These might be the hardest to find of the more than 800 museums around Los Angeles
Is your shelf of Labubus a museum? Probably not. Are Scott Bader’s shelves of slot cars a museum? Yes, but you might not get to see it. Like several of L.A.’s quirkier institutions of collecting, The Los Angeles Slot Car Museum is a private display. “Supposedly he gives tours,” says Todd Lerew, author of Also On View: Unique and Unexpected Museums of Greater Los Angeles. “But I added my name to a sign-up list and have never heard anything.”
Lerew has documented some 800 museums around Southern California on his website everymuseum.la and has spent years tracking them down. The ones you’ve heard of keep regular hours and hopefully have a sign, front door and a gift shop. Others require you to try your luck attempting to gain entry during the brief window they may or may not be open.
The McDonald’s Museum in San BernardinoCredit: Photo by Jeremy Thompson
We love the sanctioned but teensy hamburger museum situated near the restrooms of the world’s oldest McDonald’s in Downey, but the unofficial McDonald’s museum in San Bernardino is far more intriguing. Gen X McDonaldland fans who miss Hamburglar and Grimace can visit them in the locked up in display cases in the “not for sale” section of Frank & Son Collectible Show.
Some museums are known to the hobby but not to the general public. They don’t advertise, but stereoscopists know which Echo Park basement houses 3-D Space and deltiologists know where to find the epic postcard collection at Loyola Marymount University.
3-D Space in Echo ParkCredit: Photo by Eric Kurland
A reader once sent this writer in search of the 1950s-era air conditioning museum hidden inside the Joint Journeyman and Apprentice Training Center downtown, but cannot attest to its current condition. “Sometimes it’s a passion project for some really dedicated employee,” Lerew says. “And once they’re gone… if the company doesn’t really need the space or have the heart to take it out, often it just gets to stay since no one else knows what to do with it.”
“The Icelandic Phallological Museum was in a tiny fishing village in Iceland,” Lerew says. “They’re supposed to be open three hours a week and we arrived during that brief window. The proprietor was going to a tea party and refused to let us in the penis museum. It was devastating.” The postal museum under the San Pedro post office has similarly flummoxed the indefatigable explorer. “Every time I go they say it’s closed,” Lerew says. “The person at the counter said it was permanently closed but if you look through the mail slot you can see that it hadn’t been touched.”
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San Pedro Post OfficeCredit: Photo by Los Angeles
Since many displays are created by a single dedicated individual, like hairstylist Oran G, creator of the Black Facts & Wax museum in the Crenshaw neighborhood. When the building he rented was sold, the collection went into indefinite hibernation in a desert storage locker. We hope to see that one again someday.
The Hancock Museum at USC includes four rooms inspired by the Villa de Medici in Florence that were salvaged from a turn-of-the-century mansion and relocated to the university library. Years ago, these were open for regular tours. Today, the grand reception hall, dining room, library and music room are dark. “They’re refusing to let anybody in. The woman who had the keys years ago retired and nobody’s in charge of it,” Lerew says. “Because of the (original) bequest they can’t legally get rid of it, but it’s inaccessible.”
Lerew, who continues to seek out all the museums of Los Angeles, is not easily deterred by a locked door. “The devastation is temporary,” he notes. “Because I also know that there is always more to explore…indeed, much more than one can hope to see in a lifetime, no matter how hard we try!”