Hadley Meares

Today there are approximately 38,000 McDonald’s, 8,500 Taco Bells, and 3,100 Carl’s Jrs. And they all started here in Greater L.A.

The L.A. Observer finally gets the Los Angeles retrospective he deserves.

As Los Angeles boomed in the 20th century, more and more workers needed places to stay. Residential hotels sprung up — often offering bare bone rooms which still exist today.

Sex and the studios were once a dangerous pair.

The eatery known for being one of the hottest spots in town shut down at the height of the pandemic, but made its return in 2023.

It was home to the first Academy banquet, the fourth awards ceremony — and, legend has it, where the Oscar statuette was first sketched on a napkin.

A local history about the extraordinary lives of a generation of female daredevils.

LAist's new podcast LA Made: Blood Sweat & Rockets explores the history of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Lab, co-founder Jack Parsons' interest in the occult and the creepy local lore of Devil's Gate Dam.

In recent years L.A. city government has been embroiled in corruption scandals — but the history goes back to the very start.

Baldwin Hills communities began with an Olympic village in 1932 and later became home to affluent Black families in L.A. It is now facing changing demographics and gentrification.

Though early records are murky due to a lack of primary source historical records, we can piece together a legacy of Black-owned restaurants in Los Angeles stretching back to 1888.

In its heyday, the restaurant was equally popular with Golden Age movie stars and tourist families from Omaha.