TravelTips24 : North America : United States of America : California : Southern California : Los Angeles County : West Side : Culver City
Culver City
Culver City [1] is located on the West Side of Los Angeles County. The city is best known for film and TV production, including MGM studios, which is now part of Sony Pictures. Some of the most famous films of all time were shot here, including Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone With the Wind, as well as the television series I Love Lucy, at Desilu Studios.
Culture and History
Culver City was founded in 1913 by Harry Culver, a brilliant real estate developer from Nebraska who sold tract homes to "immigrants" from the Midwest. For a monthly mortgage payment, the homes included furniture, dishes, a record player, and sometimes even a Model T. In the 1920s, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach and Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) built studios.
By the '30s, Culver City boasted three major film studios, including MGM, and was publicized as the "Heart of Screenland."
Hundreds of movies have been produced on the lots of Culver City's studios, including the Tarzan series and the original King Kong. The yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz is still inside the lot on Stage 27 of Sony Studios. More recent films include Grease, Raging Bull, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, City Slickers, Wag the Dog and Contact. Television shows made on Culver City sets include Lassie, I Love Lucy, Batman, The Andy Griffith Show and Jeopardy!
Outside of the studios, Culver City is mostly comprised of middle class homes that were originally built to house studio workers. Some of the street names reflect the heritage, such as (Mary) Pickford and (Douglas) Fairbanks.
Culver City's downtown has been undergoing a rejuvenation with new restaurants, art galleries, theaters and shops.
Travel to Culver City & Visa Requirements
CityBus Line 6 connects directly to the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) Transit Center. There are services every 15 minutes peak, 30-60 min off-peak.
Tours & Getting around Culver City
Culver CityBus [2] operates buses in and around Culver City.
Culver City attractions and sightseeing
- Museum of Jurassic Technology, 9341 Venice Blvd.(four blocks west of Robertson Boulevard), ☎ +1-310-836-6131(info@mjt.org), [3]. Th 2PM-8PM, F-Su 12PM-6PM. This museum is an artistic mixture of fact and fiction, featuring weird and wonderful displays of things that never happened, next to strange but true practices of bygone years. It can be hard to distinguish between the two, and it's best not to try. An enjoyable afternoon's visit and a tribute to the weirdness of the world. An upstairs tea room serves complimentary tea and cookies. Free movie screenings hourly. This attraction is actually in the Palms district of Los Angeles, although it has a Culver City address.$5 suggested donation.
Didn't find what you were looking for.
Ask for advice at the Culver City travel forum
This page was last edited at 03:25, on 12 December 2008 by Ryan Holliday. Based on work by George Garrigues, Pamela Hirneisen, Jeff, Frederick Heald, Tim Sandell, Jani Patokallio and Evan Prodromou, Wikitravel user(s) Cacahuate, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel and others.
Content on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license
