This is the Los Angeles Motordrome, a circular auto racing track that was built in Playa del Ray in 1910. Remarkably, this one-mile track was made of wood, which may have been a good idea at the time…until it burned down in 1913. Playa del Rey is immediately north of what is now LAX so all that empty land you can see around the Motordrome is now completely filled in with urban development, except for the very top, which is the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.