South Bay, Los Angeles
The South Bay is a region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in the southwest corner of Los Angeles County. The name stems from its geographic location stretching along the southern shore of Santa Monica Bay; the South Bay contains fifteen cities plus portions of the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated portions of the county. The area is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and by the City of Los Angeles on the north and east; the South Bay includes: The Beach Cities El Segundo Manhattan Beach Hermosa Beach Redondo Beach Torrance The Palos Verdes Peninsula Palos Verdes Estates Rolling Hills Rolling Hills Estates Rancho Palos Verdes The southernmost neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles Harbor City Harbor Gateway San Pedro Wilmington Inland cities of the South Bay Inglewood Hawthorne Gardena Lawndale Lomita Carson And unincorporated areas of L. A. County including: Lennox Del Aire And other small unincorporated "county strip" areas of Los Angeles County; the region is bordered on the north by LAX, on the northeast by the South Los Angeles region, on the east by the Gateway Cities, on the southeast by Long Beach.
The Harbor, San Diego and Century Freeways provide the region with its principal transportation links. The Los Angeles MTA's Blue Line is a light rail line running between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Long Beach, it is the first of the MTA's modern rail lines since the 1961 demise of the Pacific Electric Railway's Red Car system. The Green Line, a freeway-median light rail line serves the South Bay, it runs between Redondo Beach and Norwalk in the median of the Century Freeway, providing indirect access to Los Angeles International Airport via a shuttle bus and future automated people mover. Several ports and harbors in the South Bay provide access to Santa Catalina Island, a popular resort. In addition, Los Angeles International Airport borders El Segundo to the north in the neighborhood of Westchester, Los Angeles; the South Bay is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse areas in the United States, with a even distribution of the population across African, Asian/Pacific Islander, European and Latino ancestry.
However, the racial and economic makeup varies across the region. El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance have a mixture of middle-to-upper class residents, of which are White American and Asian American; the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Manhattan Beach are two of the wealthiest communities in the United States, with some of the most expensive real estate in the United States. The city of Carson has large populations of African Americans. Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale are diverse communities with pluralities of blacks and White Americans. Gardena is home to one of America's oldest Japanese communities. In addition, San Pedro has a large community of Croatian immigrants; the Port of Los Angeles, sprawling across the shorelines of San Pedro and Wilmington, is the busiest in the United States. When combined with the Port of Long Beach, it is the fifth-busiest in the world. Traditionally, most of the populations of Wilmington and San Pedro have worked for the port in some capacity, it is the primary driver of the Southern California economy: industrial growth in the Inland Empire is entirely attributable to increased port traffic since the 1980s.
The massive increase in cargo volume has created significant air pollution in neighboring communities. The South Bay is the traditional home of Southern California's aerospace industry. While shrunken from its Cold War peak, it still represents a major economic force, employing thousands in high-skill, high-wage engineering positions and generating enormous amounts of tax revenue. Northrop Grumman has a major facility in El Segundo where the F/A-18 Hornet fuselage is manufactured, as well as the headquarters of the Space Technology division in Redondo Beach and a facility at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport. Alcoa Fastening Systems, a subsidiary of Alcoa Inc. which produces aerospace fasteners, has their corporate headquarters located in Torrance with manufacturing facilities in both Torrance and Carson. Boeing and Lockheed Martin maintain extensive production facilities throughout the South Bay, Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems business unit is based in El Segundo; the Los Angeles Air Force Base, in El Segundo, is the locus of much of this aerospace research activity, as it is the primary development facility for military satellites and other space programs.
DirecTV, a former subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft, is headquartered in El Segundo for this reason. SpaceX headquartered in the South Bay, is located in Hawthorne. Petroleum refining is another important component of the South Bay's economy. Major South Bay refiners include Tesoro, Phillips 66, PBF Energy and Valero; these refiners supply the lion's share of petroleum products for Southern California, as well as for Nevada and Arizona. As the Los Angeles region's oil fields are exhausted, most of the crude oil that feeds the refineries is brought in from terminals at the port. Local politicians and activists have long denounced the refineries for the amount of air pollution they generate, but in recent years these protests have been muted as the Port of Los Angeles has become the region's dominant polluter; the controversial practice of residue flaring returned to the forefront during the Sep
Asahi Gakuen
Asahi Gakuen, or the Los Angeles Japanese School is a part-time Japanese school in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The school was founded by the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education in Los Angeles. In 1988, the school had 2,500 students; the school teaches the Japanese language, social sciences, mathematics. As of 1987 the school teaches all four aspects in each school day; the Japan Business Association of Southern California known as The Japan Traders' Club of Los Angeles, as of 1997 financially supports the school. Asahi Gakuen was founded in 1969. At the time it had 68 students. By 1986 there were 2,400 students on four campuses; the school's main office is in room 308 on the third floor of the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center building, located in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Classes are held at the Orange Campus at Santiago High School in Garden Grove, the San Gabriel campus at South El Monte High School in South El Monte, the Santa Monica Campus at Daniel Webster Middle School in Sawtelle, the Torrance campus at South Torrance High School in Torrance.
As of 2018 three campuses have high school classes. All high school classes were held at the Santa Monica campus; as of 1986 students took buses from as far away. In 1986-1987 the school had students in four campuses, including one in Pasadena, one in Garden Grove, one at Daniel Webster Middle, one at South Torrance High. In 1997, Asahi Gakuen had five branch schools in Los Angeles Orange County; the Torrance campus opened in 1980 with 400 students. In 1987, the Torrance campus had 773 students; the school year uses the Japanese schedule from April until March, with classes held from 9:00 AM until 3:30 PM during Saturdays. The school uses tuition to pay for the textbooks it orders from Japan; as of 1986, each student in grades 1-9 has tuition of $49.50 each month, while each high school student has tuition of $67.50 monthly. In 1987 the school had a registration fee of up to $150 and an annual tuition of fewer than $600. All campuses, as of 1986, have libraries. Fatsuko Fujita, the West Los Angeles campus librarian, stated that her campus permitted loaning of 5,000 of its books.
In 1986 Kimiko Lin, the assistant principal of the West Los Angeles campus, stated that the school puts its emphasis on classwork instead of homework to avoid overburdening students who have other commitments. As of 1987, Asahi Gakuen had 47 faculty members; the school's administrators are visiting employees from Japan, credentialed by The Ministry of Education of Japan. The ministry recommends. In 1986 Hiroshi Matsuoka, the Japan Business Association of Southern California executive director, stated that 85% of the about 3,500 Japanese nationals working for Japanese companies in the Los Angeles metropolitan area sent children to Asahi Gakuen. History of the Japanese in Los Angeles Nishiyamato Academy of California International Bilingual School Rafu Shimpo Moritomo, Toyotomi. Japanese Americans and Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language and Heritage. Taylor & Francis, 1997. ISBN 0815317670, 9780815317678. 後藤 英彦. "ロサンゼルス"東大熱"ここまで--エリート校「あさひ学園」." 世界週報 55, 54-56, 1974-06-18. 時事通信社. See profile at CiNii.
Asahi Gakuen Asahi Gakuen at the Wayback Machine
Western Museum of Flight
The Western Museum of Flight is an aviation museum located at Zamperini Field, the municipal airport in Torrance, California. WMOF is operated by the Southern California Historical Aviation Foundation, it houses not only historic aircraft, many of which were built in Southern California, but has an extensive collection of historic photographs and blueprints. The museum has several rare aircraft among its collection, including the second Northrop YF-23 Advanced Tactical Fighter 5th generation stealth fighter demonstrator. On display is the first Northrop YF-17 Cobra, a lightweight fighter, the basis for the Boeing F/A-18 Hornet used by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. In addition, a Grumman F-14 Tomcat and Douglas A-4A, plus numerous other notable jet- and propeller-drive airplanes; the WMOF is one of three museums. List of aerospace museums Western Museum Of Flight Home Page Static Displays at the Western Museum Of Flight
Toyota USA Automobile Museum
The Toyota USA Automobile Museum was an automobile museum located in Torrance, adjacent to the Toyota Motor Sales USA. The 45,000 sq.ft. Location had its grand-reopening on its 10th anniversary; the museum closed on September 28, 2017. It is the only official Toyota Museum outside Japan. Purpose of museum: To preserve a collection of significant model offerings and milestone vehicles representing Toyota’s history in the United States; this collection is maintained by the TMS Corporate Communications Department. It consists of more than 100 Toyota and Scion cars and trucks, dating from 1958 to 2013 as well as motorsports vehicles. Hollywood/Futuristic: the Lexus “Minority Report” Tom Cruise movie prototype, three rare Toyota 2000GTs, along with a poster of the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice”, where the car appeared, plus a cutaway drawing and technical schematics Racing: Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s famous off-road stadium truck. New Brand: the introduced Scion xA and xB and tC vehicles Environmental: The Prius, an early mass-produced gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle, along with a cutaway drawing Design: CALTY studio concept drawings, clay and 3-D fiberglass models One of a Kind: several serial No. 1 vehicles from U.
S. and Canadian manufacturing plants, along with some pre-production prototype vehiclesThe Toyota USA Automobile Museum is open for tours and meetings by appointment only. Official Toyota USA Automobile Museum website
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a non-profit, tertiary 958-bed hospital and multi-specialty academic health science center located in the Beverly Grove neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over 2,000 physicians and 10,000 employees. A team of 2,000 volunteers and more than 40 community groups support. Cedars-Sinai focuses on biomedical research and technologically advanced medical education—based on an interdisciplinary collaboration between physicians and clinical researchers; the facility has research centers covering cardiovascular, gene therapy, neuroscience, surgery, organ transplantation, stem cells, biomedical imaging and cancer—with more than 800 research projects underway. Certified as a level I trauma center for adults and pediatrics, Cedars-Sinai trauma-related services range from prevention to rehabilitation and are provided in concert with the hospital's Department of Surgery. Cedars-Sinai is affiliated with the California Heart Center, University of Southern California and David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
As of 2017, U. S. News & World Report ranked Cedars-Sinai #4 in the western United States, with number one being the UCSF Medical Center. Cedars-Sinai earned national rankings in 12 adult specialties including #5 for gastroenterology, #9 in cardiology and heart surgery, #9 in orthopedics, #10 in urology, #12 in gynecology, #14 in diabetes and endocrinology, #14 in neurology and neurosurgery. Located in the Harvey Morse Auditorium, Cedars-Sinai's patient care is depicted in the Jewish Contributions to Medicine mural; the heart transplantation program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has experienced unprecedented growth since 2010. Statistically, Cedars-Sinai performs more annual heart transplants than any other medical center in the world, having performed 95 heart transplants in 2012 and 87 in 2011. Founded and financed by businessman Kaspare Cohn, Cedars-Sinai was established as the Kaspare Cohn Hospital in 1902. At the time, Cohn donated a two-story Victorian home at 1441 Carroll Avenue in the Angeleno Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles to the Hebrew Benevolent Society to create the hospital as a memorial to his brother Samuel.
The hospital had just 12 beds when it opened on September 21, 1902, its services were free. From 1906 to 1910, Dr. Sarah Vasen, the first female doctor in Los Angeles, acted as superintendent. In 1910, the hospital relocated and expanded to Stephenson Avenue, where it had 50 beds and a backhouse containing a 10-cot tubercular ward, it transformed from a charity-based hospital to a general hospital and began to charge patients. The hospital relocated again in 1930 to 4833 Fountain Avenue, where it was renamed Cedars of Lebanon after the religiously significant Lebanon Cedars, which were used to build King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem in the Bible. Cedars of Lebanon could accommodate 279 patients. In 1918, the Bikur Cholim Society opened a second Jewish hospital, the Bikur Cholim Hospice, when the Great Influenza Pandemic hit America. In 1921, the hospice relocated to an eight-bed facility in Boyle Heights and was renamed Bikur Cholim Hospital. In 1923 the Bikur Cholim Hospital became Mount Sinai Home for the Incurables.
On November 7, 1926, a newly named Mount Sinai Hospital moved to a 50-bed facility on Bonnie Beach Place. In 1950, Emma and Hyman Levine donated their property adjacent to Beverly Hills, by 1955 the construction completed and Mount Sinai Hospital opened at 8700 Beverly Boulevard. Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai Hospitals merged in 1961 to form Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Donations from the Max Factor Family Foundation allowed the construction of the current main hospital building, which broke ground on November 5, 1972, opened on April 3, 1976. In 1994, the Cedars-Sinai Health System was established, comprising the Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation, the Burns and Allen Research Institute and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; the Burns and Allen Research Institute, named for George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, is located inside the Barbara and Marvin Davis Research Building. Opened in 1996, it houses biomedical research aimed at discovering genetic and immunological factors that trigger disease.
In 1994, the original building was demolished. In 2006, Cedars-Sinai added the Saperstein Critical Care Tower with 150 ICU beds. In 2008, Cedars-Sinai served 54,947 inpatients and 350,405 outpatients, there were 77,964 visits to the emergency room. Cedars-Sinai received high rankings in 11 of the 16 specialties, ranking in the top 10 for digestive disorders and in the top 25 for five other specialties as listed below. In 2013, Cedars-Sinai opened its 800,000-square-foot Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion, which consists of eight stories of program space located over a six-story parking structure, on the eastern edge of its campus at the corner of San Vicente Boulevard and Gracie Allen Drive. Designed by architectural firm HOK, the Pavilion brings patient care and translational research together in one site; the Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion houses the Cedars-Sinai's neurosciences programs, the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Regenerative Medicine Institute laboratories, as well as outpatient surgery suites, an imaging area and an education center.
In 2018, famous Marvel-creator Stan Lee dies at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai ranked as follows in the nationwide U. S. News Best Hospitals 2013–14 report: Cedars-Sinai ranked as follows in the 2009 Los Angeles area residents' "Most Preferred Hospital for All Health Needs" ranking: In 2013, Cedars-Sinai Hospital was ranked
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is a federation of 36 separate United States health insurance organizations and companies, providing health insurance in the United States to more than 106 million people. Blue Cross was founded in 1929 and became the Blue Cross Association in 1960, while Blue Shield emerged in 1939 and the Blue Shield Association was created in 1948; the two organizations merged in 1982. In the healthcare insurance industry the organization is known as "The Association" and has two offices in Chicago and Washington; the main office is in Chicago in the Illinois Center at 225 North Michigan Avenue. The Association is the link between all the other Licensees as it controls access to the cross and shield trademarks and the names Blue Cross and Blue Shield, it controls the communications between the different "Plans" that allow all the Licensees to offer national insurance though each has defined service areas. The Association controls the operating policies that each Licensee must follow to be a Licensee.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield developed separately, with Blue Cross providing coverage for hospital services and Blue Shield covering physicians' services. Blue Cross is a name used by an association of health insurance plans throughout the United States, its predecessor was developed by Justin Ford Kimball in 1929, while he was vice president of Baylor University's health care facilities in Dallas, Texas. The first plan guaranteed teachers 21 days of hospital care for $6 a year, was extended to other employee groups in Dallas, nationally; the American Hospital Association adopted the Blue Cross symbol in 1939 as the emblem for plans meeting certain standards. In 1960, the AHA commission was superseded by the Blue Cross Association. Blue Cross severed its ties with the AHA in 1972. Blue Shield was developed by employers in lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest to provide medical care by paying monthly fees to medical service bureaus composed of groups of physicians. In 1939, the first official Blue Shield plan was founded in California.
In 1948, the symbol was informally adopted by nine plans called the Associated Medical Care Plan, was renamed the National Association of Blue Shield Plans. In the 1960s the U. S. government chose to partner with Blue Blue Shield companies to administer Medicare. In 1982, Blue Shield merged with The Blue Cross Association to form the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Prior to 1986, organizations administering BCBS were tax exempt under 501 as social welfare plans. However, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 revoked the exemption, because the plans sold commercial-type insurance, they became 501 organizations, subject to federal taxation, but entitled to "special tax benefits" under IRC 833. In 1994, BCBS changed to allow its licensees to be for-profit corporations. During 2010, Health Care Service Corporation, the parent company of BCBS in Texas, New Mexico and Illinois, nearly doubled its income to $1.09 billion in 2010, began four years of billion-dollar profits. In the final spending bill for FY 2015 after much lobbying since 2010, nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans continue to have special tax breaks that were understood to be threatened by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance companies are licensees, independent of the association and traditionally of each other, offering insurance plans within defined regions under one or both of the association's brands. Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers offer some form of health insurance coverage in every U. S. state. They act as administrators of Medicare in many states or regions of the U. S. and provide coverage to state government employees as well as to the federal government employees under a nationwide option of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The association has its headquarters in the Michigan Plaza complex in the Chicago Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Blue Cross of Idaho and Regence Blue Shield of Idaho are separate companies and compete throughout the state. Regence Blue Shield of Idaho announced a strategic alliance with Blue Cross North Carolina. Though "Blue Cross" was used for hospital coverage while "Blue Shield" was used for medical coverage, today that split only exists for traditional health insurance plans in Pennsylvania.
Two independent companies operate in central Pennsylvania, Highmark Blue Shield and Capital Blue Cross. In southeastern Pennsylvania, Independence Blue Cross has a joint marketing agreement with Highmark Blue Shield for their separate hospital and medical plans. However, Independence Blue Cross, like most of its sister Blue Cross-Blue Shield companies, cover most of their customers under managed care plans such as HMOs and PPOs which provide hospital and medical care in one policy. Blue Cross Canada Media related to Blue Cross Blue Shield Association at Wikimedia Commons Official website
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County the County of Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the U. S. state of California, is the most populous county in the United States, with more than 10 million inhabitants as of 2017. As such, it is the largest non–state level government entity in the United States, its population is larger than that of 41 individual U. S. states. It is the third-largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a Nominal GDP of over $700 billion—larger than the GDPs of Belgium and Taiwan, it has 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas and, at 4,083 square miles, it is larger than the combined areas of Delaware and Rhode Island. The county is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the U. S, its county seat, Los Angeles, is California's most populous city and the nation's second largest city with about 4 million people. Los Angeles County is one of the original counties of California, created at the time of statehood in 1850.
The county included parts of what are now Kern, San Bernardino, Inyo, Tulare and Orange counties. In 1851 and 1852, Los Angeles County stretched from the coast to the border of Nevada; as the population increased, sections were split off to organize San Bernardino County in 1853, Kern County in 1866, Orange County in 1889. Prior to the 1870s, Los Angeles County was divided into townships, many of which were amalgamations of one or more old ranchos, they were: Azusa El Monte Azusa and El Monte Townships were merged for the 1870 census. City of Los Angeles Los Angeles Township Los Nietos San Jose San Gabriel Santa Ana. For the 1870 census, Annaheim district was enumerated separately. San Juan. San Pedro. Tejon When Kern County was formed, the portion of the township remaining in Los Angeles County became Soledad Township According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 4,751 square miles, of which 4,058 square miles is land and 693 square miles is water. Los Angeles County borders 70 miles of coast on the Pacific Ocean and encompasses mountain ranges, forests, lakes and desert.
The Los Angeles River, Rio Hondo, the San Gabriel River and the Santa Clara River flow in Los Angeles County, while the primary mountain ranges are the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains. The western extent of the Mojave Desert begins in the Antelope Valley, in the northeastern part of the county. Most of the population of Los Angeles County is located in the south and southwest, with major population centers in the Los Angeles Basin, San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Valley. Other population centers are found in the Santa Clarita Valley, Pomona Valley, Crescenta Valley and Antelope Valley; the county is divided west-to-east by the San Gabriel Mountains, which are part of the Transverse Ranges of southern California, are contained within the Angeles National Forest. Most of the county's highest peaks are in the San Gabriel Mountains, including Mount San Antonio 10,068 feet ) at the Los Angeles-San Bernardino county lines, Mount Baden-Powell 9,399 feet, Mount Burnham 8,997 feet and Mount Wilson 5,710 feet.
Several lower mountains are in the northern and southwestern parts of the county, including the San Emigdio Mountains, the southernmost part of Tehachapi Mountains and the Sierra Pelona Mountains. Los Angeles County includes San Clemente Island and Santa Catalina Island, which are part of the Channel Islands archipelago off the Pacific Coast. East: Eastside, San Gabriel Valley, portions of the Pomona Valley West: Westside, Beach Cities South: South Bay, South Los Angeles, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Gateway Cities, Los Angeles Harbor Region North: San Fernando Valley, Crescenta Valley, portions of the Conejo Valley, portions of the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita Valley Central: Downtown Los Angeles, Mid-Wilshire, Northeast Los Angeles Angeles National Forest Los Padres National Forest Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Los Angeles County had a population of 9,818,605 in the 2010 United States Census; the racial makeup of Los Angeles County was 4,936,599 White, 1,346,865 Asian, 856,874 African American, 72,828 Native A
