The Brief

Gross black dust on your windowsill. Sickly yellow haze that obscures the mountains. Childhood memories of recess cancelled due to smog alerts.

You know the air here is dirty. Now learn why.

Once Upon A Time

The L.A. smog story goes a little like this: on July 8, 1943, a mysterious haze descended on the city.

"People were having car accidents," Chip Jacobs, co-author of Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, told LAist. "Mothers were wondering why their kids' eyes were watering. Police officers were spinning loopy."

What was this strange haze? Was it a gas attack? Smoke from factories? From some distant fire?

To solve the mystery, local officials formed the nation's first air quality regulator, the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District. They began looking into the problem and quickly learned that there were a lot of sources of air pollution in greater L.A.: people burning trash in their backyards, oil refineries, smudge pots (which are small, smoky fires used by citrus growers to keep trees warm at night), and factories.

But soon, a Caltech scientist figured out that cars and gasoline were largely to blame for the eye-watering, lung-searing haze.

A smog-shrouded view of downtown Los Angeles on October 7, 1968.

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Los Angeles Public Library archive

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What Do Cars Have To Do With It?

Car exhaust has two main components: hydrocarbons, from the gasoline, and nitrogen oxides, which are formed inside hot, internal combustion engines. Both are harmful in and of themselves, but when they float into the sunny, Southern California air, the sunlight bakes them into a new chemical: ozone, also known as smog.

Once scientists figured out what caused smog, the crackdown began: in 1967, a new state air quality agency, the Air Resources Board, was formed. It enacted tailpipe emissions standards for cars. It required catalytic converters on new models, cleaner gasoline and, at the gas pump, those little rubber boots that trap fumes from the nozzle. In 1984, smog checks began statewide. Other industries had to clean up, too: oil refineries, cement plants, power plants. And as California cleaned up its air, other states and the federal government followed.

L.A. has the worst ozone, or smog, in the country, according to the American Lung Association's 2021 State of the Air Report.

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American Lung Association

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Bad Now Vs. Bad Then

The air is a lot cleaner now. In 2020 , we had 157 days of unhealthy air, compared to well over 200 in the late 1980s. However, 2020 tracked the highest number of unhealthy air days since 1997, even with pandemic restrictions seeing a drop in auto travel. So when it's smoggy, it's not as smoggy as it used to be.

But Los Angeles still has the worst smog in the country, according to the American Lung Association's 2021 State of the Air report. (Again, scientists call smog "ozone." But they're the same thing).

Greater L.A. exceeded federal air quality standards for 157 days in 2020.

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South Coast Air Quality Management District

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Part of the problem is that it's been hot, incredibly hot. And heat speeds up the process of ozone-formation. Experts are trying to figure out whether the spate of bad air is a new trend, reversing years of steady progress.

"Is this weather, or has this become climate?" said Atwood. "We're grappling with that question basically."

What Makes Our Smog So Special?

Three reasons.

• One, there are a lot of us, and we own a lot of cars. Angelenos own 0.54 vehicles per person, compared to 0.43 in New York City. Also, we have the busiest ports in the country, which means tens of thousands of heavy-duty diesel trucks are on our roads, and they are way dirtier than cars.
• Two, the mountains that ring the L.A. Basin trap that pollution as it gets pushed eastwards by sea breezes.
• And three, our climate. Nearly three out of four days in L.A. are sunny. And the L.A. Basin frequently experiences a weather pattern where a layer of warm air will sit on top of a layer of cooler air and prevent it from dispersing. That traps pollution closer to the ground. Think of it like putting a lid on a pot.

Where's The Dirtiest Air? Where's The Cleanest?

Because the wind blows smog east, towards the mountains, the air is worst there. So places like Redlands, San Bernardino and even the tiny, mountain community of Crestline have far worse air quality than coastal cities like Long Beach or Santa Monica.

But there's another factor to consider besides smog: the raw vehicle emissions that combine to make smog can also have localized health impacts. So if you live within 500 feet of a busy road or a freeway, you're in a pollution hot spot, because that's where vehicle emissions are the most concentrated. (Use this handy map made by our friends at the LA Times to figure out how close you live to a freeway.)

Trucks on the SR 60 Freeway drive by Anna Gallegos' backyard in Mira Loma Village, California.

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Andrew Cullen for LAist

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In the very worst places to live, like near a freeway in San Bernardino, you will be exposed to both smog and raw vehicle emissions, said Ed Avol, the head of the Environmental Health Division at the USC Keck School of Medicine.

"It's sort of like a double whammy, so you get both the local impact of being near a roadway, and you also get the accrued accumulation of pollution that's become a regional issue," he said in an interview with KPCC/LAist in April.

What Will Breathing Dirty Air Do To Me?

When you breathe in dirty air, it triggers an inflammatory response in your body. And once that happens, a lot of bad things can happen. In the short term, air pollution can cause:

• Difficulty breathing and chest pain.
• Increased rates of asthma.
• Respiratory diseases like bronchitis and pneumonia.
• Lost school or work days.
• Doctor and hospital visits.
  

Over the long term, it's much worse. Kids who grow up breathing dirty air, whether it's from living near a freeway or in a smoggy area, or both, have weaker lungs that don't work as well.

"If they never get that maximum lung growth early in life, it looks like it's permanently lost," Avol said.

For older adults, air pollution can contribute to cognitive decline, memory loss and premature death. It can also exacerbate heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cause cancer. There's even research suggesting fetuses are harmed when their moms breathe dirty air.

"In a cynical, joking way, you could say we believe air pollution causes everything," Avol said.

Smog-making cars on March 22, 2006 in L.A.

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David McNew/Getty Images

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How Can I Protect Myself And My Family From Bad Air?

One of the most common ways people are exposed to pollution is while driving. So when you're on the freeway, be sure to keep your windows rolled up and re-circulate the air, instead of drawing it in from the outside. Changing your air filter also helps. And new cars are more tightly sealed than older cars, keeping pollution out.

If you can, try to live at least 500 away from a freeway or busy road. If you can't, using HEPA air filters has been shown to significantly reduce indoor air pollution when the air outside is dirty. Clean that black dust, which is a combination of diesel soot and rubber dust from tire wear, off your window sills.

Outside of the home, try to walk or bike on less busy streets, to limit your exposure to vehicle exhaust. When waiting for the bus, stand back from the street corner, where pollution levels soar when vehicles accelerate from a stop. And don't exercise near busy roads during rush hour, especially in the morning, or when the air is especially bad.

You can also check the air quality every day. This South Coast Air Quality Management District map will give you a good overview of air in your area. You can also check the Purple Air network, which measures particulate matter (like soot, dust and wildfire smoke), or have a low-cost air monitor installed at your home or work.

What Do We Need To Do To Make The Air Actually Clean?

It all comes down to transportation. Cars and trucks make up nearly 90 percent of the smog-forming pollution in Southern California (not to mention they are also the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the state), and it's because they run on gasoline and diesel.

Switching to fuels with zero tailpipe emissions, like electricity and hydrogen fuel-cells, will make a huge difference, says Will Barrett, the clean air advocacy director for the American Lung Association.

Trucks drive along Interstate 80 on February 18, 2014 in Berkeley, California.

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"We need to see more focus and urgency on the conversion of the heavy duty sector to zero emission technology," he said.

But heavy duty trucks have proven tricky, so far, to electrify, because they would require a massive battery to power them over long distances while carrying heavy loads. Also, truckers would need frequent, convenient charging stations, and that infrastructure doesn't exist yet.

California regulators, ever the clean-air optimists, are throwing cash at the program. The ports of L.A. and Long Beach, for example, have a goal of shifting their entire fleet of largely diesel trucks and equipment to zero emissions technology by 2035 -- at a cost of $14 billion. If they can figure it out, all of our lungs will benefit.

This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal.

As summer marches on, expect the heat to stick around.

With these high temps, many of us are searching for a sweet frozen treat to cool off and maybe indulge a little.

I recently sat in for an AirTalk segment with fill-in host Josie Huang, where we both shared some of our local favorites to get ice cream and other frozen treats and heard from listeners who shared theirs.

Take a look and see if your go-to places are here.

Pasadena

A scoop from Kinrose Creamery, dusted with spice and topped with a dried flower.

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Robert Haleblian

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Courtesy Kinrose Creamery

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Kinrose Creamery is one of my personal picks. Owners Maria Oveysi and Moe Kamal make Persian and Egyptian ice cream. Signature flavors include saffron pistachio rose, kanafeh, walnut baklava topped with pashmak (Iranian cotton candy) and sour cherry.

Locations:

• 140 Mills Pl., Pasadena (Old Town Pasadena)
• 16915 Ventura Blvd., Encino

Downtown L.A.

Sad Girl Creamery's Strawberry Animal Cookie Sundae layers strawberry tres leches ice cream with strawberry jam, rainbow sprinkles, frosted animal cookies and housemade vanilla bean whipped cream.

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Courtesy Sad Girl Creamery

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Sad Girl Creamery is another one of my picks. Run by SueEllen Mancini, the pop-up ice cream stand is at Smorgasburg every Sunday, hawking Mancini’s nostalgic Latino ice cream novelties. Flavors include her riff on the iconic Choco Taco, along with a Gansito Sundae made with Mexican vanilla ice cream, strawberry-raspberry-hibiscus jam and yellow cake. Mancini always has something worth stopping by for.

Location: ROW DTLA, 777 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles

Leimert Park

Listener Camille emailed to recommend All Chill, a shop specializing in small-batch and artisanal ice cream, with a built-in hip-hop museum (yup!). The shop ties the flavors to the neighborhood's cultural identity. Fan favorites include bean pie and, as a non-dairy option, cognac and currant.

Location: 3415 W. 43rd Place, Los Angeles

Arcadia

626 Ice Cream is another of my picks. Founded in 2020 by Amber Tan and Waldo Yan after both lost hospitality jobs in the pandemic, the duo took over the longtime Ace Frozen Yogurt space. With a completely reimagined space and menu, flavors include black sesame, roasted green tea, Yakult, lychee strawberry, mango calamansi, and malted chocolate.

Location: 160 E. Duarte Rd., Ste. E, Arcadia

Atwater Village

Wanderlust's Tokyo Rainbow Sherbet blends ramune soda, tart yuzu and creamy strawberry Calpis, inspired by Tokyo summers and childhood conbini treats.

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Courtesy Wanderlust Creamery

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Listener Ann-Marie from Whittier emailed to say Wanderlust Creamery is like a “travelogue featuring flavors from all over the world, and the quality is top-notch. When you walk outside and eat a cone, it doesn't instantly start melting like so many other places' ice cream." Signature flavors include sticky rice mango, Japanese Neapolitan, and Vietnamese Rocky Road.

Locations: Atwater Village, Costa Mesa, Venice, Irvine, Sawtelle, Pasadena, Tarzana, Topanga Social

Altadena

Camille's email also flagged Bulgarini. Owner Leo Bulgarini, a Rome native and trained sommelier, places sourcing as his gelato shop’s reigning ethos — think Bronte pistachios from Sicily, Vestri chocolate from Florence, and Hawaiian macadamia for his various creations. And if you're interested in making a whole meal around your visit, the shop also serves a small pasta menu and tasting dinners a few nights a week.

Location: 749 E. Altadena Drive, Altadena

Highland Park

Owner Tai Kim may have quietly started the artisanal ice cream revolution when he opened the first Scoops over 20 years ago. The original has since closed, but two more locations have opened since — one in Highland Park, where Kim still makes the ice cream for all Scoops locations, and one in Chinatown. As listener Marty from Mt. Washington put it in an email, Scoops "make[s] different flavors all the time, very unusual flavors, and they make non-dairy options too" — case in point, the shop's signature Grape-Nuts–infused brown bread (my personal favorite) and its basil coconut.

Locations:

• 5105 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park) 
• 727 N. Broadway, Ste. 125, Los Angeles (Chinatown)

Melrose

AWAN is another of my picks. 100% vegan, gluten-free, Indonesian-inspired. Started as a West Hollywood walk-up window; now has brick-and-mortars in Larchmont and Venice. Signature flavors include Balinese vanilla, chocolate Oreo, soursop mango ripple, and blue yuzu.

Locations:

• 5630 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles (Melrose)
• 866 Huntley Dr., West Hollywood
• 540 Rose Ave, Venice
  

Alhambra

"Definitely Fosselman's in Alhambra. Chocolate-covered strawberry is the best," listener Vicki from San Gabriel emailed to say. Josie backed her up, noting the shop still has that 1950s fountain-soda-shop vibe.

Location: 1824 W. Main St., Alhambra

Koreatown / Mid-City / Culver City / West L.A.

"Mateo's Ice Cream and Paletas," listener Loretta emailed. Founded in 2000, Mateo's specializes in Latin American-style ice cream and paletas — think mango chile, black sapote, and horchata, alongside more classic flavors.

Locations: 

• 1250 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles (Koreatown) 
• 4234 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (Mid-City) 
• 4929 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City 
• 11551 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles (West L.A.)

Tarzana

"I just had the roasted strawberry and also pistachio baklava. Delicious," listener Caroline from Woodland Hills emailed about Magpies Softserve. Founded by chefs Warren and Rose Schwartz, Magpies also has locations in Silver Lake and Highland Park.

Locations:

• 2660 Griffith Park Blvd., Los Angeles (Silver Lake) 
• 5049 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park) 
• 18971 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana

Culver City / West 3rd Street

"Lately I've fallen in love with Ginger's Divine Ice Cream," listener Jerome from Laurel Canyon emailed. The shop started in Culver City before adding a Mid-City/West 3rd Street location near the Beverly Center.

Locations:

• 12550 Washington Blvd., Culver City
• 8430 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles

Anaheim

Tocumbo didn't come up on air, but it's worth including. The shop takes its name from the small municipality in Michoacán that's considered the epicenter of Mexican ice cream and paletas — there's even a giant popsicle monument there. Siblings Jennifer Clausen-Quiroz and Ricky Quiroz started Tocumbo to continue that tradition, using recipes sourced directly from Michoacán. Standouts include ice cream sundaes made with Gansitos (chocolate-dipped snack cakes filled with cream and jam) and a wide selection of paletas, including chamoy, and a chocolate ice cream made with chocolate imported from Zacatecas.

Location: 956 S. Euclid St., Anaheim

Laguna Beach

"Gelato Paradiso in Laguna Beach is the cutest little shop right on the PCH and the flavors are always rotating. My favorite lately has been their take on the Biscoff – Biscotti-flavored ice cream. It is divine," said Fahim Khan, an LAist producer.

Location: 448 S. Coast Hwy, Ste. A, Laguna Beach

Multiple locations

• Handel's is Josie’s  family standby — a homemade ice-cream chain that's been scooping since 1945, with dozens of locations across SoCal. Her family always gets the four-mini-scoop sampler (mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, rocky road, and mango) when they can't agree on just one flavor. 

• "I'm a Salt & Straw diehard. The quality is unmatched," said Lindsay Wright, LAist senior producer, citing the Portland-born chain's rotating, offbeat flavors as the draw.

Betye Saar’s long art career was the subject of media profiles and art shows in the years and months leading up to a milestone birthday this week. She died Sunday, July 26, four days before she would have turned 100.

Betye Saar in her studio in Los Angeles on January 22, 2026.

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David Sprague

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Courtesy Roberts Projects

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Saar had deep roots in Southern California. She was born, raised and educated in the Los Angeles area. She was firmly rooted in the region and in various Black communities, but her art was not provincial.

Saar took on the global, national and regional issues that affected Black Americans in her drawings, paintings and assemblages. She redefined, broke apart and juxtaposed issues related to stereotypes and racism, as well as mysticism and spirituality.

She exhibited widely in the U.S., and her pieces are in the permanent collections of many museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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The next few weeks provide a unique opportunity for people who live in or are visiting L.A. to see a wide spectrum of Saar’s work — from the fashion, jewelry and costume designs she created early in her art career to the final commissioned piece she made a few years before her death.

It’s a work that takes on the concepts of memory and transition.

A piece in the museum Betye Saar grew up going to

Saar grew up in Pasadena, and when she was young, she frequented The Huntington in nearby San Marino. In 2023 the museum unveiled one of Saar's pieces, titled "Drifting Toward Twilight," on display through Nov. 30, 2027.

To create the work, Saar used found objects, metal cages and animal horns, and placed them inside a wooden canoe. The vessel rests on a bed of branches and twigs she collected from the grounds of The Huntington. The piece is displayed in a room where the walls have been painted in three shades of blue and where the lights subtly change, illuminating seven shapes representing the stages of the moon.

The piece Drifting Toward Twilight was Betye Saar's last commissioned piece before she died. It's on display at the Huntington until the fall of 2027.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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“She's basically drawing up a scene for us in our minds, so that as we engage with the installation," said Lauren Cross, the Huntington’s associate curator of American decorative arts. "We are in the canoe on a journey with her, traveling along, and experiencing the work with her.”

Cross said Saar was working with the idea of transitions, including spiritual transition related to death.

A 16-minute video created for this exhibit, based on Betye Saar’s life as an artist, plays in a room next to the gallery.

A mother and an artist

The exhibit that’s likely to give the deepest view of Saar’s art is on view for a few more weeks.

A piece made in 1969 by Betye Saar on view at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.

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Robert Wedemeyer

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Courtesy of the artist andRoberts Projects, LosAngeles

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"Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar" is at Roberts Projects until Aug. 22. It features more than 200 objects, including costume designs, photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historic materials from the 1950s to the 1970s as Saar was becoming a nationally recognized artist.

The show demonstrates how deeply Saar created for stage productions in L.A. such as for the Inner City Cultural Center, a multicultural performing arts group started after the 1965 Watts Rebellion.

The decorative art she created would have defined a remarkable career, but then around the late 1960s she moved on to assemblages, works made with found objects. These works took on lifelong areas of interests such as spirituality and racism.

The piece Souvenir of Friendship (1977) by Betye Saar is on view at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A. until August 16.

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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles

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One of the most poignant pieces, titled "I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break," from 1998, is on display at LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries. Saar uses a vintage ironing board, wood clothespins, a flat iron and a white bedsheet to comment on women’s work, slavery’s dehumanization and the enduring racism that seems to infuse much of U.S. society.

Detail from the piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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“Betye is very much alive in her work,"said Carol S. Eliel,  senior curator emerita of modern art at LACMA. "There's so much of her personality, her fierceness … she had an iron spine. She was a very gentle, lovely, beautiful person, but you could not steamroll her and I think the work reflects that.

Betye Saar in North African dress in 1968 in a photo that's on display at Roberts Projects.

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Carol A. Beers

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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.

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“It makes me happy that someone who had such a long and rich and productive career will live on through these amazing works,” she said.

The LACMA piece is part of the museum's permanent collection. Much of the other work by Saar in L.A. will come down in the next month and a half.

Here’s a guide to help you plan a Betye Saar L.A. art tour.

Duplex projects will be allowed to move forward once again in two Southern California cities affected by last year’s fires. The change of course is the result of a court showdown between advocates for denser housing and local elected officials who wanted to ban more units from cropping up in burn zones.

The cities of Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to settle with the plaintiffs who brought forward a lawsuit that challenges local jurisdictions’ suspension of Senate Bill 9 in high fire risk zones, according to documents obtained by LAist.

Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the result will help residents get more out of their properties.

“I want them to know that they can build,” Trauss said.

How we got here

SB 9 allows single-family homeowners across the state to build duplexes and split their lots. It became state law in 2021. SB 9 applicants can use the law to create up to four units where a single-family home once stood, in some cases. The law takes away the ability of local governments to block these projects.

However, after the 2025 fires, some homeowners affected by the fires erupted with anger over the prospect of their burned-down neighborhoods being rebuilt with denser housing. They argued more homes — and the additional residents that come with them — would clog evacuations and hurt neighborhood character.

In July 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order giving local leaders the power to block the law in very high fire hazard areas within the Palisades and Eaton fire burn zones.

Elected officials in L.A. city, the county of L.A., Pasadena and Malibu followed suit and adopted policies to stop processing SB 9 applications in those areas.

Advocates for increased housing development, including YIMBY Law, sued the governments, alleging they didn’t have the authority to suspend laws passed by the legislature.

Trauss told LAist housing advocates believe the order is being misused for political purposes.

“ It chips away at the policy,” she said. “Especially in the Palisades, everybody could watch the political back-and-forth that caused that to happen.”

The backlash on social media to SB 9 projects in the Palisades was led by former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the fire and later mounted an unsuccessful campaign for L.A. mayor.

What the settlement means

According to the settlement documents, Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to repeal the local ordinances that blocked SB 9 projects by the end of September. The settlements still require City Council action to undo those bans.

The cities are also supposed to process any pending SB 9 applications that were submitted, paused or rejected.

Another plaintiff in the lawsuit — Andrew Slocum, CEO of Green Development Company — said he thinks Newsom never should have signed the executive order in the first place.

Slocum said he hopes to see recovering homeowners have more options when rebuilding their properties. Last year, he told LAist he was working with homeowners on SB 9 projects.

The settlement “allows for the people to hopefully be able to come back and resubmit that application,” Slocum said, “because most people who are doing SB 9 are the homeowners themselves.”

The Pasadena City Council took the first step toward repeal on July 20, according to city spokesperson Lisa Derderian. She said they’ll start processing SB 9 applications once the vote is finalized.

“The City reached a conditional settlement with YIMBY in recognition of the uncertainty inherent in litigation and the significant passage of time since the Eaton Fire in January 2025,” she said in a statement.

LAist contacted officials in the city of Malibu for comment but has not heard back.

What’s next

The county and city of L.A. are still fighting the lawsuit. They control land use in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, home to the lion’s share of properties affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

State officials also continue to defend the restrictions. Newsom’s office stands behind the executive order and plans to defend it in court, according to a state official.

Trauss said the parties met for  a trial setting conference a few days ago.

“ I want the folks in the county and in the city of L.A. who could build … to have hope,” she said.

The lawsuit is playing out while state legislators are moving forward with a new bill, SB 1090, which would expand the ban on SB 9 to all of Altadena.

One Hollywood icon is prepping for a comeback. The Cinerama Dome – one of the most famous movie theaters in the world – has been closed since the COVID pandemic. But it's now got a new lease on life, thanks to SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

The studio announced it will lease, restore and reopen the famous theater in 2028; Alamo Drafthouse plans to program and operate it and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex.

"Hot damn! We're bringing the Dome back, baby," SONY Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman said in a statement. "We believe in moviegoing down to our soul, and no venue on Earth stands more for that than the one-of-a-kind Dome."

"There's a lot of passion behind this theater," says Michael O'Leary, who heads Cinema United, the global association of movie theater owners. He says while the Cinerama Dome's closing was a symbol of the pandemic, its recovery is proof the pandemic is behind us and movie theater-going is back.

"It's really exciting," agrees Escott Norton, former executive director and current board member of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. "There's been a lot of people waiting with baited breath to see when the dome is going to reopen. People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience."

As an LA native and former film production designer, Norton has great memories of going to the Cinerama Dome. He says it was always an immersive experience to watch movies inside the geodesic-shaped auditorium designed to show wide screen movies.

"When I saw Close Encounters on this giant screen curved around me, it knocked my socks off," he says, adding he was also blown away watching Apocalypse Now at the Dome. "The movie opens up with this wide screen of just a quiet jungle, birds tweeting and then it explodes. Being surrounded by that on the curved screen, it still gives me tingles thinking about it."

The Cinerama Dome in October 2021.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 by William Forman – the founder of Pacific Theaters, who had popularized drive-in cinemas. Forman commissioned a French architect who had studied under R. Buckminster Fuller, a designer of other geodesic structures. The theater was originally made to showcase Cinerama, a format developed in the 1950s that was part of the widescreen craze designed to lure viewers away from television and back to cinemas.

Forman was able to get the theater constructed in 16 weeks … just in time for the world premiere of a madcap comedy called, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The movie ran four hours long, with an intermission. Filmmakers had originally planned to use the Cinerama format, but abandoned it, shooting in Ultra Panavision 70 millimeter instead.

Still, it featured a who's who of comedy at the time – including Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Milton Berle, and Buddy Hackett. Buster Keaton even makes a ten second cameo. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World played at the Cinerama Dome, the brand new theater, for two years without stopping," recalled Karen Sharpe, the widow of the movie's director, Stanley Kramer. The former TV actress and producer spoke at a rally to preserve the Cinerama Dome last year, and talked about the star-studded premiere.

"It was a real happening," she remembered. "Bobby Kennedy came, Adlai Stevenson came and President and Mrs. Kennedy accepted the invitation to attend the opening. A few days before, they called to say 'So sorry, we have to [decline] the invitation because President and Mrs. Kennedy have to go to Dallas.' And we know what happened in Dallas."

Over the decades, the theater became a mecca for cinephiles. The dome was sometimes costumed like the movies it screened. Once, a replica Godzilla appeared to burst through the egg-like roof. Another time it was painted green with ears to resemble Shrek's head. Figures depicting the Pink Panther, Spider Man and the Minions have perched or crawled atop the Dome.

And fans were treated to countless premieres and special events, like when filmmaker Quentin Tarantino personally welcomed audiences to his 2019 feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For the film, he included exterior shots of the Dome.

Two years later, after the Cinerama Dome's operators went bankrupt during the pandemic, Tarantino talked about how it was one of his favorite LA landmarks.

"I don't know if I could 100% afford it, but I would love to own the Cinerama Dome," he said on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM. "That would be fantastic."

Tarantino already owns two other historic LA cinemas. But other preservationists and activists have been working to revive the dormant theater. Many of them credit the efforts of Benjamin Steinberg, a 27-year-old filmmaker and actor who appeared on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

"The Cinerama Dome is the most famous movie theater in the world," Steinberg said, standing outside the boarded-up theater. "It seemed like it was going to be a demolition by neglect. So I was, like, something has to be done."

Steinberg created a campaign to save the Cinerama Dome. He organized a few street rallies, and wrote an online petition that amassed more than 30,000 signatures.

Ben Steinberg projected images onto the dome as part of a campaign to save the theater.

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Ben Steinberg

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Then in March, Steinberg went even further to get the attention of the Forman family, which still owns the property: he projected images of the owners' faces onto the outside of the Dome, asking them to reopen the theater.

"We actually projected it for two hours and then they called the police on us," Steinberg explains. "We didn't get arrested; The police just said that the ownership considered it an escalation and harassment. I never wanted to anger the owner, so we stopped immediately."

Steinberg's stunt created a lot of buzz, and may have moved the needle, says theater preservationist Norton. His group had been consulting with architects on restoration plans in hopes that someone would save the day.

"We were all working behind the scenes. But Ben Steinberg really got on board on social media to save the dome," says Norton. "I'm very happy he did. You know, you sort of have to rattle the chains sometimes."

Meanwhile, Sony has promised to preserve the Cinerama Dome's history while ensuring its future.
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