Episode

Smoglandia Pt 1: L.A. SMOG – VERY OLD-SCHOOL

Podcast: Boiling Point
Published: Oct 30, 2025
Duration seconds: 1477
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Summary

Don’t blame us – blame our geography! Modern LA earned its first smoggy nickname 450 years ago, as the “bay of smokes.” At the La Brea tar pits, we take a short walk through a long history with curator Regan Dunn, who explains how and why the first Angelenos, 130 centuries ago, would have set fires that filled the broad bowl of LA and foretold the curse of smog. Fast forward thousands of years to the early 1940s, and the renowned artist Helen Pashgian, who grew up in Altadena back when the light around LA – once so radiant and cool – was slowly smothered by the blight from wartime industries that hurt her schoolgirl lungs and blotted out the once-glorious vistas.