Project description: This project was inspired by Downtown Los Angeles’ historical theatres and their potential connection to the culture around alcoholic bootlegging through tunnels and speakeasies during Prohibition. Though speakeasies are secretive by nature, my group investigated suspected operating speakeasies inside historical theatres and the culture around Prohibition as a whole. Using mapping technology, individual sources, and thorough research, we created a plausible argument that downtown LA theatres hid speakeasies during Prohibition. The questions we focused on addressing were: “Is there evidence of speakeasies in theatres during the Prohibition era in 1920-1933?” and “How was the culture around theatres and speakeasies affected both during Prohibition and today?”.

First map (DH 199 theatres x tunnels): This map shows potential overlap between theatres and tunnels in downtown Los Angeles during prohibition. Tunnels are represented by blue squares while theatres are represented by yellow circles. We notice that at least half of the blue squares are relatively close to yellow circles, which means that at least half of the tunnels were relatively close to the theatres. This suggests the speakeasies may have well been located in or near these theatres.

For example, when looking at the area where several tunnels are quite near the California theatre and the geographic location today, there is now a Melanie’s Wine Parlor that is popular today along West 3rd Street (Dorsey 2021).

Second map (DH 199 speakeasies?): With this map, we’ve color coded the theatres around downtown Los Angeles based on which may have been speakeasies. The darkest color, burgundy, indicates a high likelihood of the theatre being a speakeasy, as well as, in some cases, representing confirmed locations of known speakeasies during Prohibition. On the other hand, the lighter colored dots symbolize theatres with a lower likelihood of being speakeasies. 

 Our research conveyed there were confirmed speakeasies in downtown Los Angeles, but we were unsure if there were speakeasies in theatres. In creating this map, we rated each historic theatre 1-5 based on how likely it was that the theatre may have also been home to a speakeasy, with 1 being extremely unlikely, and 5 being highly likely. For the few theatres that we rated a 5, our belief that there could have been a speakeasy comes from knowledge of the theatre’s basement space, various sources, and any other evidence we were able to gather through this project. When clicking on a specific theatre, you will find the “Speakeasy_rate_1-5”, the value for which the theatre was rated with, and “Proof”, the evidence leading to the specific rating of that particular theatre being a suspected speakeasy.

​You can also view tunnels in blue, again suggesting an association between tunnels and theatres and the likelihood of speakeasies. It is also interesting to note that as stated earlier with tunnels congregating the area where theatres were along West 3rd Street, there are, in addition and in this case, theatres with a high likelihood of being speakeasies.

Project description: My group and I were tasked with brainstorming a video game and coming up with every aspect of its development and creative process—everything but the actual game’s development. Our pitch deck shows what we presented in the class, and thanks to my incredible group, we were able to mock up the game itself, the logo, and the adorable drawing you see on the left. I can’t take credit for any of that; my responsibilities fell mainly on the editorial and brand design side. You can click the button above to view our ten pager, which is the document we used to share every detail of the game. I’m not sure if the game will actually be developed, but the concept behind Sammie is that it’s aimed to show how hard it is to struggle with anxiety, and point out that mental health isn’t a joke. I’m not a huge gamer myself, but it was really cool to step into the video game world to conceptualize a game of my group’s design and desire.