Los Angeles: Portrait of a City Hardcover – Illustrated, September 15, 2009

Eugenie L. BirchUnited States

A Wondrous Portrait of a Hard-to-Navigate City

To a life-long New Yorker, Los Angeles is a foreign country, filled with vivid impressions -- warm all the time, unseemly pink and tourqouise neon pillars at the airport, lush vegetation, endless freeways, glittering Disney Center, lovely bungalow neighborhoods, downtown that stretches to Santa Monica, Hollywood emblazoned on the hill, Century City sprouting from somewhere, the Getty Center gleaming from its perch, Wilshire Boulevard marching through time and linking it all together, mammouth city hall, nostalgic Union Station, pinata and flower markets, new rapid transit, cars, cars, cars.... Of course, we all have mental images of the place, products of the media -- cops, movie stars, immigrants, water wars -- that shape a superficial understanding of LA. But in many ways it's a hard-to-navigate place -- I am not talking about the famed transportation routes, but about its culture and history. For the discerning visitor, there are visual hints of the past, wonderful surprises in the canyons and a shadow of a long-gone community here and there, but its full imprint is gone. At least it was gone until Los Angeles, Portrait of a City appeared this fall. Here, the city unfurls in word (Kevin Starr is simply brilliant) and in image (Jim Heimann's selections, extraordinary). We can see who made the city what it is today. We can sense the hopes, drive and ambition of its inhabitants over time and view its developing and ever-changing landscape. This book is a masterpiece.It makes the city no longer hard-to-navigate, no longer a foreign country but a beloved American icon.

David LordUnited Kingdom

... Angeles for over 30 years I thought I knew pretty much about the city

After living in Los Angeles for over 30 years I thought I knew pretty much about the city. This book presents an excitement to the reader to learn more about the city. The collection of photographs and commentaries have been researched thoroughly. They Are presented in a chronological manner depicting the historic growth and expansion from historic archives and more. I was surprised at the extensive collection of maps and photographs in the book, some I have seen before but this is a great collection and to my mind is one of the best to date and properly represents the story of Los Angeles. Great visuals, an excellent book for anyone who want to know about my city or wants to look through the eyes of the photographer and see the city grow. Would recommend this to anyone.

History BuffUnited States

Ultimate Coffee Table Book

I live on the East side of Hollywood (aka I'm not some Midwestern transplant working as a PA on the weekdays and telling people i'm a screenwriter on the weekends). I love this book. It's a great coffee table book. Every time a person comes over, the first thing they grab is this book and start flipping through it. A friend recommended this book after I mentioned a recent PBS documentary called, "Inventing LA: the Chandlers and their Times" . Each excerpt accompanying the photos and insets is written in three languages, which I think is a nice touch but can be annoying to navigate. Other than that, I believe this collection of photos is very thorough and representative of this great city.

Amazon CustomerGermany

sehr empfehlenswert

informative (dreisprachige) Texte, jede Menge Fotos sowie Karten und gezeichnete Stadtpanoramen. Ich werde noch lange Freude an diesem Buch haben, welches den Weg von Los Angeles von der abgelegenen Agrar-Kommune zur Weltstadt nachzeichnet. Hab schon manche Stunde in diesm Buch geschmökert, oftmals eine Lupe zuhilfe genommen, um noch die kleinsten Details in den Stadtplänen zu erkennen. Ich begeistere mich dafür, einzelne Straßenszenen des Jahres 1890 aus diesem Buch mit der aktuellen Street View Ansicht zu vergleichen, über die Anfänge der Filmindustrie in der Stadt zu lesen, zu sehen, wie die Stadt zur Automobil-Metropole wurde...