Rancho San Pedro

The Mary Star of the Sea High School (Mary Star High) is a private, Roman Catholic high school in San Pedro neighborhood, Los Angeles, California. The school is operated by Mary Star of the Sea Parish under the supervision of the Department of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It was named one of the Top 50 Catholic High Schools in America in 2006.

Rancho de los Palos Verdes was a 31,629-acre (128.00 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to José Loreto and Juan Capistrano Sepulveda. The name means "ranch of the green trees". The grant encompassed the present-day cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, as well as portions of San Pedro and Torrance.

Lomita (Spanish for "Little hill") is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 20,921 at the 2020 census, up slightly from 20,256 at the 2010 census.

Rolling Hills is a city on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Rolling Hills is a gated community with private roads with three entry gates. Homes are single-story 19th century California ranch or Spanish haciendas exemplified by architect Wallace Neff. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills maintains a rural and equestrian character, with no traffic lights, multi-acre lots with ample space between homes, and wide equestrian paths along streets and property lines.Rolling Hills has the third highest median house value in the United States. Homes are required to have white exterior paint. Homeowners are also required to maintain horse property on their lots, or at minimum keep land where stalls could be built. The community was developed by A. E. Hanson, who also developed Hidden Hills.Residents work, shop, attend school, and obtain other services in the other towns on the Palos Verdes Peninsula as the only commercially zoned land within the city is occupied by the Rolling Hills City Hall, Rolling Hills Community Association, and LA County Fire Department Station 56. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 1,739, down from 1,860 at the 2010 census.

Peck Park is a public park located in the San Pedro district of Los Angeles, California. The park's address is 560 Western Avenue, near the intersection with Summerland Avenue. Peck Park is managed by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. Facilities at the park include a swimming pool, a baseball diamond, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, extensive hiking trails, and a child care center. In 1997 the Peck Park gymnasium was designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Inc. The park is the largest of four in San Pedro named for notable land owner and developer George H. Peck and his family; Peck began to donate the land to the city for the park starting in 1929. The other three parks are named after his three children (Rena, Alma, and Leland).

The South Coast Botanic Garden is a 87 acres (35 ha) botanical garden in the Palos Verdes Hills, in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, California, United States, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Los Angeles International Airport. It has over 150,000 landscaped plants and trees from approximately 140 families, 700 genera, and 2,000 different species, including flowering fruit trees, Coast Redwoods, Ginkgos and Pittosporum. It is particularly rich in plants from Australia and South Africa. Its gardens include the Water-wise Garden, Herb Garden, English Rose Garden, and Garden of the Senses. A small lake and stream bed attract various birds such as ducks, geese, coots, and herons. Over 300 species of birds have been recorded. The lake is currently empty. The site was operated as an open pit mine from 1929 until 1956, producing over one million tons of crude diatomite. With declining production, the land was sold in 1957 to the County of Los Angeles for a sanitary landfill, which was in use until 1965. Starting in 1961, an experiment in land reclamation began when County Board of Supervisors approved a motion establishing the site as the South Coast Botanic Garden, which was landscaped over 3.5 million tons of refuse, in an example of land recycling. The Sanitation District in cooperation with other County agencies carried out initial planning, grading and contouring. Operating responsibilities were given to the Los Angeles County Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens. In April 1961, the first large-scale planting took place on completed fill overlooking Rolling Hills Road, with over 40,000 plants donated by individuals, nurseries and the County Arboretum. The site presents unusual difficulties in gardening. First, its soil is composed almost entirely of diatomaceous earth. Second, because of the diverse nature and thickness of the fill, settling rates vary throughout the garden resulting in frequent irrigation system breakage. Third, heat is caused by decomposition of organic matter below the soil surface, and it is accompanied by the production of gases, primarily carbon dioxide and methane.

The Palos Verdes Hills are a low mountain range on the southwestern coast of Los Angeles County, California. They sit atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Palos Verdes Hills are the landed end of the Channel Islands of California, a mountains formation in the Transverse Ranges System.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula (Palos Verdes, Spanish for "Green Sticks [trees]") is a peninsula and sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the South Bay region, the peninsula contains a group of cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, including Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, as well as the unincorporated community of Westfield/Academy Hill. The South Bay city of Torrance borders the peninsula on the north, the Pacific Ocean is on the west and south, and the Port of Los Angeles is east. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the Palos Verdes Peninsula is 65,008. The hill cities on the peninsula are known for dramatic ocean and city views, distinguished schools, extensive horse trails, and high value homes.

The Lomita Railroad Museum is a museum in Lomita, California devoted to California railroad history. “Exhibits include a full-size steam locomotive with tender and caboose, and a station housing scale models, photographs and paintings of trains.” It was founded by Irene Lewis in the early 1960s on a single lot in the middle of a residential part of Lomita, and had its grand opening on June 23, 1967. The museum building is a replica of a 19th-century depot, Boston & Maine's Greenwood Station that once stood in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and there is a full size replica of a water tower. The museum grounds now function as a small public park.

Ground Equipment Facility J-31 (San Pedro Hill Air Force Station during the Cold War) is a Joint Surveillance System radar site of the Western Air Defense Sector (WADS) and the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control radar network [1] for the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center. The facility's Air Route Surveillance Radar Model 1E with an ATCBI-6 beacon interrogator system are operated by the FAA and provide sector data to North American Aerospace Defense Command. The site provided Semi-Automatic Ground Environment data to the 1959-66 Norton AFB Direction Center for the USAF Los Angeles Air Defense Sector. The site also provided Project Nike data to the 1960-74 Fort MacArthur Direction Center ~3 mi (4.8 km) away for the smaller US Army Los Angeles Defense Area—as well as gap-filler radar coverage for the 1963-74 Integrated Fire Control area of Malibu Nike battery LA-78 on San Vicente Mountain.

Harbor City is a highly diverse neighborhood in the South Bay and Harbor region of Los Angeles, California, with a population upward of 36,000 people. Originally part of the Rancho San Pedro Spanish land grant, the 2.58-square-mile (6.7 km2) Harbor City was brought into Los Angeles as a preliminary step in the larger city's consolidation with the port cities of Wilmington and San Pedro. The area includes two high schools and seven other schools, as well as the Ken Malloy Harbor Regional and two other parks. There is a Kaiser Permanente hospital as well. Harbor City's percentage of high school graduates is larger than the city's as a whole.

Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, commonly Harbor Park, is a 231-acre (0.93 km2) Los Angeles municipal park featuring a golf course and 45-acre (0.18 km2) Machado Lake and freshwater wetland. Harbor Park is the third-largest park in Los Angeles city parks system after Griffith Park and Elysian Park.Harbor Park is located west of Harbor Freeway and south of Pacific Coast Highway, adjacent to Los Angeles Harbor College. In addition to the lake and golf course, amenities include barbecue pits and picnic tables, children's playgrounds, a bike path and walking trail, and an outdoor fitness zone.The park is visited by migratory birds and is a "dedicated city wildlife sanctuary." More than 160 species of birds have been observed in the park since it reopened in 2017 after a rehab, and it's "one of the best places in the South Bay" to see the "secretive" marsh wren. The historic pre-development bird list for the park land is significantly longer. However, the park's wetland habitat is periodically disrupted by litter and debris flows from city storm drains. The park is a "natural low point, collecting water from a 9,000-acre (36 km2) watershed."The refurbishment completed in 2017 included "pathways, four observation piers, two observation zones, two pedestrian bridges, interpretive signs, new park fixtures, 622 new park trees, and over 50,000 new plants."Prior to the improvements "alien species and pollution [were] serious problems at the park." Circa 2011, problematic invasive species with breeding populations within the park included "bullfrogs, apple snails as big as baseballs and Florida banded water snakes."The infamous alligator Reggie lived at the park for two years from 2005 to 2007 until he was finally captured and relocated to the Los Angeles Zoo. (The two-year hunt for Reggie "astoundingly…netted another, smaller alligator.")As of 2014, Lake Machado was described as “a state-designated 'impaired water body' because of its witch's brew of trash, algae, coliform bacteria, foul odors and hazardous substances. Adjacent habitat is strewn with broken glass. Interlopers wage paintball wars and drive vehicles through the nesting and foraging grounds of more than 300 species of birds. The park has only one working restroom and no security. Brush fires are annual events."Prior to 2002, "Boating and fishing were originally allowed in the Lake, and until recently fish were stocked in the Lake. As water quality deteriorated and toxic sediment accumulated, boating was stopped and signs have been posted with warnings about the risk of eating fish from the Lake.""Mosquitoes have been a chronic problem that has been exacerbated by flourishing tule growth in the accumulated sediments along the east shore," noted a report in the Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation. Encephalitis-bearing mosquitoes were found in the park at one point and a caged flock of hens was placed in the park to use for mosquito testing. (Mosquitoes apparently prefer to feast on poultry before primate when given a choice.)