front of the clubhouse, the confusion may have arisen because part of the route of the Equestrian Cross Country portion of Modern Pentathlon may have crossed Brentwood Country Club. This event used the route of Phase D of the Cross Country portion of the Equestrian Three-Day Event competition, as in 1932, the address of Brentwood Country Club of Los Angeles is still 590 South Burlingame Avenue. This building was the establishing shot for the Mar Vista Rest Home that provided a key scene in the 1974 film Chinatown. Within minutes, Santa Ana winds gusting up to 60 mph sent burning brush aloft, more than 300 police officers helped evacuate 3,500 residents during the 12-hour fire, and some 2,500 firefighters battled the blaze, pumping water from neighborhood swimming pools to douse flames. Pockets of the fire smoldered for several days, even as firefighters battled what was to become a Bel Air disaster, another fire erupted in Santa Ynez Canyon to the west. That blaze was contained the next day after consuming nearly 10,000 acres and nine structures and burning to within a mile of Bel Air, Brentwood was the site of the 1994 stabbing death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, outside Simpsons Bundy Drive condominium. Nicoles ex-husband, football player and actor O. J, Simpson, was acquitted of the murders, but was later found liable for the deaths in a civil trial
11.
Getty Villa
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The Getty Villa is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The collection has 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD, including the Lansdowne Heracles, the UCLA/Getty Master’s Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation is housed on this campus. The collection is documented and presented through the online GettyGuide as well as audio tours. In 1954, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty opened an adjacent to his home in Pacific Palisades. Quickly running out of room, he built a second museum, the villa design was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum and incorporated additional details from several other ancient sites. It was designed by architects Robert E. Langdon, Jr. wilson, Jr. in consultation with archeologist Norman Neuerburg. It opened in 1974, but was never visited by Getty, following his death, the museum inherited $661 million and began planning a much larger campus, the Getty Center, in nearby Brentwood. The museum overcame neighborhood opposition to its new plan by agreeing to limit the total size of the development on the Getty Center site. To meet the total space needs, the museum decided to split between the two locations with the Getty Villa housing the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. In 1993, the Getty Trust selected Rodolpho Machado and Jorge Silvetti to design the renovation of the Getty Villa and its campus. In 1997, portions of the collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities were moved to the Getty Center for display. The collection was restored during the renovation, starting in 2004, the museum and the University of California, Los Angeles hold summer institutes in Turkey, studying the conservation of Middle Eastern Art. Reopened on January 28,2006, the Getty Villa shows Greek, Roman, the art is arranged by themes, e. g. Gods and Goddesses, Dionysos and the Theater, and Stories of the Trojan War. The new architectural plan surrounding the Villa – which was conceived by Boston architects Machado, architectural Record has praised their work on the Getty Villa as a near miracle – a museum that elicits no smirks from the art world. Crafting a sophisticated ensemble of buildings, plazas, and landscaping that finally provides a home for a relic of another time. There has been controversy surrounding the Greek and Italian governments claim that objects in the collection were looted, in 2006, the Getty returned or promised to return four looted objects to Greece, a stele, a marble relief, a gold funerary wreath, and a marble statue. In 2007, the Getty signed an agreement to return 40 looted items to Italy, admission to the Getty Villa is free, but timed tickets must be obtained in advance via phone or the museums website. As of June 2010, there is a $15.00 charge for parking during the day, the museum is open Wednesday to Monday,10 a. m. to 5 p. m
12.
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
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The area currently has about 27,000 residents. It is primarily an area, with a mixture of large private homes, small houses, condominiums. The district also includes some large parklands and many hiking trails, in 1911, film director Thomas Ince created his Western film factory, Inceville, which at its peak employed nearly 600 people. Believers snapped up choice lots and lived in tents during construction, by 1925, the Palisades had 100 homes. In one subdivision, streets were named for Methodist missionaries, the tents eventually were replaced by cabins, then by bungalows, and ultimately by multimillion-dollar homes. The climate of the area was a big selling point, temperatures are much cooler than inland Los Angeles during summer, but usually sunnier and less foggy than areas south along the coast. Adorno, Vicki Baum, Oskar Homolka and Emil Ludwig, Villa Aurora on Paseo Miramar, the Spanish colonial home of Feuchtwanger and his wife, Marta, became the focal point of the expatriate community, which was nicknamed Weimar by the Sea. For many decades there was a ban on drinking alcohol in the district. The Methodist Church created a Chautauqua Conference Grounds in Temescal Canyon, the Village is the Pacific Palisades central business district, centered at Sunset Boulevard and Via de la Paz. The Via Mesa and The Huntington Palisades are the neighborhoods that border the village proper to the south of Sunset Boulevard, both of these neighborhoods are easy walking distance to The Village and sit upon high bluffs that look out over the Pacific Ocean. Many of the homes in neighborhoods are accordingly afforded beautiful ocean views. The El Medio Mesa is located south of Sunset Boulevard beginning about a mile west of The Village. The El Medio Mesa extends for a distance from Temescal Canyon all the way to where Sunset Boulevard meets the Pacific Coast Highway. Castellammare is located along the Pacific Coast Highway on small bluffs much closer to sea-level and this is the home of the Getty Villa and the narrow, winding streets in this neighborhood have Italian names and ocean breezes. Palisades Highlands is a community near the end of Sunset Blvd, bordering Topanga, about five minutes away from the center of Pacific Palisades. The Highlands could almost be considered its own separate community high up the hill overlooking the ocean, Rustic Canyon is the neighborhood east of Chautauqua Boulevard that dips into Santa Monica Canyon and includes the Will Rogers State Historic Park. The neighborhood features post-war homes located on the polo field of The Uplifters, the original site of The Uplifters clubhouse. This area is known as Uplifters Ranch
13.
Robert Irwin (artist)
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Robert Irwin is an American installation artist. He lives and works in San Diego, California, Robert Irwin was born in 1928 in Long Beach, California to Robert Irwin and Goldie Anderberg Irwin. He spent the two years living in Europe and North Africa. Between the years 1957-1958, he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute, how is it that a space could ever come to be considered empty when it is filled with real and tactile events. ”Robert Irwin’s notion of art derived from a series of experiential perceptions. As an abstract, open-minded thinker, he presented experience first as perception or sense and he concluded that a sense of knowing, or ability to identify, helped to clarify perception. For example, “We know the sky’s blueness even before we know it as “blue”, let alone as “sky. ”He explained later that the conception of an abstract thought occurs in the mind, following, the physical form is then recognized, communicating the form to the community. Then, the Objective compound occurs, delineating behavioral norms and artistic norms, then the boundaries and axioms introduce logic and reasoning and decisions can be made, either inductive or deductive. Formalism follows, proving and convincing a decision about the object being perceived, melinda Wyatt was opening a gallery in the building next door to his former work space and invited Irwin to create an installation. The room seemed to change its aspect with the day, people came and sat on the opposite curb, watching. The piece was up for two weeks in one of the more derelict beachfront neighborhoods of Los Angeles, no one so much as laid a hand on it. Because of the ephemeral or subtle nature of his work, this book not just an introduction but, for many artists and art students. He told Jori Finkel of the New York Times in 2007 that people come up to him at lectures for book autographs. ”Irwins early work began with painting. In 1959, he painted a series of objects and exhibited for the second time, as an individual exhibitor. The following year,1960, he was asked to exhibit there again as well as at the Pasadena Art Museum, by that time he began a continuous series of experiments. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles and that year, he began his line paintings. He exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in 1964 and presented a different study, between the years 1966-1967, he began painting aluminum discs. He was invited back as an exhibitor to The Pace Gallery in New York. In 1968, he began teaching at the University of California, for the next two years, he started his work with clear acrylic discs, white convex structures fixed to the wall and illuminated by lamps
14.
Vincent Van Gogh
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Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings and his suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty. Born into a family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling and he turned to religion, and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881 and his younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, in 1886 he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and his paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include trees, cypresses, wheat fields. Van Gogh suffered from episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor and he spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris and his depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later, Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves. The most comprehensive source on Van Gogh is the correspondence between him and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincents thoughts, Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and access to influential people on the contemporary art scene. Theo kept all of Vincents letters to him, Vincent kept few of the letters he received, after both had died, Theos widow Johanna arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913, the majority were published in 1914, Vincents letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described as having a diary-like intimacy, and read in parts like autobiography
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Irises (painting)
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Van Gogh started painting Irises within a week of entering the asylum, in May 1889, working from nature in the hospital garden. There is a lack of the tension which is seen in his later works. He called painting the lightning conductor for my illness because he felt that he could keep himself from going insane by continuing to paint, the painting was probably influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints like many of his works and those by other artists of the time. The similarities occur with strong outlines, unusual angles, including close-up views and he wrote to Vincent of the exhibition, strikes the eye from afar. The Irises are a study full of air and life. The first owner was Julien Père Tanguy, a paint grinder, in 1892 Tanguy sold Irises to art critic and anarchist Octave Mirbeau who was also one of Van Goghs first supporters. Mirbeau paid 300 francs for it, in 1987, it became the most expensive painting ever sold, setting a record which stood for two and a half years. Then it was sold for US$53.9 million to Alan Bond, Irises was later re-sold in 1990 to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Irises is currently tenth on the inflation-adjusted list of most expensive ever sold. Van Gogh, paintings and drawings, a loan exhibition, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
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Richard Meier
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Richard Meier is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several buildings including the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. Meier was born to a Jewish family, the oldest of three sons of Jerome Meier, wholesale wine and liquor salesman, and Carolyn Kaltenbacher in Newark and he grew up in nearby Maplewood, where he attended Columbia High School. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University in 1957, after graduation, Meier traveled to Israel, Greece, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, and Italy, among other places, to network with architects. Meier is also the cousin of Peter Eisenman, an architect, theorist. In New York City, Meier worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill briefly in 1959, in 1972, he was identified as one of The New York Five, a group of modernist architects, Meier, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk. Early in his career, Meier worked with such as painter Frank Stella and favored structures that were white. Meier first gained significant recognition for his designs of various residences in addition to The Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana, today, Richard Meier & Partners Architects has offices in New York and Los Angeles with current projects ranging from China and Tel Aviv to Paris and Hamburg. Much of Meiers work builds on the work of architects of the early to mid-20th century, especially that of Le Corbusier and, in particular, Meier has built more using Corbusiers ideas than anyone, including Le Corbusier himself. Meier expanded many ideas evident in Le Corbusiers work, particularly the Villa Savoye and his work also reflects the influences of other designers such as Mies Van der Rohe and, in some instances, Frank Lloyd Wright and Luis Barragán. White has been used in many landmark buildings throughout history, including cathedrals. The Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno included in his campaign platform a promise to tear down the big wall of Meiers Ara Pacis. The city plans to build a pedestrian area along the river. Its an improvement, says Meier, adding that the reason that wall was there has to do with traffic, once that is eliminated, the idea of opening the piazza to the river is a good one. The mayor’s office said Alemanno hopes to complete the project before the end of his term in 2013, in 1984, Meier was awarded the Pritzker Prize. The jury citation declared that Meier has created structures which are personal, vigorous, in 2008, he won the gold medal in architecture from the Academy of Arts and Letters and his work Jesolo Lido Village was awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize for commissioning a building. Meier is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council and he was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1997. In 2013 Richard Meier was awarded the A+ Lifetime Achievement Award In 2010, paying tribute Meier on the occasion of his firms 50th anniversary, the Fondazione Bisazza presented the exhibition Richard Meier, Architecture and Design in Vicenza, Italy
17.
Getty Research Institute
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The Getty Research Institute, located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. The GRI was originally called the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, located in Santa Monica, its first director was Kurt W. Forster. GRIs library had 30,000 volumes in 1983, but grew to 450,000 volumes by 1986, in a statement upon his departure in 1992, Forster summarized his tenure as Beginning with the rudiments of a small museum library. To become one of the nations preeminent research centers for arts, in 1994, Salvatore Settis, a professor of the history of classical art and archeology in Italy, became the director of the Center. By 1996, the Centers name had changed to Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities. Among GRIs special projects was L. A, in collaboration with local organizations, GRI published Cultural Inheritance/L. A. A Resource Directory of Less Visible Archives and Collections in the Los Angeles Region in 1999, in 2000, the L. A. as Subject project was transferred to the University of Southern California, which continues to update and expand an online version of the resource directory. When the Getty Information Institute was dissolved in 1999 as a result of a change of leadership at the Getty Trust, in 2000, Thomas E. Crow was selected as GRI director to replace Settis who had resigned in 1999. Crow announced in October 2006 that he would be leaving for New York University, since November 2007 Thomas W. Gaehtgens has been GRIs director, he was previously a visiting scholar with the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. Among other holdings, GRIs research library contains over 1 million volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs, special collections, already by 1985, the Getty had acquired the complete archive of the American sculptor Malvina Hoffman. It also owns several art dealers archives, including records for the Goupil & Cie and Boussod Valadon galleries, Knoedler Gallery, the library is located at the Getty Center, and does not circulate its collections, but does extend library privileges to any visitor. GRI holds two exhibitions per year in its two galleries which focus primarily on the special collections of the Research Library or on work produced by artists in residence. For example, in 2005–2006 GRI held an exhibition entitled Julius Shulman, Modernity, the exhibition traveled to the National Building Museum and to the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to exhibitions, GRI organizes lectures, colloquia, workshops, the residential scholars program seeks to integrate the often isolated territory of art history into the wider sphere of the humanities. The first class of scholars arrived in 1985–1986, they had their salaries paid for, among the notable scholars was German writer Christa Wolf in 1993–1994, who wrote the novel Medea, a modern retelling during her year at GRI. Each year the scholars are invited to work on projects related to an annual theme, in 2008–2009, the theme for the Getty Center was Networks and Boundaries and for the Getty Villa The Power and Function of Ancient Images. In 2011–12, the theme was Artistic Practice, GRI publishes Series Imprints books in the categories of Issues and Debates, Texts & Documents, Introduction To, and ReSources. In addition, GRI publishes exhibition catalogs and other materials in hardcopy form, ISBN 0-89236-135-2 Gaehtgens, Thomas W. and Heinz Ickstadt
18.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
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J. Paul Getty
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Jean Paul Getty was an American industrialist.2 billion. At his death, he was more than $2 billion. A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the national product. Despite his wealth, Getty was notably frugal and he famously negotiated his grandsons ransom. He established the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1953, the trust is the worlds wealthiest art institution, and operates the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute. Getty was born to Sarah Catherine McPherson Risher and George Getty and he enrolled at the University of Southern California, then at University of California, Berkeley. In 1913, he obtained a diploma in Economics and Political Science from the University of Oxford and he spent his summers between studies working on his fathers oil fields in Oklahoma. Running his own oil company in Tulsa, he made his first million by June 1916, the Nancy Taylor No.1 Oil Well Site near Haskell, Oklahoma, was crucial to his early financial success. This oil well was the first to be drilled by J. P. Getty, in 1919, Getty returned to business in Oklahoma. During the 1920s, he added about $3 million to his sizable estate. His succession of marriages and divorces so distressed his father, however, just before he died in 1930, George Franklin Getty said that Jean Paul would ultimately destroy the family company. In 1967 the billionaire merged these holdings into Getty Oil, beginning in 1949, Getty paid Ibn Saud $9.5 million in cash and $1 million a year for a 60-year concession to a tract of barren land near the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. No oil had ever been discovered there, and none appeared until four years had passed, from 1953 onward, Gettys gamble produced 16,000,000 barrels a year, which contributed greatly to the fortune responsible for making him one of the richest people in the world. Getty increased the wealth, learning to speak Arabic, which enabled his unparalleled expansion into the Middle East. Getty owned the controlling interest in nearly 200 businesses, including Getty Oil, associates identified his overall wealth at between $2 billion and $4 billion. It didnt come easily, perhaps inspiring Gettys widely quoted remark—The meek shall inherit the earth, J. Paul Getty was an owner of Getty Oil, Getty Inc. George F. Getty Inc. He moved to Britain in the 1950s and became a prominent Anglophile, Getty lived the rest of his life in the British Isles, dying of heart failure at the age of 83 on June 6,1976. Getty was married and divorced five times, timmy died at age 12, and Getty, living in England apart from his wife and son back in the U. S. did not attend the funeral
20.
Santa Monica Mountains
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The Santa Monica Mountains is a coastal mountain range in Southern California, paralleling the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges, because of its proximity to densely populated regions, it is one of the most visited natural areas in California. Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is located in this mountain range, the range extends approximately 40 miles east-west from the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles to Point Mugu in Ventura County. The mountain range contributed to the isolation of this vast coastal plain before regular transportation routes reached western Ventura County, the eastern mountains form a barrier between the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles Basin, separating the Valley on the north and west-central Los Angeles on the south. The Santa Monica Mountains are parallel to Santa Susana Mountains, which are located north of the mountains across the San Fernando Valley. The range is of height, with no particularly craggy or prominent peaks outside the Sandstone Peak. While often rugged and wild, the hosts a substantial amount of human activity. Houses, roads, businesses, and recreational centers are dotted throughout the Santa Monica Mountains, a number of creeks in the Santa Monica Mountains are part of the Los Angeles River watershed. Beginning at the end of the San Fernando Valley the river runs to the north of the mountains. After passing between the range and the Verdugo Mountains it flows south around Elysian Park defining the easternmost extent of the mountains, the Santa Monica Mountains have more than 1,000 archeology sites of significance, primarily from the Californian Native American cultures of the Tongva and Chumash people. The mountains were part of their homelands for over eight thousand years before the arrival of the Spanish. The Spanish mission system had a impact on their culture and by 1831. Geologists consider the northern Channel Islands to be an extension of the Santa Monicas into the Pacific Ocean. The range was created by repeated episodes of uplifting and submergence by the Raymond Fault that created complex layers of sedimentary rock, volcanic intrusions have been exposed, including the poorly named, andesitic, Sandstone Peak the highest in the range at 3,111 feet. Malibu Creek, which eroded its own channel while the mountains were slowly uplifted, the Santa Monica Mountains have dry summers with frequent coastal fog on the ocean side of the range and wet, cooler winters. In the summer, the climate is dry, which makes the range prone to wildfires. Snow is unusual in the Santa Monica Mountains, since they are not as high as the nearby San Gabriel Mountains. The highest slopes of the central and western Santa Monica Mountains average as much as 27 inches of rain per year, the bulk of the rain falls between November and March
21.
I-405 (CA)
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Interstate 405, also known as I-405 or the 405, is a major north–south Interstate Highway in Southern California. It is a longer route than using Interstate 5, running along the western and southern parts of the Greater Los Angeles Area from Irvine in the south to near San Fernando in the north. The entire route is known as the segment of the San Diego Freeway. I-405 is a heavily traveled thoroughfare by both commuters and by freight haulers along its length and is the busiest and most congested freeway in the United States. The freeways annual average daily traffic between exits 21 and 22 in Seal Beach reached 374,000 in 2008, making it the highest count in the nation. It has played a role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through Los Angeles. This route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, Interstate 405 begins at the El Toro Y interchange with Interstate 5 in southeastern Irvine. It then runs northwest through Orange County to Long Beach in Los Angeles County, the freeway then roughly follows the outline of the Pacific coast, varying between five and ten miles inland before crossing over the Sepulveda Pass in the Santa Monica Mountains. I-405 next travels northerly through the San Fernando Valley, before its termination with I-5 in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles, large portions of the route closely parallel Sepulveda Boulevard. As a result of these problems, it may take longer to pass through the entire Los Angeles area using this bypass route instead of merely taking the primary route I-5 through Downtown. Another parallel freeway is proposed to connect the Valley and the LA basin, despite 4 years of construction disruptions, billions of dollars of public money, LA Times commentary claims traffic with the lane expansions is actually just as bad or worse. There are a number of points of interest that I-405 passes by or connects to, for transportation, these include John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Long Beach Municipal Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. With connections, it is very close to the Port of Long Beach. I-405 also passes cultural facilities such as the Getty Center, the Skirball Cultural Center, the route also passes by or through many recreation and commercial destinations. I-405 was approved as an interstate in 1955. Construction began in 1957 with the first section, mostly north of LAX Airport being completed in 1961 followed by sections west of Interstate 605 within the few years. The highway was renumbered to Interstate 405 during the 1964 renumbering, the final section covering most of Orange County opened in 1969. Construction required the already existing Mulholland Highway to be re-routed 1.1 miles to the south along a new 579-foot-long bridge, the freeway from present-day I-10 to I-5 near San Fernando was once known as the Sepulveda Freeway as it was named for Sepulveda Boulevard
22.
San Bernardino Mountains
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The San Bernardino Mountains are a high and rugged mountain range in Southern California in the United States. Situated north and northeast of San Bernardino and spanning two California counties, the range out at 11,489 feet at San Gorgonio Mountain – the tallest peak in all of Southern California. The San Bernardinos form a significant region of wilderness and are popular for hiking and skiing, the mountains were formed about eleven million years ago by tectonic activity along the San Andreas Fault, and are still actively rising. Many local rivers originate in the range, which receives more precipitation than the surrounding desert. The ranges unique and varying environment allows it to some of the greatest biodiversity in the state. For over 10,000 years, the San Bernardinos and their surrounds have been inhabited by indigenous peoples, Spanish explorers first encountered the San Bernardinos in the late 18th century, naming the eponymous San Bernardino Valley at its base. European settlement of the region progressed slowly until 1860, when the became the focus of the largest gold rush ever to occur in Southern California. Recreational development of the began in the early 20th century. Since then, the mountains have been engineered for transportation. Four major state highways and the California Aqueduct traverse the mountains today, the Morongo Valley in the southeast divides the range from the Little San Bernardino Mountains. Encompassing roughly 2,100 square miles, the mountains lie mostly in San Bernardino County, the range divides three major physiographic regions, the highly urbanized Inland Empire to the southwest, the Coachella Valley in the southeast, and the Mojave Desert to the north. Most of the lies within the boundaries of the San Bernardino National Forest. From its northwestern end, the crest of the mountains rises steadily until they are interrupted by the gorge of Bear Creek, many cities lie at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains. These include San Bernardino, Redlands and Yucaipa in the south, Yucca Valley to the east, in addition, there are several mid-sized to large towns in the mountains themselves, including Big Bear Lake, Big Bear City, Crestline, Lake Arrowhead and Running Springs. Cities within the San Bernardino Mountains total a population of about 44,000, several regional streams and rivers also have their headwaters in the mountains. The principal drainage is provided by the Santa Ana River, which runs westwards into the Pacific Ocean in Orange County, the San Bernardino Mountains are a humid island in the mostly semi-arid southern California coastal plain. Parts of the San Bernardino Mountains have annual totals in excess of 40 inches. Most of the falls between November and March, summers are mostly dry except for infrequent thunderstorms during late summer
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San Gabriel Mountains
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The San Gabriel Mountains are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert, with Interstate 5 to the west and Interstate 15 to the east. This range lies in, and is surrounded by, the Angeles National Forest, the highest peak in the range is Mount San Antonio, commonly referred to as Mt. Baldy. Mount Wilson is another peak, famed for the Mount Wilson Observatory. The observatory may be visited by the public, on October 10,2014, President Obama designated the area the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Much of the range features rolling peaks, the range lacks craggy features, but contains a large number of canyons and is generally very rugged and difficult to traverse. The San Gabriel Mountains are in effect a large block that was uplifted and then dissected by numerous rivers. North of San Fernando, the San Gabriel Mountains crest abruptly up to almost 4,000 feet, pacoima and Big Tujunga Canyons cut through the range just east of San Fernando, carrying runoff into the San Fernando Valley. Little Tujunga Canyon Road bridges the range in area, connecting the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Clara River valley in the north. Towering over Big Tujunga Canyon north of Big Tujunga Reservoir is Mount Gleason, which at 6,502 feet, is the highest in this region of the San Gabriels. South of the gorge are the foothills of the mountains, which rise abruptly 4,000 feet above the Los Angeles Basin and give rise to the Arroyo Seco. Southeast of Big Tujunga Canyon, the front range of the San Gabriels gradually grows in elevation. On the north the range is dissected by the canyon of the West Fork San Gabriel River. On the north slopes of the San Gabriel crest, the ranks of mountains drop down incrementally to the floor of the Mojave Desert in a much more gradual manner than the sheer southern flank. The Angeles Crest Highway, one of the routes across the San Gabriels. Little Rock, Big Rock and Sheep Creeks drain off the part of the mountains. To the east, the San Andreas Fault cuts across the range, forming a series of long, straight and narrow depressions, including Swarthout Valley, South of Mount San Antonio, San Antonio Creek drains the mountains, cutting the deep San Antonio Canyon. However, there are several notable peaks in this region, including Telegraph Peak, at 8,985 feet, Cucamonga Peak, at 8,859 feet
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Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
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Barry Munitz
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He is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service. Munitz was born and raised in Brooklyn, the son of parents from Eastern Europe, Munitz earned a B. A. degree in classics and comparative literature at Brooklyn College. He earned M. A. and Ph. D. degrees in literature from Princeton University. Munitzs first teaching job was at the University of California, Berkeley from 1966 to 1968, when Kerr resigned and became chairman of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education in 1968, he brought along Munitz as a staff associate. In 1970 Munitz moved to the University of Illinois, and was promoted to vice president for academic affairs at the University of Illinois. They turned to 35-year-old wunderkind Barry Munitz—then serving as vice-president and dean of faculties in the system office—to be the new president of the University of Houston and it was anticipated that Munitz could work with the business community to build up the Universitys endowment. After several years, Munitzs cultivating the business community led to an offer to join a local corporation, Maxxam, charles Hurwitz, Maxxams president, hired Munitz as vice-president in 1982. USAT became the fifth largest savings and loan failure at a cost to the public of $1.6 billion, in 1991 Munitz was selected as chancellor of the 23-campus California State University, the countrys largest senior system of public higher education. In 1997 Munitz was named the president and CEO of the J and he began work in January 1998, succeeding Harold M. Williams, the first president of the Getty Trust, who oversaw construction of the $1 billion Getty Center designed by architect Richard Meier. With an endowment of $4.2 billion, the Getty Trust is the wealthiest art institution in the world, early in his tenure, Munitz reorganized the Getty Trust, closing two of the institutions six programs—the Getty Information Institute and the Getty Education Institute. To deal with financial issues, he sought to cultivate relationships with donors. After leaving the Getty Trust, Munitz returned to the California State University as a Trustee Professor, based at California State University, Munitz has served on the Princeton University Board of Trustees, and chaired the American Council on Education and the California Education Roundtable. He is also a director of Sallie Mae
26.
West Los Angeles (region)
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The Los Angeles Westside is an urban region in western Los Angeles County, California. In 2000, non-Hispanic whites made up 63% of the population, the areas within the city of Los Angeles that Los Angeles Almanac recognized as part of the Westside had a population of 413,351. Fifty-three percent of West Los Angeles residents aged 25 and older had earned a degree by 2000. They included 89,620 people with degrees or higher and 117,695 with bachelors degrees. In addition,95,187 people in age range had some college experience. There were 46,823 with high school diplomas but 40,451 who had dropped out before graduating, the Westside is home to the University of California, Los Angeles, a public research university in the Westwood neighborhood. It is the second-oldest of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCLA is considered a flagship campus of the University of California system, along with UC Berkeley. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs in a wide range of disciplines. Other post-secondary schools in the Westside are, Santa Monica College, current enrollment is over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study. West Los Angeles College, which offers degrees, vocationally oriented programs. Other regions of Los Angeles County MLA, the Los Angeles County maps and statistics portal. Los Angeles Times, Mapping L. A. TG, the Thomas Guide, Los Angeles County, Rand McNally, pages N and O Westside travel guide from Wikivoyage
27.
Concrete
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Concrete is a composite material composed of coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that hardens over time. Most concretes used are lime-based concretes such as Portland cement concrete or concretes made with other hydraulic cements, when aggregate is mixed together with dry Portland cement and water, the mixture forms a fluid slurry that is easily poured and molded into shape. The cement reacts chemically with the water and other ingredients to form a matrix that binds the materials together into a durable stone-like material that has many uses. Often, additives are included in the mixture to improve the properties of the wet mix or the finished material. Most concrete is poured with reinforcing materials embedded to provide tensile strength, famous concrete structures include the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, and the Roman Pantheon. The earliest large-scale users of technology were the ancient Romans. The Colosseum in Rome was built largely of concrete, and the dome of the Pantheon is the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome. Today, large concrete structures are made with reinforced concrete. After the Roman Empire collapsed, use of concrete became rare until the technology was redeveloped in the mid-18th century, today, concrete is the most widely used man-made material. The word concrete comes from the Latin word concretus, the passive participle of concrescere, from con-. Perhaps the earliest known occurrence of cement was twelve years ago. A deposit of cement was formed after an occurrence of oil shale located adjacent to a bed of limestone burned due to natural causes and these ancient deposits were investigated in the 1960s and 1970s. On a human timescale, small usages of concrete go back for thousands of years and they discovered the advantages of hydraulic lime, with some self-cementing properties, by 700 BC. They built kilns to supply mortar for the construction of houses, concrete floors. The cisterns were kept secret and were one of the reasons the Nabataea were able to thrive in the desert, some of these structures survive to this day. In the Ancient Egyptian and later Roman eras, it was re-discovered that adding volcanic ash to the mix allowed it to set underwater, similarly, the Romans knew that adding horse hair made concrete less liable to crack while it hardened, and adding blood made it more frost-resistant. Crystallization of strätlingite and the introduction of pyroclastic clays creates further fracture resistance, german archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found concrete floors, which were made of lime and pebbles, in the royal palace of Tiryns, Greece, which dates roughly to 1400–1200 BC. Lime mortars were used in Greece, Crete, and Cyprus in 800 BC, the Assyrian Jerwan Aqueduct made use of waterproof concrete
28.
Steel
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Steel is an alloy of iron and other elements, primarily carbon, that is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and low cost. Steels base metal is iron, which is able to take on two forms, body centered cubic and face centered cubic, depending on its temperature. It is the interaction of those allotropes with the elements, primarily carbon. In the body-centred cubic arrangement, there is an atom in the centre of each cube. Carbon, other elements, and inclusions within iron act as hardening agents that prevent the movement of dislocations that otherwise occur in the lattices of iron atoms. The carbon in steel alloys may contribute up to 2. 1% of its weight. Steels strength compared to pure iron is possible at the expense of irons ductility. With the invention of the Bessemer process in the mid-19th century and this was followed by Siemens-Martin process and then Gilchrist-Thomas process that refined the quality of steel. With their introductions, mild steel replaced wrought iron, further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking, largely replaced earlier methods by further lowering the cost of production and increasing the quality of the product. Today, steel is one of the most common materials in the world and it is a major component in buildings, infrastructure, tools, ships, automobiles, machines, appliances, and weapons. Modern steel is generally identified by various grades defined by assorted standards organizations, the noun steel originates from the Proto-Germanic adjective stakhlijan, which is related to stakhla. The carbon content of steel is between 0. 002% and 2. 1% by weight for plain iron–carbon alloys and these values vary depending on alloying elements such as manganese, chromium, nickel, iron, tungsten, carbon and so on. Basically, steel is an alloy that does not undergo eutectic reaction. In contrast, cast iron does undergo eutectic reaction, too little carbon content leaves iron quite soft, ductile, and weak. Carbon contents higher than those of steel make an alloy, commonly called pig iron, while iron alloyed with carbon is called carbon steel, alloy steel is steel to which other alloying elements have been intentionally added to modify the characteristics of steel. Common alloying elements include, manganese, nickel, chromium, molybdenum, boron, titanium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, and niobium. Additional elements are important in steel, phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, and traces of oxygen, nitrogen, and copper. Alloys with a higher than 2. 1% carbon content, depending on other element content, cast iron is not malleable even when hot, but it can be formed by casting as it has a lower melting point than steel and good castability properties
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Travertine
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Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored and it is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and it is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Travertine is a sedimentary rock, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from solution in ground and surface waters. Similar deposits formed from water are known as tufa. The word travertine is derived from the Italian travertino, itself a derivation of the Latin tiburtinus ‘of Tibur’ and its namesake is also the origin of Tivoli, a district near Rome. Modern travertine is formed from geothermally heated supersaturated alkaline waters, with raised pCO2, on emergence, waters degas CO2 due to the lower atmospheric pCO2, resulting in an increase in pH. Since carbonate solubility decreases with increased pH, precipitation is induced, precipitation may be enhanced by factors leading to a reduction in pCO2, for example increased air-water interactions at waterfalls may be important, as may photosynthesis. Precipitation may also be enhanced by evaporation in some springs, both calcite and aragonite are found in hot spring travertines, aragonite is preferentially precipitated when temperatures are hot, while calcite dominates when temperatures are cooler. When pure and fine, travertine is white, but often it is brown to yellow due to impurities, travertine may precipitate out directly onto rock and other inert materials as in Pamukkale or Yellowstone for example. The latter has a historic value, because it was one of the quarries that Gian Lorenzo Bernini selected material from to build the famous Colonnade of St. Peters Square in Rome in 1656-1667. Michaelangelo also chose travertine as the material for the ribs of the dome of St Peters Basilica. Travertine derives its name from the town, known as Tibur in ancient Roman times. The ancient name for the stone was lapis tiburtinus, meaning tibur stone, detailed studies of the Tivoli and Guidonia travertine deposits revealed diurnal and annual rhythmic banding and laminae, which have potential use in geochronology. Cascades of natural lakes formed behind travertine dams can be seen in Pamukkale, Turkey, in Central Europes last post-glacial palaeoclimatic optimum, huge deposits of tufa formed from karst springs. On a smaller scale, these karst processes are still working, travertine has been an important building material since the Middle Ages. Travertine has formed sixteen huge, natural dams in a valley in Croatia known as Plitvice Lakes National Park, clinging to moss and rocks in the water, the travertine has built up over several millennia to form waterfalls up to 70 m in height. In the U. S. the most well-known place for travertine formation is Yellowstone National Park, Oklahoma has two parks dedicated to this natural wonder
30.
Aluminium
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Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal, Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite, Aluminium is remarkable for the metals low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium, despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of these salts abundance, the potential for a role for them is of continuing interest. Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite, a fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel and it is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a cubic structure. Aluminium has an energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin. Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. In highly acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, primarily because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium
31.
Americans with Disabilities Act
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The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a US labor law that prohibits unjustified discrimination based on disability. The final version of the bill was signed into law on July 26,1990 and it was later amended in 2008 and signed by President George W. Bush with changes effective as of January 1,2009. ADA disabilities include both mental and physical medical conditions, a condition does not need to be severe or permanent to be a disability. Additionally, other conditions, such as gender identity disorders, are also excluded under the definition of disability. The ADA states that an entity shall not discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability. This applies to job application procedures, hiring, advancement and discharge of employees, job training, and other terms, conditions, covered entities include employers with 15 or more employees, as well as employment agencies, labor organizations, and joint labor-management committees. Prohibited discrimination may include, among other things, firing or refusing to hire someone based on a real or perceived disability, segregation, covered entities are also required to provide reasonable accommodations to job applicants and employees with disabilities. An employee or applicant who currently engages in the use of drugs is not considered qualified when a covered entity takes adverse action based on such use. There are many ways to discriminate against people based on disabilities, anyone known to have a history of mental disorders can be considered disabled. Employers with more than 15 employees must take care to all employees fairly. Even when an employee is doing a job well, she or he is not necessarily no longer disabled. The Court determined that state employees cannot sue their employer for violating ADA rules, state employees can, however, file complaints at the Department of Justice or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who can sue on their behalf. Title II prohibits disability discrimination by all entities at the local level, e. g. school district, municipal, city, or county. Public entities must comply with Title II regulations by the U. S. Department of Justice and these regulations cover access to all programs and services offered by the entity. Access includes physical access described in the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, Title II applies to public transportation provided by public entities through regulations by the U. S. Department of Transportation. It includes the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, along all other commuter authorities. This section requires the provision of services by public entities that provide fixed route services. ADA also sets minimum requirements for space layout in order to facilitate wheelchair securement on public transport, Title II also applies to all state and local public housing, housing assistance, and housing referrals
32.
Heliport
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A Heliport is by definition an area of land, water, or structure used or intended to be used for the landing and takeoff of helicopters, and includes its buildings and facilities. In other words, it is an airport suitable for use by helicopters. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff area, in some larger towns and cities, customs facilities may also be available. Early advocates of helicopters hoped that heliports would become widespread, other terms used to refer to a heliport are, Helistop - A term sometimes used to describe a minimally developed heliport for boarding and discharging passengers or cargo. Helipad - A term oftentimes confused with heliport or helistop, the only reference of this term in the U. S. Helideck - Used to describe the area on a vessel or offshore structure on which helicopters may land. The airspace immediately surrounding the heliport is called the Primary Surface and this area coincides in shape and size with the designated take-off and landing area. This surface is a horizontal plane equal to the elevation of the established heliport elevation, the Primary Surface is further broken down into three distinct regions. These are, the Touchdown and Liftoff area, the Final Approach and Takeoff area, the TLOF is a load-bearing, generally paved area, normally centered in the FATO, on which the helicopter lands and/or takes off. The FATO is an area over which the pilot completes the final phase of the approach to a hover or a landing. The FATO elevation is the lowest elevation of the edge of the TLOF, the Safety Area is a defined area on a heliport surrounding the FATO intended to reduce the risk of damage to helicopters accidentally diverging from the FATO. In a large metropolitan and urban areas a heliport can serve passengers needing to move within the city or to outlying regions. Generally heliports can be situated closer to a town or city center than an airport for fixed-wing aircraft, the advantage in flying by helicopter to a destination or even to the citys main airport is that travel can be much faster than driving. Some skyscrapers feature rooftop heliports or helistops to serve the needs of executives or clients. Many of these sites also serve as Emergency Helicopter Landing Facilities in case emergency evacuation is needed. Bank Tower in Los Angeles is an example, police departments use heliports as a base for police helicopters, and larger departments may have a dedicated large heliport facility dedicated such as the LAPD Hooper Heliport. Heliports are common features at hospitals where they serve to facilitate Helicopter Air Ambulance and MEDEVACs for transferring patients into, some large trauma centers have multiple heliports while most small hospitals have just one. The National EMS Pilots Association has published multiple white papers, surveys, while heliports can be oriented in a any direction they will have generally have very definitive approach and departure paths
33.
Succulent plant
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The word succulent comes from the Latin word sucus, meaning juice, or sap. Succulent plants may store water in various structures, such as leaves, some definitions also include roots, so that geophytes that survive unfavorable periods by dying back to underground storage organs may be regarded as succulents. In horticultural use, the term succulent is often used in a way which excludes plants that botanists would regard as succulents, Succulents are often grown as ornamental plants because of their striking and unusual appearance. Many plant families have multiple succulents found within them, in some families, such as Aizoaceae, Cactaceae, and Crassulaceae, most species are succulents. The habitats of these water preserving plants are often in areas with high temperatures, Succulents have the ability to thrive on limited water sources, such as mist and dew, which makes them equipped to survive in an ecosystem which contains scarce water sources. A general definition of succulents is that they are drought resistant plants in which the leaves, other sources exclude roots as in the definition a plant with thick, fleshy and swollen stems and/or leaves, adapted to dry environments. This difference affects the relationship between succulents and geophytes – plants that survive unfavorable seasons as a bud on an underground organ. These underground organs, such as bulbs, corms and tubers, are fleshy with water-storing tissues. Thus if roots are included in the definition, many geophytes would be classed as succulents, plants adapted to living in dry environments such as succulents are termed xerophytes. Nor are all succulents xerophytes, since plants like Crassula helmsii are both succulent and aquatic and those who grow succulents as a hobby use the term in a different way to botanists. In horticultural use, the term succulent regularly excludes cacti, however, in botanical terminology, cacti are succulents. Horticulturists may also exclude other groups of plants, e. g. bromeliads, a practical, but unscientific, horticultural definition is a succulent plant is any desert plant that a succulent plant collector wishes to grow. Such plants less often include geophytes but do include plants with a caudex, which is a swollen above-ground organ at soil level, formed from a stem, a further difficulty is that plants are not either succulent or non-succulent. Different sources may classify the same species differently, the storage of water often gives succulent plants a more swollen or fleshy appearance than other plants, a characteristic known as succulence. In addition to succulence, succulent plants variously have other water-saving features, high temperatures and low precipitation force plants to collect and store water to survive long dry periods. Some species of cactus can survive for months without rainfall, Succulents also occur as inhabitants of sea coasts and dry lakes, which are exposed to high levels of dissolved minerals that are deadly to many other plant species. Plant families and genera in which succulent species occur are listed below, the table below shows the number of succulent species found in some families, Succulents are very difficult to kill, and if properly potted require little maintenance to survive indoors. Succulents are very adaptable houseplants and will thrive in a range of indoor conditions, Succulents can be propagated by different means
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Cactus
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A cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word cactus derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek κάκτος, kaktos, Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Most cacti live in habitats subject to at least some drought, many live in extremely dry environments, even being found in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on earth. Cacti show many adaptations to conserve water, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the part of most cacti where this vital process takes place. Most species of cacti have lost true leaves, retaining only spines, as well as defending against herbivores, spines help prevent water loss by reducing air flow close to the cactus and providing some shade. In the absence of leaves, enlarged stems carry out photosynthesis, Cacti are native to the Americas, ranging from Patagonia in the south to parts of western Canada in the north—except for Rhipsalis baccifera, which also grows in Africa and Sri Lanka. Cactus spines are produced from specialized structures called areoles, a kind of highly reduced branch, areoles are an identifying feature of cacti. As well as spines, areoles give rise to flowers, which are usually tubular, Cactus stems are often ribbed or fluted, which allows them to expand and contract easily for quick water absorption after rain, followed by long drought periods. Like other succulent plants, most cacti employ a mechanism called crassulacean acid metabolism as part of photosynthesis. Transpiration, during which carbon enters the plant and water escapes, does not take place during the day at the same time as photosynthesis. The plant stores the carbon dioxide it takes in as malic acid, retaining it until daylight returns, because transpiration takes place during the cooler, more humid night hours, water loss is significantly reduced. Many smaller cacti have globe-shaped stems, combining the highest possible volume for water storage, the tallest free-standing cactus is Pachycereus pringlei, with a maximum recorded height of 19.2 m, and the smallest is Blossfeldia liliputiana, only about 1 cm in diameter at maturity. A fully grown saguaro is said to be able to absorb as much as 200 U. S. gallons of water during a rainstorm, a few species differ significantly in appearance from most of the family. At least superficially, plants of the genus Pereskia resemble other trees and they have persistent leaves, and when older, bark-covered stems. Their areoles identify them as cacti, and in spite of their appearance, they, Pereskia is considered close to the ancestral species from which all cacti evolved. In tropical regions, other cacti grow as forest climbers and epiphytes and their stems are typically flattened, almost leaf-like in appearance, with fewer or even no spines, such as the well-known Christmas cactus or Thanksgiving cactus. Cacti have a variety of uses, many species are used as ornamental plants, others are grown for fodder or forage, cochineal is the product of an insect that lives on some cacti
35.
Quercus agrifolia
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Quercus agrifolia, the California live oak, or coast live oak, is an evergreen oak, native to the California Floristic Province. It grows west of the Sierra Nevada from Mendocino County, California and it is classified in the red oak section. This species is sympatric with canyon live oak, and the two may be hard to distinguish because their spinose leaves are superficially similar. Coast live oak typically has a trunk and reaches a mature height of 10–25 meters. Some specimens may attain an age exceeding 250 years, with diameters up to three or four meters, such as those on the Filoli estate in San Mateo County. The trunk, particularly for individuals, may be highly contorted, massive. The crown is rounded and dense, especially when aged 20 to 70 years, in later life the trunk and branches are more well defined. The leaves are green, oval, often convex in shape, 2–7 cm long and 1–4 cm broad. The outer layers of leaves are designed for maximum solar absorption and these outer leaves are deemed to be small in size to more efficiently re-radiate the heat gained from solar capture. Shaded leaves are broader and thinner, having only a single layer of photosynthetic cells. The convex leaf shape may be useful for interior leaves which depend on capturing reflected light scattered in random directions from the outer canopy. The flowers are produced in spring, the male flowers are pendulous catkins 5–10 cm long. The fruit is a reddish brown acorn 2–3.5 cm long and 1–1.5 cm broad, with the basal quarter enclosed in a cupule, unusually for a red oak. There are two varieties of Quercus agrifolia, Quercus agrifolia var. agrifolia, throughout the range of the species. Leaves that are glabrous to slightly hairy on the abaxial side, hybrids with Q. kelloggii, Q. parvula var. shevei, and Q. wislizenii are known. Leaves that are tomentose abaxially, with densely interwoven hairs and it prefers granitic soils, hybrids with Q. kelloggii known. Several hybrids between coast live oak and other red oak species have been documented, hybrids with interior live oak are known in many areas in northern California. Coast live oak also hybridizes with Shreve oak, all these oak species show evidence of introgression with one another
36.
Paul Gauguin
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Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French post-Impressionist artist. Underappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his use of color. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many artists, such as Pablo Picasso. Many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector Sergei Shchukin and he was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. He was also a proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. Gauguin was born in Paris, France to Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal on June 7,1848 and his birth coincided with revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe that year. His father, a 34-year-old liberal journalist, came from a family of petit-bourgeoisie entrepreneurs residing in Orléans and he was compelled to flee France when the newspaper for which he wrote was suppressed by French authorities. Gauguins mother, the 22-year-old Aline Marie Chazal, was the daughter of Andre Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan and their union ended when Andre assaulted his wife Flora and was sentenced to prison for attempted murder. Paul Gauguins maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, was the daughter of Thérèse Laisnay. Details of Thérèses family background are not known, her father, Don Mariano, was a Spanish nobleman, members of the wealthy Tristan Moscoso family held powerful positions in Peru. Nonetheless, Don Marianos unexpected death plunged his mistress and daughter Flora into poverty, when Floras marriage with Andre failed, she petitioned for and obtained a small monetary settlement from her fathers Peruvian relatives. She sailed to Peru in hopes of enlarging her share of the Tristan Moscoso family fortune and this never materialized, but she successfully published a popular travelogue of her experiences in Peru which launched her literary career in 1838. An active supporter of early socialist societies, Gauguins maternal grandmother helped to lay the foundations for the 1848 revolutionary movements, placed under surveillance by French police and suffering from overwork, she died in 1844. Her grandson Paul idolized his grandmother, and kept copies of her books with him to the end of his life. In 1850, Clovis Gauguin departed for Peru with his wife Alina and he died of a heart attack en route, and Alina arrived in Peru a widow with the 18-month-old Paul and his 2 ½ year-old sister, Marie. Gauguins mother was welcomed by her granduncle, whose son-in-law would shortly assume the presidency of Peru. To the age of six, Paul enjoyed an upbringing, attended by nursemaids. He retained a vivid memory of period of his childhood which instilled indelible impressions of Peru that haunted him the rest of his life
37.
Vincent van Gogh
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Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings and his suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty. Born into a family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling and he turned to religion, and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881 and his younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, in 1886 he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and his paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include trees, cypresses, wheat fields. Van Gogh suffered from episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor and he spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris and his depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later, Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves. The most comprehensive source on Van Gogh is the correspondence between him and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincents thoughts, Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and access to influential people on the contemporary art scene. Theo kept all of Vincents letters to him, Vincent kept few of the letters he received, after both had died, Theos widow Johanna arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913, the majority were published in 1914, Vincents letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described as having a diary-like intimacy, and read in parts like autobiography
38.
Halberd
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A halberd is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries. The word halberd may come from the German words Halm, in modern-day German, the weapon is called a Hellebarde. In HEMA, professional halberd practitioners are referred to as halberdiers, the halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants. It is very similar to forms of the voulge in design. The halberd was usually 1.5 to 1.8 metres long, the halberd was inexpensive to produce and very versatile in battle. A Swiss peasant used a halberd to kill Charles the Bold, researchers suspect that a halberd or a bill sliced through the back of King Richard IIIs skull at the Battle of Bosworth. The halberd was the weapon of the early Swiss armies in the 14th. The German Landsknechte, who imitated Swiss warfare methods, also used the pike, the halberd all but disappeared as a rank-and-file weapon in these formations by the middle of the sixteenth century. The halberd has been used as a court bodyguard weapon for centuries, and is still the ceremonial weapon of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican, the halberd was one of the polearms sometimes carried by lower-ranking officers in European infantry units in the 16th through 18th centuries. In the British army, sergeants continued to carry halberds until 1793, the 18th century halberd had, however, become simply a symbol of rank with no sharpened edge and insufficient strength to use as a weapon. It did, however, ensure that infantrymen drawn up in ranks stood correctly aligned with each other, bardiche, a type of two-handed battle axe known in the 16th and 17th centuries in Eastern Europe Bill, similar to a halberd but with a hooked blade form. 74–94, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, brandtherm, Dirk & OFlaherty, Ronan, Prodigal sons, two halberds in the Hunt Museum, Limerick, from Cuenca, Spain and Beyrǔt, Syria, pp. 56–60, JRSAI Vol.131. R. E. Oakeshott, European weapons and armour, From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution, 44–48
39.
Pontormo
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Jacopo Carucci, usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. His work represents a stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective, his figures seem to float in an uncertain environment. Jacopo Carucci was born at Pontorme, near Empoli, to Bartolomeo di Jacopo di Martino Carrucci, Pontormo painted in and around Florence, often supported by Medici patronage. A foray to Rome, largely to see Michelangelos work, influenced his later style, haunted faces and elongated bodies are characteristic of his work. An example of Pontormos early style is a fresco depicting the Visitation of the Virgin and St Elizabeth, with its dancelike, balanced figures, placing these two pictures together—one from his early style, and another from his mature period—throws Pontormos artistic development into sharp relief. In the earlier work, Pontormo is much closer in style to his teacher, Andrea del Sarto, in the later work, the viewer is brought almost uncomfortably close to the Virgin and St. Elizabeth, who drift toward each other in clouds of drapery. Moreover, the architectural setting that is carefully constructed in earlier piece has been completely abandoned in favor of a peculiar nondescript urban setting. The Joseph canvases offer another example of Pontormos developing style, done around the same time as the earlier Visitation, these works show a much more mannerist leaning. According to Giorgio Vasari, the sitter for the boy seated on a step is his young apprentice, Bronzino. In the years between the SS Annunziata and San Michele Visitations, Pontormo took part in the decoration of the salon of the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano,17 km NNW of Florence. There he painted frescoes in a pastoral style, very uncommon for Florentine painters, their subject was the obscure classical myth of Vertumnus. In 1522, when the plague broke out in Florence, Pontormo left for the Certosa di Galluzzo and he painted a series of frescoes, now quite damaged, on the passion and resurrection of Christ. The figures, with their sharply modeled forms and brilliant colors are united in a complex, swirling ovular composition, housed by a shallow. Although commonly known as The Deposition from the Cross, there is no cross in the picture. The scene might more properly be called a Lamentation or Bearing the Body of Christ and those who are lowering Christ appear as anguished as the mourners. Though they are bearing the weight of a man, they barely seem to be touching the ground. These two boys have sometimes interpreted as angels, carrying Christ in his journey to Heaven
40.
Old Master
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In art history, Old Master refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An old master print is a print made by an artist in the same period. The term old master drawing is used in the same way, therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as A pre-eminent artist of the period before the modern, a pre-eminent western European painter of the 13th to 18th centuries. The term is used to refer to a painting or sculpture made by an Old Master. Les Maitres dautrefois of 1876 by Eugene Fromentin may have helped to popularize the concept, the collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the Baroque period. The end date is necessarily vague – for example, Goya is certainly an Old Master, the term might also be used for John Constable or Eugène Delacroix, but usually is not. The term tends to be avoided by art historians as too vague, especially when discussing paintings, although the terms Old Master Prints and it remains current in the art trade. Auction houses still usually divide their sales between, for example, Old Master Paintings, Nineteenth-century paintings and Modern paintings, christies defines the term as ranging from the 14th to the early 19th century. S. Master of Flémalle, Master of Mary of Burgundy, Master of Latin 757, Master of the Brunswick Diptych or Master of Schloss Lichtenstein
41.
Hyacinthe Rigaud
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Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris. Hyacinthe Rigaud was born in Perpignan, the grandson of painter-gilders from Roussillon and he was trained in tailoring in his fathers workshop but perfected his skills as a painter under Antoine Ranc at Montpellier from 1671 onwards, before moving to Lyon four years later. It was in cities that he became familiar with Flemish, Dutch and Italian painting, particularly that of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Titian. Arriving in Paris in 1681, he won the prix de Rome in 1682, received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1700, he rose to the top of this institution before retiring from it in 1735. Since Rigauds paintings captured very exact likenesses along with the costumes and background details. Rigaud was baptised with his Catalan name in the old cathédrale Saint-Jean de Perpignan on 20 July 1659 and he would not have become French had not Roussillon and the Cerdanya been annexed to France the following 7 November thanks to the Treaty of the Pyrenees. That Treaty also put an end to the wars that had taken place between France and Habsburg Spain since 1635 and married King Louis XIV of France to the infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, few of these have survived to the present. On 13 March 1647 Hyacinthes father Matias Rigau, married Thérèse Faget, widowed shortly after, he decided to speedily remarry, to Maria Serra, daughter of a Perpignan textile merchant, on 20 December 1655. In 1665, he acquired a house en lo carrer de las casas cremades, by his second marriage, he also acquired a house on place de lHuile, but he soon sold it. Unfortunately, little is known about Rigauds activities in Lyon, due to the lack of surviving documents, however, as per tradition, artists from Montpellier had strong ties with this city, as had, for example, Samuel Boissière who was trained in there, in Lyon. The identity of Rigauds future depicted models shows that he worked for the cloth merchants. Rigauds portrait of Jean de Brunenc, painted in 1687, a merchant, banker and consul of Lyon. In his first will, dated 30 May 1707, the artist left the bust to the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIVs son, also in the document, Rigaud bequeathed the portrait containing the two profiles of Maria Serra to the elder son of his brother Gaspard, named Hyacinthe. He also applied sketches of his sister Claire, accompanied by her husband and their first daughter, in spring 1696, Hyacinthe Rigaud returned to Paris, where he painted one of his most important portraits of the year. This was in fact sollicited by the duke of Saint-Simon, to depict Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, in 1709 he was made a noble by his hometown of Perpignan. In 1727 he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, Rigaud died in Paris in 1743 at the age of 84. He was one of the most important portrait painters during the reign of King Louis XIV and his instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. His œuvre reads as a portrait gallery of the chief movers in France from 1680 to 1740
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Grotto
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A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or liable to flood at high tide, sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden features. The Grotta Azzurra at Capri and the grotto at the villa of Tiberius in the Bay of Naples are examples of popular natural seashore grottoes, the word grotto comes from Italian grotta, Vulgar Latin grupta, and Latin crypta. It is also related by an accident to the word grotesque. The rooms had sunk underground over time, the Romans who discovered this historical monument found it very strange, a sentiment enhanced by the fact that it was uncovered from an underworld source. This led the Romans to give it the name grottesche, or grotesque, grottoes were very popular in Greek and Roman culture. Spring-fed grottoes were a feature of Apollos oracles at Delphi, Corinth, the Hellenistic city of Rhodes was designed with rock-cut artificial grottoes incorporated into the city, made to look natural. According to tradition, Praenestes sacred spring had a native nymph, Tiberius, the Roman emperor, filled his grotto with sculptures to create a sense of mythology, perhaps channeling Polyphemus cave in the Odyssey. The numinous quality of the grotto is still more ancient, in a grotto near Knossos in Crete, Eileithyia was venerated, even farther back in time, the immanence of the divine in a grotto is seen in the sacred caves of Lascaux. The popularity of artificial grottoes introduced Mannerist style to Italian and French gardens of the mid-16th century, two famous grottoes in the Boboli Gardens of Palazzo Pitti were begun by Vasari and completed by Ammanati and Buontalenti between 1583 and 1593. One of these grottoes originally housed the Prisoners of Michelangelo, before Boboli grotto, a garden was laid out by Niccolò Tribolo at the Medici Villa Castello, near Florence. At Pratolino, in spite of the dryness of the site, there was a Grotto of Cupid, with water tricks for the unsuspecting visitor. The Fonte di Fata Morgana at Grassina, not far from Florence, is a garden building. It is decorated with sculptures in the Giambolognan manner, the outside of garden grottoes are often designed to look like an enormous rock, a rustic porch or a rocky overhang. Damp grottoes were cool places to retreat from the Italian sun, in Kuskovo at the Sheremetev estate there is a Summer Grotto, built in 1775. Grottoes could also serve as baths, an example of this is at the Palazzo del Te, in the Casino della Grotta, courtiers once bathed in the small cascade that splashed over the pebbles and shells encrusted in the floor and walls. Grottoes have also served as chapels, or at Villa Farnese at Caprarola and they were often combined with cascading fountains in Renaissance gardens. The grotto designed by Bernard Palissy for Catherine de Medicis château in Paris, there are also grottoes in the gardens designed by André Le Nôtre for Versailles
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Azalea
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Azaleas /əˈzeɪliə/ are flowering shrubs in the genus Rhododendron, particularly the former sections Tsutsuji and Pentanthera. Azaleas bloom in spring, their flowers often lasting several weeks, shade tolerant, they prefer living near or under trees. They are part of the family Ericaceae, plant enthusiasts have selectively bred azaleas for hundreds of years. This human selection has produced over 10,000 different cultivars which are propagated by cuttings, Azalea seeds can also be collected and germinated. Azaleas are generally slow-growing and do best in well-drained acidic soil, fertilizer needs are low, some species need regular pruning. Azaleas are native to several continents including Asia, Europe and North America and they are planted abundantly as ornamentals in the southeastern USA, southern Asia, and parts of southwest Europe. Magnolias owner John Grimke Drayton imported the plants for use in his estate garden from Philadelphia, with encouragement from Charles Sprague Sargent from Harvards Arnold Arboretum, Magnolia Gardens was opened to the public in 1871, following the American Civil War. Magnolia is one of the oldest public gardens in America, since the late nineteenth century, in late March and early April, thousands visit to see the azaleas bloom in their full glory. R. occidentale flowers are larger than other azaleas and are white with a splotch of yellow. R. arborescens are native to the east coast of North America and can be found growing wild from Alabama to Pennsylvania in wooded, plants grow up to 20 feet high and flowers are white and fragrant. The Flame Azalea, R. Native to the regions of Pennsylvania to Georgia. Flowers do not smell but bloom in every shade from yellow to crimson red. Flowers bloom in the late spring, a good variety for drier soils and shady areas. Foliage turns bright yellow in the Fall, Azalea leafy gall can be particularly destructive to azalea leaves during the early spring. Hand picking infected leaves is the method of control. They can also be subject to root rot in moist. In Chinese culture, the azalea is known as thinking of home bush and is immortalized in the poetry of Du Fu, the azalea is also one of the symbols of the city of São Paulo, in Brazil. In addition to being renowned for its beauty, the azalea is also highly toxic—it contains andromedotoxins in both its leaves and nectar, including honey from the nectar
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Bel-Air, Los Angeles, California
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Bel Air, Bel-Air or Bel Air Estates is a neighborhood in the Westside area of Los Angeles, California, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. The lightly populated district, with an older, well-educated population, has a high income level. The 2000 U. S. census counted 7,691 residents in the 6. 37-square-mile Bel Air neighborhood, with 1,207 per square mile it has among the lowest population densities for the city and the county. In 2008, the city estimated that the population had increased to 8,253, in 2000 the median age for residents was 46, which was high for city and county neighborhoods. The percentages of residents aged 50 and older was among the countys highest, the median yearly household income in 2008 dollars was $207,938, the highest figure for any neighborhood or city in Los Angeles County. Renters occupied 14. 5% of the stock, and house- or apartment-owners held 85. 5%. The average household size of 2.4 people was considered typical for Los Angeles, the 4. 1% of families headed by single parents was considered low for city and county neighborhoods. The percentages of married people in Bel Air were among the countys highest—66. 0% for men and 65. 7% for women, there were 808 veterans, or 12. 9% of the population. The neighborhood was considered not especially diverse ethnically within Los Angeles, the breakdown was whites,83. 0%, Asians,8. 2%, Latinos,4. 6%, blacks,0. 9%, and others,3. 2%. Iran and South Africa were the most common places of birth for the 24. 1% of the residents who were born abroad—which was a percentage for Los Angeles as a whole. The community was founded in 1923 by Alphonzo Bell, Bell owned farm property in Santa Fe Springs, California, where oil was discovered. He bought a ranch with a home on what is now Bel Air Road. He subdivided and developed the property with large residential lots and he also built the Bel-Air Beach Club in Santa Monica and the Bel-Air Country Club. His wife chose Italian names for the streets and she also founded the Bel-Air Garden Club in 1931. Together with Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, Bel Air forms the Platinum Triangle of Los Angeles neighborhoods, Bel Air is situated about 12 miles west of Downtown Los Angeles and includes some of the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. It lies across Sunset Boulevard from the edge of the main campus of the University of California. At the heart of the community sits the Bel-Air Country Club, along with Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles community of Brentwood, it is one of the Three Bs, a wealthy area in the Los Angeles Westside. This region experiences warm and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Bel Air has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated Csb on climate maps
