The Last Bookstore, Angels Flight, Los Angeles, MetroLink and Friends

Took  a train ride (yep the metro link to the metro rail) and walked a few blocks what an adventure! Had Taylor along for a trip of firsts!  We were headed to the last book store and to explore a little bit of downtown LA -- well what we could walk too anyways as I was leary to go far from the stations :)  There was a very nice gentleman with an Australian accent that was so willing to help us find the bookstore when we disembarked the train. Taylor kept commenting on his accent. I was just happy someone was nice enough to tell us right or left instead of east or west.

The Last Bookstore is California’s largest used and new book and record store.  (the picture on the left is if you look straight up from the front door of the book store looks awesome HUH??) Currently in our third incarnation, we began in 2005 in a downtown Los Angeles loft.

 

That’s when owner Josh Spencer took his decade of experience selling everything from cars to clothes online and focused instead on his first love: books. During the revitalization of downtown LA, we grew quickly to our current 20,000 sq. ft. space in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th & Spring.
The name was chosen with irony, but seems more appropriate with each passing day as physical bookstores die out like dinosaurs from the meteoric impact of Amazon and e-books. We continue to BUY, SELL, and TRADE like we have from day one. In addition to over 250,000 NEW and USED books on two floors, including our new Arts & Rare Book Annex, our shared space includes tens of thousands of VINYL RECORDS and GRAPHIC NOVELS, a huge mezzanine level that includes the Labyrinth Above the Last Bookstore (with a back room of 100,000 books for $1 each!), Gather Yarn Shop, and the Spring Arts Collective gallery shops.  Truly something for everyone.
Somehow we became one of the largest independent bookstores in the world still standing. We continue to be amazed at how we got here. It’s ALL thanks to people like you who want to keep actual books and records existing in the world. Join the cause — visit us soon! -- My only critique of the store is that there was no air conditioning and it made it very hard to concentrate and look for good books but it didn't stop me from spending $40.

After the book store we headed off for lunch at this point the group went our separate ways to get lunch and explore. This is our group shot before boarding the metrolink at the la sierra station. we are missing liz and lorray (I think I spelled her name wrong) (leti's daughter). After grabbing lunch at el pollo loco and carls jr,  we headed to the gran central market place (it was basically a huge indoor market) I was able to get some zucchini and some other veggies and now I am going to make some good breads :) we then headed back to the train station as Cindy was tired and Taylor was also and frankly I was a tad cranky, but on the way back to the station I still managed to grab a few pictures and was able to log a cache. 







 This is the Angels Flight (or Angel's flight) is a landmark) narrow gauge funicular railway in the Bunker Hill district of Downtown Los Angeles, California. It has two funicular cars: Sinai and Olivet.
The funicular has operated on two different sites, using the same cars and station elements. The original Angels Flight location, with tracks connecting Hill Street and Olive Street, operated from 1901 until it was closed in 1969, when its site was cleared for redevelopment.
The second Angels Flight location opened nearby to the south in 1996, with tracks connecting Hill Street and California Plaza. It was re-closed in 2001, after a fatal accident, and took nine years to commence operations again, on March 15, 2010. It was closed again from June 10, 2011, to July 5, 2011, and then again after a minor incident on September 5, 2013. The investigation of this 2013 incident led to the discovery of potentially serious safety problems in both the design and the operation of the funicular, and Angels Flight service has been suspended since that time with no timetable for restored service.Before the 2013 service suspension, the cost of a one-way ride was 50 cents (25 cents for Metro pass holders). Although it was marketed primarily as a tourist novelty, it was frequently used by local workers to travel between the Downtown Historic Core and Bunker Hill. Local businesses have described the railroad as an important "economic link", and there is significant political pressure to re-open the railroad soon.

---I think that it would have been fun to take this flight :)

Pages 298 - 301 Susanna Bixby Bryant Museum

we visited this great little museum in yorba linda to do a geo cache and we got a great history lesson and had lots of fun. Sometimes geocaching takes you to some great places.

Geo Cache at Susanna Bixby Bryant Museum

Time Line
1875:
John Bixby purchases a parcel of land from Bernardo Yorba's Rancho Cañon deSanta Ana.
1911:
After Bixby's death, his daughter, Susanna Bixby Bryant, builds a home on the property and assumes management of the ranch's cattle business and citrus groves.
1927:
Susanna Bixby Bryant establishes a botanic garden as a memorial to her father, and 200 acres of the ranch are developed as Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.
1946:
Susanna Bixby Bryant dies. The property is distributed to her son and daughter, and the ranch is managed by Ernest Bryant III (grandson of Susanna Bixby Bryant).
1951:
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is moved to Claremont College.
1978:
The ranch is sold to developers.
1983:
The site is annexed by the City of Yorba Linda.
1997:
Through the joint efforts of the City of Yorba Linda, Yorba Linda Heritage Museum and Historical Society, Pacific Heritage Development and Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, the ranch house is renovated and dedicated as the Susanna Bixby Bryant Ranch House and Museum and now serves as the home of the Yorba Linda Heritage Museum and Historical Society



More about the museum

The museum consists of 2500 square feet of vintage room furnishings, from the late 1800s to 1930, including 5 museum rooms covering the history of the botanic garden, ranching, citrus, water wars, Cajon Canal/zanjeros, bee industry, Yorba family artifacts and mementos including textiles, Argentine gaucho exhibit, baby mastodon jaws, Yorba Linda Indians artifacts, transportation in the area at the time, the history of Yorba to Yorba Linda, kitchen primitives, mini medical museum, surname, subject, locality indices.

Geo Cache Only on Sunday

I was thinking about going to get this cache on Sunday. I have printed the questions to be answered to fulfill the cache requirement now to see what this place is all about. GOOGLE rocks

5700 Susanna Bryant Dr

Yorba Linda, CA 92887

(714) 694-0235In 1875,

John Bixby, one of he founders of Long Beach, purchased nearly 6000 acres of land in what is now eastern Yorba Linda from the widow of Bernardo Yorba. Mr. Bixby raised cattle and sheep on the rolling hills and named his property Rancho Santa Ana after the river that flowed adjacent to his property.John passed away in 1887, leaving the ranch to his business partners and widow. Around 1913, Susanna built the Bryant Ranch house. In 1927, she decided to create a special 200-acre garden as a memorial to her father. She collected and planted shrubs, bushes and trees that were native to California. She also planted the first commercial pomegranate grove in the state.After Susanna passed away, the ranch was sold; her garden was move to Claremont College and the house left unoccupied. In 1978, the property was purchased by a land developer for residential homes.The city of Yorba Linda decided to restore the Bryant home into a local history museum with a small replica of her botanic garden. The museum houses old artifacts that tell the history of Yorba Linda from the Gabrielino Indians to items that belonged to the Yorba family. Throughout the year special exhibits are displayed at the museum.

The Yorba Linda Heritage Museum and Historical Society volunteers operate the museum for the city. The ranch house has been placed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places and 2001 the museum received the annual Governor's Historic Preservation Award.

Fox Theater

William Fox, Founder of the Fox Empire
Fox was born Wilhelm Fried to Jewish parents in Tolcsva, Hungary, then part of Austria-Hungary. He came to America at the age of 9 months, where his name was anglicized to William Fox. In 1900 he started his own company which he sold in 1904 to purchase his first nickelodeon. In 1915, he started Fox Film Corporation.

William Fox opened his first theatre with 146 seats in a Brooklyn storefront in the early 1920s. He then parlayed his first success into a nationwide circuit of 305 theatres. Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary.

Fox shook the film industry with his takeover of the Loew's Corporation, swallowing up an additional 500 theatres and the Mighty Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture Studios to boot. However, the Justice Department's anti-trust unit interceded to block the merger. During this period, Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered the stock market crash in the fall of 1929 had taken most of his fortune, putting an end to the Loew's merger. Newspapers in December of 1929 carried the story of how the stock market crash left William Fox with $91,000,000 of debt.

Fox lost control of the Fox Film Corporation in 1930 during a hostile takeover. A combination of the stock market crash, Fox's car accident injury, and government antitrust action forced him into a protracted seven-year struggle to fight off bankruptcy. At his bankruptcy hearing in 1936, Fox attempted to bribe judge John Warren Davis and commit perjury. Fox was sentenced to six months in prison. After serving his time, he retired from the film business. Fox died in 1952 at the age of 73.

Fox's legacy is the many Fox Theatres he constructed in U.S. cities including Atlanta, Detroit, Oakland, San Francisco, Riverside and San Diego.
Fox Performing Arts Center, Riverside.

Fox's Riverside Theater opened in1929 as a cinema/vaudeville theater house. It was built with a Spanish Colonial Revival style and attracted well-known performers including Bing Crosby and Judy Garland. Additionally, it became popular as a location for motion picture previews, the theater was the site of the first public screening of "Gone with the Wind." In 2007, the City began a major historical restoration of the Fox with the goal of making it the centerpiece of a downtown arts and culture scene.

On Thursday, May 3, 2007, after more than 1,300 visitors took one final tour through the auditorium of the Fox Theater, one of the City's most revered landmarks, the doors closed for the restoration.

This historic structure is being reinvented as a state-of-the-art performing arts theater for Riverside and the Inland Empire. The design calls for adaptations and additions on all three levels of the Fox Theater to include an expanded stage, new stage floor, seats, lighting, a restored decorative ceiling and a refurbished lobby. Once completed, the Fox will boast a 1,600-seat state-of-the-art performing arts theater that captures the original grandeur of the 1929 building, with updated amenities for patron enjoyment and comfort.
The Fox Performing Arts Center will re-open in January 2010.

Historical Landmarks

While looking for something to do this weekend. I googled free things to see in LA as we want to go out that way for lunch ... gotta love KING TACO!!!! But i didn't want to make the drive and not do "anything". When looking at the list of free things to see many of them had a historical landmark number so i decided to see how many landmarks are in California ... Can you say WOW. They are broken down by city. (click the title to go to their website).
So i think that as Tim and look travel around using the book Jill bought me for the bridal shower (best places to kiss in southern California) see blog on the right side, we will take a few detours and see some historical landmarks.
Visit your local Historical Landmarks and share your experiences and link back to the blog so i can take a peek and see the world!

Here is what a Historical Landmark is: (as taken from their website)

California Historical Landmarks (CHLs) are buildings, structures, sites, or places that have been determined to have statewide historical significance by meeting at least one of the criteria listed below. The resource also must be approved for designation by the County Board of Supervisors or the City/Town Council in whose jurisdiction it is located; be recommended by the State Historical Resources Commission; and be officially designated by the Director of California State Parks. CHLs #770 and above are automatically listed in the California Register of Historical Resources.Criteria for Designation To be eligible for designation as a Landmark, a resource must meet at least one of the following criteria:
Be the first, last, only, or most significant of its type in the state or within a large geographic region (Northern, Central, or Southern California).
Be associated with an individual or group having a profound influence on the history of California.
Be a prototype of, or an outstanding example of, a period, style, architectural movement or construction or is one of the more notable works or the best surviving work in a region of a pioneer architect, designer or master builder.