Located in the heart of downtown Beverly Hills, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel has served as a staple in the city since 1928 and has become known to people all over the world thanks to it being a prime film location for movies and television. The Italian Renaissance structure built of Tuscan stone and Carrara marble was first called the Beverly Wilshire Apartment Hotel. Under new ownership in the 1940s, the name was changed to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and an elaborate renovation took place, adding a grand ballroom to host big bands as well as tennis courts and an Olympic sized swimming pool. The next renovation to take place occurred under the ownership of Hernando Courtright, who doubled the size of the hotel in the early 1970s by adding a new wing. Notable entertainers who called the Beverly Wilshire Hotel home for a period of time were Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Warren Beatty. Notable guests include the Dalai Lama, President Barack Obama, Al Pacino, and Elton John. The 1990 movie "Pretty Woman" starring Julia Roberts was primarily based at the Beverly Wilshire, earning it a prestigious place in hotel history.
Opening its door in 1957, the Troubadour bar has become one of the most popular destinations for any up and coming music talent. It was first opened as a coffee house on La Cienega blvd, but moved to its current location shortly after opening. In the 1960s, the Troubadour was host to many of the big names in the music scene at that time.
Built in 1929 as a manufacturing storage building for the Mitchell Camera Company, this building was first turned into a nightclub called The Factory in 1967. The club was incredibly popular among Hollywood's elites and celebrities, with a board of directors that included Paul Newman and Sammy Davis Jr. Despite its glamorous status, The Factory closed only four years after opening. In 1974, the building was then purchased by Scott Forbes- an openly gay Beverly Hills optometrist and party promoter. Renamed as Studio One, the discotheque became one of the most well-known gay nightclubs in the United States and hosted celebrities such as Joan Rivers, Liza Minelli, Bernadette Peters, Tina Turner, and Patti LaBelle. Studio One was also known for its discriminatory door policy, which notoriously excluded most women, racial minorities, and lower-class people. Forbes closed Studio One in 1988. The space is still used as a nightclub today under the original name "The Factory".
Chasen's Restaurant, now the location of a Bristol Farms grocery store, was a premiere restaurant located on the border of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. In 1936, Dave Chasen, a vaudevillian trying to survive in a dying art, decided to go into the restaurant industry and opened a new joint on Beverly Boulevard. The first item on the menu would become Chasen's trademark recipe: the chili. Over the next 60 years, well-known figures and celebrities frequented Chasen's. After Dave Chasen's death in 1973, his wife Maude operated the restaurant for another 22 years until the restaurant closed its doors in 1995. Now operated by Bristol Farms, there are a few remnants of the old Chasen's Restaurant including some of the booths and the original dark wood wall paneling. The cafe in Bristol Farms continues to offer the most famous chili recipe in America. If walls could talk the wood panels of Chasen's would have a thousand tales to tell of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Built in 1934, Gilmore Stadium hosted many sporting events including football, midget car racing, rodeos, and boxing matches. Built by Earl Gilmore, the son of the company’s founder AF Gilmore, on the property owned the Gilmore Oil Company. Gilmore Stadium became the home of Loyola University football and several professional football teams. The stadium also hosted movies and presidential addresses.
Established in 1961, Holocaust Museum LA is one of the oldest establishments in the United States dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the Holocaust. The museum was also the first to be established by Holocaust survivors. The museum building, designed by architect Hagy Belberg, was completed in 2010 thanks to donors and supporters. In addition to exhibits drawn from a vast collection of artifacts, the museum offers exhibits that blend technology and oral history to allow visitors to experience conversations with Holocaust survivors. The museum also offers educational programs for youth and intergenerational conversations with survivors. In addition to the museum galleries, residents and visitors can experience the Goldrich Family Foundation Children’s Memorial and the outdoor Martyrs Memorial.
Located in Hancock Park, the La Brea Tar Pits Museum is one of the city's more unique attractions. It is named for a group of natural asphalt tar pits ("brea" is the Spanish word for tar) that have been seeping tar, and trapping animals and plants, for tens of thousands of years. As such, the pits have been a treasure trove paleontologists who have recovered an estimated one million (and counting) well-preserved specimens—231 species of invertebrates, 234 species of vertebrates, and 159 species of plants—since 1906. These include large animals such as saber-toothed tigers, mammoths, dire wolves, and smaller creatures such as rodents, insects, and mollusks. The museum features many of these on display, including a nearly complete Columbian mammoth skeleton. The museum also offers tours and features a lab where visitors can see paleontologists process fossils. The tar pits site is National Natural Landmark and a California Historical Landmark.
Founded in 1994, the Petersen Automotive Museum is one of the world's largest car museums, featuring over a 100 cars on display and many more located in a storage area in the basement called the Vault. Publisher Robert Petersen and his wife, Margie, donated funds and led the effort to create the museum, which is housed in a former department store that was built in 1962. The museum offers changing and permanent exhibits that explore the development of the automobile and its effect on Southern Californian and American culture. Visitors will also learn about how cars work, create their own virtual cars (by painting and personalizing them in interactive exhibits), and try racing simulators.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art was established in 1965 and has grown to include a collection of over 120,000 works of art, becoming the largest art museum in the western United States. The museum's art collection includes works from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas-including works that predate the arrival of Columbus. The museum boasts one of the largest and most important collections of modern and contemporary art, and also holds an award-winning collection of art from the Middle East.
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Los Angeles, or simply LA, is a vibrant and diverse city located in southern California, USA. With its stunning coastline, beautiful weather, and cultural attractions, LA is a popular tourist destination for people from all over the world. There are many things to see and do in LA, and some of the must-visit attractions include:
