Bøger af Paul Haddad

Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city's growth: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, and Moses Sherman. In the late 1870s, Los Angeles was a violent, dusty, 29-square-mile pueblo with a few thousand souls, largely unchanged since its founding in 1781. By 1930, its size had swelled to within 96% of its current 468 square miles, housing a staggering 1.2 million people. In just 50 years, L.A. had joined the ranks of other world-class cities. In the tradition of Mike Davis's classic work City of Quartz, Paul Haddad (Freewaytopia and 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.) debunks many myths about the City of Angels with a wildly entertaining narrative that sheds new light on the fascinating birth of modern Los Angeles. Power came from a select few, whose triumphs, scandals, and correspondence are well documented in Inventing Paradise, along with other little-known facts about L.A. history, including:How Los Angeles Times chief Harry Chandler pushed eugenics and endorsed "white spots"Henry Huntington's and Moses Sherman's trolley systems and the extortion-type practices that led to their expansionWhen Los Angeles was so desperate for water, it hired a miracle worker who promised rainHow L.A.'s power elite peddled the lie that the Owens River used to flow into Los Angeles and rightfully belonged to the cityWhen Los Angeles annexed a city in which monkeys cast votesHow Venice, California, was not the first Venice, CaliforniaWilliam Mulholland's game-changing construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which raised the city's population ceiling from 250,000 to 2.5 millionHaddad also covers the heavy costs that came with creating paradise in such a short period of time, including car dependency, environmental problems, and deep-seated inequities between wealthy white Angelenos and people of color due to racist policies. All have left an imprint on present-day Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a city that should not exist-and yet it does. Through Inventing Paradise, Haddad shows readers that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence, owing to the collective vision of these six Gilded Era-born tycoons.

For scores of Dodger fans, the years 1977 to 1981 mark the team's glory days, and this sports compendium chronicles the highlights and disappointments that marked those four tumultuous seasons. Told from lifelong fan Paul Haddad's perspective, the story of the Dodgers during this time period is enhanced by transcripts of radio and TV calls that are woven into the personal recollections, capturing famed Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully at the top of his game. From Jerry Ruess's no-hitter and Rick Monday's epic homer against Montreal to the magical rookie year of Fernando Valenzuela and the 1981 World Series, all of the great Dodger moments are commemorated in great detail. In addition to its portion of the chronological narrative, each chapter contains lists, trivia, sidebars, and interesting statistics that make the exciting culture and fan frenzy that surrounded the Dodgers' last great dynasty come to life.

Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles explores how social, economic, political, and cultural demands created the web of expressways whose very form-futuristic, majestic, and progressive-perfectly exemplifies the City of Angels. From the Arroyo Seco, which began construction during the Great Depression, to the Simi Valley and Century Freeways, which were completed in 1993, author Paul Haddad provides an entertaining and engaging history of the 527 miles of road that comprise the Los Angeles freeway system. Each of Los Angeles's twelve freeways receives its own chapter, and these are supplemented by "e;Off-Ramps"e;-sidebars that dish out pithy factoids about Botts' Dots, SigAlerts, and all matter of freeway lexicon, such as why Southern Californians are the only people in the country who place the word "e;the"e; in front of their interstates, as in "e;the 5,"e; or "e;the 101."e; Freewaytopia also explores those routes that never saw the light of day. Imagine superhighways burrowing through Laurel Canyon, tunneling under the Hollywood Sign, or spanning the waters of Santa Monica Bay. With a few more legislative strokes of the pen, you wouldn't have to imagine them-they'd already exist. Haddad notably gives voice to those individuals whose lives were inextricably connected-for better or worse-to the city's freeways: The hundreds of thousands of mostly minority and lower-class residents who protested against their displacement as a result of eminent domain. Women engineers who excelled in a man's field. Elected officials who helped further freeways . . . or stop them dead in their tracks. And he pays tribute to the corps of civic and state highway employees whose collective vision, expertise, and dedication created not just the most famous freeway network in the world, but feats of engineering that, at their best, achieve architectural poetry. Finally, let's not forget the beauty queens-no freeway in Los Angeles ever opened without their royal presence.

10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 52 Walking Adventures is for urban adventurers with a passion for healthy living who are also hungry to explore L.A.s hidden, unsung, and sometimes quirky side. This unique guidebook provides everything readers need to venture out and tackle the citys 500 square miles.The book is based on a concept that first took hold in Japanthat if people walked 10,000 steps each day, they would burn 20 percent of their caloric intake through that activity alone. Now an ingrained part of the American lifestyle, the 10,000 steps phenomenon is taking the country by storm; it is now a recognized daily goal by a number of major insurance companies like Kaiser Permanente and health institutes such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the American Heart Foundation.In this first-ever book to explore the 10,000 steps concept in the City of Angels, these walks take readers through the terrain that makes Los Angeles the envy of many a metropolisbeaches, mountains, rivers, and reservoirs, not to mention the nations largest urban park, Griffith Parkall while immersing them in the citys history and lore, offbeat locales, and popular landmarks.10,000 Steps a Day in L.A. promises three things: 10,000 steps in each walk, a blueprint for doing it each weekend of the year (52 walks equals a years worth of weekends), and a sense of fun and discovery about L.A. that will only make the 10,000 steps goal that much easier to attain. Readers need bring only their feetpedometers optional.