On January 7, just after the Palisades fire began, the acupuncturist and herbalist Rachel Day left her Westside house for what she feared would be the last time. Gathering her most important possessions, she made sure not to leave behind her collection of postcards featuring photographs taken around the area. There were shots of sunbathers by the Santa Monica Pier and of Palisades Park above them, carpeted by flowers now considered invasive. There were shots of Will Rogers’s house—and more with his car, his stable, and his horse Soapsuds—and of the old Presbyterian Conference Grounds in Temescal Canyon. And there were shots—a lot of them—looking down the Pacific Coast Highway, the mountains out of frame but implied by the downward angle from which traffic’s headlights are seen.
Day was eventually able to return to home, and once back her floor became a staging ground for Hello, Pacific Palisades, a book that reprints the collection (with a few eBay-sourced additions) on old-school linen paper, one card per page. I have found that these images are best experienced c…