To any forum member living in Los Angeles I'd recommend making a visit to The Center for Land Use Interpretation
The Center for Land Use Interpretation in Palms right next to the Museum of Jurassic Technology before election day Nov. 8 .
Currently in display
A president’s outsized stature as an individual, and as the interpreter-in-chief of America, can make for interesting terrestrial manifestations. From birthplace to tomb, and at points in between, each president’s personal history forms a geography of their identity and legacy. For many early presidents, their landscape evolved over time, shaped by historians and others as the nation claimed its past. More recently, presidents get directly involved, designing their official museum, library, and historical parks while still in office and in the years of their post-presidency. Whether done for them, by them, or a little of both, each presidency leaves sites that end up on the physical map of the nation, creating lasting landmarks on that ultimate political and cultural document: the shared terrain of these United States.
Exhibit on display at
CLUI Los Angeles through November 8, 2016.
This exhibit is supported by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
There are four touch screen displays showing various landmarks associated with each president. Birthplaces, childhood honesschools, burial places etc. It's kind of interesting seeing the difference between the various presidents as to the lengths that places are memorialized and placed associated with them, from Tombs (Grant) to a little plaque right in front of a gas station (Arthur) to a current India spice shop in N.Y. C. Another previous president (I forgot who) had his childhood home used for kindling.
Also little bits of trivia are mentioned that I felt was interestinting. One being that William Harrison; considered to be the first president to do the campaign circuit was the down home folksy "log cabin and hard cider" candidate and in his honor promotets handed out whiskey in log cabin-shaped bottles supplied by the E.C. Booz distillery which is where we get the word booze from. A note to Trump and all birthers, did you know that we had an earlier president that had a questionable pedigree as far as his birthplace? We're looking at you Chester A Arthur, you backstabbing turncoat (see the American experience episode on James Garfield)
This exhibit probably does have limited interest to most people but not me. I'm a real geek for this place. I spent 3 hours this afternoon zipping through Presidents Washington through Grover Cleveland I'll probably do the rest next Saturday and about a year ago I spent two consecutive Sundays going through a very impressive display they had showing the full nearly 4,000 mile border between the US and Canada in all its idiosyncratic glory.