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Did you know ...

• the Alvarado Terrace Historic District includes a church built in 1912 that was the LA home of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple before the group's 1977 mass suicide in Jonestown?
• the Los Angeles attorney Bobby Diamond became nationally known a half century ago through his role as the orphaned Joey Newton in the NBC television series Fury?
• the Dunbar Hotel was the heart of LA's jazz scene with visits by Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong?
• the Heinsbergen Decorating Company Building was built in 1928 with bricks salvaged from the old Los Angeles city hall?
• the Kappe Residence, described as "a virtual tree house poised over a steep hillside", was named one of the top ten houses in Los Angeles by an expert panel selected by the Los Angeles Times?
• the cargo ship SS Minnesotan carried five racing yachts from the East Coast to national championship races in Los Angeles?
• the 1947 song "Pico and Sepulveda" about an intersection on LA's Pico Boulevard (pictured) was frequently on Dr. Demento's radio show?
• the 1964 CBS sitcom Many Happy Returns featured character actor John McGiver managing the complaints division of a fictitious California department store?
• the 1969 dedication of St. Basil Church in Los Angeles prompted a "club-swinging mob" of Chicanos to break into the church during Christmas Midnight Mass?
• the 20-room Garbutt House in Los Angeles, California was built with concrete walls and ceilings, steel-reinforced doors and no fireplaces due to the owner's intense fear of fire?
• the 44 hour and 54 minute transit time of the 1905 Scott Special between Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois, wasn't beaten in regular railway operations until the 1937 launch of the Super Chief?
• the Plaza Historic District was the historic center of Los Angeles in the days of Spanish and Mexican rule?
• the Menlo Avenue Historic District in Los Angeles reflects the transition to American Craftsman style architecture?
• the largest sports research library in North America is located on the grounds of LA's Britt House, a Colonial Revival mansion built in 1910?
• the builder of Centinela Adobe traded his 2,200-acre (880 ha) ranch encompassing the modern city of Inglewood for a keg of whisky and a small home in Los Angeles?
• the main house on the grounds of the city-owned Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center in Los Angeles incorporates swastikas in its architecture?
• there is an oil field underneath Los Angeles, California, called the Salt Lake Oil Field?
• units in LA's Avenel Cooperative Housing Project, reportedly built as "a cooperative living experiment for a group of communists", were selling for US$300,000 in 2002?
• the City of Los Angeles has 186 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places?
• the Vermont Square, Lincoln Heights, and Cahuenga Branches are the only surviving Carnegie libraries in Los Angeles?
• the San Fernando Building in Los Angeles, California, recently converted into upscale lofts, was raided several times for illegal gambling operations between 1910 and 1930?
• the Sayre Fire resulted in the worst loss of homes due to fire in the history of Los Angeles, surpassing the loss of 484 residences in the 1961 Bel Air fire?
• the Spring Street Financial District, known as the "Wall Street of the West", contains Los Angeles's first skyscraper (pictured) and more than twenty historic financial buildings?
• the Terminal Annex Post Office was LA's central mail processing facility for 50 years and became a filming location when it closed?
• the 1880s Victorian Hale House (pictured), with its exuberant ornamentation and color scheme, has been called "the most photographed house" in Los Angeles?
• in the 2007 documentary film Autism: The Musical, five autistic children in Los Angeles develop and star in an original stage production?
• Breed Street Shul, now vacant in a Hispanic part of Los Angeles, was the largest Orthodox synagogue in the western United States from 1915 to 1951?
• Bolton Hall, the community center for a Utopian community formed in 1913 in the foothills north of Los Angeles, was later used as a jail?
• The Bryson, featured in Raymond Chandler's The Lady in the Lake and the neo-noir film The Grifters, has become a symbol of LA's film noir past?
• Drum Barracks were built in 1862 and 1863 at a cost of US$1 million to quell pro-Confederacy sentiments in Los Angeles?
• Keith Munyan, Jr., the Los Angeles photographer who has done publicity shots for Hilary Duff, Cindy Crawford, Jessica Simpson, and other celebrities is himself a former model?
• American cargo ship SS Panaman once delivered 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of canned hominy to Los Angeles?
• Sci-Arc architecture school built its Los Angeles campus from the 1907 Santa Fe Freight Depot (pictured), a concrete structure with 120 bays stretching as long as the Empire State Building is tall?
• LA's Board of Trade Building (pictured), site of the California Stock Exchange, was the first office building on the Pacific coast with automated elevators?
• LA's Exposition Park Rose Garden has more than 20,000 rose bushes and 200 varieties of roses?
• LA's Fire Station No. 23 (pictured) has been a location in over 50 film productions, including Ghostbusters headquarters and scenes from The Mask and National Security?
• Los Angeles, California's Griffith Park was originally an ostrich farm?
• McCarty Church (pictured) in Los Angeles gained attention for its pastor's decision to racially integrate his white Protestant church in the mid-1950s?
• North University Park in Los Angeles contains many well-preserved Victorian houses and was the birthplace of U.S. Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson?
• architect Richard Neutra used mirrors and reflecting pools to provide spaciousness for his home on a small lot, the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, on Silver Lake in Los Angeles?
• at age 19 after Barry Watson lost his job as a soap opera child star, he used to park cars at the House of Blues night club in Los Angeles?
• collecting Toyon branches for Christmas became so popular in Los Angeles, California in the 1920s, that the state passed a law forbidding collecting?
• in addition to the 22 suspects listed by the Los Angeles District Attorney in the notorious unsolved Black Dahlia case of 1947, about 60 people confessed to the crime?
• after the first demonstration by members of Catolicos Por La Raza at St. Basil's Cathedral, in downtown Los Angeles, California, the archbishop resigned?
• after moving to Los Angeles, California in 1912 as a widow with two daughters, Florence Casler became a pioneering woman real estate developer, constructing more than 60 buildings?
• South Park Lofts in Los Angeles, originally an eight-story parking garage, was converted to lofts, whereupon residents complained about a lack of parking?
• St. Timothy Catholic Church in Los Angeles, California, has an antique gold leaf altarpiece believed to have been made in Spain in the 1600s?
• Van Nuys Boulevard, running through the heart of LA's San Fernando Valley, was a center of teenage cruising from the 1950s through the 1970s?
• Wilshire Boulevard Temple, with its landmark Byzantine dome (pictured), is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Los Angeles?
• heavy metal band Lamb of God was banned from performing in Los Angeles, for The Subliminal Verses World Tour because their former name was Burn the Priest?