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There
are an amazing number of museums in the greater Los
Angeles area, with all kinds of topics. Historic museums,
cultural and art museums, movie and automotive museums,
marine museums - you name it. Many of them are centrally
located on Wilshire Boulevard. There's a sign on Wilshire
saying this is " Museum
Row
on the Miracle Mile" - five museums in three blocks
would seem to justify that title.
Within walking distance from another, you'll find the
George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, the Petersen
Automotive Museum, the Museum of Television and Radio,
the Los Angeles County
Museum
of Art
with its beautiful sculpture garden and Jap. Pavillion
( www.lacma.org),
the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance (www.wiesenthal.com)
and the Craft and Folk Art Museum - an astonishing amount
of culture and history concentrated in a small area.
The Page Museum and the tarpits probably are the most
famous of these - Rancho La Brea
Tar
Pits
is
one of the world's most famous fossil localities, recognized
for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of
extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world. Through
windows at the Page Museum Laboratory, visitors can
watch bones being cleaned and repaired, outside the
museum, in Hancock Park, life-size replicas of several
extinct mammals are featured.
Also located next to the George Page Museum is the L.A.County
Museum of Art, featuring diverse and extensive collections
of art, from ancient to modern works, with individual
galleries for dozens of categories: Islamic, Pre-Columbian,
Renaissance, glass, photography, Impressionism, Greek
and Roman, to name just a few. The five buildings of
the Museum are grouped around a spacious center yard
with souvenir and book stores, a café and soothing
water fountains. A cultural hotspot!
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