UPCOMING EVENTS:
FEB. TBD
Los Angeles Breakfast Club. Click here for tickets, which includes a scrumptious breakfast, plenty of tomfoolery, and a seat for my slide presentation of old L.A.
Los Angeles Breakfast Club. Click here for tickets, which includes a scrumptious breakfast, plenty of tomfoolery, and a seat for my slide presentation of old L.A.
FEB./MAR. TBD
Check this space for a book event with Book Soup and the Los Feliz Public Library!
Check this space for a book event with Book Soup and the Los Feliz Public Library!
PAST EVENTS:
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Many thanks to Culver City's Village Well Books & Coffee (and wine and beer!) and moderator Josh Stephens for hosting a fun book event. Livestream watchable here.
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Thank you to Book Soup in West Hollywood for the livestream book event! Missed it? No worries... the Crowdcast video can be viewed in its entirety here.
Robert Petersen's Hidden History LA podcast consistently delivers thought-provoking interviews on LA's past. I was honored to return. Available on your favorite podcast platform or listen here:
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On KCRW 89.9 Steve Chiotakis' Greater L.A., I discuss the ill-fated Beverly Hills Freeway, how freeways develop their own personalities, and the racist policies baked into early freeway-building.
Host Stefan of the LifeHacksLA Podcast asked THE most penetrating question of all: Why do Southern Californians put "the" in front of freeway numbers when no one else does??
LA Explorer takes a spin on the Terminal Freeway and says of the book: "Just like Haddad turned an everyday walk into a fun adventure in 10,000 Steps a Day he has proven that freeways are, in fact, rather fascinating in Freewaytopia."
A. Tarantola of engadget is "hitting the books"... and hits on Freewaytopia.
What does the Santa Monica Freeway's Diamond (HOV) Lane saga of 1976 have in common with anti-mandate/anti-vaxxer protestors in the era of Covid-19? More than you might think. My Op-Ed for the LA Times.
REVIEWS:
The freeways of Los Angeles are so ubiquitous and functional that they’re easy to ignore. But every mile of elevated roadway was carved from lost landscapes worth knowing. And in his nimbly written, deeply researched, myth-busting book, Paul Haddad chronicles both the growth and what was taken away—most often from the Angelenos who had the least to lose—as the city reshaped itself in the service of cars, speed and sprawl. Recommended for transit policy wonks, local history lovers and anyone who has missed their lane in a complicated cloverleaf and wondered why they built it that way.
―Kim Cooper, Esotouric With verse and authority, Haddad loops you in in Freewaytopia, an encyclopedic, anecdotal and photographic history of Los Angeles County's two dozen freeways. Open to almost any page and you'll find a saga, a drama, a nugget to amaze your friends.
―Patt Morrison, journalist, Los Angeles Times Freewaytopia deftly connects dreams, politics, new suburbs, and white privilege to tell the stories of L.A.’s freeways. Hostile to communities of color when they were built and loathed today by gridlocked drivers, the freeways still reveal a rough grandeur in their overpasses and interchanges. When the road ahead is unexpectedly open, L.A.'s freeways can be poetic. Paul Haddad has caught their vital rhythm.
―D. J. Waldie, author of Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place |
Richard and Kim from Esotouric hosted a webinar called A Natural History of Los Angeles Freeways, where I delved into, among other things, L.A.'s deadliest freeway, the reconfiguration of the Figueroa tunnels for the Arroyo Seco Parkway, and the evolution of cloverleaf & interchange engineering. Tickets are available here to watch this virtual event at any time! Or visit Esotouric.com
Many thanks to Gail and the team at Flintridge Books in La Canada Flintridge for a magnificent book event!
"In his latest book, Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles, author Paul Haddad takes readers on a whirlwind tour through the history and lore of Los Angeles' sprawling highway system.” —Engadget.com |
