Attack of the L.A. smog archives

Wired magazine culled some photos of Los Angeles smog from the L.A. Times archive at UCLA. This one of the Civic Center enshrouded, with City Hall in the haze at left, is from January 5, 1948. [January! - ed.] Monday was the 67th anniversary of the infamous really, really black day when people looked around and said dang, we have an air pollution problem here. "People in Los Angeles were very proud of their air," says Chip Jacobs, one of the authors of "Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Smog in Los Angeles." "They said that L.A. was the land of pure air, and that moving there could cure tuberculosis and alcoholism. They thought there had to be one simple answer."