Broadway hits can be seen at theatres in the Music Center complex, 135 N. Grand Avenue; one of the three largest performing arts centers in the USA. The Walt Disney Concert Hall was opened in October 2003 and is the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The complex’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is home to the film industry’s annual Academy Awards and the Civic Light Opera. The world-famous Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Avenue, stages summer concerts. The Universal Amphitheater in the grounds of Universal Studios presents major pop and rock concerts. Other top venues include the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theater (both part of the Music Center complex), the Schubert Theater, and the outdoor Greek Theater in Griffith Park.

The Hollywood Sign is a famous landmark in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee in Los Angeles, California, spelling out the name of the area in 45-foot (14 m) tall white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition after the sign was left up. The sign was a frequent target of pranks and vandalism but has since undergone restoration, including a security system to deter vandalism. The sign is protected and promoted by the Hollywood Sign Trust, a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to physically maintain, repair and secure the sign, to educate the world about its historical and cultural importance, and to raise the funds necessary to accomplish these projects.

From the ground, the contours of the hills give the sign its well-known “wavy” appearance. When observed at a comparable altitude, as in the photo to the right, the letters appear straight-across.

The sign makes frequent appearances in popular culture, particularly in establishing shots for films and television programs set in or around Hollywood, and appears in the background of the current CGI fanfare logo of 20th Century Fox. Signs of similar style, but spelling different words, are frequently seen as parodies.

The Beaches area of Los Angeles is a great place to hang out. One can bask in the sun in a quiet cove in Malibu, or bike or rollerblade along a path from Santa Monica, past the street performers of Venice Beach, the day sailors of Marina del Rey, the volleyball players on Manhattan Beach, and the surfers and fishermen off Hermosa and Redondo. This 35km- (22 mile-) oceanfront stretch celebrates the Southern Californian lifestyle, with a diversity of accessible, sandy beaches and picturesque views. Among the more popular spots to catch a wave and check out the local sun-tanning scene are Will Rogers Beach State Park, the Santa Monica and Venice piers and Newport Beach. For a classic Los Angeles experience, a visit to Venice Beach, where the body-beautiful skate by and street performers attract crowds every day, is a must. Also a part of Venice is Muscle Beach, where local hunks flex their pecs for bystanders.

The beach areas offer other diversions besides the fleshly variety. In the canyons of Malibu, for example, is Barbara Streisand’s estate which houses her Center for Conservancy Studies. Visitors can enjoy the houses and landscaped meadows and orchards to be found here. At Bergamot Station, there is a 5.5 acre complex with a dozen galleries offering art-lovers a one-stop shopping experience.

The following is a selection of special events occurring in Los Angeles.

Jan 16 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards. Feb Black History Month. Feb 12-13 Chinese New Year Parade and Carnival. Feb 27 77th Annual Academy Awards (invitation only), Hollywood. Mar 26 Blessing of the Animals (fiesta and animal parade), Olvera Street, Los Angeles. May 5 Cinco de Mayo Celebration (Mexican Festival). Jun 9-12 San Fernando Valley Fair, Burbank. Jun 19 Juneteenth Festival (commemorating the end of slavery). Jul Verizon Music Festival, Los Angeles. Jul 4 Independence Day Celebrations. Sep 4 Los Angeles Birthday Celebrations, Olvera Street, Los Angeles. Sep 9-Oct 2 Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona. Sep 15-18 Annual Route 66 Rendezvous. Nov 27 Hollywood Christmas Parade. Dec Annual Whittier Christmas Parade, Uptown Whittier.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves (among other purposes) as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Lillian Disney made an initial gift in 1987 to build a performance venue as a gift to the people of Los Angeles and a tribute to Walt Disney’s devotion to the arts and the city. The Frank Gehry-designed building opened on October 23 2003. Both the architecture by Frank Gehry and the acoustics of the concert hall (designed by Yasuhisa Toyota) were praised in contrast to its predecessor, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

After the construction, modifications were made to the Founders Room exterior; while most of the building’s exterior was designed with stainless steel given a matte finish, the Founders Room and Children’s Amphitheater were designed with highly polished mirror-like panels. The reflective qualities of the surface were amplified by the concave sections of the Founders Room walls. Some residents of the neighboring condominiums suffered glare caused by sunlight that was reflected off these surfaces and concentrated in a manner similar to a parabolic mirror. The resulting heat made some rooms of nearby condominiums unbearably warm, caused the air-conditioning costs of these residents to skyrocket and created hot spots on adjacent sidewalks of as much as 60 ºC (140 ºF). After complaints from neighboring buildings and residents, the owners asked Gehry Partners to come up with a solution. Their response was a computer analysis of the building’s surfaces identifying the offending panels. In 2005 these were dulled by lightly sanding the panels to eliminate unwanted glare.

The city is governed by a mayor-council system. The current mayor is Antonio Villaraigosa. There are 15 city council districts. Other elected city officials include the City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the City Controller Wendy Greuel. The city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors within the city limits. The district attorney, elected by county voters, prosecutes misdemeanors in unincorporated areas and in 78 of the 88 cities in the county, as well as felonies throughout the county.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) polices the city of Los Angeles, but the city also maintains four specialized police agencies; The Office of Public Safety, within the General Services Department (which is responsible for security and law enforcement services at city facilities, including City Hall, city parks and libraries, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the Convention Center), the Port Police, within the Harbor Department (which is responsible for land, air and sea law enforcement services at the Port of Los Angeles), the Los Angeles City Schools Police department which handles law enforcement for all city schools, and the Airport Police, within the Los Angeles World Airports Department (which is responsible for law enforcement services at all four city-owned airports, including Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT), LA/Palmdale Regional Airport (PMD), and Van Nuys Airport (VNY).

Voters created Neighborhood Councils in the Charter Reform of 1999. First proposed by City Council member Joel Wachs in 1996, they were designed to promote public participation in government and make it more responsive to local needs.

The councils cover districts which are not necessarily identical to the traditional neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Almost ninety neighborhood councils (NCs) are certified and all “stakeholders”—meaning anyone who lives, works or owns property in a neighborhood—may vote for members of the councils’ governing bodies. Some council bylaws allow other people with a stake in the community to cast ballots as well.

The councils are official government bodies and so their governing bodies and committees must abide by California’s Brown Act, which governs the meetings of deliberative assemblies.

The first notable concern of the neighborhood councils collectively was the opposition by some of them in March 2004 to an 18% increase in water rates by the city’s Department of Water and Power. This led the City Council to approve only a limited increase pending independent review. More recently, some of the councils petitioned the City Council in summer 2006 to allow them to introduce ideas for legislative action, but the City Council put off a decision.

The neighborhood councils have been allocated $50,000 each for administration, outreach and approved neighborhood projects. In May 2009, the city council floated a measure to reduce the funding of the neighborhood councils to $11,200 each.

Chinatown is in Downtown Los Angeles that was founded in the late 1800s. It was originally located less than a mile from its current location where Union Station is located.

Old Chinatown

The first Chinatown, centered around Alameda and Macy Streets, was established around 1880. Residents were evicted to make room for Union Station, causing the formation of the New Chinatown.

In 1871, 19 Chinese men and boys were killed by a mob of 500 locals in one of the most serious incidents of racial violence that has ever occurred in America’s West. This incident became known as “Massacre of 1871″.

Reaching its heyday from 1890 to 1910, Chinatown grew to approximately 15 streets and alleys containing 200 buildings. It was large enough to boast a Chinese Opera theatre, three temples, its own newspaper, and a telephone exchange. But laws prohibiting most Chinese from citizenship and property ownership, and Exclusion Acts curtailing immigration, inhibited future growth for the district.

New Chinatown

In the 1930s, under the efforts of Chinese American community leader Peter Soo Hoo Sr., the design and operational concepts for a New Chinatown evolved through the collective community process, resulting in a blend of both Chinese and American architecture. The Los Angeles Chinatown saw major development, especially as a tourist attraction, throughout the 1930s with the development of the “Central Plaza”, a Hollywoodized version of Shanghai, containing names such as Bamboo Lane, Gin Ling Way and Chung King Road (named after the city of Chongqing in mainland China). Chinatown was designed by Hollywood film set designers and a “Chinese” movie prop was subsequently donated by the legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille to give Chinatown an exotic atmosphere. Today, this section of Chinatown is less frequented by ethnic Chinese residents and dayshoppers, though it is where several benevolent associations are located. Chinatown expanded beyond the area and is now bounded by Olvera Street and Dodger Stadium.

Streets

The main streets running through the new Chinatown are Broadway, Spring Street and Hill Street. Chinatown is located directly north of downtown Los Angeles, between Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles Civic Center. The Broadway side of Chinatown is usually packed with myriad tourists, with a lot of Chinese restaurants and merchants.

Chinatown is somewhat segregated between Chinese ethnic groups in some respects. College Street, running in a northwest-southeast direction, provides a rough boundary between the older (post-1930s and 1940s) and newer businesses (post-1980s). Many businesses belonging to the original American-born Chinese families (Taishanese and Cantonese) are in the northwest area. Also due to the stylized exotic atmosphere, this section of Chinatown is very popular for on-site movie filming, such as Rush Hour with Jackie Chan. In the southwest, according to an estimate in the Los Angeles Times, nearly 90% of businesses are owned by first-generation Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees of Chinese origin.

The economy of Los Angeles is driven by international trade, entertainment (television, motion pictures, recorded music), aerospace, technology, petroleum, fashion, apparel, and tourism. Los Angeles is also the largest manufacturing center in the United States.The contiguous ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together comprise the most significant port in North America. They are some of the most important ports in the world, and vital to trade within the Pacific Rim.Other significant industries include media production, finance, telecommunications, law, health medicine, and transportation.

The University of Southern California (USC) is the city’s largest private sector employer

Other companies headquartered in Los Angeles include 20th Century Fox, Latham & Watkins, Univision, Metro Interactive, LLC, Premier America, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Guess?, O’Melveny & Myers; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Tokyopop, The Jim Henson Company, Paramount Pictures, Robinsons-May, Sunkist Growers, Incorporated, Fox Sports Net, Capital Group, 21st century Insurance and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Korean Air’s United States passenger operations and cargo operations headquarters are located in two separate offices in Los Angeles.

The metropolitan area contains the headquarters of companies who moved outside of the city to escape its taxes but keep the benefits of proximity.For example, Los Angeles charges a gross receipts tax based on a percentage of business revenue, while many neighboring cities charge only small flat fees. The companies below benefit from their proximity to Los Angeles, while at the same time avoiding the city’s taxes (and other problems). Some of the major companies headquartered in the cities of Los Angeles county are Shakey’s Pizza (Alhambra), Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Beverly Hills), City National Bank (Beverly Hills), Hilton Hotels (Beverly Hills), DIC Entertainment (Burbank), The Walt Disney Company (Fortune 500 – Burbank), Warner Bros. (Burbank), Countrywide Financial (Fortune 500 – Calabasas), THQ (Calabasas), Belkin (Compton), Sony Pictures Entertainment (parent of Columbia Pictures, located in Culver City), California|El Segundo]]), DirecTV (El Segundo), Mattel (Fortune 500 – El Segundo), Unocal Corporation (Fortune 500 – El Segundo), DreamWorks (Glendale), Sea Launch (Long Beach), ICANN (Marina del Rey), Cunard Line (Santa Clarita), Princess Cruises (Santa Clarita), Activision (Santa Monica), and RAND (Santa Monica).

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other agencies operate an extensive system of bus lines, as well as subway and light rail lines across Los Angeles County, with a combined daily ridership of 1.7 million. With 1.4 million daily boardings, the ridership on Los Angeles’ bus network is second only to that of New York. The city’s subway system is the ninth busiest in the United States and its light rail system is the country’s third busiest. When considered as a single entity, the rail network averages roughly 319,000 boardings per weekday.. However, Los Angeles’ mass transit system does not have high per-capita ridership relative to other large cities. Altogether, 11% of Los Angeles commuters use public transit (including both bus and rail),.

The rail system includes the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Gold, Blue, and Green light rail lines. The Metro Rapid buses are a bus rapid transit program with stops and frequency similar those of a light rail.

The main Los Angeles airport is Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX). The fifth busiest commercial airport in the world and the third busiest in the United States, LAX handled over 61 million passengers and 2 million tons of cargo in 2006

The Port of Los Angeles is located in San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately 20 miles (30 km) south of Downtown. Also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT LA, the port complex occupies 7,500 acres (30 km²) of land and water along 43 miles (69 km) of waterfront. It adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach.

The sea ports of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach together make up the Los Angeles – Long Beach Harbor. There are also smaller, non-industrial harbors along L.A.’s coastline. Safety is provided at the only beach controlled by Los Angeles City by the highly trained Los Angeles City Lifeguards.

The port includes four bridges: the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Henry Ford Bridge, Gerald Desmond Bridge, and Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge.

Los Angeles is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, the Los Angeles Riptide of Major League Lacrosse, and the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League. Los Angeles is also home to the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins in the NCAA, both of which are Division I teams in the Pacific-10 Conference. Several more teams are in the greater Los Angeles media market: the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Major League Baseball and the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League are both based in nearby Anaheim; and the Los Angeles Galaxy and Club Deportivo Chivas USA of Major League Soccer are both based in neighboring Carson. The city is the largest in the U.S. without an NFL team.

There was a time when Los Angeles boasted two NFL teams, the Rams and the Raiders. Both left the city in 1995, with the Rams moving to St. Louis and the Raiders heading back to Oakland. Los Angeles is the second-largest city and television market in the United States, but has no NFL team (see List of television stations in North America by media market). Prior to 1995, the Rams called Memorial Coliseum (1946-1979) and Anaheim Stadium (1980-1994) home; and the Raiders played their home games at Memorial Coliseum from 1982 to 1994.

Since the franchise’s departures the NFL as an organization, and individual NFL owners, have attempted to relocate a team to the city. Immediately following the 1995 NFL season, Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring went as far as packing up moving vans to start play in the Rose Bowl under a new team name and logo for the 1996 season. The State of Washington filed a law suit to successfully prevent the move.In 2003, then NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue indicated L.A. would get a new expansion team, a thirty-third franchise, after the choice of Houston over L.A. in the 2002 league expansion round.When the New Orleans Saints were displaced from the Superdome by Hurricane Katrina media outlets reported the NFL was planning to move the team to Los Angeles permanently.Despite these efforts, and the failure to build a new stadium for an NFL team, L.A. is still expected to return to the league through expansion or relocation.

Los Angeles has twice played host to the summer Olympic Games, in 1932 and in 1984. When the tenth Olympic Games were hosted in 1932, the former 10th Street was renamed Olympic Blvd. Super Bowls I and VII were also held in the city as well as soccer’s international World Cup in 1994.

Los Angeles also boasts a number of sports venues, including Staples Center, a sports and entertainment complex that also hosts concerts and awards shows such as the Grammys. Staples Center also serves as the home arena for the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL and the Avengers of the AFL.