Hollywood Museum, Medieval Torture Museum, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Petersen Automotive Museum, Runyon Canyon Park
Leaving the Pacific and heading to North America for another short adventure, I got on a flight to the USA. After landing in Los Angeles, I had to get past the border control (which wasn’t as scary as I thought), buy my most expensive prepaid sim card so far, and deal with the most uninterested and unhelpful information desk employee. It took me a while to figure out how to get to my accommodation, and once again, it seemed less than ideal. Being tired, hungry, and somewhat dehydrated, after checking in I didn’t have the energy to do much. Even after sleeping for quite a while, I didn’t feel very energetic.
When I had enough of doing nothing, I left the accommodation, got confused with the public transport for a little bit, and finally made it to Hollywood Museum. The suggested order to visit the different parts of the museum seemed a bit weird, but I had no previous knowledge of the place and so I decided to follow the suggestion.
The first floor started with hair and make up. With the rising status of Hollywood, a man I have never heard of by the name of Max Factor had quite a successful business for hair and makeup products, which was prominent in the area. There were different rooms in the beginning of the museum, each of those rooms is dedicated to a different hair color and seemingly designed to complement it the best. Being far from an expert on that subject, I just took the sign’s word for it. In each of those rooms there were also signs regarding different women and their glamorous careers. In addition to that, there was one particular “beauty product” on display, that to me looked like a torturing device from “The Saw”.
Then there was a room with many different photos of many different actors, a model of some movie studio, and a sign with a bit more about the history of Hollywood.
At the very end of the first floor there was a collection of sculptures (which I assumed to be replicas) from different movies. It felt quite random, and there wasn’t much information there.
The second floor appeared to be a changing gallery, and at the time I was there it was mainly about black people in the movie and music industries. Seemingly interesting, except I found very little information there. For the most part, it was just a list of movies and actors. On display there were their outfits, dresses and suits from different movies, shows, and concerts. It was a fairly small room, and didn’t take long to have a look around it.
The top floor was supposed to be about the history of cinema (according to one of the signs), and there was a part of it with a selection of different cameras, chairs, and other behind-the-scenes objects, but that floor too was dominated by a selection of outfits. There were a few more sculptures and cars in there, but they didn’t really hold my interest.
For the last part of the museum, I had to go all the way back down to the entrance and then into the basement, which was horror themed. I’m not a fan of horror, on the account of “I don’t like being scared”, but I was curious as to what I could find there. Unfortunately, I found very little. There was quite a selection of horror figures, sure, but practically no information about them. If anything, it felt like going through a low-budget haunted house, where I managed to unintentionally scare a couple by showing up around the corner as they were about to leave the basement.
The whole experience felt a bit underwhelming, more of a fashion show than a museum. Perhaps it could be of interest to anyone who is genuinely obsessed with their history of Hollywood, and knows many of the celebrities who passed through it, but for me it was a less than impressive start for my visit.
Close by to the Hollywood Museum there were a few other attractions, and one of them in particular stood out to me. Medieval torture devices are not something I think about when I think of the United States of America, and yet within a couple of minutes I was at the entrance to the Medieval Torture Museum (which turned out to be one of three). After buying the ticket, I was invited to download the audio guide app, although it was not necessary.
I went down the stairs and the tour started. The audio guide was not only slow, but at a few times inconsistent, with occasional gaps or a sudden change in pace for a couple of seconds. I would have defaulted to simply reading the signs, but ahead of me was a loud couple, so taking the time with the audio guide allowed me to get some distance and a quieter tour.
There were arrows to point out a suggested direction to take, but it didn’t feel necessary to follow it, as far as I could tell the displays were not in a chronological order. Following the audio guide, I made my way across the differents rooms of the museum, looking at the different torture devices and learning about the stories behind them. Shackles, guillotines, and pretty much any other torture device that I could think of (and some that I could not think of) were there, a grim collection of European past. In addition to that, there were stories about people, both torturers and torture victims. Then, among all the different displays, was the electric chair. Perhaps it was an attempt to make the museum more American, but it definitely felt odd and out of place.
At the end of the tour I got back up stairs and quickly left the museum. It was an interesting experience, and quite informative, although it was very unexpected.
A couple of metro rides later, and I was at the Natural History Museum. There were a few galleries to choose from, and I started with the one that was titled “Becoming Los Angeles”. Knowing practically nothing about the history of the city, I was curious to learn something about it. The gallery told the story of the city from its early days, when it was a Spanish colony, to the time Mexico had independence, and then the war with the USA, who won and took California.
There was also the story of American immigrants coming to Los Angeles, looking for better life, gold, and later on opportunities in the movie industry. It was overall informative, surprising, and interesting. A good start.
The next gallery I walked into was a relatively small room, showcasing some of the local animals of Los Angeles and California. The signs didn’t have a lot of details, and it took only a few minutes to go through all of them. It was a nice section, but it didn’t feel special.
Then it was time to go inside the dinosaur gallery. Other than being big and hosting a large collection of bones and fossils, it seemed to be divided into different sections. This time, I felt the explanation was lacking, and I didn’t learn as much perhaps as I could have. I walked around the place, looking at the displays and reading the different signs, and I started to feel annoyed by it. Some of those signs, at least in the way they were phrased, seemed to be more of a hypothesis and a fact.
I got to the end of the dinosaur gallery, got lost for a little while trying to make my way back to the entrance, and once I did I made my way to another room, this time showcasing African animals. While somewhat interesting, it felt like a weird choice to have it in a museum dedicated to American history.
After taking a quick look around the minerals gallery (which was surprisingly large), and getting into a vault where I got to see a real diamond, I headed downstairs. Within a few minutes I felt like the lower level was just not interesting to me and decided to leave the place.
One final museum that I wanted to visit while in town was the Petersen Automotive Museum. At the entrance, before I even got to the cashier, there was a little display of various cars, as some sort of “preview” for the museum. After taking a look around, I bought the ticket, and was told to take the elevator to the third floor in order to start my tour around the place.
The first thing I saw when I came out of the elevator was a map of the room, although there was no suggested path to take. Still, a somewhat obvious starting point was the introduction section, which was about the general history of cars, from the very first car which was not much more than a horseless carriage. Next to it there was a section about the history of the wheel, which was a lot more complex than I expected. I spent quite some time in that part, learning quite a bit about the development of the wheel and the changes that it has been through.
After the history lesson there was a collection of cars from different movies, which was nice to see and just about the last section that I could identify clearly. The rest was not marked well enough, and I just wandered around, looking at the different cars and learning about their history.
When I went down to the second floor, I decided to ignore the map and just walk around in a circle. I started with the motorcycle section, which was small and not as informative. I quickly resumed my walk around the floor, looking at all the different cars, or rather, the different Porsches. Old, new, famous in their own right or owned by a famous person, there was a whole range of Porsches in the museum, each with its own story to tell.
Then, in quite a contrast, I found myself in a small room with a bunch of American race cars, and specifically the Corvette. It was interesting to look at, and included some video footage as well, although I didn’t pay too much attention to it. After I took a look around, it was time for more movie cars, this time, cars that were modified from their original design to fit the needs of the movie they were.
Lastly, it was time to go down to the first floor, which was about Tesla. Mainly the cars they made, but a few other inventions were in there as well, including a very dystopian looking robot. I didn’t find that particular section that much interesting, but maybe I was just getting tired at this point.
At the very end of the Tesla gallery I saw another place I can go to. This section of the first floor was dedicated to a Victor Hugo Green black- friendly travel guide. While the book is important, it seemed more about traveling and places to stay at, and less about the cars. I couldn’t help but feel this gallery could’ve been easily filled with information about black race drivers, mechanics, dealers, and car manufacturers, and talk about more things.
Taking a break from the museums, I headed over to Runyon Canyon Park. While I thought I would be in for an interesting hike for a couple of hours, it was less impressive than that. For the most part, the path was paved and could’ve been done in flip flops. There was only a small section of the park that was a bit challenging, but it could’ve been avoided very easily. The views were nice, and in a way reminded me of Japan and the way it combined the urban scenery with its nature, but it wasn’t as impressive as I hoped. It was a nice way to end my time in Los Angeles, but not much more than that.