The back rooms of the La Brea Tar Pits are, at the moment, a maze of packing crates tagged with handwritten sticky notes that say things like “bison skulls” or “camel hip.”

Every bone, down to the last dire wolf rib, must be carefully sheathed in a custom foam shell. Sloth jaws and sabertooth fangs and a truly astonishing amount of ancient vertebrae — all of it will be swaddled, catalogued and crated for the next two years.

On July 6, the La Brea Tar Pits will close its doors for a massive renovation. When it reopens in summer 2028, the remodeled Hancock Park museum will be the centerpiece of the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research, a scientific hub dedicated to an era of natural history better preserved here than anywhere else on Earth.

The new grounds, which will largely hew to the current building’s footprint, will better show off the museum’s collection and explain how much the ecosystem preserved in the pits can tell us about where our current one is heading.

But first, somebody has to pack it all up — all 3.5 million fossils, each fragile and irreplaceable, like a house move out of a nightmare.

The same bounty that makes the Tar Pits the best place on Earth to study its slice of the late Pleistocene epoch also makes for a move of truly mammoth proportions.

Moving the museum to a different part of Los Angeles is out of the question. Nature chose its location some 60,000 years ago, when crude petroleum that formed millions of years earlier began seeping to the surface.

For the next 49,000 years, the sticky pits captured virtually everything that fell or walked onto them, from grains of pollen borne by the wind to hapless ancient camels and Columbian mammoths.

The result is a near-complete record of virtually everything that lived in the place now called Los Angeles in the late Pleistocene.

Workers prepare fossils to be packaged and moved.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

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Fossilized dire wolf skulls are displayed before being packed away.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“No city anywhere has anything that’s comparable,” said Regan Dunn, a paleobotanist and curator at the La Brea Tar Pits. “You have this trap, basically, that was just sitting here and collecting all of Los Angeles life for the last 60,000 years.”

It’s an era of natural history with striking parallels to our own — climate change, extinction, devastating fires, a wobbling balance between humans and the rest of the natural world.

In 2023, Dunn and fellow curator Emily Lindsey drew on the collection for a research study documenting how the collapse of biodiversity in the Ice Age coincided with the arrival of humans and the fires they struggled to contain.

“The story [at the Tar Pits] is critical to our understanding not just of Los Angeles, but of what’s happening in the world,” said Lori Bettison-Varga, president of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. “The story of extinction and resilience related to climate and ecological change … is just so relevant.”

It’s not a story visitors can easily follow at the current museum, staff said.

Senior Preparator Laura Tewksbury, left, restores part of a fossilized mammoth hip, alongside Judith Sydner-Gordon, right, inside the Fossil Lab — an active paleontology lab within the museum.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The building, formally known as the George C. Page Museum, opened in 1977, when both the collection and scientists’ understanding of it were significantly smaller.

Some early misconceptions are still reflected in the exhibits. The half-submerged mammoth sculpture in the museum’s iconic outdoor Lake Pit gives the common but inaccurate impression that the tar worked like quicksand, sucking its victims fatally downward. In reality, just a few inches of the sticky stuff was enough to snare a heavy animal in place until it either died of exposure or fell prey to predators, who then became trapped themselves.

Exhibits covering bugs and plants, now understood to be a crucial part of the Ice Age ecosystem, are currently limited to two small wall displays last updated in the 1980s. The saber-toothed cat that appears mirage-like through a window, an optical illusion known as a Pepper’s Ghost, doesn’t reflect modern knowledge of the animal’s anatomy. (The illusion takes up a ton of space, and likely won’t be part of the remodeled museum, Dunn said.)

Early in the planning process, the museum surveyed local community members and museumgoers about which features should carry over to the new design.

The grassy hills around the building that slope at the ideal angle for children to roll down like logs — those had to stay. So did the tar pulls, an interactive exhibit where visitors test their strength against levers submerged in buckets of asphalt.

The outdoor mammoth family sculptures were also nonnegotiable. They will remain in the next iteration, with some landscape alterations to make the scene more scientifically accurate, Bettison-Varga said.

Fossil Lab Manager Stephany Potze restores a rib from a dire wolf pup.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The new layout will make better use of the building’s interior, Bettison-Varga said, with more space for exhibits, storage, research and educational programs.

The lush greenery in the leafy inner courtyard will be replaced with plants more closely related to those of the late Pleistocene, such as cypress and toyon. All of the current mounted Ice Age mammal skeletons will return, along with four new ones: a baby bison, a baby dire wolf, a giant ground sloth constructed of real fossils (the one currently on display is a plaster cast) and Zed, the most complete Columbian mammoth ever found, whose giant remains have been undergoing conservation at the museum for nearly 20 years. He will be displayed as he most likely died — in combat with another male.

A corps of volunteers and employees are working nonstop to pack up the collections, which will be relocated to other NHM properties during the renovation, Dunn said.

On a recent afternoon, volunteers bustled around the museum wheeling carts of jaws and vertebrae carefully organized by species. Visitors peered into the Fish Bowl, the glass-walled lab where white-coated preparators carefully clean fossils. A piece of Zed’s pelvis and ribs sat on a center table.

Volunteer preparator Ricky Whitman restores part of a Columbian mammoth neck vertebrae.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Excavations at the active pits and conservation of fossils will continue during the closure, albeit in different conditions than many fossil handlers are used to.

The museum is working on mobile programming as an alternative for the roughly 34,000 schoolchildren who visit each year on field trips, virtually all of whom spend part of their visit pressed against the glass of the Fish Bowl watching scientists at work. Some of them press questions scribbled on pieces of paper or typed in their phone against the glass, and the preparators answer them with notes of their own. (An expanded Fish Bowl-type lab will be part of the new design, too.)

It’s going to be weird cleaning fossils without anybody watching, volunteer preparators said.

“There are a lot of kids, neighborhood kids, that I get to see as they grow up. It’s a lot of fun,” said Senior Preparator Laura Tewksbury.

WASHINGTON — Water is flowing back into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, after a controversial painting job kept it closed for weeks. And to many onlookers, it doesn’t look much different.

“The pool gets completed at 4 o’clock and the water will start to flow in … and it’s going to be beautiful,” President Trump told reporters in the Oval office on Wednesday.

The next day, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared a video of water bubbling up through a grate on the freshly-darkened pool floor. Trump had the pool’s surface darkened to a shade he calls “American flag blue.” For the last century, he’s said, the pool was “just gray … the color of concrete and stone.”

By Friday morning, the 2,028 foot-long shallow pool had collected a stripe of water down the middle, just wide enough to reflect the Washington Monument across from it. The refilling continued under the bright sun, as one worker stood in the middle of the pool, with his pants rolled up above his knees, wielding a hose.

As the temperature neared 90 degrees, tourists, cyclists and joggers paused at the top of the nearby steps to snap photos and observe the process. Many welcomed the return of the water — and the ducks that play in it — but said they couldn’t immediately tell a difference in the color.

“The more water it fills, the more similar it looks [to before],” said Luisa Córdoba, a D.C. resident and avid runner who says she’s been coming to check on the pool every day since work started. “I’m just happy it’s not that bright blue that we saw the first days, which was so alarming … if it stays like this, it’s fine.”

Early renderings — as well as preliminary coats of paint when the project started in late April — had critics worried the historic landmark would end up looking more like a swimming pool. But Friday’s observers didn’t find that to be the case.

“I’m colorblind, so it doesn’t look blue — yet,” said Terry Barzanti, a Maryland resident who works nearby.

“I’m not colorblind and it doesn’t look blue,” laughed his coworker Edgar Sadsad, who found it more grey.

Other passersby described it as closer to black, and said the difference might be more noticeable once the pool is fully refilled. Even so, Sadsad and Barzanti were among those who praised the project, saying the pool already looked cleaner and more appealing.

Trump has for months complained about the state of the pool, saying he made it a priority after an unnamed friend visiting from Germany called it “filthy” and “not representative of the country,” according to the president.

The pool, which first opened in 1923, last underwent major renovations between 2010 and 2012. But it has continued to suffer from broken pipes and water leaks that merit costly refills, according to the Department of the Interior.

Trump has said this project sealed crevices in the stone to prevent leaks, and removed 12 truckloads of garbage from the pool, though it’s not clear that it addressed the broken pipes.

“It’ll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything with it,” he said.

The reflecting pool, at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, previously reflected blue in certain conditions such as this day in November 2025.

Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

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Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Questions remain about the project’s funding 

The resurfacing took significantly longer than Trump’s initial estimate.

He said in late April that the project would be done in a week or two, though the Department of the Interior told NPR it would take closer to a month.

In mid-May, the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation sued the administration to stop work on the pool, saying it had bypassed federally required historic preservation reviews. A judge heard arguments later that month, but hadn’t made a decision by the time the administration informed the court on Wednesday that work had been completed.

The project also appears to cost more than Trump said it would.

He gave the price tag as $2 million, which he said, without specifics, was significantly less than he had been quoted previously. But Interior Department records obtained by The New York Times show the administration plans to pay $13.1 million to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia firm that Trump picked for the project.

“It’s kind of sad where our tax dollars are going. I mean, it was fine before, by my knowledge,” said Samantha Sorokin of Arlington, Va., who was taking her parents on a tour.

It’s not clear how much of the money is coming from taxpayers. A large sign affixed to the construction site fence, on National Park Service letterhead, informed visitors that “these improvements are being completed using your fee dollars.”

(The Washington Post reported this week that the Trump administration is diverting at least $90 million from national park entry fees to fund its July 4th fireworks display and other D.C. beautification projects.)

When asked for comment about the cost and where the money is coming from, the Department of the Interior — the park service’s parent agency — told NPR that it has “many funding sources available to spend on deferred maintenance.”

“Unlike Barack Obama who spent millions upon millions in taxpayer-funded Great Recession recovery aid that should have gone to struggling families, the Trump administration is looking at different funding mechanisms which include endowment funds and revenue brought in from the sale of park passes,” the unnamed spokesperson wrote over email.

The two-year renovation of the reflecting pool that ended in 2012 was funded by $34 million from an Obama-era economic stimulus package.

A sign outside the reflecting pool informs visitors that their national park fees helped fund the project.

Rachel Treisman/NPR

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Rachel Treisman/NPR

Trump’s campaign to spruce up D.C. 

Trump is hoping to make many changes to D.C., ranging from massive undertakings like his proposed triumphal arch (which got preliminary approval from a second federal agency this week) to smaller changes like installing new statues and restoring park fountains.

“We have many monuments and fountains all over Washington, and we’re just about completed with all of them,” he said Wednesday.

The Interior Department referred NPR to a White House post on X listing those accomplishments, which include “500 instances of graffiti removed,” “134 rat-resistant trash cans installed” and “250 truckloads of debris from ponds removed.”

Much of that work is being carried out by National Guard troops deployed to D.C., whose numbers are set to double ahead of the country’s 250th birthday celebrations on and around July 4th. That’s also the deadline — or at least impetus — for many of Trump’s renovation projects.

Maria Sorokin, who was visiting her daughter from Pennsylvania, is skeptical that the 250th anniversary warrants major changes like the reflecting pool resurfacing.

“It is a special anniversary and it should be spruced up, but I’m not sure if this was necessary,” she said, looking at the pool slowly refilling. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

But some area residents, like Barzanti, embrace the cleanup and beautification efforts.

“We walk down here for lunch breaks,” he said. “People come from all over the world to see our nation’s capital. So we should show it off, we should take care of it.”

Some changes are going over better than others.

Several locals at the reflecting pool, including Córdoba, mentioned that they were thrilled to see the fountains at Meridian Hill Park — a popular spot about 1.5 miles north of the White House — flowing with water for the first time in seven years.

Maryellen Thornton, who lives near the park, says the fountain restoration has been “amazing for the community,” describing the picnic blanket-packed grass “like nirvana.” It’s also one of the reasons she and her husband Brad Thornton came to see the reflecting pool.

“We’re just fascinated with how fabulous it is to have all of these water features being restored in the district,” she said. “It just brings so much happiness to everybody.”

Brad is also excited to see the return of water to the fountain outside Union Station, Washington’s major transport hub, and hopes the newly filled reflecting pool will build on that momentum.

“A little bit of spraying water goes a long way,” he said. “It shouldn’t be about politics. It’s just about enjoying it. We’re in the city. We need some green space.”

How do you reserve your seat at an Hermès show? A Birkin bag, apparently. Even before pulling up to the Second Chapter of the Hermès women’s ready-to-wear fall-winter show in Bel-Air — the house’s first women’s show in Los Angeles — photographer Tyler Matthew Oyer was texting me photos of women at check-in clutching their Birkins in one hand, phone and ID in the other. “They are everywhere.” I took a photo of my yellow raffia bag, the handle tied with an Hermès horse scarf that once belonged to my maternal grandmother.

Getting to the destination was like ascending to a parallel universe of the Getty, in similar excursion-like fashion — only instead of cable cars, we gathered into black vans with tinted windows that climbed the mountains opposite the museum. After a solid 20 minutes of winding roads, we reached the grand reveal: a butter-yellow pavilion, delectable and whimsical like a giant cake on stilts, plastered with all-caps neon signage, SILHOUETTES ON THE HORIZON. The structure, designed by Maybe Paris with Hermès creative director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, was built from scratch and took three weeks to build.

“I smell leather. Do you smell leather?” Keyla Marquez, our fashion director at large, asked, turning to me from inside the buttery dome, glass of Champagne in hand. Hermès leather goods were on display, including on Keyla, who wore a vintage black skirt with zippers running up the front and back and a suede top.

The show started unusually on time, just moments past 7:30 p.m., at peak twilight. But from where we sat, it was as if we were inside a sun going up at night, the suspended bands of light brightening and intensifying our yellow abode.

The runway looped like Bel-Air’s roads, the models walking in S’s and the clothes following suit, dresses, ’80s flared pants and silks expanding and trailing behind them in a way that brought to mind Audrey Hepburn in “Funny Face,” snaking down the steps of the Louvre in Givenchy (“Take the picture! Take the picture!”). The show notes pointed to “the dancer’s wardrobe” as inspiration, embracing how fabric can have a mind of its own — gathering, draping, cascading. “Don’t smooth out the wrinkles,” a voice over the music said. Each wrinkle is “a powerful current.” A double entendre for embracing age? I liked to think so, especially when the soundtrack to the finale came on, Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes,” a tribute to the Old Hollywood actor and her timeless, teasing gaze.

I caught up with Keyla Marquez after the show for her take on the evening.

The first guest who caught your eye and why.

Brenda Hashtag. I’m a fan. I feel like she’s of a new generation of influencers and has a lot to say. She’s really vulnerable with the things she says about being in the fashion world. She did an interview with the Cutting Room Floor about fashion shows and how people don’t say hi each other, and there’s nothing wrong with saying hi to each other. She’s part of a new generation that has more vulnerability. For me, it’s not so much celebrities but these people who are changing the landscape of the fashion industry and she’s one of them. Even though she said she doesn’t like L.A. [laughs].

Three words that describe the night for you.

Magical, opulent and VIC’s.

Did you have a favorite look?

Yes. The body piece with the flared pant legs. I feel like all these designers who grew up in the ’80s are bringing back the ’80s in a really chic way. YSL did this collection a couple seasons ago with socks with fringe on them. That outfit was very reminiscent of that. There’s this new play on the ’80s but not in a cheesy way. It’s very chic and luxurious.

Monochrome ruled the runway. Are you team red (“rouge tango”), blue-green (“vert impérial”), yellow (“jaune flave”) or black?

Black and yellow. I would’ve been OK with the blue not being included. I see the ’80s inspiration but I would’ve been OK with blue not being a part of the color palette.

The best thing you ate after the show.

Those egg thingies with roe were so good. What was in it even?! The truffle toast was bomb. And of course, Champagne.

Your take on the Birkin bag.

The more worn out, the better.

The thing you tell the L.A. haters who flew in for just a few days for the show.

Get to know the culture. Get to know the real people. Go to the east side. When the only thing that you see are the influencers and Erewhon, that’s not the real L.A. You have to go to where the culture lives.

Monique McWilliams and Lauren Halsey.

Chloe Fineman and Miranda July.

Hermès creative director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski.