Although he donated over 3,000 acres to Los Angles, Griffith's life was marred by controversy.

A relief that wraps around the concourse of Los Angeles's World Trade Center marks one of the city's failed urban design plans.

A Romanesque sanctuary of calm amid the bustle of downtown Los Angeles.

The neighborhood of Eagle Rock is named after a gigantic boulder with a shadowy surprise.

Once the central jail for Los Angeles, this building housed inmates like Al Capone, those arrested from the Zoot Suit and Watts Riots, and individuals imprisoned for their sexuality.

Large but largely ignored, these 42 life-size Liberty Bell replicas were a peculiar, unexplained feature on the facade of a Macy's department store.

A classic American barn that was the home of a classic American television star.

This quirky UFO-shaped curiosity is often mistaken for the airport’s control tower.

A classically trained chef makes beloved burritos inside a gas station.

A master of deception, Harry Houdini's greatest trick may have been living in two places at once.

The hotel room where Janis Joplin tragically died has now become a makeshift shrine to the singer.

This “living museum” at UCLA exhibits thousands of plant species from all over the world.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

This traditional garden in the San Fernando Valley doubled for Star Fleet Academy, and is irrigated entirely by wastewater.

Beautiful Victorian buildings from L.A.'s forgotten architectural past.

Most famous work of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's sons.

This brightly made over hotel hides decades of suicide, serial killers, and mysterious deaths.

A ghost town at the airport is now a refuge for blue butterflies.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

Crypt mausoleum in cathedral's basement contains relics of third century Roman martyr, Saint Vibiana.

Rainbow-hued local gem in Venice.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden.

The famous animator's private station house and man-cave was the birthplace of imagineering.