1.
Hancock Park, Los Angeles
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Hancock Park is a historic and affluent residential neighborhood in the central region of the City of Los Angeles, California. It is built around the grounds of a golf club. Developed in the 1920s, the neighborhood features architecturally distinctive residences, the neighborhood is low density, with a 70. 7% white, highly educated, older-aged population of 10, 600+ people. Most of the residents are home owners, there are four private and two public schools in the area. Hancock Park was developed in the 1920s by the Hancock family with profits earned from oil drilling in the former Rancho La Brea, the area owes its name to developer-philanthropist George Allan Hancock, who subdivided the property in the 1920s. Hancock Park activists were instrumental in the passage of a 1986 Congressional ban on tunneling through the neighborhood. The ban, sponsored by Congressman Henry Waxman, prevented the Red Line Subway from being routed along Wilshire Boulevard through the neighborhood, street boundaries are Melrose Avenue on the north, Arden Boulevard on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south and La Brea Avenue on the west. The neighborhood surrounds the grounds of the Wilshire Country Club, today, the Hancock Park Homeowners Assn. counts about 1,200 homes within the boundaries of Melrose Avenue, Wilshire Boulevard and both sides of Highland and Rossmore avenues. The Hancock Park Homeowners Association defines Melrose Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard as two of the streets of Hancock Park. The houses on both sides of Highland Avenue and Rossmore Avenue, the boundary streets, are defined as a part of Hancock Park. The homeowners association counted 1,200 houses within Hancock Park, the 2000 U. S. census counted 9,804 residents in the 1. 59-square-mile neighborhood—an average of 6,459 people per square mile, including the expanse of the Wilshire Country Club. That figure gave Hancock Park one of the lowest densities in Los Angeles, in 2008, the city estimated that the population had increased to 10,671. The median age for residents was 37, considered old when compared with the city as a whole, Hancock Park was moderately diverse ethnically. The breakdown was whites,70. 7%, Asians,13. 1%, Latinos,8. 5%, blacks,3. 8%, and others,3. 9%. Korea and the Philippines were the most common places of birth for the 26. 3% of the residents who were born abroad, a figure that was considered low compared to rest of the city. The median yearly income in 2008 dollars was $85,277, a relatively high figure for Los Angeles. The average household size of 2.1 people was low for the city of Los Angeles, renters occupied 52. 7% of the housing units, and house- or apartment owners 47. 3%. The percentages of never-married men and women,41. 3% and 34. 4%, the 2000 census found 203 families headed by single parents, a low rate for both the city and he county
2.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States. It attracts nearly a million visitors annually and it holds more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present. In addition to art exhibits, the museum features film and concert series, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was established as a museum in 1961. Prior to this, LACMA was part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, howard F. Ahmanson, Sr. Anna Bing Arnold and Bart Lytton were the first principal patrons of the museum. Ahmanson made the donation of $2 million, convincing the museum board that sufficient funds could be raised to establish the new museum. In 1965 the museum moved to a new Wilshire Boulevard complex as an independent, art-focused institution, the largest new museum to be built in the United States after the National Gallery of Art. The museum, built in a similar to Lincoln Center. The board selected LA architect William Pereira over the recommendation of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the buildings. According to a 1965 Los Angeles Times story, the total cost of the three buildings was $11.5 million, at the time, the Los Angeles Music Center and LACMA were concurrent large civic projects which vied for attention and donors in Los Angeles. When the museum opened, the buildings were surrounded by reflecting pools, in the far-reaching expansion, museum-goers henceforth entered through the new partially roofed central court, nearly an acre of space bounded by the museums four buildings. The museums Pavilion for Japanese Art, designed by maverick architect Bruce Goff, opened in 1988, gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden of Rodin bronzes. In 1999, the Hancock Park Improvement Project was complete, kohlhaas edged out French architect Jean Nouvel, who would have added a major building while renovating the older facilities. The list of candidates had narrowed to five in May 2001, Koolhaas, Nouvel, Steven Holl, Daniel Libeskind. However, the project stalled after the museum failed to secure funding. In 2004 LACMAs Board of Trustees unanimously approved plans to transform the museum, the planned transformation consisted of three phases. Phase I started in 2004 and was completed in February 2008, the renovations required demolishing the parking structure on Ogden Avenue and with it LACMA-commissioned graffiti art by street artists Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee. The entry pavilion is a key point in architect Renzo Pianos plan to unify LACMAs sprawling, the BP Grand Entrance and the adjacent Broad Contemporary Art Museum comprise the $191 million first phase of the three-part expansion and renovation campaign
3.
Urban park
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The design, operation and maintenance is usually done by government, typically on the local level, but may occasionally be contracted out to a private sector company. A park is an area of space provided for recreational use. Grass is typically kept short to discourage insect pests and to allow for the enjoyment of picnics, trees are chosen for their beauty and to provide shade. An early purpose-built public park, although financed privately, was Princes Park in the Liverpool suburb of Toxteth and this was laid out to the designs of Joseph Paxton from 1842 and opened in 1843. The land on which the park was built was purchased by Richard Vaughan Yates, the creation of Princes Park showed great foresight and introduced a number of highly influential ideas. First and foremost was the provision of space for the benefit of townspeople. Nashs remodelling of St Jamess Park from 1827 and the sequence of processional routes he created to link The Mall with Regents Park completely transformed the appearance of Londons West End. Liverpool had a presence on the scene of global maritime trade before 1800. The latter was commenced in 1843 with the help of public finance, frederick Law Olmsted visited Birkenhead Park in 1850 and praised its qualities. Indeed, Paxton is widely credited as having one of the principal influences on Olmsted. Another early public park is the Peel Park, Salford, England opened on 22 August 1846, in The Politics of Park Design, A History of Urban Parks in America, Professor Galen Cranz identifies four phases of park design in the U. S. As time passed and the area grew around the parks, land in these parks was used for other purposes, such as zoos, golf courses. These parks continue to draw visitors from around the region and are considered regional parks, because they require a higher level of management than smaller local parks. According to the Trust for Public Land, the three most visited parks in the United States are Central Park in New York, Lincoln Park in Chicago. In the early 1900s, according to Cranz, U. S. cities built neighborhood parks with swimming pools, playgrounds and civic buildings and these smaller parks were built in residential neighborhoods, and tried to serve all residents with programs for seniors, adults, teens and children. Green space was of secondary importance, as urban land prices climbed, new urban parks in the 1960s and after have been mainly pocket parks. One such example of a park is Chess Park in Glendale. This award-winning park was given an award by the American Society of Landscape Architects and these small parks provide greenery, a place to sit outdoors, and often a playground for children
4.
Miracle Mile, Los Angeles
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The Miracle Mile District is bordered by the Fairfax District on the north, Hancock Park on the northeast, West Los Angeles on the south and southwest, and Carthay Circle on the west. The districts boundaries are roughly 3rd Street on the north, Highland Avenue on the east, San Vicente Boulevard on the south, major thoroughfares include Wilshire and Olympic Boulevards, La Brea and Fairfax Avenues, and 6th Street. The districts ZIP codes are 90036 and parts of 90019, in the early 1920s, Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue was an unpaved farm road, extending through dairy farms and bean fields. Developer A. W. Ross saw potential for the area, the Wilson Building had a dirigible mast on top and was home to a number of businesses and professionals relocating from downtown. Rosss insight was that the form and scale of his Wilshire strip should attract and he applied this design both to the street itself and to the buildings lining it. Ross gave Wilshire various firsts, including dedicated left-turn lanes and timed traffic lights and he also required merchants to provide automobile parking lots, all to aid traffic flow. Major retailers such as Desmonds, Silverwoods, May Co, coulters, Mullen & Bluett, Myer Siegel, and Seibu eventually spread down Wilshire Boulevard from Fairfax to La Brea. Ross ordered that all building facades along Wilshire be engineered so as to be best seen through a windshield and this meant larger, bolder, simpler signage and longer buildings in a larger scale. They also had to be oriented toward the boulevard and architectural ornamentation and these building forms were driven by practical requirements but contributed to the stylistic language of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne. Rosss moves were unprecedented, a commercial success, and proved historically influential. Ross had invented the car-oriented urban form — what Reyner Banham called the linear downtown model later adopted across the United States, the moves also contributed to Los Angeless reputation as a city dominated by the car. A sculptural bust of Ross stands at 5800 Wilshire, with the inscription, A. W. Ross, vision to see, wisdom to know, courage to do. As wealth and newcomers poured into the city, Rosss parcel became one of Los Angeless most desirable areas. Acclaimed as Americas Champs-Élysées, this stretch of Wilshire near the La Brea Tar Pits was named Miracle Mile for its rise to prominence. An Art Deco style bank at 5209 Wilshire was built in 1929 and it was designed by the architecture firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements, which also designed the Wiltern Theatre, the El Capitan Theatre, and other notable buildings in Los Angeles. Note, According to historian David Leighton, of the Arizona Daily Star newspaper the Miracle Mile in Tucson, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Petersen Automotive Museum, A+D Museum, Craft and Folk Art Museum, George C. Page Museum, and La Brea Tar Pits pavilions, among others, the Miracle Mile District is one of the citys more densely populated areas, but is considerably more affluent than other high-density neighborhoods like Westlake and Koreatown. As a result, traffic congestion in the district is high even by the standards of Los Angeles, the ban was implemented despite the fact that methane deposits abound in most of Los Angeles
5.
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
6.
California Historical Landmark
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California Historical Landmarks are buildings, structures, sites, or places in the state of California that have been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Historical significance is determined by meeting at least one of the criteria listed below, The first, last, only, associated with an individual or group having a profound influence on the history of California. California Historical Landmarks of #770 and above are listed in the California Register of Historical Resources. By contrast, a site, building, feature, or event that is of local significance may be designated as a California Point of Historical Interest. List of California Historical Landmarks by county National Historic Sites National Register of Historic Places listings in California — with links to list articles by county, los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments San Francisco Designated Landmarks Johnson, Marael. A Guide to California Roadside Historical Markers, official OHP—California Office of Historic Preservation website OHP, California Historical Sites searchpage — links to lists by county
7.
Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles
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Mid-Wilshire is a densely populated residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its commercial and public-use areas also make it the site of museums and research centers, Mid-Wilshire is notable as the most diverse neighborhood or city in Los Angeles County, containing an almost even proportion of whites, Asians, Hispanics and blacks. Mid-Wilshire is the home to three schools, an adult school, and seven other schools. A city park is dedicated to the memory of World War I servicemen, there is a hospital and medical center in the neighborhoods southwest corner. The Mid-Wilshire neighborhood includes, Little Ethiopia is a stretch of Fairfax Avenue. Neighborhood Council, northeast of the Crestview neighborhood, northwest of the Picfair Village district, east of the Carthay Square district, the area has a high concentration of Ethiopian businesses and restaurants, as well as a significant concentration of residents of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry. Miracle Mile is a 1. 5-mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and Highland Avenues, in the early 1920s, Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue was an unpaved farm road, extending through dairy farms and bean fields. Developer A. W. Ross saw potential for the area, in 1910 the neighborhood was laid out between Wilshire Boulevard on the north and Pico Street on the south, west of the Los Angeles Country Club. It was served by the Pico Street streetcar line, the unimproved lots offered by developer Emil Firth ranged from 50 to 100 feet on the street and were 171 feet deep. The streets were 70 feet wide, with 15-foot sidewalks and parkways, ornamental were to be placed every 300 feet. Lot prices ranged from $1,000 to $2,500 Earlier, the Harriman interests had begun a four-track subway line across Oxford Square, south of Wilshire Boulevard. In February 2015 the neighborhood association was lobbying to form an Historic Preservation Overlay Zone and that would have put a temporary moratorium on the issuance of city building and demolition permits. Park La Brea is an apartment complex bounded by 3rd Street on the north, Cochran Avenue on the east, Sixth Street on the south and Fairfax Avenue on the west. With 4,255 units located in eighteen 13-story towers and 31 two-story garden apartment buildings, it is the largest housing development in the United States west of the Mississippi River. Park Mile is a strip that lies along Wilshire Boulevard between Highland Avenue on the west, Wilton Place on the east, Sixth Street on the north and Eighth Street on the south. Construction is regulated by the Park Mile Ordinance, adopted by the city in 1979 and it was designed to protect the single-family nature of the residential area and to promote development that provided Park Mile with an image and sense of continuity. There is a height limit along Park Mile, as well as a ban on painted signs on the outside of buildings. His heirs sold 73 acres fronting on Wilshire Boulevard to Walter G. McCarty, John A. Vaughn and John Evans, in 2008 the city estimated that the population had increased to 47,176
8.
La Brea Tar Pits
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The La Brea Tar Pits are a group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed in urban Los Angeles. Natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years, the tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water. Over many centuries, the bones of animals that were trapped in the tar were preserved, Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. The La Brea Tar Pits is a registered National Natural Landmark, the modern name is an example of a tautological place name, the La Brea Tar Pits literally means the the tar tar pits. The tar pits visible today are actually from human excavation, the lake pit was originally an asphalt mine. The other pits visible today were produced between 1913 and 1915, when over 100 pits were excavated in search of large mammal bones, various combinations of asphaltum and waggler have since filled in these holes. Normally, the asphalt appears in vents, hardening as it oozes out and these can be seen in several areas of the park. Tar pits are composed of heavy oil fractions called gilsonite, which seeped from the Earth as oil, in Hancock Park, crude oil seeps up along the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field, which underlies much of the Fairfax District north of the park. The oil reaches the surface and forms pools at several locations in the park and this seepage has been happening for tens of thousands of years. From time to time, the asphalt would form a thick enough to trap animals. Animals would wander in, become trapped, and eventually die, predators would enter to eat the trapped animals and also become stuck. As the bones of dead animals sink into the asphalt, it soaks into them, lighter fractions of petroleum evaporate from the asphalt, leaving a more solid substance, which encases the bones. Examples of some of these are on display in the George C, radiometric dating of preserved wood and bones has given an age of 38,000 years for the oldest known material from the La Brea seeps. The pits still ensnare organisms today, so most of the pits are fenced to protect humans, the Native American Chumash and Tongva people living in the area built boats unlike any others in North America prior to contact by settlers. This innovative form of transportation allowed access up and down the coastline, the Portolá expedition, a group of Spanish explorers led by Gaspar de Portolá, made the first written record of the tar pits in 1769. The scouts reported that they had come across many of these springs and had seen large swamps of them, enough, they said, to caulk many vessels. We were not so lucky ourselves as to see these tar geysers, much though we wished it, as it was some distance out of the way we were to take and we christened them Los Volcanes de Brea. The original Rancho La Brea land grant stipulated that the tar pits be open to the public for the use of the local Pueblo, initially, they mistook the bones in the pits for the remains of pronghorn antelope or cattle that had become mired
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Prehistoric mammal
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Prehistoric mammals are groups of mammals that became extinct before humans developed writing. Later, about 130 million years ago in the Cretaceous, there existed larger mammals, in the stomach of a smaller cousin, Repenomamus robustus at 52 cm, the remains of a juvenile dinosaur have been preserved. The lineages of many varieties continued through the Cenozoic era where some reached very large sizes, most of the very large mammals became extinct in the last ice age, but have smaller descendants. Prehistoric mammals include, Cynodont List of extinct mammals Mammaliaformes Megamammals Pleistocene extinctions Pleistocene megafauna Synapsid Therapsid
10.
Wilshire Boulevard
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Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California. This road was used by Spanish explorers and settlers, calling it El Camino Viejo. The route that ultimately became Wilshire crossed the original pueblo of Los Angeles and five of the original Spanish land grants, Wilshire was pieced together from various streets over several decades. It began in the 1870s as Nevada Avenue in Santa Monica, Nevada and Orange were later renamed as parts of Wilshire. The boulevard was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire, an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, the road first appeared on a map under its present name in 1895. A historic apartment building on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and S. Kenmore Ave. the Gaylord, aon Center, at one point Los Angeles largest tower, is at 707 Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. The Wilshire Boulevard home of J. Paul Getty was used as the filmset for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, one particularly famous stretch of the boulevard between Fairfax and Highland Avenues is known as the Miracle Mile. Many of Los Angeles largest museums are located there, the area just to the east of that, between Highland Avenue and Wilton Place, is referred to as the Park Mile. Between Westwood and Holmby Hills, several tall glitzy condominium buildings overlook this part of Wilshire and this section is also known as the Wilshire Corridor and Condo Canyon. The Wilshire Corridor, located next to Century City, is one of Los Angeles busiest districts, the Fox and MGM studios are located in a series of skyscrapers, along with many historic Los Angeles hotels. Wilshire Blvd is also the street of Los Angeles Koreatown. Koreatown and Mid Wilshire are among Los Angeless densest districts, the construction of the future Purple Line Extension Section 1 commenced in November 2014. The phase two and three of the Purple Line, when completed, will extend to Westwood/VA Hospital. Phase four to Santa Monica Beach are still in the planning stages, Metro Local Line 20, Metro Rapid Line 720, and Santa Monica Transit Line 2 operate along Wilshire Boulevard. Due to the ridership of line 720, 60-foot NABI articulated buses are used on this route. All of the boulevard is at least four lanes in width, the widest portion is in the business district of central Westwood, where mobs of pedestrians crossing Wilshire at Westwood Boulevard must traverse ten lanes. According to a 1991 study by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, this, the boulevards widest portion is in Westwood and Holmby Hills, where it expands to six, and briefly, eight lanes. The sections of Wilshire Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles are notorious for their giant potholes, Wilshire Boulevard formerly ended at the MacArthur Park lake, but in 1934 a berm was built for it to cross and link up with the existing Orange Street into downtown Los Angeles
