In our weekly LAistory series we take a look at the people, places, and events in our city's amazing history. Our topics range from the long-forgotten, old familiar, or completely new to Angelenos, and hopefully our work reminds you that although our city is rich with history. Some of you may want to learn more and do your own digging...so this week we're bringing you some cool historical events that are happening that can help......

Here are a few events for people who like to leave the house before sundown. A few of them are even family-friendly and some involve dogs wearing costumes. Historical Society of Long Beach Annual Cemetery Tour Saturday, October 27, 2007 Sunnyside and Long Beach Municipal Cemeteries, 1095 E. Willow St., Long Beach The dead come to life to tell you about the lives they lived and the way they died at the neighboring Long Beach......

This photo is of 6th Street in downtown LA, looking east, between Hope and Grand. The Hotel Savoy on the left later became the Crocker National Bank Tower (how it looked in 1969 or so, when it was the tallest building in LA). The building is still there, and -- no surprise -- it's slated to go condo. LA so relentlessly tears down its buildings that I'm always hoping to find a way to......

- Jacob Soboroff hunts the ground where Reggie the Alligator used to live. - CNG kills SuperShuttle driver in Carson. - Valley aquifer contaminated and shut down by DWP. - Still, tap water is the new bottled water at high-scale restaurants. - Here are your Holiday closures for tomorrow. - Was coke involved in Lindsay Lohan's crash? - Southern California Restaurant Historical Society gathered yesterday at Clifton's Cafeteria.......

Cafeterias are so much more than Jell-O and hair nets. And the Southern California Restaurant Historical Society is going to prove it to you. Its fourth event -- a “Salute to Cafeterias!” – will be held at Clifton's Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday (May 26) at 10 AM. Guest speakers include: >> D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, who’ll discuss postwar dining in Lakewood (the prototypical suburb), >> Charles......

Los Angeles a big city with big cultural institutions like Disney Hall and LACMA. And we also have tons of smaller cultural institutions, including several little museums in unexpected neighborhoods. That's where LAist headed on our first field trip, to the Los Angeles Police Historical Society Museum. It's in a decommissioned police station that went operational in 1925 in Highland Park. Parts of it still looks a lot like a police station: the imposing......

Monday: Duke it out! A few hours from now, "Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens debates political theorist Andrew Arato of the New School for Social Research on the war in Iraq and its impact on the present and future of America" at REDCAT (8:30 p.m.) Tuesday: Brain, meet Heart. Zócalo at Central Library presents Understanding Emotions and the Brain with world-renowned neuroscientist Antonio Damasio at 7:00 p.m. Damasio will discuss "his latest research on......

Today KPCC featured the man behind the website Los Angeles Time Machines. Despite its archaic design, it's a great resource for restaurants and bars across the southland that are still operating in, basically, their vintage state. Canter's. Clifton's. Casa Bianca. Cicada. If you're familiar with these restaurants — a deli, a cafeteria, a pizza joint, fancy French — you'll notice the cuisine is all over the place. But for this site, whose proprietor is......

This modest and unstaffed pocket park in Tujunga has just gotten a facelift. Well, a minor one at least. But that's enough reason to celebrate with a rededication ceremony of some sort tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. The more interesting thing about this park is the Bolton Hall Historical Museum, which serves as a historical marker for Los Angeles' first and only community to be settled by Utopianists. Founded by William E. Smythe, a......

Animators are a breed apart. Their refusal to accept limitations in space, time and conventional wisdom constantly amaze us. But we don't mind because the imaginations of these playful geniuses often first inform our dreams as children and reawaken our playful sides when we are adults. Charles Zembillas is the consummate animator, creative entrepreneur and visual developer: he's funny, fiesty and energetic. He not only works on his own projects but also runs an......

The field of forthcoming weekend events is quite crowded, but why stop inundating our readers with activity suggestions now? Before you completely fill your Filofax pages or Palm appointment functions or whatever you use to keep track of your busy lives, add the open house on Sunday at the Breed Street Shul (formerly Congregation Talmud Torah) in Boyle Heights. Sunday�s event showcases the progress made on the ceiling and windows in this significant vestige......