The fascinating story of people and mid-century modern architecture, merging and prevailing to create a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Their Crestwood Hills is like no other place in the vast metropolis―its history is the result of the singular optimism that defined Southern California in the post-World War II era. A handful of the region’s optimists banded together to form a cooperative intent on building a utopian community. And they did. Author Cory Buckner follows the Mutual Housing Association as it purchased the land, designed and built houses for its members, and faced mounting difficulties establishing a truly communal community. Buckner shares the dramatic ups and downs of Crestwood Hills as it made its way to becoming the only successful large-scale modern housing cooperative in the West. Buckner provides more than 200 vintage and contemporary images, documenting homes as they were in the beginning, complete with floor plans, and today, as the homes have evolved and become local landmarks. Cory Buckner is a practicing architect and author in the Los Angeles area. She has a degree in Fine Arts from Chouinard Art Institute and an M.Arch from UCLA. In 1994, she and her late husband, architect Nick Roberts, purchased one of the original homes in Crestwood Hills designed in 1949 by architects A. Quincy Jones, Whitney R. Smith and structural engineer Edgardo Contini. After restoring the house, she spearheaded a preservation movement in the neighborhood, which had at one time 150 houses by Jones, Smith, and Contini. Through her efforts, nineteen of the remaining original houses have been designated Historic/Cultural Monuments by the City of Los Angeles. She was awarded the Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award, “For the inspiring effort to protect and restore the original Mutual Housing Association homes in Crestwood Hills, preserving important examples of Southern California Modernism, and enhancing the sense of community in a unique neighborhood.”

Crestwood Hills: The Chronicle of a Modern Utopia

History

Buckner, Cory

Americas

Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public L

Los Angeles lives largest in the world’s imagination. It can be a projection, a solution, a temporary fix, a long-term goal. For Lynell George—and millions of others—it’s simply home.After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame by Lynell George is the result of this award-winning journalist’s years of contemplating and writing about the arts, culture, and social issues of Los Angeles, always with an emphasis on place and the identity of the people who live in—or leave—L.A. As a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly, Lynell George explored place after place that makes the city tick, met person after person, and encountered the cumulative heart of the city.After/Image is her collection of essays, evocative photographs, profiles, and reportage focused on Los Angeles beneath-the-surface—both the past and the here-and-now. In its pages, Lynell George explores a set of questions about her native city: After decades of wholesale rethinking, what distinguishing features of the city remain deeply rooted? What rituals, details, passed-on lifestyles persist outside the edges of the frame—beyond the projected idea of Los Angeles? What are the lasting memories, the essential “afterimages” upon which we reflect? What do its people carry around in their own imagination and their hearts? How does the rest of the country look at L.A.—and why? Lynell George’s contemplations about Los Angeles are deeply in sync with the Angel City Press mantra: no one book can capture the scope of the city—a place with many stories to tell. And yet, with After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame, Lynell George proves every mantra can be re-examined.

After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

The map may not be the territory, and the word may not be the thing, but this guide is as close as it gets. Since its first publication by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965, this seminal vade mecum of Los Angeles architecture has explored every rich potency of the often relentless, but sometimes―as the authors have captured here―relenting L.A. cityscape. Revised extensively and updated rigorously since its fifth edition published in 2003, The Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles now contains ninety-six sections organized in thirteen geographic chapters, boasting over 200 new additions to over thousands of entries cataloging every crease of Los Angeles County’s metropolitan sheath. Originally written by leading architectural historians Robert Winter―described by Los Angeles Magazine as both the “spiritual godfather” and “father” of L.A. architecture―and the late, great David Gebhard, the guide has been revised and edited for a sixth edition by award-winning L.A. urban walker and Winter’s trusted collaborator Robert Inman. Nathan Masters, historian and Emmy-award-winning host, producer, and managing editor of KCET’s Lost LA, writes the foreword. The Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, hailed by many as the built L.A. opus, explores the manmade structures, gardens, parks, and other physical features of a fulgurous Los Angeles. With singular wit and brio, the authors artfully steward readers through all regions and styles, from the Spanish Mexican Period to Postmodern, American Take-over to High Tech, and Beaux-Arts to Craftsman. Sites covered begin with the missions of Spanish California and end with projects completed in 2017. Dilettantes and experts, practitioners and students, aficionados and osmotic natives alike: all are blood type-compatible with this rich and peerless Bible for architecture enthusiasts. All of its own ilk, this book is thick and alive with a tone of its own making―and doing. A unique style of writing renders the guide simultaneously funny, tasteful, and historically-comprehensive, all with equal measure. Gebhard and Winter fill in the diegetic blanks with a droll eye. More than a critical reference for the bookshelves of scholars, enthusiasts, and practitioners alike, Architecture in Los Angeles is a faithful snapshot of the city as she lives and breathes. Dr. Robert W. Winter (1924–2019)―lauded as a “Guru,” “Father,” and “Godfather” of Los Angeles architecture―was a renowned historian of fabricated California, claiming a rich bibliography of various guides and histories on California architecture, including Craftsman Style (2004). Dr. David Gebhard (1927–1996) was a preeminent architectural historian and preservationist. After a long career teaching at UC Santa Barbara, he is remembered through his many written contributions to both the field writ large and his preservation efforts in both Santa Barbara and Pasadena. Robert Inman is the author of A Guide to the Stairways of Los Angeles (2008) and Finding Los Angeles by Foot: Stairstreet, Bridge, Pathway, and Lane (2013). A native son of Los Angeles, he is an award-winning urban walker and frequent collaborator of his mentor, Dr. Robert W. Winter.

Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles: Fully Revised 6th Edition

Winter, Robert

Gebhard, David

Inman, Robert

Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films presents an intimate look at the Chinese American role and influence in Hollywood, from some of the earliest films set in America’s Chinatowns to the contemporary artists remaking the face of Hollywood. Filled with more than 500 stunning, vintage photographs, movie posters, lobby cards and assorted ephemera based on the author’s extraordinary personal collection, this lavish coffee-table book’s richly illustrated pages show the myths, misconceptions, and memorable moments of the Chinese in film. Author and filmmaker Arthur Dong takes the reader on a guided tour of Chinese American film history, from the hyper-stereotyped portrayals of Chinatown Tong Wars to the exoticized romances starring glamorous actresses like Anna May Wong and Nancy Kwan. He highlights the issues and challenges of Hollywood’s history, including the controversial casting of white actors in Asian roles, known as “yellowface.” Richly detailed and comprehensive in scope, Hollywood Chinese shows how the industry has evolved, beginning with War of the Tongs (1917), billed to white audiences as “planned and executed by the Chinese” and ending with Crazy Rich Asians (2018), the first film with an all-Asian cast in a quarter century. Throughout the book, Dong unearths hidden gems from film history, documenting the Chinese and Chinese American actors, screenwriters, directors and producers who worked in Hong Kong, Taipei, San Francisco and elsewhere, producing spectacular films in both Chinese and English for global audiences. All but lost to history, those films have been carefully uncovered and presented here. Dong’s narrative is enhanced by extensive interviews with Hollywood actors, directors, and producers, including Ang Lee, Nancy Kwan, Justin Lin, James Hong, Joan Chen, Wayne Wang, and David Henry Hwang, and writer Amy Tan. A San Francisco Chinatown native, Arthur Dong is an Oscar-nominee, a Peabody and Sundance award-winning filmmaker, author, and curator whose work centers on Asian American, and LGBTQ stories. Dong’s films about Asian American history and culture include The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor (2015), Hollywood Chinese (2007), Forbidden City, U.S.A. (1989), and Sewing Woman (1987). Among his films on LGBTQ issues are Coming Out Under Fire (1994) and Licensed to Kill (1997). Dong has curated exhibitions showcasing his extensive archive of cultural ephemera, including Chop Suey on Wax: The Flower Drum Song Album, Forbidden City, USA, and his most recent, Hollywood Chinese, on display at the iconic Formosa Café in West Hollywood. Dong’s first book Forbidden City, USA: Chinatown Nightclubs 1936-1970 received an American Book Award in 2015.

Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films

Biographies & Memoirs

Dong, Arthur

Arts & Literature

A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butleroffers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and "MacArthur Genius" Octavia E. Butler. It is a collection of ideas about how to look, listen, breathe--how to be in the world. This book is about the creative process, but not on the page; its canvas is much larger. Author Lynell George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E.Butler, she also explores the very specific processes through which Butler shaped herself--her unique process of self-making. It's about creating a life with what little you have--hand-me-down books, repurposed diaries, journals, stealing time to write in the middle of the night, making a small check stretch--bit by bit by bit. Highly visual and packed with photographs of Butler's ephemera, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Skydraws the reader into Butler's world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private writer. There's a great resurgence of interest in Butler's work. Readers have been turning to her writing to make sense of contemporary chaos, to find a plot point that might bring clarity or calm. Her books have become the centerpiece of book-group discussions, while universities and entire cities have chosen her titles to anchor "Big Read," "Freshman Read," and "One Book/One City" programs. The interest has gone beyond the printed page; Ava DuVernay is adapting Butler's novel Dawn for television. A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Skybrings Octavia's prescient wisdom and careful thinking out of the novel and into the world. A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Skywill be beloved by both scholars and fans of Butler, as well as aspiring writers and creatives who are looking for a model or a spark ofinspiration. It offers a visual album of a creative life--a map that others can follow. Butler once wrote that science fiction was simply "a handful of earth, a handful of sky, and everything in between." This book offers a slice of the in between. Lynell Georgeis a journalist and essayist. After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frameis her first book of essays and photography, exploring the city where she grew up. As a staff writer for both the Los Angeles Timesand L.A. Weekly,she focused on social issues, human behavior, visual arts, music, and literature. She taught journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, in 2013 was named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow, and in 2017 received the Huntington Library's Alan Jutzi Fellowship for her studies of California writer Octavia E. Butler. A contributing arts-and-culture columnist for KCET|Artbound, her commentary has also been featured in numerous news and feature outlets including Boom: A Journal of California, Smithsonian, KPCC The Frame, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vibe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Essence, Black Clock, and Ms. Her liner notes for Otis Redding Live at the Whisky a Go Go earned a 2018 GRAMMY award.

A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler

George, Lynell

Bunker Hill is the highest point of downtown Los Angeles, both literally and figuratively. Its circle of life has created a continuous saga of change, each chapter rich with captivating characters, structures, and culture. In Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir, historian Nathan Marsak tells the story of the Hill, from the district’s inception in the mid-19th century to its present day. Once home to wealthy Angelenos living in LA’s “first suburb,” then the epicenter of the city’s shifting demographics and the shadow and vice of an urban underbelly, Bunker Hill survived its attempted erasure and burgeoned as a hub of arts, politics, business, and tourism. As compelling as the story of the destruction of Bunker Hill is―with all the good intentions and bad results endemic to city politics―it was its people who made the Hill at once desirable and undesirable. Marsak commemorates the poets and writers, artists and activists, little guys and big guys, and of course, the many architects who built and rebuilt the community on the Hill―time after historic time. Any fan of American architecture will treasure Marsak’s analysis of buildings that have crowned the Hill: the exuberance of Victorian shingle and spindlework, from Mission to Modern, from Queen Anne to Frank Gehry, Bunker Hill has been home to it all, the ever-changing built environment. With more than 250 photographs―many in color―as well as maps and vintage ephemera to tell his dramatic visual story, Marsak lures us into Bunker Hill Los Angeles and shares its lost world, then guides us to its new one. Nathan Marsak studied under the eminent historian of Los Angeles, Reyner Banham, at University of California, Santa Cruz, and completed his graduate work with noted Sullivan/Wright scholar Narciso Menocal at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He worked on the curatorial staff of Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and served as historian for the LAPD Museum archives. Bunker Hill Los Angeles is his second book; his first was Los Angeles Neon (2002).

Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir

Marsak, Nathan

<div> Ken Bernstein, a Principal City Planner for the City of Los Angeles and a national advocate for historic preservation shares how Los Angeles has led the nation in historic preservation and how other cities can do the same with his Los Angeles Times bestseller. Los Angeles has an image as the "City of the Future"--a city always at the cutting edge of change--but also as a "throwaway metropolis" that cares little about its history or architectural legacy. Yet the reality is quite different. Over the past decade, the City of Los Angeles has developed one of the most successful historic preservation programs in the nation, culminating with the completion of the nation's most ambitious citywide survey of historic resources. All across the city, historic preservation is now transforming Los Angeles, while also pointing the way to how other cities can use preservation to revitalize their neighborhoods and build community. Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America's Cities, authored by Ken Bernstein, who oversees Los Angeles' Office of Historic Resources, tells this under-appreciated L.A. story: how historic preservation has been transforming neighborhoods, creating a Downtown renaissance, and guiding the future of the city. While it is younger than many East Coast cities, Los Angeles has a remarkable collection of architectural resources in all styles, reflecting the legacy of notable architects from the past 150 years. As one of the most diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles is also breaking new ground in its approach to historic preservation, extending beyond the preservation of significant architecture, to also identify and protect the places of social and cultural meaning to all of Los Angeles's communities. Preserving Los Angeles illuminates a Los Angeles that will surprise even longtime Angelenos--highlighting dozens of lesser-known buildings, neighborhoods, and places in every corner of the city that have been "found" by SurveyLA, the first-ever city-wide survey of Los Angeles' historic resources. The text is richly illustrated through images by a prominent architectural photographer, Stephen Schafer. Preserving Los Angeles is an authoritative chronicle of Los Angeles' urban transformation-- and a useful guide for citizens and urban practitioners nationally seeking to draw lessons for their own cities. </div>

Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America's Cities

BERNSTEIN, Ken

Janna Ireland, an award-winning photographer, presents a collection of stunning, intimate black-and-white photographs of the work of Paul Revere Williams, who was known as "Hollywood's Architect" and was the first black architect admitted to the American Institute of Architecture. Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer's Viewis a photographic exploration of the work of the first AIA-certified African American architect west of the Mississippi River. Known as "Hollywood's Architect", Paul Revere Williams was a Los Angeles native who built a wildly successful and as an architect decades before the Civil Rights Movement. He designed municipal buildings and private homes as well as banks, churches, hospitals, and university halls. He designed public housing projects and mansions for celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. In 1923, Williams became the first black member of the American Institute of Architects. In 2017, nearly forty years after his death, he became the first black recipient of the AIA Gold Medal. In her book Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer's View,artist Janna Ireland explores the work and legacy of Williams through a series of intimate black-and-white photographs. Ireland gives the reader a vision of Williams that is both universal and highly personal. More than a book of architectural photographs, Regarding Paul R. Williamsis the result of one artist's encounter with another, connecting across different generations within the same city.

Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer's View

<div> In Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy that Transfixed the Nation historian William Deverell tells the heartbreaking story of a young girl trapped in a well--a story that transfixed the nation in what would become the first live, breaking-news TV spectacle in history. Kathy Fiscus tells the story of the first live, breaking-news TV spectacle in American history. At dusk on a spring evening in 1949, a three-year old girl fell down an abandoned well shaft in the backyard of her family's home in Southern California. Across more than two full days of a fevered rescue attempt, the fate of Kathy Fiscus remained unknown. Thousands of concerned Southern Californians rushed to the scene. Jockeys hurried over from the nearby racetracks, offering to be sent down the well after Kathy. 20th Century Fox sent over the studio's klieg lights to illuminate the scene. Rescue workers-ditch diggers, miners, cesspool laborers, World War II veterans-dug and bored holes deep into the aquifer below, hoping to tunnel across to the old well shaft that the little girl had somehow tumbled down. The region, the nation, and the world watched and listened to every moment of the rescue attempt by way of radio, newsreel footage, and wire service reporting. They also watched live television. Because of the well's proximity to the radio towers on nearby Mount Wilson, the rescue attempt because the first breaking-news event to be broadcast live on television. The Kathy Fiscus event invented reality television and proved that real-time television news broadcasting could work and could transfix the public. </div>

Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy That Transfixed the Nation

Deverell, William

Photography & Video

Bar Keeps: A Collection of California’s Best Cocktail Napkins highlights the colorful and fun cocktail napkins from California’s famous restaurants, hidden dives, and most beloved bars. 
2022 SILVER Winner for Popular Culture, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards 
Bar Keeps: A Collection of California’s Best Cocktail Napkins is a fun and fabulous tour through the cocktail napkins of the golden state. Hundreds of images of vintage cocktail napkins will surprise and delight anyone who is a fan of cocktail culture, roadside diners, hidden dives, tiki bars, and more. Collector Patrick Quinn highlights some of the most unique and interesting napkins he’s brought together over years of enthusiastic searching. Bar Keeps: A Collection of California’s Best Cocktail Napkins is the perfect book for any coffee table or bar top in town!

Bar Keeps: A Collection of California Cocktail Napkins

Quinn, Patrick

Graphic Design

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