L.A. River’s Valley section open for tours: The water is the color of chocolate milk and smells like old socks, but the scenery is captivating along one of the newest summer attractions in town.
Photo: A week before paying customers line up for the 2nd annual Paddle the River event, organizers make notes of spots in the river that could make navigation difficult. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
A summer serenade to Los Angeles: With the smog and haze, it can get ugly this time of year, but this is also the season when our L.A. freedoms flow out through open windows and doors, down highways and up mountain paths.
Hector Tobar’s final metro column (he’s moving to Books) is an ode to L.A.
Photo: Venice Beach. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Some summer art for you: The Huntington Library features three dozen works by the Regionalist artist Roger Medearis.
In his restarted art career, Medearis turned to his adopted environs, and the exhibition includes such paintings as “The Beach,” a lively scene of sunbathers, surfers and even a few swimmers crowding a highly stylized Pacific cove, and “Home in the San Gabriels” (1996), showing houses set against the mass of the San Gabriel Mountains. “He was pretty attached to the landscape, and to the change of light,” Betty says. “People have said his work is surreal.”
Image: Roger Medearis, “The Beach,” 1970. Acrylic and egg tempera on canvas bonded to panel, 15 x 18 inches. Credit: The Huntington Library
Sigh. So is summer over?
Photo: A Venice sunbather reads in a hammock in this July 23 photo. Credit: Chi Fai Chow. Visit the Southern California Moments homepage for more on our Southland photo series.
A good link to have — today is supposed to be the peak of this week’s heat wave.
Tumblr Tuesday… on a Wednesday: Swimming in L.A. is “an ongoing chronicle of the many and varied public, semi-private and private pools of the Los Angeles area, as well as other swimmable bodies of water.”
The photo is of Malibu Creek State Park Rock Pool, a 1.5-mile walk from the park’s parking lot. Check out the full post here.
They’re made possible through the hard work of our summer intern Jessica Lum. Say hi!
So cool! Brady MacDonald is taking a road trip across America’s “Coaster Belt.”
Photo: The Cyclone roller coaster at Astroland in Coney Island, N.Y. View more roller coasters at the gallery. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images
No shopping district nearby? You may be more at risk of dying in a heat wave, Amina Khan reports.
Photo: People sunbathe along the High Line in June in New York City. Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Published July 13, 1967: “Children play at Washington Carver pool in Watts, Los Angeles.” Click through for a larger photo.
Our Vintage Times series is presented on Tumblr with photography from the Los Angeles Times archives.
