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Meredith Drake Reitan

Meredith Drake Reitan

Meredith Drake Reitan is an Associate Dean in the Graduate School at the University of Southern California and an adjunct associate professor in USC’s Price School of Public Policy and School of Architecture. Her work has been published in the Journal of Planning History, the Journal of Urban Design and the Journal of the American Planning Association, among others. Using the Zooniverse platform, Dr. Drake Reitan is currently engaged in a collaboration with faculty from the USC Libraries on an innovative crowdsourced transcription of the 1939 Works Progress Administration’s Los Angeles Household Census Records.

Meredith Drake Reitan
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The Victorians of Bunker Hill, including the grey-painted Castle second from left at 325 South Bunker Hill Avenue in 1961.
The neighborhood of Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles has been the subject of countless books, blogs and films. For Gordon Pattison and many others, it was simply home.
Mud splatters Ralph Hamlin while competing in the Cactus Derby of 1912. His companion is likely Andrew Smith, the Franklin’s “mechanician.”
The racing legend became one of L.A.'s most successful car dealers.
Protest in the park, 1981
The resistance has a long history at L.A.'s MacArthur Park.
Woollett plan, 1939
More than 30 different plans were created during the 20th century for the L.A. Civic Center.
John Black's Saloon, Bishop, California
In 1896, the Parkhurst Society's "meddling ministers" targeted L.A.'s saloons, brothels, and dives.
A Saloon
To many in the late 19th century, these "hatcheries of sin" were an unwelcome reminder that the City of Angels did not always live up to its name.
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