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Five years before Kent MacKenzie made The Exiles, about Native Americans in Downtown Los Angeles, he made a 17-minute student film at USC showing everyday life in the Bunker Hill neighborhood in 1956.
LA Observed archive
for July 2010
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Five years before Kent MacKenzie made The Exiles, about Native Americans in Downtown Los Angeles, he made a 17-minute student film at USC showing everyday life in the Bunker Hill neighborhood in 1956.
The last of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's original team of top advisors at City Hall, Deputy Chief of Staff Jimmy Blackman, will leave on August 13.
Expo Line, Bell, Mitrice Richardson, Eli Broad's museum and more.
It turns out that the property tax add-ons levied by the City of Bell have its residents paying a higher rate than in any local city but Industry.
Immigration rights protesters in chains have blocking the intersection for several hours, but the LAPD has issued a dispersal order. Media reports have the cops moving in to cut chains...
Ronaldo just finished up his first press conference at UCLA's Morgan Center. At least 15 TV cameras were there, more than a dozen still photogs rushed the stage when he came out, and a roomful of media types fired courteous questions.
Peter Hong worked with and admired Eric Malnic, the reporter and editor who worked at the Los Angeles Times for 47 years, bridging the Otis Chander and Sam Zell era.
This photo isn't actually old. It was shot the other day inside LACMA West, showing a remnant of the circa-1940 May Company department store.
Wired magazine culled some photos of Los Angeles smog from the L.A. Times archive at UCLA. Monday was the 67th anniversary of the infamous really, really black day when people looked around said dang, we have an air pollution problem here.
Some of my email correspondents have been having some fun with this in today's L.A. Times Business section
Your smart phone says who you will vote for, plus more politics, news and media notes.
Say that Metro Rail ever reaches as far west as Westwood Village. It's going to need a station. But where should it go?
Mayor Villaraigosa, KFI's John & Ken, Cardinal Mahony.
Mark Winogrond, who served Mayor Vilalraigosa as interim planning director and vetted his 2006 selection of Gail Goldberg, strongly rips the selection of Michael LoGrande as city planning director.
The iPhone 4 is still his choice, the WSJ's Walt Mossberg decrees.
Editorial Director Mark Katches explains in a blog post how a recent California Watch project on the shrinking school day came to appear in newspapers, on the air and on websites around the state.
A message from the new Twitter account of the California Highway Patrol's L.A. area division.
There have been credible reports of Mitrice Richardson sightings in Las Vegas and the L.A. County sheriff's department plans to hold a news conference there tomorro
Vickie Burns, named today as Vice President, News for KNBC, comes from WNBC in New York where she was Vice President of Content and Audience Development for NBC Local Media New York.
Eric Malnic was a longtime mainstay of the Los Angeles Times Metro staff, as an assistant city editor and rewrite man on big stories, and late in his career as the paper's specialist on airplane crashes.
More politicians jump on Bell story, CNN's ratings, Mordigan Nurseries, Magnolia Bakery problems and more.
You Tube sensation and ex-NFL player Isaiah Mustafa talks to the Hollywood Reporter about the stardom of sorts that has come his way since he pitched Old Spice in the year's biggest online marketing coup not perpetrated by Apple.
Residents of upscale La Canada Flintridge live the longest of those in any Los Angeles County community: 87.8 years on average, according to a new report on life expectancy. Life expectancy is 15 years less in Westmont, an unincorporated area near South Los Angeles.
Kevin Jolly, 45, left as superintendent of the Burbank schools a few weeks ago to take over a troubled school district in Mendocino County.
What did you do today that challenged your comfort zone? KCRW sports columnist Diana Nyad is getting ready to swim from Cuba to Florida, a feat she couldn't complete when she was 28 and the best in the world at such extreme swims. She's now 60.
A controlling interest in WeHo News, the West Hollywood cyber newspaper, has been purchased by Mark Hundahl and David Stern, the partners in Frontiers Media LLC, which publishes the gay magazine Frontiers IN Los Angeles.
When Nathaniel Ayers performed yesterday at the White House, it was only fitting that L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez went along.
The URL on an L.A. Times blog item about anti-Semitism in California is long and ugly as such web addresses often are, but this one is revealing because it contains the phrase "embargoed-until-9-am-tuesday." The item was posted by the Times at 8:12 a.m.
Republicans upbeat on Fiorina, Bell officials give up the money, reaction to LoGrande, the Battle of Los Angeles and more. Inside.
My KCRW column this evening gives kudos to the Los Angeles Times for its city of Bell reportage, but also notes that high salaries there were possible in large part because the Times stopped covering small cities like Bell over the last decade or so. Plus media notes.
Food writer Barbara Hansen watched last night as a guy pulled into a parking spot on a trendy block of Beverly Boulevard, wrapped a shirt around the parking meter and strolled away with two women. She got a photo.
Josh Rubenstein gets the title of Chief Meterologist for the two stations and will take over weather responsibilities for the 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. newscasts, plus other personnel moves.
Here's the release from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office on Michael LoGrande, his new nominee to take over the city planning department.
The death of Dr. Marc Abrams, the popular Walking Man of Silver Lake, is now officially a suicide.
Ed Roski, the real estate developer who wants to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry, made his first comments to the media since a rival stadium project emerged in Downtown Los Angeles.
Channel 2 news photographer and blogger Bryan Frank just completed a marathon picture-taking trek through the area — "my little artisitic endeavor" — that he called 24LA.
Op-Ed columnist Gregory Rodriguez observes in the L.A. Times today that even as the number of illegal immigrants has been dropping fast, the rhetoric of America's haters gets more and more nasty.
Deja vu in the race for governor, HuffPost examined again, Tribune papers not close to giving up print, the Downtown stadium gets onto "Entourage" and much more for Monday after the jump.
he Sunset Boulevard bridge over the 405 freeway in Brentwood is being torn down, piece by piece, for replacement. When it was completed in 1956, the road was still being called the Sepulveda Freeway.
L.A. musician Ashleigh Haney, who I've mentioned here a couple of times, is back on tour as a backup singer for Rihanna, living the strange life of world traveler and stage-view witness to a pop culture phenomenon. She blogs about it.
Mayor Villaraigosa will name zoning administrator Michael LoGrande to be city planning director, and also talked to Rick Orlov about the Daily News' challenge to show he hasn'[t checked out.
Despite reports that Dr. Marc Abrams was under criminal investigation and may have committed suicide, the community fixture known as the walking man of Silver Lake was honored Sunday by a gathering at the reservoir and a walk through the area.
This Disney-made video on the origin of the California Institute of the Arts was made when the Music Center and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art were still being talked about and designed.
Schorr joined NPR as senior news analyst after being let go by CNN in 1985.
Bell's officials resign, city manager Rizzo faces drunk driving charge, Arianna not moving to New York, more on the Journolist flap, Ron Kayes hates transit and hearts the Valley, and the Times gets ready to write about the river.
Arianna Huffington is moving to New York City, Gawker says based on unidentified sources.
In this week's final issue of the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen, founder and editor Jerry Sullivan completes the difficult last task of closing down a local newspaper.
Rico Gagliano of radio's Dinner Party Download has started a Facebook group proposing that the path around Silver Lake Reservoir be re-named the Marc Abrams Memorial Loop, in honor of the walking man of Silver Lake.
Steve Caplan moved his family to Copenhagen last year to work, explore and blog. Now they are returning. His thoughts.
Cortines makes his exit plans, John & Ken turn against Meg Whitman, mixed week for Andrew Breitbart, defense fund for Richard Alarcon and the death of Silver Lake's walking man.
If you believe interesting things happen to interesting people, you'll love this story from Mark Frauenfelder, author and co-founder of Boing Boing.
It turns out the Dodgers' Jonathan Broxton should not have been forced to leave last night's game when substitute manager Don Mattingly visited the pitching mound twice during the same inning.
The email listerv for mostly liberal journalists that used to be called Journolist is in the news again, this time over remarks by KCRW's publicist and producer.
All programmers at KPFK just received a long email from the boss asking them to either urgently grow their audience (and their money-raising for the station) or to voluntarily take their shows off the air or cut the length.
Many news outlets are reporting on arrests in the Trousdale Estates murder. Only the Huffington Post headline, though, screams "massive manhunt" -- even the story doesn't back it up.
Eryn Brown will be the paper's general assignment science reporter, though she won't be one of those newsroom specialists who brings expertise to a beat.
The new California chief justice, Nathaniel Ayers goes to the White House, Fiorina changes her mind, DWP defends its money hoarding, Lindsay Lohan's 13-day sentence and more.
Mark posted this earlier at LA Biz Observed, but everybody I've shown it to loved it so much here it is again.
Dodger Thoughts has the whole sordid story: "If you thought the collapse against the Yankees was a nightmare, if Sunday's meltdown at St. Louis brought you to your knees, those games have nothing on tonight's 7-5 loss."
Some notable items from the pile.
The former Trojan and L.A. Rams quarterback takes over from Mike Garrett on Aug. 3, the same day that USC's new president takes office.
Blogdowntown Weekly, which debuts Aug. 5 , will show up on Thursdays "focused on calendar and lifestyle content for Downtown."
Looks like dozens of media on hand at the Beverly Hills courthouse, awaiting Lindsay Lohan.
Coverage plan for Lindsay Lohan's jail hearing, dubious City Council fundraising, dubious CRA media advice, outrage in Bell plus much more.
Maybe it's more like a flackable moment, an easy way to throw a bone to bicyclists.
Ex-LAPD chief Willim Bratton tells KPCC's Kitty Felde that he's enjoying his new life in the private sector.
County Supervisor Don Knabe is the chair of Metro this time around and, as such, learns how to drive a bus.
Oops. The link on the Jobs & Employment headline of the Los Angeles Times home page right now goes to the paper's obituary page.
Big-time scorer Ilya Kovalchuk is going back to the New Jersey Devils, spurning a lengthy courtship by the Los Angeles Kings.
Villaraigosa saus he was wearing a helmet when he went down, by the way.
In a very long post explaining why he is leaving Scienceblogs in the wake of the network selling a sponsored blog to Pepsi, Bora Zivkovic considers the blogosphere options for science writers and immediately rejects the Huffington Post.
Radar Online's Mel Gibson bump, an ethics commissioner wants to know more about the mayor's tickets, Border Patrol numbers, an un-Christian pastor in Temecula and much more for a Monday.
This shaming won't be soon forgotten. "This one was tough, very tough," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said after Sunday's loss.
A day after breaking his right elbow in a bike fall, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa went over to Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center on Sunday for surgery on his injured wing.
Gammon's first television credits were in the 1960s in westerns such as "The Wild, Wild West," "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" — though he also showed up on "Batman," "Charlie's Angels" and...
The Daily News says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has gone AWOL and kicks off a series of editorials "calling out Villaraigosa for his apparent lack of interest."
While it's way too soon to know whether political activist Ron Kaye's campaign to mount City Council challenges will gain any traction, electoral or otherwise, the make-up of his organization has already sparked controversy.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was riding in a bike lane on Venice Boulevard in Mid-City before 7 p,.m. tonight when a taxi pulled in front of him.
News, media, politics, blogs, food and more.
Joshua Joy Kamensky, the ex-City Hall press aide turned screenwriter, argues that Jewel's videotaped stunt in Santa Monica for Funny or Die (below) wasn't funny. And worse.
KTLA reporter has launched her Lu Parker Project, it has a website, a logo and a flack, boyfriend Mayor Villaraigosa is taking part in the kickoff event, and there's a story on the L.A. Times website.
It's safe to speed in Arizona again, John Edwards the movie, Ron Kaye's political aspirations, the L.A. River's kayaking biologist speaks, the LAT's Emmy nomination and a KTLA reporter heads to Iraq to work for the government. Details inside.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch praise the choice of Grand Avenue for Eli Broad's modern art collection.
Editor and publisher Jerry Sullivan has been notifying supporters and others all day that the July 23 issue of the Los Angeles Garment and Citizen will be the weekly's last.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. would share violent fantasies about prostitutes and say they deserved to die, according to neighbors.
MAPLight has culled the top ten lobbyists for 2007-2009 (by client payments) and who they represent out of the City Ethics Commission's reports.
The AP quotes scientists ordering "endocrinology" on that old ship unearthed in New York.
California Watch's site called Politics Verbatim compiles the actual words spoken by the candidates for governor in a searchable database.
The Times' website refers to a fire on Bronson Avenue in Hollywood as in "the Hancock Park area of the Hollywood Hills."
Big heat coming, big salaries in Bell, the 1988 press conference and reward on the Grim Sleeper, a bureau chief leaves, plus Meg Whitman, Jerry Brown, Ronald George, Bill Bratton, Joe Berlinger, Rachelle Spector and more.
The LAT website moves Gladstone's up the highway to Malibu.
"They hated each other from the moment they set foot in Los Angeles," a former high-ranking Dodgers official tells ESPN the Magazine. Good. Stuff.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. was handcuffed when he was slugged twice in the head by newly convicted killer Antonio Rodriguez.
Julie Makinen, who left the Los Angeles Times awhile back to live in Hong Kong as deputy business editor of the Asian edition of the International Herald Tribune, is returning as movie editor on the LAT entertainment desk.
Another Grim Sleeper scoop from Christine Pelisek and Jill Stewart at the LA Weekly.
The trailer for "What Women Want," with new dialogue from Mad Mel. Er, allegedly from Mel Gibson.
California Chief Justice Ronald George will retire rather than seek to keep his seat on the state's high court in November's election, the chief justice just announced. The Republican appointee...
L.A. journalist Anthea Raymond narrates interviews with players from the early Downtown music and arts scene.
They're going with "The Madeleine Brand Show."
PETA is sending out alerts hipping the media to a 6:30 p.m. protest against the Ringling Bros. circus at Staples Center by Olivia Munn, the actress and Daily Show correspondent whose billboard adorns the Sunset Strip.
Dawson's Books, which began Downtown and is the oldest bookstore in Los Angeles, is giving up the Larchmont Boulevard location of many decades that its fans love so much.
Arnold's job performance rating hits new low, Nikki Finke finally talks about "Tilda," ethics commissioners on the free tickets and more after the jump....
Mayor Villaraigosa just came back from a night on the town with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. The mayor's twitter account chirped a report.
It's taken until now to reach an accord over access, but reach they have. Excluded are bloggers, freelancers and other non-employed journalists unable to get a card from the LAPD.
Steve Greenberg weighs in on the mouth that roared.
You knew somebody had to do mash up Mel Gibson's and Christian Bale's rants. Now somebody did.
Christopher Hawthorne seems to like what he sees happening at the new park envisioned for the ugly mall that runs from the Music Center east most of the way to City Hall.
Well, you can't say the Los Angeles Times isn't fully embracing its odd and increasingly controversial strategy of going partisan Republican — and only Republican — in its national politics blogging.
“I will always remember George Steinbrenner as a passionate man, a tough boss, a true visionary, a great humanitarian and a dear friend," Dodgers manager Joe Torre says in a...
Ray Bradury says Mel Gibson is too busy with "that Russian girl" right now to move ahead with a film remake of his classic book.
Former District Attorney Gil Garcetti stood in on last night's episode of "The Closer" as the police chief of a certain major city who departs just before the department's new headquarters opens.
Whitman's investment in Mike Murphy's movie career, Andrew Malcolm's flakkery again, LAT staffers warned about tweets, Polanski's victim still wants it to end, White House press secretaries in town, an arts blog dies and a books blog begins. Plus more, inside.
I gather July's Downtown Art Walk is always pretty sizable, given the time of year. But turnout at last week's walk was especially large, apparently.
A head-on crash this afternoon involving a semi-truck and more than one car blocked all lanes of Sunset Boulevard for awhile at Bellagio Road, adjacent to the north side of UCLA in a spot called Dead Man's Curve in L.A. lore.
LA Weekly writer Christine Pelisek takes her story on the origins of the Grim Sleeper to The Daily Beast.
Jon Thurber had been one of the Los Angeles Times managing editors, but only for the past year or so. On the books desk he replaces David Ulin, who recently...
"I am deeply disappointed," DA Steve Cooley say in a statement on Switzerland's decision to release Roman Polanski rather than send him back to Los Angeles.
Who knows whether that whole trip to Miami thing was a bluff, but Fisher announced he's signing a three-year deal to remain with the Lakers. "I have decided to continue...
The office of Board of Public Works president Cynthia Ruiz sent an invitation to local fashion people inviting them to take part in a meeting on the city's role in September's "Fashion Night Out," in partnership with Vogue magazine.
Mary Jo Murphy has been an editor at at the New York Times' Week in Review section and on the metro and national desks. Plus morning media notes.
Since the real estate bubble popped, "ideas have disappeared from the political landscape of Los Angeles," Jerry Sullivan of the Garment & Citizen argues in a piece at New Geography.
Radar Online has posted a longer audio clip of Mel Gibson berating girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva over the phone
Business tycoons push a Downtown street car, Ron Tutor talks, Schwarzenegger is lonely, eBay's contributions to Brown and more inside.
Swiss authorities announced this morning that Roman Polanski has been set free from house arrest and will not be extradited to Los Angeles, citing a flaw in the U.S. extradition...
Governing magazine's John Buntin surveyed the new architecturally distinct police stations the LAPD has been building this decade — and he found something missing.
And for the first time all day, the sun is out too. Nice, if weird. The rain stopped after about five minutes....
KPCC has hired a reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune to author a blog later this summer on immigration and "emerging communities."
The New York Times has a story about Howard Sunkin, the Dodgers senior vice president for public affairs, being paid $401,395 in 2007 by the Dodgers Dream Foundation — at a time when the team charity's budget was only $1.6 million.
Visualeditors.com gathers up a bunch of today's LeBron James pages and nominates the Cleveland Plain Dealer's as best of show. Note the pointer to James' fingers and the label...
Well, if you mean the movie, it's way "Despicable." An ad for the new movie "Despicable Me" covers the top and bottom of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section —...
What Villaraigosa could learn from Tom Bradley, what Jerry Brown has learned about Meg Whitman, and what Austin Beutner is learning about snubs of the City Council. Plus more, inside.
This was the 23rd straight day with the official temperature reading in Los Angeles below average, Mark Thompson just said on Fox 11.
Nice little real Hollywood story on longtime camera operator Hector Ramirez, whose five Emmy nominations this morning gives him the career record.
For two reasons I'll be opening my Los Angeles Times early tomorrow.
The arrival of an American Apparel billboard, plus new bars and shops, in Hollywood's Thai Town district is being taken as a sign of the hipster apocalypse.
LAPD detectives are re-examining at least 30 unsolved killings of women in South Los Angeles to see if they can link the homicides to Lonnie Franklin Jr., the accused Grim Sleeper serial killer. Chief Charlie Beck says he they expect to tie more cases to Franklin.
Johannes Mehserle, who testified that he thought he fired his Taser not the gun that killed Oscar Grant, was convicted by a Los Angeles jury of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors and the family of victim Oscar Grant had wanted a murder conviction.
Here is Zocalo's report on the panel we told you about, discussing the future of seafood.
Former LAT feature writer Roy Rivenburg zings a few parody arrows at the paper's current word stylists (and editors.)
Do you know this man?
Emmy noms, new status for el Rio Porciuncula, Boxer's polling stats, the end of National Public Radio and more, all inside.
Centered down below Palm Springs like the recent swarm, but certainly felt in Los Angeles. 4:53 was the official time. * Downgrade: Originally a 5.9, within 15 minutes of the...
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested today — this morning actually. But tomorrow at 11 a.m., Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Charlie Beck will front for a bevy of suits — including two statewide candidates — at a media op in the Police Administration Building to "announce the circumstances surrounding the arrest.
The AP is reporting that the LAPD has arrested a man in South Los Angeles in connection with 11 serial murders, mostly of young black women, between 1985 and 2007.
Brown-Whitman in a tie, Lohan's likely actual time to be served, Fox 11 camera operator gets $1.7 million, a new coach for the Clippers and more.
Jonathan Gold — the enthusiastic fish gourmand — and his brother Mark Gold — the head of Heal the Bay — will be on the same panel tomorrow night talking about the sustainability of seafood. It's sort of a rermatch, if you remember their 2008 blog throwdown.
Soon-Shiong buys up Brentwood, a Manson girl comes up for parole again, what to do about L.A.'s watering rules, the jury deliberates in Oscar Grant killing and an architecture obituary. Plus more as we return from the long holiday weekend.
At least six of Councilman Richard Alarcon's staffers have received subpoenas to testify Wednesday in front of a grand jury looking into where the boss actually lives.
It's approaching a year since Bruce Lisker got out of prison, freed after a judge ruled that he was wrongly convicted of killing his mother in 1983.
Before I head off to survey the far-flung reaches of the empire for the 4th, some notes from the week.
Al Jazeera's man in L.A. is Rob Reynolds, who has been with the network since 2006.
That four-page ad for Universal's King Kong attraction in the Los Angeles Times this morning really drove the Los Angeles County Board of Supevisors, well, ape.
Count me in for one last season, the Lakers coach says after giving it some thought in Montana.
The powwow with AEG representatives included Speaker John Perez, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg and Maria Elena Durazo, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, James Wagner reports in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
This time the full-page ad designed to fool readers for a few seconds is a mock version of the LAT Extra section — using the real nameplate and date but...
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
