Museum Sunday

One of my absolute favorite L.A. places to visit when I was a kid was the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park.  In those days, every fourth-grader in public school took a field trip to the museum to see the dinosaur bones, followed on the same day by a visit to the La Brea Tarpits, where many an ancient animal lost their lives.

With the state’s budget the way it is, I highly doubt kids get to take field trips to the museum or tarpits any longer.  Nevertheless, the county recently renovated the entire Natural History Museum, including three new rooms dedicated to prehistoric animals.  In a definite mood for more exhibits (see yesterday’s post about the Huntington Library below), we finally made our way over to Exposition Park to spend Sunday afternoon in the fabulous new Dinosaur Hall.  To say that this is every six-year-old’s idea of heaven would be a huge understatement!  Here’s just a taste of some of the amazing fossils on display:

P.S.  While we were out-and-about, we also stopped by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) to see two more Pacific Standard Time exhibits: “Kenneth Anger: Icons” and “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles.” Anger, of course, is the underground filmmaker who also gave us the original celebrity gossip books Babylon Hollywood and Babylon Hollywood II.  But even more notorious, in his time, was tabloid photographer Weegee, who loved to capture the less glamorous side of post-WWII L.A.  Both exhibits are highly recommended if you’re into a slightly twisted view of fame in early- to mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles.