The Brief

The California Science Center has installed the first of more than a dozen aircraft in the museum’s 200,000-square-foot expansion coming to Exposition Park.

As of this week, the front portion of a Boeing 747-400 towers over the ground floor of the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, one of three main spaces in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

The new center, which recently completed construction, is built around a towering centerpiece: space shuttle Endeavour in its 20-story vertical launch position.

Once open to the public, the center will be the only place in the world to see an authentic space shuttle in its “Go for Stack” position, which is what officials called the months-long process of moving each component into place, according to the museum.

Walter Cho, chairman of Korean Air, said the airline’s namesake gallery is all about inspiring future generations to dream big.

“We want them to see more than airplanes, but the science, engineering and imagination behind them,” Cho said during a news conference Tuesday. “And most importantly, we want them to think, ‘I can do that, too.’”

Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center, said museum officials are working to announce an opening date for the center within the next several weeks. He told LAist that people will be able to visit “well before” the 2028 Olympics.

Admission to the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will be free.

What's inside?

The California Science Center unveiled the first few aircraft on display in the Korean Air Aviation Gallery about six months after offering a sneak peak inside the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.

The galleries will guide guests through hundreds of exhibits and authentic artifacts focused on the exploration of the universe — including rocket ships that carried humans into space and telescopes used to view stars and galaxies beyond our reach, according to museum officials.

The Korean Air Aviation Gallery has three themes — learning to fly, everyday flight and advanced aviation, according to the museum. It’s designed to explore the four forces that affect every aircraft: lift, thrust, weight and drag.

“That basically shapes the aircraft, tells you what it has to look like in order to accomplish whatever mission you have,” said Kenneth Phillips, the curator of aerospace programs.

The roughly 20 aircraft that’ll be displayed — some already suspended from the ceiling — were selected by the California Science Center for the engineering principles they can teach.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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The 747, at least the front 70 feet of it, was moved to L.A. last year. After taking thousands of flights under Korean Air for two decades, it was rescued from an “aircraft graveyard” in Arizona, Rudolph said.

Museum crews took the plane apart, reassembled it in the building and gave it a fresh paint job.

Officials said the 747 played a significant role in aviation, helping take the technology from daredevils testing the limits to a regular part of global travel. Visitors will be able to explore the inside of the aircraft and take a simulated five-minute flight from LAX to Seoul.

Walter Cho, chairman of Korean Air, celebrated the first aircraft installed in the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, including the front of a real Boeing 747-400 that was built for the airline in 1993.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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A rendering of the final vision for the Korean Air Aviation Gallery in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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The other roughly 20 aircraft that’ll be on display — some are already suspended from the ceiling — were selected for the engineering principles they demonstrate, according to Rudolph.

For example, the section on speed will feature a F-106A Delta Dart, the fastest turbo-jet powered airplane with a single-engine, according to officials. The museum is also working on displaying an F-100D Super Sabre, the world’s first supersonic fighter jet, and a Vampire T.35, the first British aircraft powered by a single jet engine.

This Northrop T-38 Talon was built around 1959 and joined NASA's fleet a few decades later. It was used for air force and astronaut training, according to the museum.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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A de Havilland Vampire T.35 was the first jet to land on and take off from an aircraft carrier, according to the California Science Center.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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The museum is also looking ahead to advanced aviation, including an indoor drone flight area.

Perry Roth-Johnson, curator of science and technology, told LAist he wants visitors to be able to explore the autonomous tech you can already see in L.A. today through self-driving cars like Waymo.

“We want to give people a little cityscape where they can fly drones on sample missions around the city and get a sense of how this technology works,” Roth-Johnson said in an interview.

What's outside?

Construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center was completed last month, nearly four years after the California Science Center broke ground.

The expansion’s curved stainless-steel design stands out from the museum’s mostly copper-colored exterior.

Construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center was completed last month, bringing the expansion closer to welcoming visitors.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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According to officials, it was inspired by the aerodynamic geometry of the space shuttle. Endeavour itself is hidden beneath a 2,000 ton diagrid structure, peaking at 200-feet-tall, that offers unobstructed views of the artifacts inside.

Steven F. Matt, chairman of MATT Construction — which built the expansion — said that construction was completed successfully without a scratch on the space shuttle.

“This project stands as a tribute to the generations who built our aerospace legacy and will continue to inspire children for decades to come,” Matt said in an April statement.

Amie Nulman, a structural engineer and principal with Arup, which engineered the building, told LAist previously that one of the challenges was making sure the design could withstand earthquakes without damaging the space shuttle. She said the shuttle’s support system is on base isolation, meaning it’s going to glide around when the ground starts to shake.

“The stack is going to be moving different to the building, and so we did a lot of studies to make sure they did not get too close to each other during earthquakes,” Nulman said in a 2024 interview.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman promised at a Tuesday night town hall that MacArthur Park will see “amazing progress” in public safety before the 2028 Olympic Games.

Several community members told LAist they have seen crime return to the Los Angeles park after months of joint drug enforcement operations by the Los Angeles Police Department and federal agencies. Those efforts led to dozens of arrests for alleged drug sales in the area.

An LAPD captain attending the town hall confirmed to LAist that the department is aware of renewed safety problems.

Hochman acknowledged those concerns and said the recent operations made progress and created an opportunity for lasting change.

“If we keep this focus and the energy on this area, MacArthur Park, Skid Row and everything in between,” Hochman said, “then we will see amazing progress before the Olympics, and that is actually a promise.”

Hochman previously promised, during a drug enforcement operation on June 4, to have a picnic at the park on Labor Day. Hochman told attendees he kept that promise when he held an event at the park on Sept. 5 with other local and federal law enforcement officials.

As district attorney, Hochman works with law enforcement agencies to prosecute criminal cases in L.A. County. He said that it will take more work from policymakers and community members to remove the open-air drug market that has been entrenched there for decades.

The area is represented by L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, County Supervisor Hilda Solis, state Assemblymember Mark González and state Sen. María Elena Durazo. Staff members from some of those offices, and the mayor’s office, sat in on the town hall organized by the local nonprofit California Rising.

“Feel free to put the fire under the feet of our politicians,” Hochman told about two dozen residents who attended. “All too often it is easy to spend some effort on something and then get distracted and spend some effort somewhere else.”

'Temporary' relief

Some residents and business owners agreed with Hochman that the large-scale drug enforcement operations from March through June made the area feel safer, at least for a while.

“It was temporary, but we got to see, actually, families at the bus stops with their kids — before it wasn't like that,” Elaine Alaniz told LAist Tuesday. “I think it does help us, but on the other hand I still think that we need more help. It's not just a one, two, three-day thing.”

Alaniz lives nearby and is the president of the Westlake North Neighborhood Council, which begins a block northeast of MacArthur Park.

She said she has seen some crime move away from the park and into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Capt. Ben Fernandes, who leads LAPD’s Rampart Division, said the earlier operations were successful, but there have been some setbacks.

“We made a lot of headway in the beginning,” he said. “There are some issues that we've had some repopulation, especially with addicts.”

Fernandes said that the department will continue to arrest people suspected of selling drugs near the park, while connecting people who are addicted with services to help them get sober and off the streets.

A call for community involvement

Hochman and Fernandes each emphasized that making MacArthur Park a safe and welcoming place can’t be done by law enforcement alone.

“My advice: take the park back — it's your park,” Hochman said at the town hall, calling for community organizations to plan regular outings there. “That starts to send a message that the community really cares about this park.”

He asked that performers like Justin Bieber, who played an impromptu set in the park last month, have more events there as well.

Fernandes said people can get involved to change perceptions about MacArthur Park so it's no longer thought of as a place to go to score drugs.

“What we need to do is — we as a community — come together and show [people using drugs] that it's not their place to go,” he said. “That you're going to be there with your children, with your parishioners, with your friends, with your family.”

Inglewood city officials are launching an audit of their financial relationship with SoFi Stadium and claiming the stadium could owe years of ticket taxes, one month after a judge voided the 2015 contract that brought the stadium to Inglewood. 

The Inglewood City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to commission the audit. Mayor James Butts said the move is a necessary next step after the court ruling, which threw the terms of the financial relationship between the city and Hollywood Park stadium development into question. 

Millions of dollars are at stake for both the city and the stadium businesses. City officials say that the ruling means a cap that limited the amount of admissions tax that Inglewood could collect no longer applies. They also plan to investigate the authenticity of $376 million worth of infrastructure bills Hollywood Park claims the city owes. The findings of the audit could also factor into discussions of how the city will address its current $30.8 million deficit.

The City Council motion — put forward by Butts and co-sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Faulk — requires the city attorney to retain an accounting firm to conduct the audit and report back to the public on its findings within 30 days. It set aside $325,000 from the city’s General Fund to pay for the audit. You can read the city’s full explanation of the audit here.

Butts, who was at the city’s helm a decade ago when developer Stan Kroenke brought his Hollywood Park pitch to Inglewood, said city officials built what they thought was a partnership with their stadium counterparts.

But that partnership has crumbled. Since last summer, the city and stadiums have been slugging it out in a complex series of court cases over the stadium’s contract and Inglewood’s network of video billboards. The conflict has spilled over into the Nov. 3 election via ballot measures that would change the city’s commercial advertising and ticket tax rules. 

The audit approved by the City Council on Tuesday will dig into the entire financial relationship between the stadium and city since 2015, unpacking what is owed and what was received from taxes on everything from tickets to parking. City officials plan to continue auditing the taxes on a quarterly basis into the future.

Still, it’s not guaranteed the city would be able to force the stadium development to pay any debt the audit does claim. Hollywood Park could still appeal the court ruling that voided its contract with Inglewood, while Butts said the city wants to negotiate a new contract to replace it. 

A Hollywood Park spokesperson said the stadium development has lived up to its financial obligations, including paying all of its taxes.

“This is yet another thinly veiled attempt to distract from scrutiny surrounding the City’s own fiscal mismanagement and the questionable actions of its Mayor,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Some locals at Tuesday’s meeting said during public comments they were baffled why the city hadn’t set up an audit process earlier.

“We have needed an audit from day one. We can’t sit here and claim we didn’t know or have an inkling what we were doing with Hollywood Park,” Diane Sambrano said. 

Exterior of Sofi Stadium in Inglewood

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Speaking during the meeting, Butts said the audit was triggered because of the void left by the development agreement and because major events including the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics are about to hit Inglewood.

The mayor first claimed the development agreement was illegal in a letter written directly to Stan Kroenke last year, saying the city’s lawyers made the determination while researching billboard litigation.

Millions in tax revenue at stake

After the judge ruled in agreement with the city, Butts told The LA Local that city officials were still researching the specific implications of the court’s ruling. In Tuesday’s council motion, city staff highlighted what they say is one major change they’ve discovered: There’s no longer a limit on how much admissions tax the city can collect.  

Inglewood collects a 10% tax on tickets sold at SoFi Stadium, but the 2015 initiative that brought the stadium to the city put a cap on that revenue, starting at $15 million a year and increasing annually with inflation. 

The admissions tax cap also happens to be the subject of the current ballot Measure AT. WOW Media, the billboard operator allied with the city in its dispute with the stadium, is funding a campaign in favor of the initiative.

Admissions tax has been a sizable revenue stream for the city — bringing in an average $20 million a year since SoFi Stadium opened — but city officials have said it could be significantly bigger. A city analysis of Measure AT estimated that getting rid of the cap could bring in as much as an extra $50 million in future years. The city did not estimate how much admissions tax revenue it has missed out on while the development agreement was in effect.

The Inglewood audit seeks to clarify basic questions about how taxes are assessed on ticket sales and whether those taxes are actually forwarded to the city. Officials say it will provide transparency about ticket sales, pricing and fees, which have been heavily scrutinized in recent years across the state. 

Gray gets support on proposal for future billboard revenue audit

Councilmember Gloria Gray attempted to amend the audit motion Tuesday, asking the city manager to also audit the revenue the city gets from billboard fees.

“I believe the same standard of financial transparency should apply to every city agreement,” Gray said.

Though her motion didn’t receive a second, Councilmember Eloy Morales said he’d support putting a billboard revenue audit on the council’s agenda in the future. 

“I think we all support all those audits,” Morales said. 

Gray’s move was a rarity for a council that seldom debates motions during public meetings and almost always votes unanimously. The councilmember is currently running for mayor against Butts.

Inglewood pulls in as much as $8 million a year from billboards, according to budget records. Much of that comes from a series of deals the city cut with WOW Media, allowing the billboard company to construct and operate the billboards on public medians and sidewalks. In return, WOW gives the city a cut of ad revenue along with other concessions.

The post Inglewood is investigating if SoFi Stadium owes years’ worth of ticket taxes appeared first on LA Local.