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Image consultants hired by the city of Glendale reported back this week after a year of marketing research. Bad news.
LA Observed archive
for November 2011
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Image consultants hired by the city of Glendale reported back this week after a year of marketing research. Bad news.
So windy in LA that twice the usual amount of sad tumbleweeds made of broken dreams just blew down my street.
All passenger terminals and runway 25R were affected by an hour-long power outage tonight at Los Angeles International Airport.
The red flag restrictions that limit parking on many streets in the hills and canyons kick in at 8 a.m. Thursday. I'm kind of surprised they are not in force tonight.
The Expo Line has taken its next big step on the path from construction project to actual light-rail transit line.
Sue Grafton, Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography and "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht lead their respective bestseller lists in Southern California again, but there's a new leader in trade...
"I'm so proud," she told co-host Steve Edwards during the live feed of the ceremony on "Good Day L.A."
Photographer Iris Schneider has been documenting the Occupy LA camp almost from the start, and she went back this morning to see what remains.
Before the Wilshire boys, Gaylord and William, became known more for the street they put their name on in 1887, they ran a safe company in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
High winds, Westwood loses four movie screens, an old local pol dies and more.
The breakdown is 290 booked for failure to disperse, one for battery on a police officer and one for interfering with an officer.
Raid looks like it's about to happen.
The Island of Long Beach is promoting a huge 'shopping, dining and entertainment district" around the Queen Mary and promising to create 300,000 jobs.
Yes, Ray Bradbury used to say that he would never embrace e-books or the Internet. But, well, you know.
Dr. Conrad Murray was just sentenced to four years in L.A. County jail for his part in the death of Michael Jackson.
Gov. Brown on pepper spray, mayor tested by Occupy LA, Chief Beck tweets, blaming the tar pits and more.
KPCC's head office has wanted to do something with a Latino flavor for awhile. Read the job posting.
Jim Romenesko contacted Jasna Hodzic after her photo of campus police Lt. John Pike using pepper spray on passive students hit the web.
Are any of the small cities in Los Angeles County not havens of crazy or worse?
Arellano moves up from managing editor after the resignation, effective Dec. 2, of editor Ted Kissell.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is telling the media today that last night's deadline on Occupy LA came and went as planned, and that there will definitely be an eviction showdown if protesters refuse to leave, but he repeated that the eviction would come when it "makes sense: for police officers and the protesters.
UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero relieved football coach Rick Neuheisel of his duties this morning.
Rep. Waters is next in line to become ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services committee.
The U.S. Border Patrol is planning to spend $4.3 million trying to extend the border fence with Mexico 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean off Imperial Beach, but it's not easy to do.
Police said the arrests were of protesters who refused to get out of the street opposite City Hall or who threw things at officers. The camp remains, but smaller.
Villaraigosa hits the airwaves, somebody is polling on Rick Caruso, Arianna Huffington interviews Scarlett Johansson and more.
Some campers have left, the crowd has grown with sympathizers, and there has been milling in the traffic lanes of 1st Street at Spring, inhibiting passing cars but no actual trouble. Police presence: light.
Supporters of Occupy LA have been sounding the alarm all day about a supposed LAPD raid of the encampment after tonight's midnight deadline. But the LAPD says: who, us?
The Los Angeles Newspaper Group papers are reporting, based on "multiple sources close to the program," that UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel will be let go after the Pac-12 Conference championship game on Friday.
Nikki Finke's Hollywood news site has been slapped with Google's dreaded (and often overheated) "attack site" designation.
The women suspected to using pepper spray on a crowd of Black Friday shoppers at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch turned herself in at the Devonshire Area station late last night.
Tom Petruno, the longtime markets columnist for the Los Angeles Times, said back in September that he would be leaving the paper right around now to try out some other pursuits.
The co-host of the Korean-language Prime News on Los Angeles-area TV channel LA 18 was found dead in her Koreatown apartment last Monday after not reporting to work.
The agreement still has to be approved by the league's owners and by the players association, but negotiators for both shook hands on a tentative deal.
Newsman-turned-artist Bill Lagattuta's latest project appears to be photographs behind the scenes of Channel 2 anchor Kent Shocknek at work.
Bryan Stow's familyposted a photo showing the Dodger Stadium beating victim surrounded by smiling relatives and friends on Thanksgiving.
After that time, say Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Beck, the curfew banning overnight use of the City Hall park will be enforced. KInda sorta.
The mayor's office has put out the call for a 4 p.m. media op in his 3rd floor conference room "regarding Occupy LA and the closure of City Hall Park."
LA Observed readers have known since October about the Westside Pavilion store shutting down.
in the city of Los Angeles, residential trash pickup that usually occurs on Thursday will happen on Friday, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Regular Friday pickups will occur on Saturday...
Why bring in a cop, and pay his consultants' fee, when there's a whole university worth of independent scholars who could recommend how to revisit the use of pepper spray against UC Davis students.
"I'd like to be in a scene with Yoda! Or Princess Leia for god's sake!!! "
Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo told reporters today that Occupy LA will be cleared out some time next week, and the mayor's office followed with a statement.
Sue Grafton, Steve Jobs, Stephen King, Joan Didion and more.
Possible end days for Occupy L.A., City Hall PR deal collapses, foreclosed homes become parks, plus politics and book notes.
Former LAPD chief William Bratton has been tapped by the University of California to lead the official examination of the UC Davis pepper spraying of passive student protesters.
December is The Glam Issue for Inland Empire magazine.
December's issue of Los Angeles brings a new look and a revamped lineup in the front of the book. Plus: what's in the magazine.
he Jackson Limousine Service gave out turkeys and fixings for the 23rd year today from its fleet yard on West Slauson Avenue.
City offers Occupy LA a deal, that City Hall PR contract gets messy, a new dance company from Benjamin Millipied, new board members at the Press Club and Father Dollar Bill dies.
Four robbers rushed into the Macy's at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza before closing tonight, began smashing jewelery cases with hammers and started grabbing loot.
Republican presidential front-runner (at least in California) Mitt Romney will be in town Dec. 6 for a fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Harry Belafonte will engage in conversation about his life as an entertainer and his new memoir, "My Song," with Tim Robbins on Monday night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
Tips from Zach Pollack of Sotto, via Los Angeles magazine.
Dick Adler, who used to write the cheeky Page Two feature at the old Herald Examiner, and more recently a book reviewer and blogger, died on Nov. 11.
Ed Fuentes imagines the UC Davis pepper spray cop being given community service on the new bike lane on Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
UC president decries pepper spraying, mayoral candidates unsettling to watch, Beck's big test, and Wesson's too.
A little rain finished off the job in San Pedro's White Point neighborhood, apparently.
Landon Donovan scored in the 72nd minute at Home Depot Center and that was all the Galaxy needed to top Houston and win the championship of Major League Soccer.
The director recalled that when he lived in Los Angeles the life and things that happened were so fantastical and divorced from the rest of the world that when he went back to Germany, he couldn't talk about L.A. — because no one would believe him.
Jim Romenesko's first post at the new website is titled "How I ended up leaving Poynter."
The national focus of the Occupy activities has suddenly become the University of California at Davis, showing the massive power (once again) of YouTube to capture relatively unfiltered events and disseminate them widely to great effect.
The author spoke with David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times before a full house at St. Vibiana's on Wednesday night. Here's the full conversation.
A small but determined group of students has been occupying tents outside the East Los Angeles College administration building.
Lowering expectations on Natalie Wood case, tearing down the 6th Street bridge, media notes and a local sports death.
Randy L. Rasmussen of the Portland Oregonian newspaper took this photo Thursday of a woman being hit in the face with pepper spray during an Occupy protest in downtown Portland.
Princeton University junior Andrew Blumenfeld won the final seat on the La Cañada Unified school board by ten votes.
He will spend a year as advisor to the Sierra Club and Michael Brune will be the top officer.
Few events in a young activist’s life, says the historian and author, are
"as memorably disturbing as the first time you look into cop’s eyes a few anxious inches from your face and find only robotic murderous hatred staring back at you."
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney sanctioned Justice Department lawyers and ordered the FBI to pay monetary sanctions over the government lying about its surveillance of SoCal Muslim groups.
A La Cañada High math teacher accused of calling a student "Jew boy,'' using other slurs and mocking a student's stutter will receive sensitivity training.
It seems people want to see the new Lars von Trier film with Kirsten Dunst.
More on Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, latest on Occupy, Trutanich endorses Buscaino, and the National Entertainment Journalism awards.
Current president Eric Garcetti will nominate Councilman Herb Wesson to succeed him.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday that it was reopening the investigation into "one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries."
The 28-story condo tower once proposed for the vacant northeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Barrington Avenue has been downscaled to a six-story apartment building.
Curbed LA made this video on life inside the Occupy L.A. camp on the lawns around City Hall.
Food blogger and list-maker Sarah Gim went to bed the other night with several years' worth of Jonathan Gold's essential restaurants lists from the LA Weekly.
Kershaw, at 23, is the youngest Dodger since Fernando Valenzuela (20, in 1981) to win the National League's Cy Young Award.
The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the proponents of banning gay marriage can take the place of state officials defending the initiative in court.
Sounds like the choreographed sort of street protest crackdown, with marchers and police each playing their part.
The Daily 49er at Cal State Long Beach covered the arrests Wednesday of protesters at the Cal State trustees' meeting.
Protesters blocking Figueroa St. this morning, Beck mellow on Occupy L.A. camp, more state budget cuts coming, court to rule on Prop. 8, Kovacik sues over Polo Lounge attack and more.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blogs that the jail, built mostly during the Kennedy Administration, is "a deeply depressing place, filled with 4,000 or more men crammed into dank cells." With photos.
The L.A. Press Club will bestow its President's Award on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein next June, almost on the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in they covered as Washington Post reporters.
Here's what a key Downtown corner looked like, showing some old cafes and a legendary saloon.
Lefty icon Paul Krassner and conservative culture warrior Andrew Breitbart actually got together by mutual assent to discuss their respective world views.
Reporters, editors and other staffers at the Daily News offices in the Valley have been told to stop feeding the wildlife.
Before Border Grill, City, the Too Hot Tamales and Street — and way before "Top Chef Masters" — chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken had a game-changing little dive on Melrose called City Cafe.
The worst of the bunch, in the latest Texas Transportation Institute study, is supposedly the stretch of the 110 Freeway from Interstate 10 to the Dodger Stadium exit at Stadium Way.
A 32-year-old student shot Tuesday by UC Berkeley police after he brandished a handgun in a computer lab has died at a hospital.
Coverage of the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protest and the media who cover the scene (and tried to cover the arrests) has spurred new discussion of one of the trickier questions posed by new media.
Simon did unpaid work for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign for awhile. Plus: Tina Dupuy on Occupy.
Villaraigosa to make "major address," City Council reneges on South L.A. park, killing the City Hall lawn is a good thing, KOST-FM goes holiday and a Munchkin dies.
Citywide "holiday filming restrictions" limit filming activity, street closures and lane closures between Nov. 21 and January 2.
Only off by a couple of letters. From LATimes.com.
AEG and Gensler released fresh looks at the proposed Downtown football stadium.
It's dining editor Pete Wells, according to an internal announcement at the New York Times.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday that he expects long negotiations today with Occupy L.A. on a timeline for protesters to leave the camp outside City Hall.
Mayor wants to trim trees too, the dangers of ignoring Mexico, Chelsea Clinton, Teresa Hughes and The Wave goes Christmas.
Parking at the Getty Museum used to be free after 5 p.m.
Occupiers have been told they will be arrested if they don't leave. The police showed up at 1 a.m.
Could it be the Dodgers owner is a stand-up guy after all?
Bids are due on Friday to work four months for the City Council's redistricting commission, for as much as $100,000.
Grand Avenue will be blocked in front of Disney Hall on Tuesday, or so the sign says.
Items from the in-box on Wendy Greuel, Gil Cedillo and more.
The recently installed CEO of Dean Singleton's MediaNews chain of newspapers isn't shy about saying that his papers — a group that takes in the Daily News, Daily Breeze and a bunch of other smaller papers in SoCal and NorCal, including the San Jose Mercury — will be changing.
On Nov. 5, ESPN Senior VP Joan Lynch woke up in her home to find a front tire of her vehicle slashed. This is notable for two reasons.
During today's "To The Point" on KCRW and across the country, host Warren Olney read a comment regarding the controversy over his Friday show.
Motivations behind political campaign donations by Hollywood figures are more complex than they might seem, Variety's Ted Johnson writes.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers from across the Bay Area encircled the Occupy Oakland camp at about 5 a.m.
Rep. Howard Berman looks like the big winner on the dollar side.
Punishing deputies with jail duty, Stevie Wonder drops in at Royce Hall, USC enrolls most foreign students and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraiogsa got a nice long chunk of free time on CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley Sunday and said, among other things, that the number...
City Councilwoman Jan Perry talks with Conan Nolan on NBC 4's News Conference about the city's redistricting process being tainted by politics.
Police and fire officials had to close off the Grove when the crowds got too big for the Christmas tree unveiling ans show, NBC 4 says.
A no parking sign of dubious origin, plus evidence of progress on the Eli Broad art museum on Bunker Hill.
Sunday's New York Times print edition carries an obituary of Alan Mootnick, the founder and director of Santa Clarita's Gibbon Conservation Center who died Nov. 4.
The sign here was out front of The Pie Hole, a new dessert and coffee spot in downtown's Arts District.
The Florida paper bills this weekend's package, The Money Machine, as its latest of 13 major investigative stories about the Church of Scientology since June 2009.
In the cold open from "Saturday Night Live," Gov. Perry has a bit of trouble finishing his points.
Romenesko, the Geffen Playhouse, Evelyn Martinez, Haskell Wexler, Winston Doby and more.
I'll be posting some later....
This time it's a captain with the Los Angeles Fire Department arrested on suspicion of trying to buy seven balloons of simulated heroin from undercover officers near Avenue 61 and Figueroa Street in Highland Park.
The California Public Utilities Commission gave its go-ahead to the grade crossings proposed for the second phase of the Expo Line, west from Culver City across the Westside to Santa Monica.
The Atlantic Wire picked up my post from last night remembering — with photographic evidence! — the time when Mark Willes commissioned a sniff test comparing the smell of his L.A. Times with other papers.
For reasons that aren't really clear, Jim Romenesko's bosses at the Poynter Institute have put up a long post wringing their hands about as if they just discovered some issue with the way Romenesko has posted for them through the years.
The news site has been a welcome addition from day one, reporting on City Hall moves and politics without rants, hidden agendas or anonymous comments.
Change at the top at county jail, Villaraiosa wants to borrow Measure R funds, what Occupy LA plans for Friday, Kirsten Dunst, Tyler Shields and the Getty acquires some photos.
Coming up on Nov. 17 from Live Talks Los Angeles: Darrell Hammond talks about his upcoming memoir, "God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night...
Ex-LAT staffer Laurie Winer reviews Jim O'Shea's book and recounts the Sam Zell years in a piece titled "Zell to L.A. Times: Drop Dead." Subtitle: On the Dismantling of a Once Great Newspaper.
So it should be a friendly CD 15 runoff, right? Plus: Buscaino consultant denies he sent gloating email.
Leaked poll in the mayor's race, costs of Occupy LA mount, Valley Democrats endorse Sherman over Berman, Metro's blogger calls for Dodger Stadium to move Downtown, and more.
This sets up what should be an interesting and potentially brutal showdown in the 15th council district.
Jordan Farmar, the former Laker and UCLA Bruin, is one of a only a few NBA players who are Jewish.
The singer known as Heavy D collapsed this morning outside his home in Beverly Hills, and was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai.
The lobby will host Thursday lunch chats once a month with L.A. Times journalists.
Here's what KCET has come up with to kick off its teaming with Eyetronics Media and Studios.
A website gathers the rear-window plaques for hundreds of car clubs across the U.S., including more than 100 in the San Fernando Valley alone — covering generations of low riders, high riders and more.
Readers of the LAT's Fabulous Forum sports blog voted Sandy Koufax the greatest figure in Los Angeles sports history.
Occupy Wall Street organizer David DeGraw spoke at Occupy L.A. on Sunday night and said focus would shift to the Los Angeles encampment during the New York winter.
Recording star Shakira poses after receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this morning.
La Opinión political columnist Pilar Marrero has reactivated her blog with a post about Latino immigrants as a sleeping giant in U.S. politics.
Galperin lost the race for City Council in the 5th district to Paul Koretz in 2009.
The Eastsider L.A. has a nice piece on Darren Pearson, an Eagle Rock artist who uses the LED on a key chain to "draw" images of dinosaurs.
Evidence is mounting for the bad health effects of breathing the air in traffic jams and living near freeways, even as the exhaust from cars and trucks gets cleaner.
Mayor appeals to car dealers, Madeline Janis steps down, Yaroslavsky takes a ride, Playboy moves back to Beverly Hills, Kirk Honeycutt out at THR and more.
Wilson, who pledged to plant five trees a day for the rest of his life, died after losing consciousness while taking clippings from a tree in hi sgarden.
We unveiled a new format today for the weekly LA Observed commentary on KCRW.
Mayor Villaraiogsa shows up at the Breeders' Cup in Louisville with old friend Keith Brackpool.
The Los Angeles jury holds Murray responsible for the death of Michael Jackson....
If you love maps like we do, check out the new exhibit of mostly historical Los Angeles maps in the first-floor gallery at the Los Angeles Public Library.
Baca (and Lohan) and the jails, Durkee and the money, Jim Ladd gets to say goodbye, UCLA warns patients and more.
He's not toast, maybe, but the odds are getting longer.
A reader of the New York Times contributed an observation to the paper's Metropolitan Diary that included a compliment to Californians.
Condolences, everyone. Normalcy returns March 11, 2012.
Monday is the 20th anniversary of the shocking afternoon press conference, on live national TV from the Forum in Inglewood, when Magic Johnson announced that he had been infected with the AIDS virus and would be retiring from the Lakers, effective immediately.
Mike Magee scored the go-ahead goal (on a pass from David Beckham) in the 58th minute, helping the Los Angeles Galaxy drop Real Salt Lake 3-1 on Sunday at Home Depot Center.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the death of USC professor of public policy Harry Pachon, founding board member and past executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
On Monday's show on KPCC, "The Madeleine Brand Show" is bringing back a recent interview with Alan Mootnick, the founder of the Gibbon Conservation Center who died on Friday.
CBS News announced that Rooney died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery.
Another East Los Angeles Classic is in the books.
Mootnick, the founder in 1976 of the Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita, died Friday after complications from heart surgery.
When Daily News editor Carolina Garcia was named editor over the Daily Breeze and Press-Telegram as well, it seemed pretty clear more moves were coming. Now they have come.
The folks at Mammoth Mountain must want people to come ski and board, since they send out pics like this.
Vanity Fair digs into the neighbor-on-neighbor clash over plans for a big house on the five-acre estate of Saudi prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
KPCC ventures into the mud with the local councilman, Eric Garcetti.
The Sunset 5 theaters at Sunset and Crescent Heights were once the cat's meow, but as newer theaters got bigger and better theirs got smaller and rattier — and with time the whole shopping complex became tattered.
Jan Perry leaves council leadership post, ethics inquiry for Rep. Laura Richardson, "Funny Girl" postponed, "Twilight" star does a good thing and more.
On Wednesday night, the Geffen Playhouse run began for "Next Fall," handpicked for the schedule by producing director Gil Cates.
The big fashion and celebrity fundraiser on Saturday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, co-chaired by Leonardo DiCaprio and Eva Chow, is billed in today's Wall Street Journal as essentially a borrowed idea.
Former owner Peter O'Malley might be a sentimental fan's favorite to re-take the Dodgers, but T.J. Simers makes a point somebody had to raise.
The subject of "The Maid's Daughter" is interviewed by Hector Tobar.
O'Malley and other possible Dodger buyers, Occupy Oakland, Jerry Brown shuts down transparency website, more Gensler fallout, Walter Mosley's L.A. childhood, Google opens in Venice and more.
Times editor Russ Stanton reportedly held meetings on Wednesday to announce the merging of some departments and the expected layoff of 10-20 staffers.
Time-lapse video of the tear-down work on the north side of the Sunset bridge.
You knew you were in show business when you sat in Gil Cates' office, Stewart says in introducing the moment of Zen at the conclusion of last night's Daily Show.
What do you think of the bizarro temps this afternoon?
Lindsay Lohan, Guy Crowder, John Cage, Edward Headington and more.
As you could guess, people are generally thrilled that Frank McCourt has agreed to put the Dodgers up for sale. The excitement is tempered by the realization that last time...
This week's bestseller lists at Southern California independent bookstores have some new arrivals.
Durazo tells City Hall that Occupy LA should stay, Occupy Oakland wants a general strike, Freedom sells its TV stations, finalists for entertainment journalist of the year and much, much more.
Frank McCourt has agreed to baseball's pressure to put the Dodgers up for auction, Bill Shaikin reports tonight for the Los Angeles Times website
It now goes by the name of Dave.
New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik talks about his new book, "The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food," with producer-director Ed Zwick on Thursday night.
Noah Margo, a write-in candidate for the Beverly Hills school board, has a family musical legacy.
It's Alexander Bustamante, a prosecutor in the Major Frauds Section of the U.S. Attorney's office, where he has worked since 2002.
The daily circulation of the printed Los Angeles Times was 572,998 in the latest audited numbers released today. It used to be well over a million, at the paper's peak.
Gilbert Cates, the stage, film and TV producer and director and the producing director of the Geffen Playhouse, has died at age 77.
High speed rail even more costly, legal opinion says some campaign donations can be given twice, a warning about Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, members of the jails commission and more.
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.
