Growing south from the plaza where the city of Los Angeles was founded as a tiny pueblo in 1781, the area now known as downtown L.A. was first developed in the late 1800s as a residential neighborhood, complete with churches and schools. As the population surged at the turn of the 20th century, the downtown area was transformed into a busy business and entertainment center of shops, banks, hotels, and theaters. The explosion of the postcard craze in the early 1900s coincided with this period of downtown's tremendous growth toward a formidable metropolis. This collection of vintage postcards offers a glimpse into the changing city through the 1940s.

In the early twentieth century, there was no better example of a classic American downtown than Los Angeles, and most of its "historic core" has been left intact while recent renovations of the area for residential use and the construction of Disney Hall and the Staples Center are shining a new spotlight on its many pre-1930s Beaux Arts, Art Deco, and Spanish Baroque buildings. Original.

In 1884, a Japanese sailor named Hamanosuke Shigeta made his way to the eastern section of downtown Los Angeles and opened Little Tokyo's first business, an American-style café. By the early 20th century, this neighborhood on the banks of the Los Angeles River had developed into a vibrant community serving the burgeoning Japanese American population of Southern California. When Japanese Americans were forcibly removed to internment camps in 1942 following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entrance into World War II, Little Tokyo was rechristened "Bronzeville" as a newly established African American enclave popular for its jazz clubs and churches. Despite the War Relocation Authority's opposition to re-establishing Little Tokyo following the war, Japanese Americans gradually restored the strong ties evident today in 21st-century Little Tokyo--a multicultural, multigenerational community that is the largest Nihonmachi (Japantown) in the United States.

Originally published in hardcover in 2005.

Los Angeles, 1929: a glittering metropolis on the crest of an epic crash. A mysterious prophetess and her alluring daughter have relieved an oil tycoon's nephew of his fortune. But the kid won't talk. To find the money, the old man calls on a trusted executive, Raymond Chandler, who in turn enlists the aid of his devoted secretary/mistress, Muriel Fischer, and their idealistic patrolman friend Tom James. Soon the nephew is revealed as a high-ranking member of a murderous cult of angel worshippers, and the trio plunges into an investigation that sends them careening across Southern California, from sinister sanitariums to roadside burger stands, decaying Bunker Hill mansions to sparkling cocktail parties, taxi dance halls to the morgue, all in search of the secretive Great Eleven. But when Muriel goes undercover to infiltrate the group's rural lair, she comes face to face with disturbing truths that threaten to spoil everything, not just for the cult's members, but for herself as well. A work of fiction inspired by actual events and featuring the real-life cop who is a likely model for the mature Chandler's greatest creation, private eye Philip Marlowe, Kim Cooper's The Kept Girl exposes a mystery so horrifying, it could only be true.

A perfect, souvenir-size Then and Now featuring all the best-known tourist locations from Los Angeles, with a number of vintage color photos. Using archive photos paired with their modern equivalent, Los Angeles Then and Now charts the development of the city from the days of orange groves and melon patches and isolated Spanish mission buildings to the staggering metropolis it is today. With a background in the movie business, Rosemary Lord interlaces the arrival of the Hollywood era and the growth of the city she has lived in for twenty-five years. Since its original publication in 2002, Los Angeles Then and Now has been rephotographed, revised with new content, and completely redesigned. This new compact gift edition includes exclusive matchups. Sites include Old Plaza Church, Olvera Street, Chinatown, Union Station, Mayan Theatre, Angel's Flight, Los Angeles Public Library, Biltmore Hotel, Bullocks Wilshire, Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory, Sunset and Vine, Egyptian Theatre, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Roosevelt Hotel, Schwab's Pharmacy, Beverly Hills Hotel, Venice Beach, and Santa Monica Pier.

Examines the migration of Filipinos into the United States, particularly in and around Los Angeles, where the early part of the twentieth century saw these newcomers filling important service-oriented industries, and now find Filipinos contributing to all aspects of life and culture in the area. Original.