Chinatown
Los Angeles, United States
LA's Chinatown is the second Chinatown on this site — the original (founded in the 1870s) was demolished to build Union Station, and the current neighbourhood was established in 1938 as the first planned Chinatown in America, designed by Chinese-Americans rather than imposed by outside developers.
Exposition Park & Natural History Museum
900 Exposition Blvd, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, 90007, United States
Exposition Park is LA's museum campus — a 160-acre park south of downtown that houses the Natural History Museum (the largest natural and cultural history museum in the western US), the California Science Center (home to the Space Shuttle Endeavour), the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (opening soon, designed by MAD Architects), and the LA Memorial Coliseum, which hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984 and will again in 2028.
Grand Central Market
317 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Grand Central Market is LA's oldest and most diverse food hall — a 30,000-square-foot market in a 1917 Beaux-Arts building on Broadway in downtown that has been feeding Angelenos since before the word 'foodie' existed.
La Brea Tar Pits
5801 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
The La Brea Tar Pits are the most important Ice Age fossil site in the world — natural asphalt seeps in the middle of urban Los Angeles that have been trapping and preserving animals for over 50,000 years, producing the richest collection of Pleistocene fossils ever found.
Little Tokyo
Los Angeles, United States
Little Tokyo is one of only three remaining Japantowns in the United States — a compact neighbourhood in downtown LA that has been the centre of Southern California's Japanese-American community since the early 1900s and still contains the restaurants, markets, temples, and cultural institutions that make it the most authentic Japanese neighbourhood outside of Japan in the Americas.
Olvera Street & El Pueblo
Olvera Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Olvera Street is the birthplace of Los Angeles — a narrow, brick-paved alley in the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument that preserves the site where 44 settlers from Mexico founded the city in 1781.
Union Station
800 N Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Union Station is the last great railway station built in America — a 1939 masterpiece that blends Art Deco, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Streamline Moderne architecture into a style so distinctive that it has no proper name beyond 'Union Station style.
Watts Towers
1727 E 107th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90002
The Watts Towers are one of the most extraordinary works of outsider art in the world — 17 interconnected structures of steel, mortar, and found objects (broken pottery, glass bottles, seashells, ceramic tiles) built single-handedly over 33 years (1921-1954) by Sabato 'Simon' Rodia, an Italian immigrant construction worker who built the towers in his backyard without engineering training, scaffolding, or help from anyone.
Explore history in Los Angeles
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.