On the same day we visited LACMA, my family and I went to the La Brea Tar Pits. It’s a location that I’ve wanted to visit since I moved to LA but never made it a priority.
The history of the La Brea Tar Pits reveals so much about how LA developed geologically and the animals that lived in the area eons ago. Scientists have recovered everything from bugs to mammoths out of the tar and they continue every day. I use this word too much, but the museum was awesome.
The Good
The historical and geologic aspects were well organized and clear. I loved being able to watch the archeologists work – sorting objects and cleaning off tar from specimens. The perspective that the assembled bones provided was cool to see as well – a giant sloth bigger than a bear, woolly mammoths, and saber toothed tigers were assembled around the exhibit.
I liked the interactive exhibit with actual tar! You stood next to a bin and pulled or pushed on a bar sunk into tar – really illustrative of how the animals got stuck.
The Bad
The whole place needs to be dusted and updated. Not all, but many of the exhibits had dust on them or the strings of former spider webs. A few of the animated figures moved poorly, were weirdly placed and kind of noisy. It was raining heavily the day we visited so we weren’t able to go into the central atrium of the building. I’m not sure if that’s normal or the rain but I really wanted to walk through.