City at the Edge of Forever: Los Angeles Reimagined

by Peter Lunenfeld

An engaging account of the uniquely creative spirit and bustling cultural ecology of contemporary Los Angeles

How did Los Angeles start the 20th century as a dusty frontier town and end up a century later as one of the globe's supercities - with unparalleled cultural, economic, and technological reach? In City at the Edge of Forever , Peter Lunenfeld constructs an urban portrait, layer by layer, from serendipitous affinities, historical anomalies, and uncanny correspondences. In its pages, modernist architecture and lifestyle capitalism come together via a surfer girl named Gidget; Joan Didion's yellow Corvette is the brainchild of a car-crazy Japanese-American kid interned at Manzanar; and the music of the Manson Family segues into the birth of sci-fi fandom.

One of the book's innovations is to brand Los Angeles as the alchemical city. Earth became real estate when the Yankees took control in the nineteenth century. Fire fueled the city's early explosive growth as the Southland's oil fields supplied the inexhaustible demands of drivers and their cars. Air defined the area from WWII to the end of the Cold War, with aeronautics and aerospace dominating the region's industries. Water is now the key element, and Southern California's ports are the largest in the western hemisphere. What alchemists identify as the ethereal fifth element, or quintessence, this book positions as the glamour of Hollywood, a spell that sustains the city but also needs to be broken in order to understand Los Angeles now.

Lunenfeld weaves together the city's art, architecture, and design, juxtaposes its entertainment and literary histories, and moves from restaurant kitchens to recording studios to ultra-secret research and development labs. In the process, he reimagines Los Angeles as simultaneously an exemplar and cautionary tale for the 21st century.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Essays

336 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2020

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As research for a novel I'm writing, I'm not only reading detective fiction but all the books I can get my hands on about Los Angeles. Published in 2020, City at the Edge of Forever: Los Angeles Reimainged by Paul Lunenfeld was pretty good. Neither definitive nor voluminous, I did learn a lot about the city I didn't know. By virtue of most everyone being sealed inside a car, this metropolis holds secrets that cities with pedestrian traffic give up to anyone with a curious nature as they stroll by landmarks. Lunenfeld has a meandering writing style that I actually grew fond of as he somehow segueways from Gidget to Austrian emigrees.

I Often Take Out Of Town Guests Here

-- Like so many drawn to the edge of the Pacific Ocean, William Mulholland came in search of a new world, and so he created one. The place that he made possible is crowned by a road that snakes atop the Santa Monica Mountains and the Hollywood Hills. Just above the Hollywood Bowl, there's a vantage point from which, on a clear day, Hollywood, downtown, the Valley, the surrounding mountains, and even the Pacific Ocean are all visible simultaneously--one of the few places where Los Angeles coheres as a whole. The road is appropriately named Mulholland Drive, and when you look out from that point, you see, manifested in the city's present, the future toward which its greatest engineer pointed in the past.

I'd Bet She Didn't Really Write This

-- But people with brains (often from New York) kept streaming west regardless. In the thirties, Dorothy Parker traded Manhattan's legendary Algonquin Round Table for Hollywood's writers' table, snagging two Academy Award nominations for screenwriting along the way to ever-greater consumption of alcohol and a place on the blacklist for her leftist politics. Parker is reputed to have dismissed her new hometown of LA as "seventy-two suburbs in search of a city," a nasty little dig that resonated for generations with Angelenos in her wake.

Biopic Please

-- Unlike the beach bunnies who were already hopping along the shore, Kathy decided that she wanted to join the men in the water and brought sandwiches with her to trade for time on their boards. The "boys" all had nicknames--from the Big Kahuna to Tubesteak to Da Cat (more on him later). Kathy--just under five feet tall and ninety-five pounds when wet--was a girl and, evidently to the rest of the surfers, midget-sized: hence, Girl-Midget or Gidget, a fusion that reeks of both schoolyard taunts and what Sigmund Freud called "condensation." Kathy/Gidget bought a board and taught herself to surf.

Biopic Please II

-- As much as demographics changed, so too, did the entertainments. With jobs aplenty, production lines running day and night, and soldiers, sailors, and airmen on three-day leaves, there was money in people's pockets, and they wanted to spend it on more than movies and malteds. That's where Central Avenue came in. Central, also known as the Stem, had been the heart of black LA since the 1920s, and the Dunbar Hotel had been the beating muscle of that heart. African Americans were excluded from most hotels in Los Angeles, and from all the better ones. A black entrepreneur, John Somerville, decided to build an establishment to surpass any other that catered to African Americans.

Riot on the Strip

-- On the Strip, the ultimate answer is a poisonous combination of money, real estate and taste. The Riot on Sunset Strip was a conflict ignited by shifting demographics and economics, pitting the new scensters against the Strip's established clientele. Journalist Kirk Silsbee reminisced about the moment of transition in the midsixties: "The Old School Hollywood Supper Clubs--Ciro's, the Mocambo, the Trocadero, the Moulin Rouge--had a steep profit margin that they had to maintain. They relied on the patronage of moneyed Hollywood that could pay for dinner and a show every night. Kids couldn't do that. They could go to Ben Frank's or Canter's or The Fifth Estate and nurse a cup of coffee all night long or hang out in the parking lot."

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story Should've Been This:

-- Just as diet didn't save Father Yod from the force of gravity, food alone didn't remake Lee's body. That metamorphosis took working out with a group of American marital artists, mostly vets, that Lee had met in Long Beach, among them a marine vet and kickboxing champion named Joe Lewis; a former soldier, Mike "The Animal" Stone; and a former airman named Chuck Norris, who went on to fame in film, television and Internet memes, but only after filming a fight with his old friend Lee at the conclusion of The Way of the Dragon, considered one of the great battles in the history of marital arts films. What Lee took from them were bodybuilding techniques that allowed him to add muscle and definition to his body, not only focusing on his biceps and chest but also strengthening and defining the connective tissue, tendons and ligaments.

Alien, Time Traveler or Robot?

-- Three of the central themes of speculative media--time travel, interstellar voyaging, and lifelike robots--are the least likely aspects of the genre to ever "come true." How these themes intersect in one of the most iconic films ever made about a Los Angeles that doesn't exist demonstrates the usefulness of speculative thinking about the city. The film centers o a policeman from a squad of "blade runners" who track down runaway lifelike androids called "replicants" in order to "retire" them, an act indistinguishable in physical and moral terms from murder. The three impossibles of speculative fiction were all present.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I'm not an Angeleno, but I grew up just South of LA in part of the greater pacific megalopolis, so I consider it my spiritual big city home. And so it's unsurprising that I utterly loved this book of essays on the hidden or forgotten history of LA and the connections between such disparate elements as Disney and Playboy; SF fandom and Charles Manson; the Aerospace industry and cults; the busy busy ports and the refined architecture and design in the hills above; the repressive police and the flowering of art and creativity and culture from the contact of innumerable cultures and subcultures. The essay on Gidget was one of the most fascinating things I have read all year. Lunenfeld has the ability to make cultural and historical connections, to put icons into context, and to remind us that LA is far more than Hollywood.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the ingredients that makes Los Angeles fascinating. The gossipy tone of the essays are entertaining as well as being well researched. A must have for the Los Angeles section of one’s library.

[Donna Grayson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very Disappointing History of Los Angeles

I've lived in Los Angeles since the late 70s, been active in the arts and entertainment industries. So I was very excited about this book. Big disappointment. As the author is writing about Gidget, the Turtles and Surfing, he is talking down to his readers. I'm an avid reader, with a college education, but I got tired of clicking the words on my kindle to go to the dictionary. Then somewhere along the way he stopped doing that, like maybe an editor told him to relax. But I was already skimming through the book. In the Kindle, page 136 has a big error with half a sentence missing when he is writing about Mormons and Star Wars. I was very excited to get to the chapter on Will and Ariel Durant. Then the author wrote this: "Today not one volume of The Story of Civilization is in print, their house belongs to a movie producer, and Will and Ariel are all but forgotten. " Gee, when I went to the Los Angeles Public Library App, most of Durant's Kindle books and Audiobooks are on the Wait List, including the Complete Story of Civilization and many of the individual books. So I guess there are some people who still know who they are, and are reading their books via modern technology. But with that, I couldnt even finish this book and I stopped reading.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Full review to come.

I really wanted to like this one, but I felt the chapters were uneven at times. Some were really strong, and maybe it was because of my interest in those specific topics covered, and I had a hard time connecting with others. This is not a bad book at all, and I know that many will enjoy it.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite kind of book. Outstanding essay after outstanding essay, even connecting moments in LA and American history that I never would’ve thought to pull together. If anybody knows other books that meets this mark, please send them my way 💌

[Inglewood Public Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

For readers who have never stepped foot in this city, or readers who have moved to Los Angeles and never left their apartments due to pandemic isolation, this book will certainly be of interest.

The level of knowledge disseminated is of the lower and more consumable order than some other Los Angeles specific books, so those seeking a challenge or a deep dive will be better to seek other publications.

If the reader would like a general overview, well suited for long commutes or to fall asleep to, then please by all means check out this book in audio form. For intrigue and impressive writing though, seek other avenues such as the memoirs of the stars or histories of select neighborhoods within this great city.

(Lunenfeld makes apparent that he is not from this city within the first few paragraphs, if you proceed and are disappointed after that, it is a folly of your own making.)

[Justin · Rating 2.75 out of 5]

I didn’t find the loosely-grouped anecdotes to make for a good structure, but it did make for an easy read as I get in the mood before moving back to LA.

I don’t think the book would be interesting to someone outside of LA, and anyone in LA who’s already read a book or two on the city probably already has the gist of this stuff down. That leaves the narrow lane of being a good book for people who have a new interest in the city, and I guess it does that fairly well. It’s sort of written like each paragraph or two is accompanying a photo or artifact. Maybe it should be cut down and turned into a coffee table book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been begging for Mike Davis to redo City of Quartz thirty years later. This is kind of that, but more superficial. More interesting little histories of interesting people. Great stuff on design and architecture. A bit much on cliches. The "elemental" structure was too cute and not directly germane. Certainly some helpful perspective for an Angelo transplant to grab onto. I wish it chronicled more of black and brown LA, but perhaps this would be precisely the wrong author to take on that project.

I could read an endless series of essays in this vein though.

[Elisabeth Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really like it, if it was longer I might not have finished it. There were interesting vignettes but
the connections the author makes aren't interesting or compelling to me. Sometimes the writing did capture some of the vibe of the places and times. This book sounded right up my alley, but it just didn't do what it seemed to set out to do and I was disappointed.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent look at the history and culture of LA if you’re a resident, but otherwise I feel one would get lost reading this book. The narrative felt disjointed most of the time and didn’t have any structure.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is an interesting story teller, and that gives the book its three stars. But he's a lousy social theorist, incapable of doing anything more than repeating the shibboleths of his time and class. He's happy to bob and weave between racism and capitalism as "explanations" for, eg, police behavior, but has zero interest in tracking down what the police themselves believed they were doing. If, for example, the police believed they were cracking down on narcotics and prostitution, well, were they? The issue is not whether the author believes narcotics and prostitution ought to be legal, it's whether the author's model of how society works actually matches reality.

In particular, like most people, the author is incapable of conceptualizing that
- the past was in fact different, with people having different motivations and primary concerns from today;
- that while structural schema (ie various ism's) do explain some fraction of what happens in society, the way these terms are used by most people is as tools to attack others and to justify themselves; and so people who deploy these tools adroitly get a pass from the author, a protection from probing into deeper motives and background; and
- that most of what drives most people most of the time is not some ism or other, it's a demand for cultural uniformity, ie that everyone else's culture be more like our culture. This is as true of minorities as majorities, it's the one fixity in history. But like the fish is the last to discover water, the more woke you are, the blinder you are to how you are engaged in the exact same exercise as everyone else.
Or to put it differently, if you don't possess enough history, enough wit, enough self-awareness to understand *all* facets of the phrase _The Great Awokening_ then you're not really someone whose opinions on politics and social science I care about.

So read it for the stories; god knows it's a million times more interesting that _City of Quartz_. But don't feel guilty skipping over the turgid analyses of what the LA Power Structure was supposedly thinking, or why the LA Police supposedly behaved as they did -- you won't encounter anything you haven't heard a thousand times before.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically I read this, and the Pittsburgh book, and the other LA book that I read a few months ago, because I'm trying to figure out ways to integrate urban history into my US History survey. I am fascinated by America's many distinct and idiosyncratic cities, and I feel like they get left out when you present this broad survey of, say, the US since the Civil War. This story of the rapid expansion of LA seems important. I feel like it should be in there. But I'm trying to figure out how exactly.
This book gave me a bunch of ideas, but it is not really something that I could ask students to read. Maybe one chapter. It isn't organized like a history book, it's more a series of essays that just amount to Lunenfeld musing and making connections between a whole bunch of stuff that he thinks is important about LA. Architecture, the ports, sushi, weird little cults, the Playboy Mansion, Disneyland, highways, water, the aerospace industry...Gidget...I really liked all of it but it doesn't really cohere into a narrative that I can remember. I just remember little facts about Gidget and the Port of Long Beach. I feel like I can recommend the book though, because the essays aren't that long and they are certainly interesting.
There is this one quote towards the front that really tells the tale, though, I think: "The aerospace era saw an epochal transfer of wealth from Washington to Southern California...this arms-driven largesse was like a rain of gold, creating a giddy sense of prosperity for those parts of the region's population able, by virtue of their race, class, and gender, to partake in it...leaving enough cash to spread around to their children, the rising teenage demographic. Those kids used that money and the leisure time that accompanied it to create a youth-lifestyle capitalism that became the envy of the world, with surfboards, hot rods, skateboards, tennis courts, and suburban pools the seeming birthright of every Anglo kid lucky enough to grow up under the California sun."
I keep coming back to that quote. I think that whole dynamic is definitely worth devoting some class time to.

[Glen Helfand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los Angeles, as an idea, is intoxicating. People seem to love or hate the place, both of which are powerful reactions. I will always love that city, even though I haven't lived there in decades, it is still home. That feeling comes from all the conflicting messages, the curious ironies, the absurdities, its glamorous contradictions, and glittering illusions. Peter Lunenfeld's book contains all that and more. While he comes from an academic background, this is a project that conveys a love of place, a search for platzgeist, a term he invokes as that quest to capture the spirit of place. It's full of entertaining stories about icons and forgotten eccentrics, and the linkages between them. Lunenfeld did his research, which allows him to draw apt parallels between Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner (and both of their fantasylands); Joan Didion and Angelyne (women with Corvettes); and various cult leaders, inventors, musicians, and restaruanteurs. LA ironies aren't hard to come by, and this one offers fresh ones. Who knew that so many of sixties rock stars had dads working for covert government operations, or that Jewish delis had so much to do with the popularization of sushi? I ate it up.

The writing has a verve that stems from Lunenfeld's passionate engagement with the material. He makes his points with bricolage more than sweeping assertions. Though ultimately, his thesis of the city being one that constantly reinvents itself is heartily illustrated.

[Chris Barsanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a more low-key Mike Davis, Lunenberg presents a free-floating cultural urban geography of Los Angeles that skips through the metropolis's sprawling neighborhoods and colorful history with little driving intent except to tell some great stories that illuminate some corner of truth about this frequently misunderstood place. That means reading about everything from the coiled interrelationship of the defense and entertainment industries to Tippi Hedren's connection to the empire of Vietnamese mani-pedi salons and the Hollywood metamorphosis of Bruce Lee.

In his attempt to map a city that seems to be treated forever as yet unformed ("Southern California as an ever-refreshing Etch A Sketch, a tabula rasa that could never be filled"), Lunenfeld does not come up with any competing grand unified theory of Los Angeles. But the book remains nevertheless a treat in a time of quarantine, reminding us of what we miss about those dense lattices of streets, people, businesses, cultures, and neighborhoods.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disjointed, meandering mess of a book. There was no need for chapters: he pretends each chapter deals with a unique subject but then the chapter quickly gets ramrodded onto a complete non-sequitur which then gets shifted to another subject altogether a paragraph later and so on and so on until he just says "end of chapter" by trying to string it all together with one last desperate gasp of a paragraph.

This book reads like the worst self-published musings you can think of. It frankly makes me question the editorial department at Viking Press. It purports to be this sweeping overview of the history and essence of Los Angeles when in reality it's just 277 pages of word salad with faux quirky asides about random historical facts that the author thought were witty deep cuts that show he's really made it to full-fledged Angeleno.

[Mari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less a salute than an attempt to explain the outsized influence that flows from (or just is?) the, also outsized land area now called 'LA' and bringing to mind something to almost everyone in the USA, and arguably beyond. Covering everything from the great to the despicable, in a sometimes hard to follow narrative, I found it alternatively interesting and nearly frustrating. Still, I didn't stop, learned some interesting info about our near (here) neighbor city and cultural icon, and often enjoyed.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This might be best reserved for an LA-phile or completest in all things related to Los Angeles. With only a slight interest about LA (real, historical, and imagined) these various essays never really pulled me in. Though he does reference Mike Davis as one of his own inspirations, it doesn’t reach that depth of insight.

[David Cavaco · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay read through some of the pivot points that has transformed Los Angeles into the transformative place that it is today. Was hoping for a bit more history of this fascinating metropolis but the author was too obsessed focusing on specific people and arcane topics instead on the city's evolution overall. Not what I was expecting.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun take on the history of LA. Lunenfeld (full disclosure: my former professor) takes a freeform, almost stream of consciousness approach, drawing connections between unlike historical figures and events. I learned a lot about LA history reading this.

[A]

This is a frustrating read with the author making me feel like he knows much more than I do, even though I grok what he is writing about. This condescension along with too much information about popular culture, made me put this book down.

[John McHugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this wide ranging history of Los Angeles. From Gidget to Tupac with Hunter S Thompson in between

[Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather flaccid entry in the "straight white men tell people what Los Angeles is really about" category.

[Loren Shultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read

[Michael Kearney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to know the backstory of LA. This is your book!

[SydneyHelen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must read for Angelenos!! Great insight into how this wonderful city came to be what it is today.

[Stephen Perlstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Deepens my love for Los Angeles.

[FRESH. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas. Wasn’t particularly moved by it.

[Caitlin Hall]

The best book about LA that I've read. The Star Trek reference in the title didn't hurt.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars. The kast couple of chapters really came apart and seemingly had nothing to do with LA. It got very meta but didn’t work.