Local Museum Details Los Angeles Automotive Past by Matthew Paolini

The great Los Angeles automotive love affair has been in effect for a century and is being linked together in a historical display in one of the globe's biggest and most innovative automotive museums. The Petersen Automotive Museum is situated on Wilshire Blvd. along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. It is a non-profit organization specializing in the history of the automobile.
Established in June 1994 by Robert E. Petersen, the 40 million dollar edifice is administrated over by the Petersen Automotive Museum Foundation. Previously situated within the Natural History Museum, the automotive museum is now resident in the old Ohrbach's department store space. The store was originally built in 1962 for a transitory U.S. branch of Sogo, a Japanese department store chain.

Those who visit the museum will see a 20th Century road map showing the creation of a culture that has influenced life throughout Southern California. The displays tell a story that can be told and appreciated in Los Angeles, the only large metropolis that was entirely influenced by the automobile. The city's development has been, and continues to be dictated to by the motorcar.

The three floors of automotive history take the museum visitor through time and traces the development of the motorcar and its influence on the society of Los Angeles. Exhibits on the first floor follow the history of the automobile. Lifesize dioramas and settings allow visitors to view the automobile as it relates to everyday life.

The second floor contains five huge, rotating exhibition galleries with high-tech presentations of classic cars, racecars, cycles and movie cars.

The May Family Children's Discovery Center, on the third floor, is designed to spark children's interest in science by way of the automobile. The 6,500 square-foot, hands-on learning center instructions on basic scientific principles using the basic elements of a car.

A modern glass penthouse conference center, is situated on the fourth floor. The center is available for corporate or private functions.

In pop culture, notoriously, on March 9, 1997 after a shindig at the museum, well-known hip-hop artist Biggie Smalls got into an SUV with his entourage and drove 50 yards to a red light where he was shot and killed by an assailant. Also, in the 1997 film Volcano, the museum is crushed.