Signed by author First Edition Hardcover with dust jacket Pre-owned, good condition, slight wave/flaw to bottom right corner of jacket "Wilshire Boulevard is the unofficial Main Street of dreams flowing through Los Angeles history. Like Los Angeles itself, Wilshire is an accidental phenomenon created out of civic pride and the yearning of the masses to drive. Given such illustrious nicknames as the Fifth Avenue of the West and the Champs Elysees of the Pacific, it's no wonder that over the years Wilshire has become one of the world's most renowned thoroughfares. In the pages of Wilshire Boulevard, celebrated author Keven Roderick tells the remarkable story of the boulevard's development from a dirt road through a barley field in 1895 to the bustling fifteen-mile central concourse of the City of Angels. Roderick and urban anthropologist J. Eric Lynxwiler illustrate Wilshire's style, architecture and historic prominence with 150 vintage images culled from private collections and the state's most important archives. The meticulously researched story and glorious visuals allow readers to understand Wilshire Boulevard's impact on the world's first auto-dependent metropolis. Wilshire Boulevard details the thoroughfare's crucial part in the emergence of Los Angeles as a world-class city and relates the fascinating story of Gaylord Wilshire, the turn-of-the-century social gadfly who would have relished his eponymous avenue's enduring fame. For anyone who has lived the life that is Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard recounts an important past." -- The Publishers.