An Author Night Program with Historian Tom Zimmerman will be presented in the South Pasadena Library Community Roomon Thursday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m.  The program is presented by the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, and the Library. Zimmerman has penned two recent books:  Downtown in Detail: Close-Up on the Historic Buildings ofDowntown Los Angeles and Paradise Promoted: The Booster Campaign that Created Los Angeles 1870-1930.

Downtown in Detail stunningly shows off Zimmerman’s lively, insightful analyses of downtown LA’s most glorious architectural landmarks of a bygone era. It also showcases his perceptive photographs of a wealth of our grandest architectural marvels, and their sculptures, tiles, clock towers, and gargoyles. The book is designed as a walking tour guide, map included, that will lead visitors enjoyably to a wealth of distinctive palaces in and near the Historic Core around Main, Spring, Broadway, and Hill Streets. In doing so, Zimmerman passionately makes the case that Los Angeles still has the most intact pre-World War II downtown in the United States. While other cities were demolishing their downtown buildings at an alarming clip, suburban sprawl in the name of progress was taking place in Los Angeles .There was simply no need to tear down LA’s downtown buildings because nobody wanted to build anything new there anyway.

An opulent coffee table book with more than 250 photographs, Paradise Promoted explores the years from 1870 to 1930 when a small town was developed into the city that would become America’s most cutting-edge metropolis. It also presents rare ephemera collected by Zimmerman that served as important elements of the longest, loudest, most persistent promotional campaign in the history of the United States.

Tom Zimmerman is a native Southern Californian whose photographs are in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and California State Library.

The Community Room is located at 1115 El Centro Street. No tickets or reservations are necessary. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and refreshments will be provided.