Hidden Treasures
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This Gravestone Knows What Card You’ve Chosen
Let’s do a magic trick. Think of a card, any card. Got it? Good. Now take a trip to Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills… Head into the cemetery, then turn right past the 1:1 scale replica of Boston’s Old North Church (yes, this really exists)… Turn left and park, then walk north toward…
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Where The Dam Collapsed: Exploring The Ruins of the St. Francis Dam
Just before Christmas, I was driving up north of LA when I happened to notice something odd on the map I was following… A marker for the “St. Francis Dam disaster site.” Pictured below is the St. Francis Dam, located in the remote San Francisquito Canyon. On March 12, 1928, the dam catastrophically failed, flooding all…
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A Japanese Palace Hidden in the Hollywood Hills
When I first turned off Franklin onto Sycamore in Hollywood… I honestly didn’t expect to find anything other than the usual tangle of homes clinging precariously to the hills. So as I drove up North Sycamore… …I was a bit surprised to find a steep set of stairs climbing up the hill to my left……
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Philip Marlowe’s Los Angeles: Tracking Down The Real 1930s Locations of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
Your name’s Marlowe. You’re a private detective. The year is 1939, the city is Los Angeles, and you’re about to embark on one of the most famous murder mysteries in history: The Big Sleep. The best part of your hard-boiled adventures? The Los Angeles locations you refer to are all real. Oh, sure, you use…