Exposition Park & USC

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Places worth stopping at

With the app in your pocket, you get a note about each one as you walk by.

• Station1›

  • Expo Park/USC station

    Off the E Line here: Exposition Park lies to one side of the boulevard, USC to the other. The Coliseum hosts its third Olympics in 2028.

• Museums6›

  • Natural History Museum

    The largest natural and historical museum in the western US: nearly 35 million specimens, among them kyawthuite, the rarest gemstone in the world.

  • Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

    George Lucas and Mellody Hobson's museum of storytelling, open since September 2026: Rockwell, Kirby, Frazetta, and the Great Wall of LA's archive.

  • California African American Museum

    CAAM tells African American history, art and culture with a focus on California and the West. Admission is free.

  • California Science Center

    Free galleries, and Ham the chimp's Mercury capsule. Shuttle Endeavour, off view since 2023, is due back in November 2026, standing 20 storeys tall.

  • USC Fisher Museum of Art

    The first art museum founded in the city of Los Angeles, in 1939. Look for a Rubens: Venus Wounded by a Thorn.

  • Velaslavasay Panorama

    Inside the old Union Theatre: a painted 360-degree panorama, the only one made in the US since the 1800s. Sara Velas founded it in 2000.

• The park2›

  • Exposition Park Rose Garden

    Seven sunken acres of roses, planted in 1927 with 15,000 bushes. Before that this ground held horse, camel and car races.

  • The "oldest" palm tree

    This fan palm may be the most-moved tree in LA: it greeted travellers at the Arcade Depot from 1889 and was replanted here in 1914.

• Stadiums3›

  • Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

    Look up at the peristyle: the 1932 cauldron still sits above the arch. Olympics in 1932 and 1984; in 2028 the first stadium to host three.

  • The 1932 Olympic swim stadium

    Built for the 1932 Olympics: diving, swimming and water polo were held in this 50-metre pool, which once seated 10,000.

  • BMO Stadium

    Home of LAFC and Angel City FC. Opened in 2018 on the old Sports Arena site, the first open-air stadium built in LA since Dodger Stadium.

• Statues3›

  • Neil Armstrong statue

    Neil Armstrong in bronze, unveiled in 2013: the first man on the Moon studied here at USC.

  • Tommy Trojan

    Tommy Trojan, 1930: the sculptor modelled him on USC football players, and a $1 ticket surcharge paid off his $10,000 cost.

  • Hecuba statue

    Hecuba, queen of Troy, 12 feet tall: unveiled in 2017 as Tommy Trojan's female counterpart, at the heart of USC Village.

• Landmarks2›

  • Doheny Library

    Shakespeare and Dante guard the door of Doheny Library, given by oilman Edward Doheny in 1932 after his son was shot.

  • Shrine Auditorium

    The Shrine opened in 1926, replacing a temple that burned in 30 minutes in 1920. Late-60s rock crowds called it "The Pinnacle".

• Houses & stories7›

  • Widney Alumni House

    USC's first building, opened to students on October 6, 1880: the oldest university building in Southern California.

  • Casa de Rosas

    Casa de Rosas, 1893: an experimental kindergarten, a girls' school, WWII barracks and L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics HQ. LA's oldest women's shelter.

  • Miller and Herriott House

    An 1890 Stick-and-Eastlake Victorian from the Harper Tract, built between West Adams and the young university; student housing now.

  • Adlai Stevenson's birthplace

    Adlai Stevenson II was born in this house in 1900, on what was then "millionaire row". Silent star Bebe Daniels lived here in the 1920s.

  • ONE Archives

    ONE Archives, now part of USC Libraries: the oldest LGBTQ organization in the US, with over two million items. Free to use in opening hours.

  • Chester Place

    One of LA's first gated streets, home to oilman Edward Doheny. Estelle Doheny left it to Mount St. Mary's College, its campus since 1962.

  • Stimson House

    Stimson House, 1891: called the costliest home in LA, it survived a blackmailer's dynamite in 1896, then served brewers, frat boys and nuns.

• Churches3›

  • Second Church of Christ, Scientist

    The 1910 Classical Revival church on West Adams played the courthouse in Matlock. It has been the Art of Living Center since 2009.

  • St. Vincent de Paul Church

    Locals call it "the Church of Holy Oils": oilman Edward Doheny paid for it, dedicated in 1925, when this was one of LA's richest districts.

  • St. John's Cathedral

    St. John's, built in 1925 in Romanesque Revival style, is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

Walks

Start a walk in the app and put your phone away. It tells you when you reach each stop.

• Walk

  From Expo Park/USC station

  10 stops · 3.0 km · 1 hr 15

  A loop from the E Line station round Exposition Park: the Rose Garden, the museums, the Coliseum's peristyle, the 1932 pool and the most-moved palm in LA, back to the station.

• Walk

  USC to West Adams

  17 stops · 6.2 km · 2 hr

  Through the USC campus from the Fisher Museum to the Shrine and USC Village, then north into the Victorian streets of North University Park and the Doheny mansions and churches.

More of Los Angeles

All of Los Angeles: places, walks and routes