BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Los Angeles -- Griffith Observatory

CA -- Los Angeles -- Griffith Observatory:

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Description of Pictures: The little string and ball were illustrating the progress of Apollo 11 which had happened 40 years ago.
The interview was done by local channel 35 with the director (?) of the observatory. I was also interviewed for the piece.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GRIFO_090718_0041.JPG: 1931 - 1955 Key scenes from the classic motion picture "Rebel Without a Cause" were filmed at Griffith Observatory in spring 1955. Although many movies have been filmed at Griffith Observatory, "Rebel Without a Cause" was the first to portrait the observatory as what it is and to contribute positively to the observatory's international reputation. This monument acknowledges Griffith Observatory's long and continuous involvement with Hollywood film production by remembering the young star of that motion picture. James Dean
2. GRIFO_090718_0051.JPG: It's an interesting sculpture. You can actually poke your fingers in his eyes. I'm curious how much trash has been stuck in there.
3. GRIFO_090718_0059.JPG: 1931 James Dean 1955 This is not a monument to a rebel. Those were only roles he played. James Dean was an American original who on a basis of high school honors and in a period of five years time rose to the very pinnacle of the theatrical profession and through the magic of motion pictures lives on in legend. Presented in 1988 by the artist Kenneth Kendall who sculpted it in 1955-1956 at the request of James Dean and dedicates it to his memory. It ended with his body changed to light A star that burns forever in that sky. "The Flight of Quetzalcoatl" -- Aztec Poem
4. GRIFO_090718_0101.JPG: Note the Hollywood sign in the reflection
5. GRIFO_090718_0192.JPG: Griffith J. Griffith donor of Griffith Park the Greek Theatre and the Greek Observatory
6. GRIFO_090718_0199.JPG: City ordnance accepting Griffith park
7. GRIFO_090718_0242.JPG: Tesla Coil Tesla coils convert low-voltage alternating current electricity to very high voltage and increase the frequency. Their main aim was to transmit electricity through the air. This turned out to be impractical. Today they are popular because of the large arcing sparks that leap out when they are in operation. Tesla coils are part of a great dream to provide electricity without using wired. Electricity became widely available around 1900, when the first networks began to send power to homes and businesses over transmission lines. They were expensive to build, and so Tesla and others worked on wireless electrical networks. The technology was difficult to implement, and it never got out of the laboratory. Tesla's Legacy: Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) invested the Tesla coil. He conducted many experiments in his lab on the generation and distribution of alternating current electricity. The Westinghouse company used Tesla's designs for generators and distribution systems to build a power station at Niagara Falls. The power grid that we use to bring electricity to our homes is based on Tesla's work. Tesla coils have a long and colorful history in science and technology sideshows. Before the Griffith Observatory Tesla coil went on display in 1937, it belonged to Dr. Frederick Finch Strong. He was a physician and instructor at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Dr. Strong used electricity in the healing process and relied heavily on Tesla coils as part of his work. Eventually, he donated the major components of this instrument to the City of Los Angeles.
8. GRIFO_090718_0293.JPG: Note the "Hollywood" sign in the hills
9. GRIFO_090718_0408.JPG: This dome contains the triple beam coelostat which reflects sunlight to the solar telescopes
10. GRIFO_090718_0563.JPG: The dome's rotating
11. GRIFO_090718_0568.JPG: Model of the Apollo 11 craft going between the building and the statue
12. GRIFO_090718_0606.JPG: This guy was doing a talk in honor of the Apollo 11 flight
13. GRIFO_090718_0649.JPG: The worker is moving the Apollo 11 craft closer to the moon model (right by him).
14. GRIFO_090718_0666.JPG: The interviewer was talking to the head of the observatory
15. GRIFO_090718_0837.JPG: Los Angeles from the Griffith Observatory
16. GRIFO_090718_0858.JPG: When Meteorites Attack! In 1954, a fragment of an asteroid crashed through the roof of a house in Sylacauga, Alabama. It bounced off the floor and hit Ann Hodges while she was napping on her couch. She was the first person documented to have been struck by a meteorite. Mrs. Hodges sold autographed pictures of herself holding the meteorite under the damaged ceiling. The rock is now on display in the University of Alabama's Natural History Museum.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Griffith Observatory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Griffith Observatory is located in Los Angeles, California, United States. Sitting on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in L.A.'s Griffith Park, it commands a view of the Los Angeles Basin, including downtown Los Angeles to the southeast, Hollywood to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. The observatory is a popular tourist attraction that features an extensive array of space- and science-related displays.

History:

The land on which the observatory stands was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Col. Griffith J. Griffith in 1896. In his will, Griffith donated funds to build an observatory, exhibit hall, and planetarium on the donated land. Construction began on June 20, 1933 using a design developed by architect John C. Austin based on preliminary sketches by Russell W. Porter. The observatory and accompanying exhibits were opened to the public on May 14, 1935. In its first five days of operation the observatory logged more than 13,000 visitors. Dinsmore Alter was the museum's director during its first years. Today, Dr. Ed Krupp is the Director of the Observatory.

Exhibits:

The first exhibit visitors encountered in 1935 was the Foucault pendulum, which was designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. The exhibits also included a twelve-inch (305 mm) Zeiss telescope, a solar telescope, and a thirty-eight foot relief model of the moon's north polar region.
The Griffith Observatory after renovations, June 2007.

Col. Griffith requested that the observatory include a display on evolution which was accomplished with the Cosmochron exhibit which included a narration from Caltech Professor Chester Stock and an accompanying slide show. The evolution exhibit existed from 1937 to the mid 1960s.

Also included in the original design was a planetarium. The first shows covered topics including the Moon, worlds of the solar system, and eclipses.

During World War II the planetarium was used to train pilots in celestial navigation. The planetarium was again used for this purpose in the 1960s to train Apollo program astronauts for the first lunar missions.

The planetarium theater was renovated in 1964 and a Mark IV Zeiss projector was installed.

Renovation and expansion:

The observatory closed in 2002 for renovation and a major expansion of exhibit space. It reopened to the public on November 3, 2006, retaining its art deco exterior. The $93 million renovation, paid largely by a public bond issue, restored the building, as well as replaced the aging planetarium dome. The building was expanded underground, with completely new exhibits, a caf�, gift shop, and the new Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater. The Caf� at the End of the Universe, an homage to Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is one of the many caf�s run by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. One wall inside the building is covered with the largest astronomically accurate image ever constructed (152 feet long by 20 feet (6.1 m) high), called "The Big Picture" (http://bigpicture.caltech.edu), depicting the Virgo Cluster of galaxies; visitors can explore the highly detailed image from within arm's reach or through telescopes 60 feet (18 m) away. The 1964-vintage Zeiss Mark IV star projector was replaced with a Zeiss Mark IX Universarium. The former planetarium projector is part of the underground exhibit on ways in which humanity has visualized the skies.
Side view of the Observatory after renovations in 2007

Since the observatory opened in 1935, admission has been free, in accordance with Griffith's will. Tickets for the show Centered in the Universe in the 290-seat Samuel Oschin Planetarium Theater are purchased separately at the box office within the observatory. Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Children under 5 are free, but are admitted to only the first planetarium show of the day. Only members of the observatory's support group, Friends Of The Observatory, may reserve tickets for the planetarium show.

Centered in the Universe features a high-resolution immersive video projected by an innovative laser system developed by Evans and Sutherland Corporation, along with a short night sky simulation projected by the Zeiss Universarium. A team of animators worked more than two years to create the 30-minute program. Actors, holding a glowing orb, perform the presentation, under the direction of Chris Shelton.

A wildfire in the hills came dangerously close to the observatory on May 10, 2007.

On May 25, 2008, the Observatory offered visitors live coverage of the Phoenix landing on Mars.

Filming location:

Film

The observatory was featured in a number of scenes in the James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause; a bust of James Dean was subsequently placed at the west side of the grounds. It has appeared in several movies:

* Rebel without a Cause
* The Terminator (revisited as a ruin in 2009's Terminator Salvation)
* Dragnet (1987)
* The Rocketeer
* The End of Violence
* Midnight Madness
* Bowfinger
* Flesh Gordon
* War of the Colossal Beast
* The People vs. Larry Flint
* Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
* House on Haunted Hill (1999 remake)
* Queen of the Damned
* Transformers (2007 live-action film)
* Yes Man
* Earth Girls Are Easy

Television

The Observatory has appeared in episodes of the following TV shows:

* 24 (Day 1 3:00pm-4:00pm; aired on March 19, 2002)
* Adventures of Superman (first episode, as Jor-El's laboratory on Superman's home planet Krypton; some other episodes, as the Metropolis observatory.)
* Angel (episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been," with Angel wearing a red jacket in homage to James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause character).
* Beverly Hills, 90210 ("Rebel with a Cause", episode 13)
* CHiPs
* Danny Phantom (The Amity Park Observatory modeled on The Griffith Observatory.)
* MacGyver (pilot episode)
* Mission: Impossible (opening pilot episode)
* Moonlight
* Quantum Leap (Goodbye Norma Jean)
* Remington Steele
* Rocky Jones, Space Ranger
* Star Trek: Voyager (two-part episode "Future's End")
* The Man from U.N.C.L.E
* The New Adventures of Wonder Woman between 1977 and 1979.
* The Simpsons (duplicated as Springfield Observatory)
* The Wonder Years.

Other media

* Was a filming location for the music video for "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul which starred Keanu Reeves and was directed by Stefan W�rnitzer. This video was based on Rebel Without a Cause.

Popular culture references:

Comics

The James Dean memorial at the Griffith Observatory is an important landmark that memorializes Dean's classic movie Rebel without a Cause.

In Bill Griffith's comic strip Zippy the Pinhead, the cynical Griffy can occasionally be found in Griffith Observatory, aiming its telescope down into the valley to afford himself a view of the comings and goings in Hollywood.

In the Marvel series Runaways, the James Dean memorial is often used as a meeting point for the six teenagers, as it is the same distance from all of their houses.

Video games

In the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game this landmark is featured and is very similar to the real life Griffith Observatory. The observatory is a playable area in the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines video game. Also, in the Future Cop: LAPD video game, the observatory and the whole Griffith Park are the setting for the first mission of the game, on which the observatory was taken over a villain and turned the telescopes into plasma cannons.

Music

The song Observatory Crest by Captain Beefheart may refer to the location of the Griffith Observatory. The song includes the lyric "...drive up / and watch the city / from Observatory Crest."

Other

A Lego model of this building is on permanent exhibit at Legoland California in the Southern California section of Miniland. It has also been featured in the comic strip "Spiderman." In "Macross Frontier," Episode 03, two characters hold a conversation in a future replica of the Griffith Observatory.

Movies

In the movie Bowfinger with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, film producer Bowfinger (Martin) has been secretly filming a movie without Kit Ramsey (Murphy) knowing about it. The film climaxes as Ramsey is running through the Griffith observatory. The camera crew follows him by filming the shots from the surveillance room, trying to catch him saying the phrase, "Gotcha Suckers!" to end the film.

The Observatory makes an appearance in The Rocketeer as the setting for a showdown between Nazi spies and The Mob.

TV Shows

In the Star Trek Voyager episode Future's End, Voyager is pushed back in time to 1996, to try and correct errors to the time line. Rain Robinson, played by Sarah Silverman is working for the SETI project in the Griffith Observatory, and notices Voyager in orbit, and tries to contact them with the standard SETI greeting, and eventually helps the crew to recover what was stolen, and escape from earth.
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