THE QUESTIONS:

  1. Which of these terms best describes your relationship to Los Angeles: point of origin, detour, or destination?
  2. What year does your relationship with Los Angeles begin?
  3. Can you describe your first house or apartment of significance in L.A.? What was the street? Who were the neighbors?
  4. When the city was new to you, where did you go for fun? What were your rituals?
  5. What song or piece of music evokes the neighborhood where you grew up? (Alt: What song or piece of music evokes the period when you were new to L.A.?)
  6. When you first ventured into the city beyond your immediate environs, what were the places that made an impression? Who showed you these places?
  7. When radio mattered in Los Angeles, what program, station, or announcer did you love?
  8. Describe your first, favorite, or most memorable car.
  9. Describe the restaurant in which you've spent the most hours.
  10. What outdoor space in Los Angeles have you spent the most hours?
  11. Whether or not you swam, what beach or pool lingers in your memory?
  12. What movie theater would you bring back from the dead?
  13. What is a bar or nightclub you loved that no longer exists?
  14. What household threw the best parties or the parties that you best remember?
  15. What was your first earthquake or your worst earthquake?
  16. If you had the power to preserve a space or building in Los Angeles, what would you protect? Not necessarily for the public good but for personal reasons.
  17. Conversely, what’s something you would tear down?
  18. Besides the traffic, what’s one specific change you've observed in Los Angeles over the period you’ve known it?
  19. Conversely, what’s one thing that hasn't changed—in other words, one thing in Los Angeles that is timeless?
  20. What is a place in Los Angeles that was described to you but you never got to see for yourself? In other words, a place that lives only in your imagination?
  21. What demolition broke your heart?
  22. Whose backyard would you return to if you could?
  23. What is the current view out your window or a view that you see on a daily basis?
  24. Can you describe a personal memento of Los Angeles—a token of the city you’ve kept in the form of an image or an object? A photo of this artifact will be posted with your interview.