Palisades Park | Los Angeles Conservancy
Photo by Jim McHugh

Palisades Park

Perched on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, this fourteen-block park has been carefully rehabilitated.

In the late nineteenth century, the southern portion of the park was donated by Senator John P. Jones and Arcadia Bandini De Baker; the northern portion by Santa Monica Land and Water Company.

Known as Linda Vista Park until 1915, the historic site includes one of the few remaining Camera Obscuras in the U.S. (built in 1889 by Sen. Jones' nephew), Craftsman-era stone gates, and numerous monuments.

Standing at the end of Wilshire is a statue of Saint Monica, sculpted by Eugene Morahan as a federal arts project in 1934. The statue looks over the spot known in the 1910s as "dead man's curve," where racecar drivers would turn east from Ocean along a nearly 8-1/2-mile surface street raceway.

Racing in Santa Monica ended in 1919 as the city's population grew and as a formal racetrack was opened in Beverly Hills, just south of Wilshire.

Photo courtesy of GPA Consulting, Inc

Los Cinco Puntos

Located at the crossroads of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, Los Cinco Puntos reveals two meaningful local traditions.
Gas Company Tower
Photo by Annie Laskey/L.A. Conservancy

Gas Company Tower

The 1991 Gas Company Tower rises in a series of cliff-like setbacks and inverted corners, with an elliptical top of blue glass symbolizing the trademark blue flame of the building’s primary tenant
Photo by Gary Leonard/Los Angeles Public Library

777 Tower

One of downtown's most graceful high-rise office buildings, the 777 Tower designed by Cesar Pelli effortlessly pierces the downtown skyline with subtle articulation and detail.