5 Hidden Gems Los Angeles

Why it made the list: An utterly unclassifiable museum in Culver City, dim, hushed and full of exhibits that blur the line between fact, art and elaborate hoax. You leave unsure what was real, which is exactly the point. There's nothing else like it anywhere.

Why it made the list: Behind a plain 1893 facade downtown hides a breathtaking sunlit atrium of wrought-iron railings, open cage elevators and glazed brick, the one you've seen in Blade Runner. The lobby is open to visitors and it's free, an easy jaw-drop.

Why it made the list: Seventeen soaring sculptural towers built by hand over 33 years by a single Italian immigrant, Simon Rodia, out of steel, mortar, tile and broken pottery. It's one of the great works of American folk art, and it rises out of a South LA neighborhood most visitors never reach.

Why it made the list: California's largest used and new bookstore, set in a former bank downtown, with soaring columns, a labyrinth of shelves upstairs and the famous tunnel of arched books. It's part bookshop, part art installation, and endlessly photogenic.

Why it made the list: A cliffside stretch in San Pedro where a 1929 landslide sent a neighborhood sliding toward the sea, leaving cracked streets, tumbled foundations and colorful graffiti perched above the crashing Pacific. It's eerie, beautiful and gloriously off the tourist map.