Los Angeles's hidden history: haunted, dark & lost places
From the 1781 pueblo and the Chinatown buried under Union Station to Broadway’s movie palaces, Hollywood’s golden age and the unsolved murder of the Black Dahlia, Los Angeles is layered with stories. Here are its best-documented haunted, dark, weird and vanished places, self-guided paths to explore them, and the stories people are telling now.
Explore 1,525 places on the map
Self-guided paths
- Vanished Los Angeles · 12 stops, best as a drive — Demolished buildings and structures of Los Angeles: stand where something remarkable used to be. Each stop links to its Wikipedia article and what happened to…
- The Black Dahlia · 3 stops, best as a drive — Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old from Boston, was found murdered in Leimert Park on January 15, 1947. The newspapers called her the "Black Dahlia". The LAPD…
- Where Los Angeles began · 6 stops, best as a walk — In 1781, 44 settlers, at least ten of them Black, arrived from the Gulf of California to found a pueblo by the river, near the Tongva village of Yaanga. After…
- Downtown's movie palaces · 7 stops, best as a walk — Before World War II, the Los Angeles Times later wrote, "downtown L.A. was the movie capital of the world." Eight blocks of Broadway hold twelve movie palaces…
- Hollywood's golden age · 7 stops, best as a walk — Sid Grauman built the Egyptian Theatre in 1922 and the Chinese Theatre in 1927, where stars have left their handprints in the forecourt ever since. The first…
- Little Tokyo · 4 stops, best as a walk — Little Tokyo grew up around the start of the 20th century and is one of only three official Japantowns left in the United States. In 1942 the incarceration of…
Haunted, weird & curious
- Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel — The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, also known as Hotel Roosevelt, is a historic hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood district of…
- murder of the Notorious B.I.G. — On March 9, 1997, 24-year-old American rapper Christopher Wallace, known professionally as the Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, was murdered in a…
- Wonderland murders — The Wonderland murders, also known as the Four on the Floor Murders or the Laurel Canyon Murders, are four unsolved murders that occurred in Los…
- Coast to Coast AM — Coast to Coast AM is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics, most frequently relating to either the paranormal…
- Boring Test Tunnel — The Hawthorne test tunnel, or Boring test tunnel, is a 1.14 miles (1.83 km) tunnel in Hawthorne, California, intended for testing “tunneling and…
- Randy's Donuts — Randy's Donuts is a donut shop chain originated in the United States, and it is known for a colossal donut sign atop its original building located…
- Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center — Los Angeles General Medical Center (also known as LA General and formerly known as Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, County/USC, County General…
- Binoculars Building — The Binoculars Building is Google's campus in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Originally known as the Chiat/Day Building, it was…
- McClure Tunnel — The McClure Tunnel is a tunnel in Santa Monica, California, that connects Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1) to its junction with the western…
- Linda Vista Community Hospital — Linda Vista Community Hospital is a former hospital located at 610-30 South St. Louis Street in Los Angeles, California, United States, in the Boyle…
- Pacific Electric Building — The historic Pacific Electric Building (also known as the Huntington Building, after the railway’s founder, Henry Huntington, or simply 6th & Main),…
- Subway Terminal Building — The historic Subway Terminal, now Metro 417, opened in 1925 at 417 South Hill Street near Pershing Square, in the core of Los Angeles as the second,…
Dark history: crimes, disasters & injustice
- Los Angeles International Airport — Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX, FAA LID: LAX) is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles and its surrounding…
- Crypto.com Arena — Crypto.com Arena (originally and still commonly known as Staples Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in downtown Los Angeles, California. Opened…
- assassination of Robert F. Kennedy — On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Medical teams attempted…
- Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery — Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary is a cemetery and mortuary located in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, California,…
- death of Elisa Lam — On February 19, 2013, the body of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam (born Lam Ho-yi; Chinese: 藍可兒) was recovered from a large cistern atop the Stay on Main…
- Forest Lawn Memorial Park — Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately owned cemetery in Glendale, California, United States. It is the original and current flagship location of…
- Hollywood Forever Cemetery — Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a full-service cemetery, funeral home, crematory, and cultural events center which regularly hosts community events…
- Forest Lawn Memorial Park — Forest Lawn Memorial Park – Hollywood Hills is one of the six Forest Lawn cemeteries in Southern California, United States. It is located at 6300…
- Cecil Hotel — The Cecil Hotel is an affordable housing complex in Downtown Los Angeles. It opened on December 20, 1924, as a hotel, but declined during the Great…
- Petersen Automotive Museum — The Petersen Automotive Museum is an automobile museum located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los…
- Tate murders — The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family cult during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles,…
- Watts riots — The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of…
Lost Los Angeles: places that are gone
- E3 — E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo) was an annual trade event for the video game industry organized and presented by the Entertainment…
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air — The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is an American television sitcom created by Andy and Susan Borowitz that aired on NBC from September 10, 1990, to May…
- basketball at the 1984 Summer Olympics — Basketball at the 1984 Summer Olympics was the eleventh appearance of the sport of basketball as an official Olympic medal event. It took place at…
- 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup — The 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the fourth edition of the Gold Cup, the soccer championship for the member associations of CONCACAF, which governs…
- 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup — The 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the sixth edition of the Gold Cup, the soccer championship of North America, Central America and the Caribbean…
- 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup — The 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 15th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial international men's soccer championship of the North, Central…
- 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup — The 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the first edition of the Gold Cup, the soccer championship of North America, Central America and the Caribbean…
- handball at the 1984 Summer Olympics — Handball at the 1984 Summer Olympics featured competition for men and women. Due to the USSR-led boycott some strong handball nations from Eastern…
- Cecil Hotel — The Cecil Hotel is an affordable housing complex in Downtown Los Angeles. It opened on December 20, 1924, as a hotel, but declined during the Great…
- Watts riots — The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of…
- Silver Legion of America — The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an American fascist and pro-Nazi organization which was founded by William…
- Los Angeles Open — The Los Angeles Open was a former tennis tournament held in Los Angeles, United States from 1927 until 2012. It included a women's draw until 1974…
Landmarks & historic places
- Los Angeles — Los Angeles (often shortened as LA or L.A.) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural…
- Hollywood — Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. Its name has become synonymous with the…
- Santa Monica — Santa Monica (Spanish: Santa Mónica, lit. 'Saint Monica') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is situated along Santa…
- Pasadena — Pasadena ( PASS-ə-DEE-nə) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the…
- Los Angeles County — Los Angeles County, sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is a county in the U.S. state of California, in the southern region of the state. It is the…
- California Institute of Technology — The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university…
- University of California, Los Angeles — The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California,…
- Hollywood Walk of Fame — The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark with more than 2,800 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks…
- Inglewood
- Los Angeles International Airport — Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX, FAA LID: LAX) is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles and its surrounding…
- University of Southern California — The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal[a]) is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States.…
- Downey — Downey is a city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, 13 mi (21 km) southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. It is considered…
Stories people are telling
- “An ingenious arrangement of the parterre and a peculiar distribution of some trees, together with a profusion of plants and…” — Round House
- “The rooms were not over 6x9 in size. Such were the ordinary dormitories of the hotel that advertised as being the "best hotel south of San…” — Bella Union Hotel
- “In its palmy days, the Pico House welcomed from time to time travelers of wide distinction; while many a pioneer, among them not a few…” — Pico House
- “At the time of the massacre, I heard a shot just as I was about to leave my office, and learned that it had been fired from that part of…” — Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871
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The best history of Los Angeles isn't in any archive. Open the map, find the place, and tell your story.