An archive of places
that held something.

02 · Sunset Boulevard at Antioch

The Hot Dog Show

A little white clapboard building with a model train going around the wall inside. Kids watched the train more than they ate. Closed decades ago, but still the first place older Palisadians name when you ask what they miss most.

1950s–1980s · Gathering

03 · North Swarthmore Avenue

Matthew's Garden Cafe

The special-occasion restaurant — birthdays, anniversaries, after-graduation dinners under the patio lights. Burned to the ground in the January 2025 Palisades Fire alongside the rest of the village block.

until January 2025 · Gathering

04 · Palisades Village

Cafe Vida

Twenty-three years of healthy bowls, smoothies, and Sunday-morning lines down the sidewalk. Lost in the fire. Owners have said publicly they intend to rebuild here.

2002–2025 · Gathering

05 · Sunset Boulevard, Palisades Village

Paliskates

Surf shop, skate shop, kid-employment ladder, and de facto teenage clubhouse for twenty-five years. The wall behind the register was covered in Polaroids of every grom who ever worked the counter.

2000–2025 · Gathering · 1 remembered

06 · 17190 W. Sunset Boulevard

Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

Founded by Paramahansa Yogananda on August 20, 1950, on the only natural spring-fed lake in Los Angeles. Koi, swans, lotus, and the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial — which holds a portion of Gandhi's ashes in a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China. The grounds survived the fire.

since 1950 · Landmark

07 · 1501 Will Rogers Park Road

Will Rogers State Historic Park

Will Rogers's 359-acre ranch — 31-room ranch house, polo field, stables, riding trails — donated to the state by his widow Betty in 1944. Listed on the National Register in 1971. Reopened ten months after the Palisades Fire damaged the surrounding land.

since 1944 · In nature · 1 remembered

08 · 16800 W. Pacific Coast Highway

Bel-Air Bay Club

Officially incorporated June 2, 1927. Financed by developer Alphonzo Bell as part of his larger Bel-Air real-estate vision. Weddings, anniversaries, an entire century of Palisades milestones marked here, ocean on one side and the bluffs on the other.

since 1927 · Landmark

09 · 1550 San Remo Drive

The Thomas Mann House

The Nobel laureate Thomas Mann had this house built in 1942 after fleeing Nazi Germany, and wrote Doctor Faustus here. A gathering place for exiled European writers and musicians through the 1940s. Bought by the Federal Republic of Germany in 2016 and run as a residency for transatlantic thinkers.

1942–1952 · Landmark · 1 remembered

10 · 15777 Bowdoin Street

Palisades Charter High School

"Pali High," opened in 1961, has stood in for the American high school in countless films and shows — Carrie, Freaky Friday, Project X. Damaged in the January 2025 Palisades Fire; the community rallied to bring students back.

since 1961 · Landmark