The Brief

Carly Usdin was the kind of kid who spent a lot of time in imaginary worlds: reading comic books, imagining superheroes and watching David Copperfield specials.

Whenever their parents hit the garage door button, Carly liked to stand next to it with their arm out, as if they were controlling the lifting and lowering of the heavy metal gate.

Carly Usdin in 2023.

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Natalie Chudnovsky

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Carly knew they didn’t have real magical abilities, but in pretending they found something they needed — a sense of power.

“I think many kids feel powerless,” they say, “but especially the kid that I was, getting teased at school for being smart and being queer and being Jewish, and not even knowing I was queer yet, and wanting out of that so badly.”

Carly Usdin as a child.

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Courtesy of Carly Usdin

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Carly did get out. They left their small town in central New Jersey, became a filmmaker and married their now-wife. And then in 2013, at the age of 30, they moved to Los Angeles.

In L.A., Carly was reminded of their childhood interest in magic, and started to get curious about why there were so few famous women magicians. At the time they were identifying as a woman, their gender assigned at birth (they now are non-binary and trans). While in a research rabbit hole, they started reading about the Magic Castle, an exclusive members-only Los Angeles club for magicians and lovers of magic.

Carly had heard of the Magic Castle. They knew it had a reputation for being frequented by celebrities, that its former president was Neil Patrick Harris and that it was invitation-only. And Carly desperately wanted to get in.

Besides being invited by a member, there are several workarounds to getting into the Magic Castle — for example, if you book a stay at the Magic Castle hotel. But gaining longer-term access is more difficult.

“I started doing research into the Magic Castle,” Carly remembers, “and I found the Magic Castle website and it said ‘we offer adult magic classes.’ And the kicker is that while you're enrolled in lessons, you basically have a temporary membership to the castle.”

The Magic Castle in Hollywood on Oct. 13, 2021.

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Valerie Macon

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Carly had found a backdoor into the Castle.

And Carly was aware they didn't fit the magician stereotype. Actually, that’s what made them excited about it.

“If you say magician, you get a very specific image in your head," says Carly. "It's probably an older cis white heterosexual man, because that has long been the archetype of the magician in American popular culture. So I was like, I'm gonna infiltrate. I'm gonna take my queer self in there, cause it's a space that's clearly not meant for me.”

Why is the Magic Castle a big deal? 

The Magic Castle , or just “The Castle” as many members call it, is run by the Academy of Magical Arts. Just a few blocks from the tourist center of Hollywood, the Castle, with its stained glass windows and turrets, looks like a French chateau plucked out of a Disney movie. It was built as a private home around 1909. And then in 1963 it opened as a private clubhouse for magicians, complete with a liquor license.

An evening at the Castle requires not only an invitation but adherence to a dress code, an admission charge, parking fees and the purchase of an entree. If you throw in a cocktail, that’s at least a $100 night out. There are no photos or videos allowed inside. The exclusivity of the experience is part of the allure.

Besides its mystique to the layperson, the Castle is an important institution in the world of magic because being a member, or better yet, a booked performer, serves as a stamp of legitimacy.

“There isn't a Ph.D. in magician,” says magician and Castle member Paul Draper. “So, when I'm auditioning for a television show, when I speak to an event planner, the first question I'm asked is, 'Have you ever performed at the Magic Castle?'"

Magician Kayla Drescher performs at the Magic Castle on Oct. 13, 2021.

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Valerie Macon

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AFP via Getty Images

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The Castle is also a coveted and somewhat rare performance venue, especially in contrast to the kinds of gigs that sustain many magicians.

“You know who doesn't wanna watch magic? A bunch of people at their company holiday party. They wanna get drunk and just talk about how weird the year was,” says magician Kayla Drescher.

But at the Castle?

“People actually put in the effort to come watch magic,” says Kayla. “They're all dressed up and they're so excited to see you.”

Membership at the Castle comes with other benefits: access to its library, spaces to workshop tricks and a place to connect with some of the best magicians in the world.

“You have all these magicians that have performed here, you have all this history,” says Kayla. “There's a library of all these books with secrets. The guy who made the Statue of Liberty disappear for David Copperfield? He's just sitting at the bar. All the people, all the tricks, all the stories, it all just exists in one place.”

Beginner's magic

Carly was full of nerves driving to their first class at the Magic Castle in the fall of 2014.

Inside, there was a small reception area lined with bookshelves and no doors. Unsure of what to do next, Carly examined the bookshelves, drawn to one particular statue of an owl.

“The people working at the front told me you have to say the magic word in order for the owl to grant you admittance to the Castle,” says Carly. So they spoke the magic words (“Open Sesame”) and the bookshelf pulled back to reveal the Castle.

“Just that moment alone, I was giddy,” Carly says. “Basically you're in a parlor-looking bar area and there's like a big old timey fireplace. The color palette is like reds and golds and purples. All the wood is old, dark wood. It is Victorian, dark, moody, so much old art and old artifacts of magic. It feels like exactly this thing that's plucked out of time.”

The Close-up Gallery at the Magic Castle, in Hollywood on Oct. 13, 2021.

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Valerie Macon

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AFP via Getty Images

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The Castle can feel maze-like, with its various floors and bars. Every week there’s a new schedule of booked magicians performing at the many theaters, from the intimate Close-up Gallery to the larger stage at The Palace of Mystery. There are tables for magician members to set up impromptu shows. And a self-playing piano takes song requests (if they’re directed to the ghost of Irma — and yes, she also takes tips).

After several wrong turns, Carly found their way to a small instructional classroom. And they were delighted by every aspect of that first class.

“It felt like being back in school,” they say. “We went over the rules of being a magician. Some of the primary ones being, you don't do the same illusion for the same audience more than once. Obviously, you do not reveal your secrets.”

Carly remembers the initial classes being focused on card tricks: how to handle a deck, different ways of shuffling and grips. And Carly was delighted that they learned it all easily.

Carly has obsessive compulsive disorder — OCD. In high school, before they got proper care, they had a tough time focusing because of it. But learning magic tricks engaged their attention in a very specific way.

“When I was doing these tricks, I wasn't experiencing my OCD symptoms," Carly says. "It's just this perfect blend of mental and physical working in harmony where you have to be paying attention on both levels really closely.”

Carly Usdin practicing close-up magic, circa 2014-2015.

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Carly was in love. They didn’t want to become a professional magician, but they were constantly thinking about magic, carrying a deck of cards everywhere to practice, savoring the feeling of delight that came with successfully pulling off a trick.

After the beginner course ended, Carly took Magic 2 and then Magic 3 and Magic 4, learning coin tricks and more complicated illusions. After class, Carly would catch magic shows at the Castle with their classmates.

And they noticed that the Castle’s demographics matched their initial assumptions.

Stepping back in time

Several current and former Magic Castle members have described the experience of going to the club as stepping back in time, which comes with charms and also, drawbacks. Most glaringly, the demographics of the Castle.

A shelf hangs at The Houdini Seance Room at The Magic Castle on Oct. 24, 2008.

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Angela Weiss

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Getty Images North America

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Several members have described the club as mostly white and mostly male. In an email, a Castle representative said the club doesn’t keep data on the race of its members and did not provide data on the gender of members, either.

But according to one former member who gathered numbers from a Castle membership representative, in 2019 magician membership was 12% women.

Numbers of women performers at the Castle are even lower — the Castle’s own records identify only about 8% of performers over the last three years as being women.

That tracks with national estimates of women magicians in the U.S. For much of its history, performance magic in the Western world was exclusively male.

For magic historian and Magic Castle member Angela Sanchez, the story starts as far back as the Witch Trials in 16th century Europe.

“In a patriarchal society, for women to know something that men do not, is a bad thing. And so to be accused of being a witch is to be accused of having secret knowledge that a man does not have access to,” says Angela. “And so this notion that a witch, a woman who holds power, is adverse to what a woman should and ought to be, is something that cues you into how women in magic are generally treated in Western European societies.”

At the same time as women were being burned at the stake for witchcraft, there were men who earned money doing magic tricks at carnivals. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and the U.S., magic made its way from street entertainment into Broadway theaters and the parlor rooms of upper classes.

There were some famous women magicians, notably English performer Adelaide Hermann, who was billed “the Queen of Magic,” as well as female assistants who would vanish or levitate, but many onstage assistants at the time were boys and for the most part, magic was a field for men.

And then in 1921, magic introduced a new role for women: being in peril.

John Shryock and his daughter Jasmine, 16, rehearse before their performance at the Magic Castle on Oct. 13, 2021.

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Valerie Macon

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AFP via Getty Images

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In 1921, illusionist P.T. Selbit specifically called for women to participate in what would become an iconic trick: sawing a woman in half.

“This was very much a situation that would go forward in branding magic with very clear gender roles,” says Angela. “The magician is a guy in a tux and a woman on stage is the individual who gets sawed in half, split apart and lit on fire.”

Carly was seeing echoes of this history at the Magic Castle in the ways that some magicians spoke about or interacted with women onstage, but they also saw signs of progress. They recalled their magic class being fairly diverse, and were inspired by a women magician’s group at the Castle, co-founded by Angela.

Carly dreamed about starting a group for queer magicians. Of getting to spend as much time as they liked in the immersive magical space of the Castle. And of being able to invite whomever they wanted.

Carly realized that they wanted to become a member.

The audition

There are different levels of membership at the Castle (for example, Junior, or Associate for magic-lovers) but to become a Magician Member requires several steps, including an application with essays and, most nerve-wracking for Carly, an audition.

Carly Usdin at the Magic Castle.

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Courtesy of Carly Usdin

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Carly had heard horror stories about people bombing auditions and about how hard it was to impress the panel.

They picked out four tricks that they practiced for months.

“I was full of fear and dread driving there,” Carly says.

Carly remembers about five other people auditioning. All of them, hanging out at the bar, getting called downstairs, one … by one. Until finally … it was Carly’s turn to go before the panel.

“And I went in and there was like, I wanna say four or five magicians in there. I don't believe any of them were familiar to me, but they were all cis men. It was an incredibly intimidating room. They do a little interview. And then they're like, all right, show us your tricks.”

It didn’t go as smoothly as Carly had practiced.

Carly Usdin with a spread of cards.

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Natalie Chudnovsky

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“The thing with close-up magic especially, is that it's all about your hands,” Carly says. “And the thing with anxiety is that my hands were shaking. I felt like I fumbled stuff and it wasn't as clean as it could have been.”

The panel stopped Carly, telling them they had seen enough. Carly felt like they’d blown their chance and went back to the bar to wait for the bad news.

“And then they came and, and got us. And so we had to go back to the room downstairs. And they're like, congratulations, all six of you made it. And I wanted to cry.”

Carly was officially a member.

They were on the inside of this private, exclusive, prestigious magicians club. For Carly it was like being handed a golden key, because members can invite any guests they want. It meant Carly could open up the Castle to their friends ... people who didn’t necessarily look like the typical magic showgoer.

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Courtesy of Carly Usdin

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“I had no misgivings of like … I'm gonna change the face of the community,” Carly says. “It was on a very small scale of like, I just wanna bring my friends and then from there, if I can start a group for queer magicians, that would be really cool.”

Did Carly think the Castle would be receptive?

“I really didn't know.”

In Part II, Carly finds out. Coming Dec. 6, 2023. 

Updated November 14, 2026 at 13:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON— Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.

Tens of thousands of passengers across the U.S. are still stranded Saturday after the rare ground stop. Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator who joined Duffy at Saturday's media briefing, said schedule problems should be resolved by Sunday evening.

Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed, and over 9,000 were cancelled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The disruption seeped into Saturday morning with more than 4,000 cancellations recorded, which is 18% of flights departing the U.S., according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said.

He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.

"It's pretty straightforward work that we were doing yesterday at, again, a very remote location. So what we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installator error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?"

L3Harris did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

These updates have been happening in American institutions for decades, Duffy said.

"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital," Duffy said. "Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made, but this is not complicated."

Bedford said there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening or any AI-related issues.

Since his time in office, Duffy said he's been asking Congress for money to make more upgrades. In July 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system.

With that money, 70% of copper communications have been replaced to high-speed fiber, Bedford said. Duffy called the innovations and the need for more a "bipartisan moment."

"This is the moment, if we don't start to switch out our systems, when, how long are we going to wait, America, and Congress?" Duffy asked.

Thousands of passengers miss flights

Passengers wait at boarding gates at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026.

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Zina Desmazes

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For about four hours on Friday, thousands of flights at U.S. airports were grounded in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The aviation system is back online and slowly returning to normal Saturday morning, but delays and cancellations will continue, Duffy said. Bedford said all passengers will be put on new flights or they'll get a full refund, but that people should reach out to their airlines directly.

Flight boards at airports across the country Saturday morning continued to be riddled with red cancelled marks. At Tampa International Airport in Florida, people in the main terminal area before security curled up in chairs to grab a wink of sleep.

On Friday night, a flight board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. showed dozens of flights delayed into the early morning hours or cancelled.

Passengers Erin and Jake Britt spent half the day at the airport in D.C. on Friday. Their plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. boarded at 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., they were getting off the plane — but they were still in D.C.

"Overall, our plane was definitely annoyed, but reasonable," Erin Britt said, as the couple left the airport at 8 p.m. "People being upset and asking like, 'Well, how are you not prepared for this?' And it was like, 'Well, no one was prepared.'"

She said neither the pilot nor flight attendants had any more information than passengers."They seem just as in the dark," she said.

The pair decided to cancel their weekend trip, but the night didn't end there. They spent over nine hours overnight waiting on the JetBlue customer service call line to be reimbursed. "I was setting alarms in 20 minute intervals in case I fell asleep," Erin Britt said.

For people who had events or plans over the weekend – the delay added an extra layer of stress. Joe Romano and Maddie Cabana had a cruise leaving Orlando, Fla. Saturday afternoon.

"It was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I'm constantly dealing with flight delays," Romano said. "When this happened, I was just like, 'Of course, it always happens to me.'"

"Just rather inconvenient and frustrating," Cabana added, as the pair contemplated checking their bags or going home. They even thought about driving to Florida. "Hopefully, everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does."

And it did— eventually. After their JetBlue flight was ultimately cancelled, they quickly booked another one on Southwest Airlines and made it early Saturday morning.

Others, like Suze DiPietro decided flying wasn't worth it anymore. Her husband drove about four hours down from Ocean City, New Jersey to pick her up in D.C. Luckily, they had friends in the area where they spent the night.

"My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me," DiPietro said.

Other alternatives included people switching to Amtrak trains as they struggled to get to their destination. Although, even Amtrak's system had a brief outage Friday night.

This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.

That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.

The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.

"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.

Ava Pukatch contributed to reporting.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.

"We are excited to share that some of the olive ridley sea turtle eggs from Seal Beach successfully hatched after a 58-day incubation period," said the Aquarium of the Pacific in a social media post.

The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 olive ridley sea turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September. A second set of eggs found on Huntington Beach is still incubating

The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early Saturday morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.

Baby turtles, the aquarium said, go through a “frenzy period” after hatching, where they swim nonstop for up to two days

The eggs came from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast. Scientists say unusually warming water tied to El Niño likely drew the rare turtles to the Southern California coast.

A couple of decades ago, a friend in New York told me about something happening that was kinda underground and just getting traction. It was called “The Moth.” People took turns telling a true, personal story, with no notes, named after the Southern tradition of sitting on front porches and sharing spellbinding tales — with moths flying mesmerized around the porchlight.

It sounded amazing. And terrifying. I filed it under the same list as bungee jumping — no doubt exhilarating but something I’d never do — and got on with my life. Over the years, as it grew bigger and bigger, I went to several Moth events in different cities, and was always so impressed with the storytellers — and equally adamant I’d never do it.

Cut to this September, when a message went out to all the staff at LAist. We’re a media sponsor of The Moth, and an event, a open mike StorySLAM, was coming up in Silver Lake. There were a few tickets available. Did anyone want one? The theme was "Divas." Sure, I thought. I’d go watch. It's always fun.

Nagging thought

As the days went by, the same thought kept nagging at me. How about getting on stage yourself? No, I thought. Too risky. But this time there was another thought, even more vehement. Why are you being held hostage by fear? Life is too short. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. And this opportunity has just fallen into your lap.

So when the day came, I went to the event, and put my name in the hat. Would I be picked? I sat there with sweaty palms as the show started and people came up tell their own funny, moving, poignant stories.

Finally, near the end of the show, my name was called out. Gulp. I walked on stage to the mic, and began telling my story.

“Some years ago I was a BBC radio producer. A show host and I were at Albuquerque airport, on our way to Los Alamos to do interviews about the Manhattan project. But when we got to the gate, it was closed. They’d boarded the plane 15 minutes early. We couldn't believe it. There was only one plane per day and we'd flown in from London and were on a tight schedule. What should we do?”

Holding their breath

It was a strange experience, simultaneously storytelling while looking at the audience and scanning for their reactions. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.... and were holding their breath, waiting to see what came next.

“I could see the plane on the tarmac, one of those regional planes with propellers, on the other side of an alarmed emergency exit door. So I decided, in the heat of the moment, to push it open, and started dashing across the tarmac, yelling for the host to follow me. Security men began running towards me from every direction as the alarm blared loudly.”

The audience was laughing with delight and disbelief, and I was laughing, too, at the recollection. What on earth had made me do that? Ah, my young, impulsive, determined self. Just as well it wasn’t today, post 9/11. I’d be dead.

“As I reached the plane, the security men were shouting 'What are you doing? You can’t run onto the tarmac!' That’s when the diva part came in. I drew myself up to my full 5’ 2” and said, determinedly, 'No, YOU were the ones who boarded the plane early. We did everything right! We have our tickets, we have interviews to do and we are going to get on this plane.'"

The security men looked at each other, unsure what to do. Maybe it was the British accent, or not being used to a woman giving them a dressing down. But one of them shrugged, moved out of the way, and they let us get on the plane. "Hurray! And we made it to Los Alamos, in time to do our interviews. Thank you.”

The audience went crazy, clapping and whooping. I was standing there grinning stupidly. I couldn’t believe I’d done it.

Yes, the story went down well. And the audience hadn't eaten me alive. But there was something bigger, something even more satisfying in my reaction. I’d had made myself do something I was scared of. I'd faced my demons.... and survived.

A lesson for us all.

If you happen to see 600 people snaking down 14.3 miles of Santa Monica Boulevard (and then some) on Saturday, Nov. 21 — their sole purpose is just to … walk.

“For years people were asking us, ‘What are you doing?’” said Michael Schneider, founder of the Great Los Angeles Walk.

These strolls are maximalist in nature, usually covering the entire length of a given thoroughfare. Sunset Boulevard. Melrose Avenue. Ventura Boulevard.

The inaugural Great L.A. Walk in 2006 along Wilshire Boulevard.

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How the walk began 

The pre-Thanksgiving tradition started in 2006 with Wilshire Boulevard. Schneider, who had reached the milestone of living in L.A. for a decade, was inspired by a book about the street’s history to walk its entire 15.8 miles on foot. He asked others to join on his blog Franklin Avenue.

About two dozen people showed up. That day, they popped into storefronts, stopped by restaurants, sneaked into the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park and shot up to the roof. “That kind of unearthed a whole new side of Los Angeles as we walked down Wilshire,” he said.

By the time the trek reached the ocean, folks were asking Schneider about next year. Now, it's always on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

“I inadvertently turned it into an annual tradition,” he said.

The 2016 edition of Great L.A. Walk along Pico Boulevard.

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The 2007 installment was Pico Boulevard — with restaurant recommendations along the route handpicked by the late Pulitzer-winning food critic Jonathan Gold.

Eventually, Schneider included themed walks. March of Los Pobladores — which retraces the final leg of the 1781 journey taken by the original founders of L.A. — from the San Gabriel Mission to downtown. And USC to UCLA when the rivals faced off on game day.

This year’s route: Route 66 

This year's theme is Route 66.

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This year’s focus is Route 66, marking the centennial of the iconic road. Saturday's walk will start in Echo Park, then go the whole way down Santa Monica Boulevard and end at the pier, totaling about 16 miles.

“You see so many different versions of Los Angeles,” he said.

Michael Schneider, founder of the Great L.A. Walk, at last year's trot along Wilshire Boulevard.

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Celebrity sightings and a marquee shout-out 

One year, he said, the group walked by Magic Johnson.

“He waved at us," Schneider said. "Probably was wondering why [there were] hundreds of people walking past where he was."

As many as 600 people now join the walk, he said. As the number grows, so too has its legend.

“Now we find a lot of people who know who we are,” he said. “You hear people say, ‘Hey, it's the Great L.A. Walk.”