I’m going to try clearing off my news chum links the old way for a while: a post a day. Today’s post groups together three links about Los Angeles:
- Los Angeles in Maps. My daughter unearthed this one: a link about an online exhibition from the Library of Congress with maps of Los Angeles. From the description: “The Library of Congress/Ira Gershwin Gallery presents historical maps of Los Angeles from the collections of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. These diverse works of craftsmanship, precision, and imagination provide a guide to some of the most remarkable stories of the city’s history: its discovery, its growth, and its industries, as seen by explorers, engineers, artists, residents, and boosters.”
- The The Tar Tar Pits. If you live in Los Angeles, you’ve been by the Department of Redundancy Department, that is, the La Brea Tar Pits. Did you ever wonder about those fiberglass sculptures in the middle of the tar, and how they got there? Wonder no more.
- Erasing Names. Maps are interesting creatures. Some people want to have the map as accurate as possible. Others want to intentionally hide information. In Los Angeles, the people living in Hollywood are fighting a battle with Google to keep the Hollywood Sign off of Google maps. Specifically, they want to erase the directions to the sign to keep people out of their neighborhoods. Here’s the little bit more: It’s not just Los Angeles. In Washington and Oregon, they are scrubbing maps of any offensive place names.
