James Bartlett

The photo database Amy Inouye helps promote contains imagery of almost anything in L.A. you can imagine

What’s It Like to Wrangle Millions of Vintage Photos?

James Bartlett
Sitting outside the Central Library sipping coffee, Amy Inouye calculates the number of photos in the library’s archive. “It’s 3½ million, no ­— nearer to 4 million,” she says. “The collection is mostly about L.A. and all its nooks and crannies.” The database — a trove of mainly black-and-white images......
Sugar sculptures of Cybele and Juno; Credit: Getty Center

Learn How Sugar Shaped European Civilization

James Bartlett
Sugar (and its many derivatives and alternates) is in almost everything we eat and drink, yet originally it was something that only the aristocratic elite could afford — and they often commissioned elaborate sugar and food sculptures to brazenly display on their dining tables. Whether you were a king, queen......
33 years overdue; Credit: LAPL

Someone Just Returned a Book to the L.A. Public Library After 66 Years

James Bartlett
The LAPL Misses You campaign set out to unbreak the hearts of book-loving Angelenos with suspended library cards by offering them amnesty. From February 1 through Valentine’s Day, anyone who returned (undamaged) overdue books, CDs, DVDs and other materials had their late fines waived. The campaign was kind of a......
Credit: Dearly Departed's Facebook

Help These Guys Buy the Car Jayne Mansfield Died In

James Bartlett
Trashed cars usually end up in a junkyard after a wreck — unless perhaps a celebrity was killed as a passenger or behind the wheel. The shell of James Dean’s Porsche is said to be out there, but even the Lincoln that JFK was assassinated in was refurbed and served......
Inside Flight 001 on West Third Street; Credit: Courtesy Flight 001

How to Fly Away Without Actually Leaving L.A.

James Bartlett
Thanksgiving is only just in the rear view mirror, but there’s still plenty of holiday hell left to go around. As many people gird their loins to fight on the freeways or wage battle with humanity at the airport, the question has to be asked: In our wondrous techno age,......
Credit: Photo by Michael/Flickr

Look Inside the Depths of DTLA's Weirdest Sculpture

James Bartlett
It’s a blustery Friday night in downtown L.A., but dozens of people are gathered at the corner of Temple and Main to celebrate the 40th birthday of something that used to be a city joke. Looking like a surrealist rocket, the Triforium, a six-story tower formed of three wishbone-shaped supports lined......
Credit: WIKIMEDIA

Children of Camelot Asks, 'What If Lee Harvey Oswald Had Survived?'

James Bartlett
As questions go, it’s a short but explosive doozy: What if? In entertainment its produced a number of alternative WWII histories (including the current Amazon smash Man in the High Castle) and about as many re-imaginings of JFK's 1963 assassination. Moth Theatre's Children of Camelot is the latest take, imagining what......