LOS ANGELES BRIEF HISTORY & DEMOGRAPHICS (Demographics Table of Contents)
- Culture and Education in
Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Unified School District, second largest in the United States behind New York City, enrolled 633,000 students in the mid-1990s. The student body is diverse, with students attending from almost all the major countries in the world. The school district is run by a seven-member school board.
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An impressive number of institutions of higher education are found in and around Los Angeles. Most prominent is the Los Angeles campus of the University of California (UCLA), founded in 1919. Other state-supported schools include the California State University System with campuses at Los Angeles (1947), Northridge (1958), Long Beach (1949), and Fullerton (1957). The many privately supported institutions in the area include the University of Southern California at Los Angeles (1879); California Institute of Technology (1891), in Pasadena; Loyola Marymount University (1914), in Westchester; Pepperdine University (1937), in Malibu; Whittier College (1887), in Whittier; Occidental College (1887); and the several colleges constituting the Claremont Colleges at Claremont, the first of which was founded in 1887. There are numerous other colleges, universities, professional schools, and junior colleges.
Los Angeles Public Library, which serves the residents of the city proper, maintains a main building downtown and 64 branch libraries throughout the city. In 1986 the library's Central Library, which houses 6.5 million books and other library materials, suffered two major fires. The library reopened in 1993 after the completion of a major redevelopment project, which included the addition of a new wing. The metropolitan area is served by the Los Angeles County Public Library, which has 85 branches and a collection of 6.3 million books. A wide variety of library facilities is also provided by institutions of higher learning in the area. A famous collection of rare books and manuscripts is housed in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino.
The largest art collection in the Los Angeles area is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The five-museum complex, opened at its current location in 1965, contains a collection that spans the history of art. The Getty Center, an arts and cultural complex, opened near Brentwood in late 1997. It includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, which focuses primarily on European art and had been located in Malibu. The Malibu site continues to exhibit Greek and Roman antiquities. Other art museums include the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center at UCLA, with a noted collection of impressionist and postimpressionist works, and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, which contains works by Rembrandt and Francisco de Goya as part of its collection. Contemporary works are the focus of the city-owned Municipal Art Gallery, in Barnsdall Park, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Japanese architect Isozaki Arata.
The collections of the California State Museum of Science and Industry, in Exposition Park, include many interactive exhibits. Also in the park is the California Afro-American Museum, which highlights the contributions and achievements of black Americans, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries displays the skeletons of animals found in the neighboring Rancho La Brea Tar Pits, where Ice Age animals were trapped in asphalt deposits. The Southwest Museum, in Highland Park, is noted for its collections on the history and arts of Native Americans. Griffith Park contains the Autry Museum of Western Heritage and the Griffith Observatory and Planetarium, which includes exhibitions and a hall of science. The Mount Wilson Observatory is located in the San Gabriel Mountains.
A rich variety of musical and dramatic entertainment is available to residents of the Los Angeles area. Each winter the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1919, performs a series of concerts in the vast Music Pavilion. The pavilion is one of a complex of buildings devoted to music, drama, and other performing arts, including the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion concert hall and two theaters, the Ahmanson Theater and the Mark Taper Forum. The Los Angeles Opera stages regular performances. In the summer the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra performs a famous concert series known as Symphonies Under the Stars in the Hollywood Bowl, a large natural amphitheater with a removable acoustic shell. Light opera, ballet, and other musical programs are held in the outdoor Greek Theatre in Griffith Park.
Places of historical interest include the landmarks in El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument, including Olvera Street, the Old Plaza, Plaza Church, and Avila Adobe, built in 1818 and the city's oldest building. Other tourist attractions are the Farmers Market, an open-air bazaar of shops and restaurants; New Chinatown; Little Tokyo, the region's center for Japanese culture; and the movie studios in Hollywood and in nearby Burbank and Culver City. A popular tourist destination is Mann's Chinese Theater, with its collection of handprints and footprints of film stars. Within Los Angeles is the well-known Forest Lawn Memorial Park, a large cemetery with many unusual statues and monuments.