More than a century after the Titanic sank in April 1912; few new stories surface from the wreck. When documentary filmmaker Arthur Jones and his team started work on “The Six” — their film about the ship’s six Chinese survivors — in 2012, they kept expecting to find that someone ... Read More »

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Lucius Beebe was probably the first gay man and major celebrity to have a publicly open relationship. An author, journalist, historian, raconteur, gourmet, and bon vivant extraordinary – this extraordinary personality was world-famous and a long-time columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He loved trains and ... Read More »

In February 1929, Los Angeles lawyer Fred Horowitz opened the apartment building he had built just west of the city limits on an unpaved stretch of Sunset Boulevard. Named Chateau Marmont, it looked like a Loire Valley castle in France and was marketed to burghers of outlying cities seeking pieds-à-terre in a spot ... Read More »

When Ernie Byfield opened The Pump Room in the Ambassador East Hotel on October 1, 1938, he undoubtedly had little idea that he was beginning an enterprise that would still be thriving to this day. Today, The Pump Room remains a highly acclaimed restaurant and Chicago landmark. Located in Chicago’s ... Read More »

By the mid-1960s, when jets had killed off all but the stragglers on the North Atlantic, Home Lines introduced the OCEANIC. Home Lines proudly proclaimed that their 39,000 tonner was “the largest ship built exclusively for cruising.” By the mid-1960s, when jets had killed off all but the stragglers on ... Read More »

Los Angeles used to have a public transit system that covered about 25 percent more track mileage than New York City’s current subway system. In its eco-heyday in 1945, LA had more than 900 hydro-electric Pacific Electric “Red Cars” that covered more than 1,100 miles, from Pasadena to downtown LA, ... Read More »

Cruise expert Michael L Grace explains how cruising began. The earliest ocean-going vessels were not primarily concerned with passengers, but rather with the cargo that they could carry. Black Ball Line in New York,?in 1818, was the first shipping company to offer regularly scheduled service from the United States to ... Read More »