Quantum Tom

The Sunset Cutoff of the Red Car Trolley

This property map from the 1920s shows the Pacific Electric street car trackage along Ocean Avenue, connecting the Westgate line in Brentwood to the "Santa Monica Line" on Santa Monica Boulevard.

So, there’s this little park in Santa Monica. It’s right near the Volkswagen dealership on Santa Monica Boulevard near 26th Street. Anyway, the park is on a street named Park Drive. So the park is named, “Park Drive Park.” There’s this riddle I liked as a kid: “Why do people drive on a parkway and parkContinue reading “The Sunset Cutoff of the Red Car Trolley”

Mt. Etna Erupting (1920×1153)

Obama and Putin have private chat at G-20 summit in Turkey

This was really something to see early this morning. You know shit just got real when these two have an impromptu sidebar. Putin and Obama, who are now on opposing sides of Syria’s bloody civil war, had officially planned no formal sit-downs while in Antalya – just a few hundred miles from Turkey’s border with Syria.Continue reading “Obama and Putin have private chat at G-20 summit in Turkey”

Facebook tops General Electric in market value

Wow. A sign of the times? This last bit was the most depressing of all: Not to be left behind, GE now calls itself a “digital industrial” company under the “about” portion of its web site. Source: Facebook tops General Electric in market value

Venice Beach, 1940

1942 - Scene of the tidal damage at Venice

As I’ve mentioned before, one can spend quite a bit of time lost in the digitized photography archives hosted by the digital library at the University of Southern California. It’s the single best resource I’ve found for large- and medium- format Los Angeles photography. Wherever possible, I try to look for ways to group photographs together. IContinue reading “Venice Beach, 1940”