Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
Sunday afternoon on East Olympic Boulevard.
Archive: A-NoFront
Sunday afternoon on East Olympic Boulevard.
Aides for elected officials get to go where news cameras can't. But the Gas Co. got Sherman to take the videos down.
Majestic Yosemite Hotel and Half Dome Village just don't sound like Yosemite. Fix it.
Roger Vargo spotted this undressed Rolls-Royce today beside the railroad tracks near City Terrace.
Writer Geoff Manaugh has posted at BLDGBLOG his observation that from above, the shapes of blocks, yards and even specific homes reveal the existence of old streets we can't see anymore. And more.
He will finish out his 20th season with the Lakers. "Dear basketball," he writes in poem. " I’m ready to let you go."
"We don’t know exactly what’s causing it,” a CHP officer said. “Right now, it’s just a weird thing."
The six-week trial is wrapping up with the ask for damages dropping -- to just $12.3 million.
Looks like California will have a ski season and maybe even a winter snowpack.
Twenty years later, Amazon has decided what it really needs is a physical, brick and mortar retail store to sell books.
An exhibit of World War II camp photos at the Skirball includes images by Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake.
Just like that, the Dodgers face elimination Tuesday night after blowing an early 3-0 lead and letting New Yorkers blow off steam about Chase Utley.
A month before shooting her famous migrant mother, Lange documented the "Mexican quarter" before it was razed for downtown's Union Station.
The new Clifton's opened last week but was unexpectedly closed all weekend "due to some unforeseen circumstances," a sign taped to the door said.
The jail cells and other TV sets finally have to move out of the former home of the Los Angeles Examiner (and HerEx) at Broadway and 11th St.
Grace Slick greets the dawn on Max Yasgur's farm on August 17, 1969. Turn up the sound.
During one stretch on Saturday, it rained steadily for two hours and lightning flashed across downtown. So why not some pics.
New batch of photos gathered by remote camera in the eastern end of the Santa Susana Mountains.
The mountain lions in the San Gabriels are untagged, uncollared and unnamed. But they are just as beautiful as the ones the National Park Service monitors in the Santa Monica Mountains.
An old barn and packing shed remain from an asparagus ranch where a Chinese immigrant family thrived before the San Fernando Valley became the suburbs.
Looks as if the Hyperloop engineers have made themselves at home in the Arts District.
My post for Memorial Day includes a book excerpt and a visit to Los Angeles National Cemetery.
These lucky few slutsters got seats at the counter.of Egg Slut in Grand Central Market.
It's a fundraiser for the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
I don't know if this a drought measure or what, but the big expanse of green grass on Santa Monica Boulevard in Westwood is mostly brown.
Sunday afternoon in Mid-City. Photo: LA Observed...
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino will open its new $68 million education and visitor center next Saturday, April 4.
Sunday on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Also: the sidewalk outside downtown's venerable California Club.
And in California, the threat of a magnitude 8 quake, the Big One for us, has been raised by USGS.
Becklund's service on Sunday at Hollywood Forever included a recommendation — seconded here — to read her piece about dying on the LA Times op-ed page. Sacks' too, in the NYT.
Of the two big projects officially kicked off on Friday, the construction of a new bridge to carry 6th Street over the Los Angeles River and beyond is the more likely to happen.
Pico, Fry's Burbank and Cedars-Sinai are among the LA locales name-checked on Sunday's reunion show. Plus: Jane Curtin on Update.
Saturday was one of those pretty cool LA days. Museums were free and packed, and thousands cruised Broadway on foot.
Politics, media, place and some tweets of the day. Plus: The Villa Carlotta in Hollywood.
The former mayor sups with Eric Garcetti and Kamala Harris as he tests his prospects for 2016. Many links inside.
Three more of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches in the Los Angeles area are in the news this MLK Day.
City Cultural Heritage Commission votes to take Norms status under advisement.
This time I guess it's a bargain: just $23 million, cut $4.5 million since 2013.
Los Angeles Magazine goes longform on the life transition of the LA news helicopter pilot formerly known as Bob Tur.
Defining the borders of downtown remains an uncertain task, writes KCET's Nathan Masters.
The Bard of LA, as he was called, had a long career at the Los Angeles Times and had also written columns for the Topanga Messenger, the Daily News and AARP — plus books and TV episodes.
A total cloud inversion on Thursday obscured visitors' view of the Grand Canyon. It's a phenomenon that happens every few years when warm air traps a layer of cold air below the canyon walls.
One in a (possibly) occasional LA Observed series.
Michael Schneider's Great LA Walk marked its ninth year by traversing Ventura Boulevard from Woodland Hills east across the Valley to Universal City, then up to North Hollywood.
By Santa Monica, they mean Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood.
A homeless encampment on Saturday on Virgil Avenue, beside the Hollywood Freeway in what the blue signs call Wilshire Center.
I'd say the ficus tree has definitively won this battle on Ben Lomond Place in Los Feliz.
I'm still traveling and will start to catch up on posting later in the week. In the meantime, a reminder about the venerable Linotype.
Walt Mossberg, the former Wall Street Journal tech columnist now writing for the start-up Re/Code, sort of parodies the hype and sort of joins in outside the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto.
Palm tree zoo? It's almost as if the three fan palm young 'uns have come to visit a jailed parent.
With U.S. Attorney Andre J. Birotte, Jr. as of today a federal judge, special counsel Bruce Riordan is moving to the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section.
I like this red light. There's a palm tree in the background. Where in Los Angeles was the picture taken?
Every familiar building, landmark, roofline and mural is photographed by Ian Wood. The challenge has been thrown down for quad-flying urban videographers.
News boxes observed, spotted on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana.
On a pleasant Los Angeles summer day, the bouncing fountain in Grand Park becomes a concrete urban beach.
The mother road that brought so many families to new lives in California -- and introduced so many young Americans to their country -- gets an entertaining treatment at the Autry. Treasures on display include Jack Kerouac's manuscript for "On the Road," an entire Corvette and the Getty's print of "Migrant mother" by Dorothea Lange.
The keeper of the Stanley Cup, Philip Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, tweeted this photo of the Kings and their families on the beach Saturday.
Old LA Observed friend Steve Greenberg contributes cartoons to the Jewish Journal and connected with this Donald Sterling gem. Previously on LA Observed: Steve Greenberg's LA Sketchbook...
Red and yellow books arranged on shelves. The Last Bookstore, Downtown Los Angeles.
New mountain lion photos from the naturalists who monitor the population in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The images were taken near Malibu Creek State Park when the cubs were 11 months old.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced this morning's death of six-year veteran Roberto Sanchez, 32, of the Harbor station. He is the third officer to die while driving in recent weeks.
Gov. Jerry Brown posted this photo to Facebook Monday. "Back to the future! Cruising in my old blue Plymouth."
Front door of Iglesia Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles on Saturday morning.
Mayor Eric Garcetti rode on a Chatsworth trail ride with other electeds this weekend — it's kind of a tradition for LA City Hall politicians. Photos inside.
I was in the desert for a couple of days and stopped in Sunday at the Sunnylands Center and Gardens in Rancho Mirage. That is the free, open to the public side of the Sunnylands estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg.
Man, it's hard to take a picture in Los Angeles without a palm tree sneaking in there.
On a nice day, in a small town, the customers never stopped coming in. Bart's provides everything that the failed book chains never figured out. Including sunshine.
The heart of old Van Nuys is lousy with mature fan palms. Indiscriminate placement is the rule.
It's a little sad that some people find the fan palms growing out of Los Angeles area sidewalks and pavement cracks to be exotic — even iconic. Author and journalism prof Lynell George knows better.
Vintage LA on Facebook is posting images released for the first time by photographer George Mann. This cropped photo shows Pacific Electric cars piled up on Terminal Island in 1963
Canada's gold medal hockey team in the Olympics included four local NHL players: Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings, and Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks.
This weekend's pouring of the concrete base for the Wilshire Grand Hotel turned into a fascinating dance of engineering, street-level logistics and photo ops. This piece by David Leonard is our favorite.
Streets were closed all around Wilshire and Figueroa on Saturday and early Sunday to make way for a big fleet of trucks pouring concrete for the base of the new Wilshire Grand hotel, being built by Korean interests as the highest skyscraper on the West Coast.
I should have posted this sooner, and now the event is tonight at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. But here you go. It's with Live Talks LA.
Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina appeared last night on "The Colbert Report." Nothing is lost in translation.
Staffers had a little birthday spread today for Mayor Eric Garcetti at City Hall.
Eric Rose posted to Facebook this view of Dodger Stadium tonight from LAPD Air 3.
The parking lots at Dodger Stadium have more ridiculous palm trees per square mile than just about anywhere in Los Angeles.
Pamela J. Peters is a photographer from the Navajo reservation who discovered Kent Mackenzie's film "The Exiles" while she was at UCLA. Her work updates the presence of young Native Americans in LA. She talks to Lisa Napoli at KCRW and has a show downtown this weekend.
The shuttering of bookstores has been a perpetual story for the past decade in Los Angeles. These are the booksellers that have shuttered since LA Observed began posting.
Michael Schneider's Great LA Walk marked its eighth year on Saturday with an 18-mile trek from Echo Park Lake to the bluffs in Santa Monica, along Sunset Boulevard and Wilshire.
The funeral for Mark will be Sunday at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park. Details inside.
Los Angeles photographer Sungjin Ahn has captured some marvelous images of Joshua trees against the desert and the sky and put them into a lovely Vimeo time lapse.
Folks, I'm sad to announce that Mark Lacter — the creator of LA Biz Observed and the author of 10,000 posts since 2006 — has passed away. He suffered a stroke.
Photographer Julius Chiu doesn't work at the Los Angeles Times, but he managed to get in and take a series of photos at the paper's lone remaining printing plant, on Olympic Boulevard south of downtown.
Near Aberdeen, CA in the Eastern Sierra's Inyo County.
If you were a fan of Scott Turow's early blockerbuster legal thrillers, you will possibly remember that in the film version of "Presumed Innocent," Brian Dennehy played prosecuting attorney Raymond Horgan.
Clifford V. Johnson steps out for the afternoon to draw.
I'll be posting later in the day.
Erica Jong is out marking the 40th anniversary of "Fear of Flying." The tickets are for Wednesday evening.
"I just couldn't resist," Garcetti posts on Facebook. Check it out.
Jon Christensen and Mark Gold are both respected observers of the environmental activism and policy scene. They will be writing together as Christensen & Gold — and like all LAO columnists, with no interference from a pushy editor.
Sunday's "heart of LA" CicLAvia route drew a good crowd. The Metro trains in and out of downtown were certainly hopping.
Photographers (mostly) wait outside the Stanley Mosk courthouse in downtown Los Angeles for the verdict clearing Anschutz Entertainment Group of liability in the death of Michael Jackson.
Old-timey Los Angeles lawyer Joseph Scott appears to be holding a presser for phantom cameras outside the Stanley Mosk courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. It's actually the sticks set...
NPR debuted its newly envisioned afternoon show this weekend from Culver City. It means more LA content for the network and less quiet around the studios, underused since the demise of "Day to Day."
It feels like the Pasadena bookseller Cliff's Books has been in liquidation mode all year. But Steve Barkan noticed a new level of signage today.
The Broad opened its doors to the media today for a hard-hat tour of the still under-construction museum and made some news.
On the back of a classic Los Angeles address on 7th Street, visible only across a parking lot, is a reminder of the once popular Clifton's cafeteria empire.
Event at 2 p.m. at Central Library goes into the Adams photos of 1940 Los Angeles and environs that were donated to the library.
Let the reviews begin. Mark Swed says the acoustics are great and "tourists take pleasure in merely touching the building's shiny surfaces. Yet Disney Hall is not what it could be."
The design firm Gensler, which will be taking the lead on a project to remake Pershing Square, has posted a video that shows what can be done — and why it should be done. They even keep the parking garage beneath the park.
Posted to Twitter by historian Michael Beschloss, without explanation. Click to see it big.
The documentary photographer Bruce Davidson is known mostly for his images of New York — and not the softer sides of the city. Recently he has been dropping into Los Angeles for weeks at a time to shoot mostly in the hills and canyons. Palm trees, yuccas and the ivy growing on the undersides of freeway bridges factor in his LA pictures.
Linda Ronstadt told the AARP website she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight months ago, after beginning to show symptoms eight years ago. "No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease,” Ronstadt said. “No matter how hard you try.”
Garcetti's DWP win, San Diego ponders politics after Filner, the porn actress with the positive HIV test comes forward and more for a Friday short stack.
Several LA Observed regulars knew right away that the mystery Jurgensen's Grocery sign posted last week can be found on Glendon Avenue in Westwood Village. There's nothing quite like the Jurgensen's chain in LA today.
The National Park Service listed ten of the acclaimed Case Study Houses around Southern California on the National Register of Historic Places, citing their historic and architectural significance. The Stahl house in the Hollywood Hills is one of the ten.
Three photos from the Los Angeles Public Library collection show the emotion of the morning that Robert F. Kennedy died, a day after winning the California primary election and probably the Democratic nomination for president.
Who knows where this beauty of a sign was revealed by some construction a few years ago? I'll post the answer later. LA Observed photo...
Kinda cool if you know the west San Fernando Valley today as just suburban sprawl and Devonshire Street as a six-lane boulevard. Devonshire in 1940 was a rural state highway through the horse ranches of Northridge and Chatsworth.
The former team of the award-winning news series has mostly dispersed, but KCET is actively raising support for a sixth season with a tentative launch date in January.
Michael Ansara had one of those Hollywood careers that lasted a long time and is fun to examine. Because he was of Lebanese heritage (born in Syria but raised in the U.S.), he went from the drama department at Los Angeles City College into a succession of "ethnic" roles.
An exhibit of of photos taken by the house photographer for the late Country Club is bringing some attention to the days when rockers flocked to Reseda. They would buy vinyl at BeBop Records or attend shows at the Country Club on Sherman Way.
Times goes big (if late) with Hollywood quake fault. Worldwide terror alert. Ellen DeGeneres to host the Oscars. Nury Martinez to join City Council today. Civic Center pit to be filed with federal courthouse. Garcetti has campaign debt too, but a lot less. NPR hires its first staff TV critic. Puig homers again and behold the Magic Johnson bobblehead. Plus more.
On Vin Scully Bobblehead Night at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, the sellout crowd gave Mister Los Angeles a standing ovation. Check out the home plate ump (and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson.)
Caltrans officials were able to open two northbound lanes of I-5 at the interchange with the 2 freeway in Elysian Valley in time for today's afternoon commute. The rest of I-5 may open Tuesday, but the tunnel beneath connecting the northbound 2 to the northbound I-5 is closed indefinitely.
SoCal is well represented, as usual, in ESPN The Magazine's annual Body Issue celebrating the fact that the editors got a bunch of gorgeous-bodied athletes to strip naked — again. The LA royalty of the nudes is Olympic champion and mother of three Kerri Walsh Jennings, who used the promotional buzz to announce her comeback with a new partner.
The Natural History Museum unveils to the public the new and much-anticipated Becoming LA exhibit hall on Sunday. It's must-see for students of Los Angeles history, but it should be interesting for just about anyone.
Eric Garcetti took a ceremonial oath of office from Kenia Castillo, an 8th grader at Luther Burbank Magnet Middle School in Highland Park, on Sunday evening while his wife, Amy Elaine Wakeland, looked on. Garcetti will become the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles at midnight tonight. Excerpts from his speech inside.
Eric Garcetti will take the ceremonial oath of office in the 6 p.m. hour in the swelter on the west steps of City Hall. He intends to call himself the "salesman-in-chief" for Los Angeles and in his speech will pledge to bring more jobs to the city. Here's the program as scheduled.
Dennis Lahti, a cameraman-editor for KNBC, posted this photo of his father, Richard Lahti, loaded up for "2 On The Town" on Channel 2: "We now do it with a camera, laptop/non-linear editing software, and a video-over-cellular live video transmission backpack."
Tonight's addition to the legend of Yasiel Puig: a grand slam home run on the first pitch he saw in the 8th inning. The Dodgers beat the Braves 5-0 behind starting pitcher Zack Greinke.
The newest orbiting Landsat satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central Coast on Feb. 11. It flew back over home base in March and took this photo. The resolution is so good you can zoom in on the Santa Barbara coast, kelp beds and the Pismo Dunes.
The Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery on South La Brea opened with an inaugural exhibition of work by artist James Turrell, including e Skyspace room where visitors sit in reclining chairs and observe subtle light and color changes from a dome in the ceiling.
If you are not here and are wondering what season it is in Los Angeles, it's jacaranda season. The streets are flush with purple, and soon the sidewalks will be too.
Gary took photos throughout the runoff campaign for mayor between Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel. Here is a selection of our favorites.
The Kings are the first Stanley Cup champion to reach the second round of the NHL playoffs in three years. Get this: if the Ducks win on Sunday, LA and Anaheim will finally meet in the playoffs for the first time.
Subway turnstiles. LA's rough streets. Rick Caruso on 10,000 cops. Mary Melton of Los Angeles finally gets that Emmis promotion. Get ready for YouTube subscriptions. Howard Kurtz does the mea culpa. The movie academy opens up voting. Magic Johnson swatted, converting the LA River and more. Links inside.
Emily Green, the water journalist and gardening writer who blogs at Chance of Rain, took some pictures this week at the defunct “Rock-a-Hoola Waterpark“ at Newberry Springs in the eastern Mojave. The derelict park, which used groundwater from the Mojave Aquifer, has also operated as Lake Dolores and the Discovery Waterpark.
Springs fire holds at 10,000 acres and 10% contained. LA lifts red flag status. Villaraigosa spokesman moves on. Greucetti blames him/herself for high DWP salaries. Daily News re-endorses Greuel. Jackie Goldberg vs. Gil Cedillo. Kobe Bryant vs his mom. Rosendahl says cancer in remission. New dean at Southwestern and new giraffe at the zoo. Plus more.
Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a few regrets and what sounds like genuine awareness of flaws in his game — the game of life. Some are about being aloof when he was younger, some are about being bad with money and tools, some are from the dating wars.
Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, as Rob and Laura Petrie, in front of a studio audience during filming of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in 1963. Jerry Paris can be seen directing the episode.
Beverly Hills police are asking for help in identifying the driver of this car who appears to deliberately pin a bicyclist against a trash dumpster in an alley off Wilshire Boulevard.
Many fans are loath to say anything negative about Ciclavia, but USC physics professor Clifford V. Johnson — as enthusiastic a supporter as there is — has some constructive criticism after Sunday's mass turnout across the Westside. One, there were too many bike traffic jams. More inside.
The sixth version of Ciclavia is breaking out of the central city and extending west all the way to Venice Beach. Venice Boulevard and selected other streets will be closed to cars and buses from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The video and series of eleven photos includes a request for anyone with information to contact the FBI.
Wednesday night's Boston Bruins game, first since the Boston Marathon bombings. As the Hawaiians say, chicken skin.
Abel Rodriguez would drive from his home in Fontana to chase balls for free at Madrid's summer practices at UCLA. On a lark he flew to Spain last month and sat in the snow beside the team's training complex for hours — until his luck changed. "Amigo! What are you doing here?" the coach asked.
LA photographer Johnny Tergo has rigged up his Chevy Silverado's passenger window with a camera and strobe lights, and he catches some interesting sidewalk scenes. Hat tip to Wired.com
Two bombs exploded Monday afternoon near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in the city's Back Bay area. At least three are dead and 176 injured. Summary of the news is inside.
Meg Sullivan and Steve Roe came home Sunday to find the agave in the front yard beginning to sprout the big reproductive thingy in the middle. Same for a nearby plant: two century plants sprouting at the same time. Anyone want to take pictures?
Just days after Henry's Tacos opened in its new location on Tujunga Avenue in Studio City, the popular spot's old location on Tujunga and Moorpark has been leased: to a competing taco joint. Hmm, I wonder if the landlord had a hand in this?
Hey all, I'm traveling this week. They have wi-fi in Canada so I'll be posting a little bit here and there, but probably not in the mornings.
Dodger Stadium showed off some improvements, Sandy Koufax made his return to Chavez Ravine to throw out the first pitch, and Clayton Kershaw shut out the Giants for the first win of the season — going all the way with just 94 pitches and no walks on opening day. Kershaw even clubbed his first career home run. Final score: 4-0.
People up in the Eastern Sierra noticed recently that the sky was kind of hazy, and the usual culprit — dust from the Owens Lake bed that the Los Angeles DWP dried up years ago — could not be blamed. Turns out the haze was caused by suspended particles from "a massive dust event last week in the Gobi Desert" that rode the jet stream across the Pacific.
Ray Collins, a singer and co-founder with Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention in the 1960s, died in December with a reputation as something of a "celebrity transient' out in Claremont. While Collins was alive, he apparently had a favorite table outside the Some Crust Bakery in Claremont Village. Thanks to Google, he's eternally there.
The Kings and the Galaxy both brought their 2012 championship trophies to the White House on Tuesday. I'm seeing mostly hockey types in this photo from the Kings, including retired Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille, captain Dustin Brown and general manager Dean Lombardi.
The shopping center at Beverly and La Cienega boulevards was evacuated early this afternoon after a man reported finding a suspicious briefcase in his car. The case was removed and detonated, and the center reopened about 5 p.m., according to media reports.
On Sunday, a male and female did the courtship dance for several hours alongside and under a Dana Point whale-watch boat and other craft full of amazed onlookers. In the video, the whales even appear to rub against a sailboat and set it to rocking.
It has been more foggy than not along the beaches for the past week or so. Blame the recurring Southern California weather phenomenon known as the Catalina eddy, shown here. NASA explains how it works.
They are meeting any media that comes out on a Saturday afternoon at the Doll Factory, the Temple Street home of the Derby Dolls near downtown. Unless they are going to strap on skates, I'm assuming this is where Pleitez announces he is endorsing Garcetti in the runoff for mayor. Plus: Greuel gets Emily's List.
The Los Angeles Marathon begins at Dodger Stadium on Sunday morning and ends on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Most runners will start at 7:28 a.m. Streets and freeway ramps will reopen across the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and on the federal VA campus near West LA, on a rolling basis.
Anschutz says NFL deal still likely, Leiweke's departure ripples, $40,000 for women the LAPD shot at, Newark Cory Booker as newest Hollywood political darling, hacking the LA Times website, the end for the Boston Phoenix and a KPCC reporter sings for losing a bet.
Bryan Frank, the photographer for the CBS 2/KCAL 9 duopoly, has been posting some really nice behind-the-scenes images — as well as some food, coffee and street life shots that make me wish I was back in Rome.
Campaign consultants for Greuel, Garcetti and Perry dissect the mayoral primary races that are behind us — turnout is the story — and look cautiously ahead. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee's cartoonist lampoons Angelenos for not voting.
KTLA News Director Jason Ball is new to Twitter and has been tweeting so much so that former Channel 5 reporter David Begnaud Twit-quipped to producers Tara Wallis and Marcus K. Smith: "Y'all take that twitter away from @jasonrball." Ball posted this photo the other day of the afternoon editorial meeting. It's nice to see inside the walls and have a mental picture of how they do things.
From 1909 until 1919, a big winter road race was held in Santa Monica that attracted top drivers and thousands of spectators. Former Huell Howser producer Harry Pallenberg is posting a series of video documentaries on SoCal's racing history, and right now his website features the Wilshire Boulevard races.
Front-runners Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel got out early Sunday and took the campaign for mayor to the streets. Unlike Saturday, at least a few TV cameras followed along — and LA Observed too.
Channel 7 political reporter John North talks with John Shallman, senior strategist for the Wendy Greuel campaign, at Greuel's Van Nuys headquarters on Thursday. North is scheduled to retire from ABC 7 on Friday after 34 years.
The 405 freeway widening and upgrade project on the Westside and in Sepulveda Pass is about a year behind schedule. But if you haven't been through there in awhile, you might be surprised at the visuals. The skyline at the Wilshire Boulevard interchange is starting to look very different.
The other shoe fell today in the evolution of Hollywood trade Variety under new owner Jay Penske. One of the new co-editors is Claudia Eller, a 20-year veteran of movie coverage at the LA Times. Nikki Finke says Penske lied to her.
The media who parachute into Hollywood for the Oscars don't always get that, for the locals, the Academy Awards are something of a community event. It's not just that traffic sucks in Hollywood and officials shut down the Hollywood and Highland subway station. The week of the Oscars provides work, diversion and more.
This whale rubs on the boat, rolls over to be caressed and even closes its eyes — only thing missing is the purr. But really, kids should not stick their hands into the mouth of a whale, baby or not. Watch inside.
Behind a construction fence on Pico Boulevard, what used to be the parking lot for Billingsley's Steak House and a medical marijuana dispensary is now taken up with bridge structures for the second, Westside phase of Metro's Expo Line light rail. More scenes inside.
Several reports say that Christopher Dorner is the gunman who died in a vacation cabin in the 7 Oaks area off highway 38, about 10 miles down the hill from Big Bear. But both the San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman and the LAPD insisted that Dorner's death has not been confirmed and that no body has been recovered. A San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy was killed in the shootout and another was wounded.
The American snowboardcross champion who fell at the Vancouver Olympics (and disappointed some in the media) is doing just fine. Jacobellis lives at the beach in Encinitas now.
If I'm the publisher of the LA Times, I probably reject the big ads for "Southland" right now and don't let images of cops with guns take over my website for a small amount of revenue.
Sick and hungry sea lion pups are showing up almost daily at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro — a dozen on Saturday alone. What is afflicting the young sea lions is unknown.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called in CBS2 anchor Pat Harvey for an exclusive interview today in which Beck said he would take a look at some of the allegations of racism made by disgraced ex-cop Christopher Dorner. Beck told Harvey that his motive in re-opening the case that led to Dorner's firing was to keep the department's trust among African-Americans. "I'm not doing this to appease Dorner," Beck said.
Law enforcement all over Southern California is on alert after the events of this morning in Riverside County. Police suspect that Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer, killed one officer and wounded two others. Dorner has threatened cops in a Facebook manifesto and the LAPD is on citywide tactical alert. Updated post.
Watch video of the International Bird Rescue Center releasing a healthy Laysan Albatross outside the breakwater at San Pedro.
Vose Street in North Hollywood is a workaday LA industrial street under the final approach path for jets landing at Bob Hope Airport. Valleywood shops and services, the Doc Johnson factory for rubber sex toys, and a mysterious driveway marked Faux Library.
Canadian astronaut on the International Space Station makes his second appearance of the week on LA Observed. Wait until you see his shot of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate inside.
Some 500 members of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines from Camp Pendleton took part in live weapons training this week at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center near Twentynine Palms.
Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut in Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station, has been tweeting eye-catching photos of points all across the planet.
The final occupants of Parker Center moved out last Friday and today LAPD officials ceremonially closed the headquarters where Bill Parker vowed to stop the mob and Joe Friday lectured many seasons worth of Dragnet bad guys. Read or listen to the departrment's end of watch message.
This ran on this week's episode of "The Simpson's." Hat tip to KCET on Facebook. There is a sunset memorial to Howser scheduled this afternoon at Griffith Observatory.
Regrettable news from Donna Myrow, who founded L.A. Youth as a newspaper written by and for Los Angeles teenagers 25 years ago. It has been a struggle to keep the paper going in recent years. A desperate fundraising pitch last year bought some more time. But a note in the upcoming February issue will announce that L.A. Youth is closing down. Here is Myrow's note in the final issue.
By the time Gary Leonard got over there today, the period signage that a lot people liked about Henry's Tacos in Studio City had been taken down. Same with the old menu boards above the front window.
The Los Angeles Kings hit the ice Sunday morning at 10 a.m. for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup last June. A couple hundred fans were at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo to watch the first formal workout of pre-season training camp and hook up with friends.
The Voice For The Animals Foundation has put out a 2013 calendar featuring LAPD officers with their own rescue animals. Proceeds go for medical treatment, food and shelter for animals. Chief Beck is on the cover.
What you need to know about the fundraising race, coveting Obama and the Clintons, talking about housing, Greuel moves into South LA and more from around the campaigns.
Councilman Tom LaBonge, a friend of the public TV icon Huell Howser, said today he will join friends and fans for a public memorial at sunset on Tuesday, Jan. 15 at Griffith Observatory. Also: video of Huell in Tennessee as you may never have seen him.
Reportero, which debuted Monday night on POV on PBS, follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, "as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media." Watch the trailer inside or stream the entire film.
KCET has posted some great tributes to Huell Howser, including video of the longtime production team and the station's three-minute obituary from Monday night's "SoCal Connected." Also: Kevin Roderick and John Rabe with Jacob Soboroff on HuffPost Live.
In this Univision video in English, the curator of a new show at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City explains the colorful dresses, other clothing and body harnesses found 58 years after the artist's death.
Last night I asked if a color candid photograph of the Beatles chatting with fans outdoors could have been from the private party held in August 1964 in the Beverly Hills backyard of Alan Livingston, then the president of Capitol Records. By this morning, LA Observed readers had provided the answer.
From the Beatles first tour of the United States in 1964, most of the published photographs have been in black and white. Now color slides found in the collection of a late inventor include shots from a private party the Beatles attended here in 1964.
Villaraigosa tells Conan Nolan on NBC 4's "News Conference" that he was in Cabo San Lucas on vacation, bumped into Charlie Sheen in the hotel, and that Sheen asked to take a photo. "I'm in the picture taking business. I've never said no to anyone that wants to take a picture."
What is it about non-Angelenos becoming so obsessed with old filming locations that they spend years tracking down obscure shots and facts — then write books about their discoveries that become chronicles of LA history? When you grow up in Los Angeles, you get used to seeing familiar sights in the background of movies and TV shows. You just stop thinking about it.
On Tuesday afternoon, volunteers at the ACS/LA Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center spotted a mother and three orca calves patrolling off the PV peninsula. Nice underwater video.
Former New West staffer Michael Kurcfeld found this clip from July 3, 1978, disclosing plans for a new alternative newspaper to fill the void left by closure of the Los Angeles Free Press. Working title: L.A.Weekly.
Awesome. Brilliant stroke to go female with the Led Zeppelin anthem. The surprise church choir voices finally brought Robert Plant to subtle tears.
Photos: Yuccas thrive in the foothills on the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains. If there's one plant more iconic of the Mojave, it could be the tumbleweed.
Gun holders queued up in cars around the block at Exposition Park to exchange guns for Ralphs gift cards in front of the Sports Arena — no questions asked. Long lines were also reported at the Van Nuys Masonic Temple.
Photos: The California Aqueduct near Littlerock, moving Northern California water across the Mojave Desert on Wednesday afternoon.
Janis Hood, the owner of Henry's Tacos in Studio City, says on Facebook that the landlord has asked her stay open until Jan. 15 and has agreed to hold lease talks with a possible new owner. Hood had previously said the landlord would not discuss a lease with the person she hopes will buy the business her family opened 51 years ago.
Imagine if Disneyland had been built in Burbank, or if LAX lay west of the corner of Balboa and Roscoe. A major new exhibit will look at the city that never happened — a cool video inside invites you to support the project on Kickstarter.
By legend and observation, today is when the sun lines up with a target-like pictograph in a cave in an area of the Simi Hills called Burro Flats. Hopefully, you will never find this place.
Sen. Feinstein protests "Zero Dark Thirty," Council President Wesson and his ethics commissioner, the mayoral race observed, sea otters may come back south, Jay Mohr takes Jim Rome radio slot and it was really cold in Lancaster this morning. Plus the Clippers win again.
The Jenni Rivera memorial held today at the Gibson Amphitheatre looked to be a very large family gathering. There were the 6,000-plus fans in the seats who sang along with the songs and chanted her name, and there was the singer's extended family baring their souls on stage.
f you still think of Broadway in Downtown as a street entirely devoted to bridal shops and other small stores catering to Latinos, look again. The Los Feliz bistro Figaro has just opened a large, gleaming new flagship restaurant near Clifton's Cafeteria.
Joel Sappell writes in the January issue of Los Angeles magazine about the harassment he and co-author Robert Welkos endured, and he talks to a key church defector who used to run intelligence for L. Ron Hubbard and was the chief "auditor" for Tom Cruise.
Sunday's scene at Henry's Tacos in Studio City included actors Aaron Paul, Elijah Wood and George Lopez, plus City Councilwoman Jan Perry, taking her candidacy for mayor to the corner of Moorpark and Tujunga. Newbies all. About 1969 or 70, officers Reed and Malloy came by in Adam-12.
Happy holidays from Venice Beach.
Rivera's family is asking to be left alone for a private burial, but on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon there will be a public memorial service at the amphitheater in Universal CityWalk. Her minister brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., will lead the service.
LAPD will visit schools every day, Fred Davis in the mayoral race, DA reassigns her rival, NRA drops off Facebook, herding cats in Hollywood, Caruso buys up Pacific Palisades village and Ronald Reagan's GE Showcase home hits the market. Plus more.
Jeni LeGon made her name in the 1930s singing and dancing with other African-American stars such as Bill Bojangles Robinson and Fats Waller. She later taught dance in Los Angeles, the NYT says.
Celebrities such as George Lopez, Adam Carolla and Elijah Wood have rallied around the Henry's Tacos cause, and there's a Change.org group. The result is a very long line outside Henry's on Sunday afternoon.
The Daily News headline writer had a brain freeze (happens to all of us) and wrote that soccer player Brandy Chastain stars in "Zero Dark Thirty," not SAG and Golden Globe-nominated actor Jessica Chastain. "So after Bin Laden is killed she takes off her shirt?," Bob Timmermann quips.
OC Register's new owner Aarson Kushner is profiled, and former LA Times writer Tim Rutten starts a Sunday column in the Daily News and its sister papers. Plus more
Who is that woman exchanging grins with President John Kennedy in 1962 on Santa Monica Beach? The LA Times photo blog tells us.
Ravi Shankar has died in San Diego after being admitted to Scripps Memorial Hospital last week complaining of breathing difficulties. The legendary musician and his musician daughter Anoushka are nominated for 2013 Grammy awards in the world music category. The prime minister of India has confirmed the death and called Shankar a national treasure.
Authorities in Mexico say that the remains of singer Jenni Rivera were found overnight in the wreckage field of her jet that crashed Sunday in mountains in the state of Nuevo Leon.
Reaction to the news that Henry's will close has been swift and intense. Krekorian felt moved to post a lengthy statement denying that his office is aware of any development plans for the site.
There's wasn't much to buy or even see, but that didn't stop the crowds from converging Saturday at the corner estate where Bob and Dolores Hope lived from 1939 on. Photos inside include the Hopes' nativity scene that is displayed this Christmas for the final time.
Mack Reed's Tumblr post about finding a duffel bag full of someone else's weed in his Silver Lake yard and calling the LAPD — we posted about it early yesterday — has made its way rapidly around the web.
Anchor Sharon Tay, meteorologist Evelyn Taft in the middle and reporter Amber Lee in the KCAL studio. Tweeted by Taft.
The modernist designed one home in the United States, the Strick House in Santa Monica. He never saw it.
The Trader Joe's on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles was awash Tuesday in billboards promoting "The Guilt Trip." And not a wrinkle in sight.
The 1.3-acre estate on Moorpark Street, built for Bob and Dolores Hope in 1939, has never changed hands. We're calling it the most celebrity-infused property left in the San Fernando Valley.
The staff of the Los Angeles Public Library has some thoughts on which books of 2012 are most worth reading: fiction, nonfiction, teen and children's.
Feuer's Prius was hit by a truck that ran a red light. The candidate for city attorney will remain in the hospital for a few days, but his campaign says the injuries are not life threatening.
Chief Petty Officer Horne, of Redondo Beach, was out with the Marina Del Rey cutter Halibut when a suspected smuggling vessel rammed his inflatable boat, throwing Horne into the sea near Santa Cruz Island.
Nice win by the Los Angeles Galaxy this afternoon at Home Depot Center. The Houston Dynamo scored first, then the Galaxy took over the second half of the game.
David Courtney, the arena announcer for the Los Angeles Kings and Clippers at Staples Center and the stadium announcer in Anaheim for the Angels, has died at age 56. No cause was given by the Kings, but Courtney had tweeted yesterday that he was at a hospital awaiting an angiogram.
How's that 110 freeway HOV lane working out for you? A lot of people are flouting the transponder rule, it seems.
Howser is "retiring from making new shows but does not want to make any formal announcements about it," says an email. Amazing.
The percentage of yes votes keeps going up, but not fast enough to make passage likely. There are only so many votes left to count.
Christine Pelisek, the veteran local police reporter who is now a Los Angeles writer for the Daily Beast, writes for the website's broad audience on "the latest use-of-force incident to surface in recent months involving the Los Angeles Police Department, which has been grappling with a series of brutality claims—some of which have been caught on tape."
Making Angelenos suffer to park their cars is all the rage in City Hall these days. But if you work for Councilman Mitch Englander and want to park at the Chatsworth Metro station, there are a couple of nice spots right in front. (Updated.)
The story on Board of Public Works president Andrea Alarcon being in trouble for the handling of her 11-year-old daughter inched forward a tiny bit on Friday.
Ken Burns' latest documentary debuted on PBS on Sunday night. The great migration to California begins in tonight's second part. Watch a preview.
Villaraigosa was in a forgiving mood about that "Failure" cover back in 2009. He even joked about his "General Petraeus moment."
The California Supreme Court denied a request by Neighbors for Smart Rail for a stay that would stop construction on the Expo Line extension across the Westside to Santa Monica. The supremes agreed with previous rulings that there's no cause to stop work while the homeowner groups press their case that the project's environmental review made mistakes.
In which the third floor at City Hall fills up and numerous staffers and reporters post Facebook pictures of themselves with Snoop Dogg and a certain new Lakers center. Video from the office of Councilman Joe Buscaino.
George Mann was a vaudeville performer who made color photographs of downtown's Bunker Hill neighborhood before all the Victorians and rooming houses were torn down. There is a show of his 1960s Kodachrome photos — in 3-D, with glasses provided — tonight at Central Library.
Spotted on Councilman Eric Garcetti's TwitPic page, from last month but worth a reprise.
City Councilman and candidate for mayor Eric Garcetti up in the saddle, posted to his TwitPic account in October with the message "Happy Horse Day." While we're on the subject,...
On Sunday it was mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel's turn to go for a trail ride with the equestrians of Chatsworth. It's a rite of political passage in LA: we even have a pic of Antonio Villaraigosa in the saddle.
The mayor vows he's staying, but his new reformer mode sounds a lot like a statewide candidate. This week he kisses and makes up with Los Angeles Magazine, three years after the "Failure" cover.
The Lakers signed a big-name coach on Sunday night, but it's not Phil Jackson. When talks with Jackson bogged down, despite his all-out endorsement by Kobe Bryant and the Staples Center fans, the Lakers quickly gave a multi-year deal to Mike D'Antoni.
Media sources are reporting that the Lakers have fired coach Mike Brown after opening the season an ugly 1-4. No replacement leaked yet.
The unused drawers in Doheny Library now have locks on them and can be used by university donors to leave gifts for their families — just the right shape for wine bottles, apparently.
California voters went 59 percent for President Obama, 39 percent for Mitt Romney. It's largely, but not totally, a coastal thing. But Obama lost 2.7 million voters in California since 2008.
Howard Berman and Laura Richardson lose their seats in Congress, Councilman Tony Cardenas goes to Washington, Jackie Lacey wins DA of Los Angeles County, Prop. 30 leads, the death penalty stays, three strikes as we know it goes, and from now on LA porn actors have to cover up. Plus more.
This Saturday, the HOV lanes on the Harbor Freeway south of downtown convert to HOT lanes — meaning if you are a solo driver, you can pay to drive with the carpools.
That may not be so controversial, but it means that everyone who drives in the 110 lanes, carpoolers included, have to pay $40 plus $3 a month for a FasTrak transponder.
Reagh took 40,000 photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California from the 1930s until 1991, chronicling a time of huge change in the cityscape and the people of LA. A major new book that showcases a selection of Reagh's work promises to be a must-have for the Angeleno buff you know — even at $225 per copy. Here is a gallery of Reagh's photos through the decades.
Nate Silver, the polls and stats analyst whose FiveThirtyEight forecasts runs in the New York Times, wrote Saturday that President Obama is "now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday, his highest figure since the Denver debate and improved from 80.8 percent on Thursday."
He has the complex algorithm to back up saying that President Obama is the favorite to win on Tuesday. But all he needs, he says, is this: Obama is ahead in Ohio.
Bill Dees was a Nashville songwriter working with Roy Orbison in 1964 when they wrote 'Oh, Pretty Woman," inspired by Orbison's wife Claudette. The song changed both of their lives forever.
Saturday morning on one of Los Angeles' longest-running radio programs, the hosts will announce the death of John Retsek, who created "The Car Show" on KPFK in 1973. They will talk about John and possibly take calls from the legions of listeners who have listened to the show or been guests in its nearly four decades on the air — the odd duck among the politically charged news, talk and revolutionary rhetoric at the Pacifica-owned radio station.
As of Thursday afternoon, about 549,000 mail ballots have already been returned to the LA County Registrar-Recorder. Just over a majority, 50.59 percent of the ballots, have come back from Democrats. Some 29.65 percent have come in from Republicans.
How KPCC's quest for Latino listeners doomed the "Madeleine Brand Show," plus the first choice of a co-host — and the complications of A Martinez's advocacy for steroids in sports.
Signs are posted on Sunset Boulevard and elsewhere in Hollywood reminding Halloween revelers that even the possession of silly string is illegal in Los Angeles — but only on Halloween and only in Hollywood.
I went over to KCET's new studios in Burbank last week to catch the first day of run throughs for the made-over "So Cal Connected." Here's what to expect from the nightly show and some pictures of KCET's digs.
NASA posted this image of Hurricane Sandy taken at noon Eastern time on Sunday.
Mary Jane's Place, North Main Street, Lincoln Heights.
This looks south down Avenue of the Stars from Santa Monica Boulevard, toward Pico Boulevard. The Century Plaza Hotel stood mostly by itself then.
If you remember Pauley Pavilion as dark and dated, look again. UCLA's renovated arena reopens in November, newly encased in glass and bathed in light. LA Observed photos.
With Campanile winding down to next week's end of its almost-25 year run on La Brea, Emily Green writes at the LA Weekly's food blog that the restaurant launched by Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel "has stood as proof that Los Angeles has a native-born food culture on par with anyone's. It introduced us to the glories of trattoria cooking and reintroduced us to American classics."
According to a report at CBS Sports.com, NFL owners have expressed new doubts about the AEG-City Hall plan to build a stadium at LA Live and revived their lust for the parking lots and abundant space around Dodger Stadium. Also: no team before 2014 at the earliest.
Photos from upstairs at The Last Bookstore, on 5th Street in Downtown.
The Brewery Arts Complex in Lincoln Heights held its twice-annual open house and art walk this weekend. Good crowds both days. Here are a few pics.
For his new book documenting the rock and roll billboards of the Sunset Strip, Robert Landau wondered what happened to Paul's head from Abbey Road. Now we know, 43 years later. Pics and video inside.
Murdoch isn't alone: Austin Beutner, the Register's Aaron Kushner and San Diego partisan Doug Manchester all are expressing interest in the paper, which could be sold soon after bankruptcy ends.
The "infrastructure" firm HNTB has won the city's international design competition for the new bridge that will replace the decaying concrete 6th Street Viaduct over the Los Angeles River. Here's what they have in mind.
My local Orchard Supply Hardware store on Bundy Drive has redesigned and rebranded as the kind of hardware store it says should appeal to women. You know: brighter colors, lower shelves, "aspirational images" and less of that masculine hardware stuff.
Young (OK, very young) versions of the former KNBC 4 stalwarts and a feature story on the Mojave Desert landmark.
DA investigators arrested embattled Assessor John Noguez this morning at his home in Huntington Park. Allegations include bribery and corruption. Two others were also arrested.
Larry Kmetz, who is 70, grew up in downtown Los Angeles toward the end of the streetcar era. He has strong, favorable memories of his travels around the city and has recreated an interpretation of the LA of his youth in his basement in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Ed Fuentes chats him up.
Mark Bittman, the New York Times food columnist, asked readers where in the world they wanted him to go to write a solid, serious piece for the NYT Magazine's food issue this Sunday. This challenge led him to California's Central Valley, where so much of the food consumed in America comes from — at least for now. He explains why that had to be the place, and shows his excitement at the scale of it all, but sounds the alarm about the future.
Things got a bit delayed — they are now more than 12 hours late towing the retired space shuttle Endeavour to its new home at the California Science Center. Of course that means more people have been able to see it. Here are some Sunday photos from Gary Leonard
The space shuttle Endeavour was scheduled to leave the field at LAX about 2 a.m. and begin rolling east toward Friday night's crossing of the 405 freeway. A couple of major viewing spots are planned for Saturday before the shuttle reaches Exposition Park.
Well this can't be good. The heated acrimony in the bitter race between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman boiled over into something a bit more...unseemly. At one point, Sherman roughly grabs his more senior colleague and shouts, "Do you want to get into this?" Then a lawman arrives to calm things down. Videos inside
KCET will announce today that former KPCC host Madeleine Brand will become a special contributor to "SoCal Connected." The show is also going daily — it had aired on a weekly cycle. Val Zavala will remain the show's news anchor, with Brand doing mostly interviews, it sounds like.
Here's the full text of the email that just landed around the 11th council district (Brentwood to LAX, basically) from Councilman Bill Rosendahl. He tells supporters that he intends to become a cancer survivor, but is dropping his reelection campaign and endorsing chief deputy Mike Bonin.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who has been fighting cancer, plans to announce in a letter to his district tomorrow that he will not seek reelection in the spring, the LA Times reports.
Whit Johnson, the new co-anchor at NBC 4, is married to new KCAL 9 reporter Andrea Fujii. He's a proud husband, per Twitter.
President Obama arrived at LAX a little after 1 p.m. and went right to a private gathering of donors in Trousdale Estates before tonight's concert and exclusive dinner downtown.
Before Santa Monica's 3rd Street shopping district hit the skids and was re-imagined as a pedestrian mall, it was the busy center of town. This photo was posted Sunday at the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page.
Cindy Whitehead, a former pro skateboarder from Hermosa Beach, had the phone numbers of a bail bondsman, a lawyer and a friend written on her arm — just in case.
Removal of the north side of the original Mulholland Drive bridge over the 405 freeway has gone about as well as expected. Mayor Villarigosa and Metro officials said Sunday evening that the lanes through Sepulveda Pass will open as promised by 5 a.m. on Monday.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently paid $20 million for a think tank at USC, gets a segment on "60 Minutes" tonight to give just enough mea culpa on the whole cheated-on-Maria thing to sound like it was a blip. But at the Daily Beast, Ann Louise Bardach says the chronology given to CBS' Lesley Stahl and in Arnold's new memoir is anything but true
Traffic has been a bit heavier than usual for a Saturday in a few spots, especially near the immediate detours around the closed 405 freeway. But for the most part,...
In its final report, issued this morning, the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence put a lot of the blame on Sheriff Lee Baca and his number two, Paul Tanaka, and said the department needs to be reformed top to bottom and undergo a management shakeup. Civilian oversight is also needed.
Staffers at the Auto Club Archives on South Figueroa had a little fun with a 1929 picture from their files — and remind people to avoid driving near the 405 this weekend.
"Harper" starring Paul Newman aired tonight on Turner Classic Movies. Here's a screen grab circa-1966 of the Mulholland Drive bridge in Sepulveda Pass, spanning what was then called by everybody the San Diego Freeway.
The migrating birds adopted the unused chimney of the old Chester Williams Building at 5th and Broadway a few years ago. "If you think you’ve seen everything in downtown Los Angeles, you’ve never seen anything like this," says a watcher.
Former City Controller Laura Chick found herself in a feud with City Attorney Carmen Trutanich almost as soon as he took office in 2009 — with her endorsement, by the way. Now she's with Mike Feuer, and calling Trutanich a liar and a demagogue. There's a backstory.
No, Carmageddon II is still coming this weekend. But the people behind Carmageddon had a ceremony out along the 405 freeway this morning to reopen the rebuilt Sunset Boulevard bridge.
Emmy winners, Sunset Boulevard bridge opens over 405, pension politics, LAT urges a "lid" on pot dispensaries, Al Martinez appoints Eli Broad, Press Club signs up Jane Fonda and more.
Village Voice Media owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin announced Sunday night that they have agreed to sell the chain of 13 weeklies — a mix of papers they created and big established titles they acquired, including the LA Weekly and Village Voice — and will get out of alt journalism. The buyers are a new company formed by ex-editors and publishers of the New Times chain that Lacey and Larkin helped start in Phoenix in the 1970s.
The Los Angeles Times editorial page on Sunday endorsed Rep. Howard Berman in the big Democratic Party battle in the San Fernando Valley. "The Times supported Berman in the first round of voting, and we're sticking with him in the head to head" over Rep. Brad Sherman.
The space shuttle Endeavour being placed on its transporter and rolled into its hangar at LAX. Photos and video.
The retired space shuttle Endeavour and its NASA 747 circled the Los Angeles basin for more than an hour on Friday, delighting tens of thousands of school kids, aerospace admirers and ordinary Americans and visitors.
So much for all those pretended sounds of happiness from KPCC over the forced merger of morning show host Madeleine Brand with newcomer A Martinez.
For his HuffPost Live segment advancing the space shuttle Endeavour's flight over Los Angeles, host Jacob Soboroff got an exclusive guest in studio: His dad, Steve Soboroff, the former candidate for mayor in Los Angeles who's in charge of the move for the California Science Center. "I think this is the most meaningful thing to happen to Los Angeles since Staples Center," says the senior Soboroff.
Friday's low-level flyover of the Los Angeles basin by the space shuttle Endeavour (atop a jumbo jet) is expected to occur between 10 and 11 a.m. The FAA and NASA haven't revealed the exact route, but did announce that the shuttle would fly over or near about a dozen landmarks.
HBO's "Real Sports" on Tuesday night is a double Dodgers episode, with Magic talking about his role with the team and an update on Bryan Stow, the firefighter and Giants fan who was left brain damaged by a beating in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.
City Clerk June Lagmay just announced that the proponents of a referendum to undo the Los Angeles City Council ban on medical marijuana outlets submitted enough signatures to force the issue. Or, as Lagmay's office puts it, "has achieved sufficiency." One of three things now has to happen.
Car covered with bonsai plants on Westwood Boulevard. The disabled parking placard is a nice touch.
Firefighters were dropping water on a fire that began beside Sepulveda Boulevard on the east rim of Sepulveda Pass when smoke was spotted rising a few miles away at Muholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon Avenue. A third blaze near Mulholland apparently got started due to a power transformer blowing.
An email to Los Angeles area Obama donors says the concert evening will be "a large scale event with multiple performers and speakers preceding the President’s remarks," the Hollywood Reporter says. Good news on the Obamajam front: it's a Sunday night.
In the late 1970s, performance artist Stephen Seemayer used an 8mm movie camera to film the artists who were starting to inhabit Downtown, "before skyscrapers, MOCA and loft living." His 1981 documentary, "Young Turks," has been re-cut with Pamela Wilson using found footage of Al's Bar, Pino's Tropical Paradise, the Atomic Cafe and other landmarks of the Downtown art scene that no longer exist. Watch the trailer inside.
Johnny Perez came out of San Antonio as the drummer of the 1960s band Sir Douglas Quintet, which had hits with 'She's About a Mover" and "Mendocino." Perez landed in Topanga Canyon and more recently owned Topanga Skyline Studio, a famous recording venue used by Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Sting, T-Bone Burnett and others.
"It is very strange and sad to leave the paper after 21 years but it is completely my choice," the ex-Calendar writer and comics blogger posts. "I'm going to gamble and bet on myself and what I've learned over these past few years with the Hero Complex success."
Officially, there is no admission charge to visit the Getty Museum. But parking takes in almost two million dollars more than it used to.
Following a blow-up with editors last month, high-level discussions and a Florida vacation could not keep the Calendar writer and Hero Complex blogger around. His exit has staffers and outside observers both talking about editor Davan Maharaj's choice of assistant managing editor over arts and entertainment.
Late in the day, the South Coast Air Quality Management District posted an update in which it acknowledged the possibility that dead fish at the Salton Sea are the source of the rotten-egg smell reported all day Monday. The update noted, however, that "it is highly unusual for odors to remain strong up to 150 miles from their source."
So many residents across the inland parts of the Los Angeles Basin began complaining about a bad, sulfur-like smell this morning — even clogging 911 phone lines — that officials were forced to look into it. Read the memo from an AQMD scientist briefing his board members.
The website LAUNFD posts a gallery of images showing the old neighborhood of homes that was cleared out, starting in the mid-1960s, between LAX and Vista Del Mar, the street in Playa del Rey that runs above Dockweiler State Beach.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles isn’t in a party mood this year, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports.
Friday is the anniversary of the airplane crash in Russia that killed nearly all members of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team. Tonight in Yaroslav, the newly reconstituted Lokomotiv played their first game back in Russia's KHL. They won 5-2.
If you don't know by now that our notch of the Pacific is popular with the sharks, here comes another piece of evidence. There was an amusing moment a few seconds later when the shark swam under a swimmer who had no clue.
Somewhere in Orange County is a humbled bicyclist with a shiner and a damaged "$2,000 carbon fiber-and-unobtainium bicycle....(slash) penis extension."
Former co-host at "Good Day LA" says the new boss told her she "made his eyes bleed." That's what you like to hear when you're on-camera talent.
The producer of the “Matrix,” “Lethal Weapon” and “Sherlock Holmes” series of films was officially welcomed to Venice by press release quoting Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Bil Rosendahl. Silver is moving his production company, Silver Pictures, into the former post office on Windward Circle built in 1939 during the Works Progress Administration.
For those of us in Los Angeles, one of the subplots of the Democratic convention this week in North Carolina will be the omnipresence of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. How will he go over on a national stage? Will he emerge from Charlotte with a changed profile, pro or con? How many news media interviews will he manage to squeeze in? Before the convention's first TV session, we know the answer to the last question.
That smoke tower you probably see if you are in the Los Angeles area is from a brush fire that broke out this afternoon in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills above Azusa. Looks to be a bit of pyrocumulus action happening at the top of the plume. By about 5 p.m. the fire had swept across 700 acres, authorities told the media.
Today on KLOS, Chis Carter celebrated his birthday and kicked off his 12th year as host of the Sunday show "Breakfast with the Beatles." It was the longest running U.S. radio show devoted to the Beatles before Carter took over, following the death in 2001 of creator and LA radio personality Deirdre O'Donoghue.
The five-ton Mercedes Unimog U1300 isn't usually street legal in California, says Yahoo Autos. But Arnold Schwarzenegger has the money to customize and as the ex-governor he may know how to get his way with the regulations.
Today's usual afternoon thundershowers over the San Gabriels and the high desert smushed down into the basin this time, drenching places like Altadena and Studio City in some pretty heavy rain. Then it lifted and many rainbows were had, including one over Dodger Stadium. Fun diversion for many, judging by social media, unless you were caught in the places where summer t-storms turn into flash floods.
Whoa, this was decisive: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced tonight that he has relieved Foothill division commander Capt. Joseph Hiltner for his "severely deficient" response to the appearance of excessive force used against a handcuffed woman in Pacoima. "Proper steps were not taken," Beck said.
Instead of a Thursday press conference to appeal to the public for help, Councilman Paul Krekorian might shame his fellow council members into taking care of it like they do so many, many lesser things — or just absorb the bills in his office slush fund.
The Glendale black bear incurred his third strike and has already been taken to an animal sanctuary in San Diego County. Plus: nice video of a young white shark and a humpback whale in the Pacific off Orange County.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck, on the Patt Morrison show on KPCC just now, said he's very concerned by a video showing officers throw a handcuffed woman to the ground during a traffic stop. He said there are criminal and internal investigations going on and the main officer has been assigned to home duty. Watch the video.
For historians of Los Angeles, and librarians such as LAPL maps Glen Creason, old reference tools called the Sanborn Fire Insurance atlases are invaluable. They can show a researcher what was on the ground in a specific place in, say, 1901. Here are MGM studios in 1929 and the city's former amusement park Chutes Park in 1906.
British readers of The Guardian got a glimpse the other day of a Los Angeles they may not have known about. West Coast correspondent Rory Carroll became the latest journalist to take one of activist George Wolfe's kayak tours on the short stretch of unpaved Los Angeles River in the Sepulveda Dam Basin. Carroll makes some cogent observations, but first he has to find the place.
Russ Stanton, the former Los Angeles Times editor in chief who is "Vice President, Content" for KPCC these days, has taken to the comments section of the station's website to further explain this morning's announcement that KPCC would drop the Patt Morrison show. She will keep doing the Comedy Congress segment and be involved with the station's other shows.
One of Rep. Brad Sherman's new videos focuses on what he's done for the San Fernando Valley. The second, titled "Courage," is built around William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. who gives Sherman kudos for his opposition to the TARP bank bailout. View them here.
The other shoes have fallen at KPCC from the addition of A Martinez as co-host with Madeleine Brand in the morning. Larry Mantle's time slow move, and Patt Morrison's show ends.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa isn't doing much for the people who elected him this week — and he'll likely do even less next week when the Democrats meet. He's in Tampa now doing CNN every morning with Soledad O'Brien, filling the role of Democratic counterpoint to the Republican convention. He also sat down Monday with KPCC's Larry Mantle and mingled with the gathered journalists on the convention's Radio Row.
Bill Davis, the station's president and CEO, tells a complainer via email that the Madeleine Brand and A Martinez pairing on KPCC checked out in focus groups and audience testing, is here to stay and will be expanding to two hours day: "I know a thing or two about public radio programming --and I like what I hear with these two." He recounts and pooh-poohs the complaints that came in from previous program changes, including the addition of Brand in the first place.
The trompe l'oeil bookshelves were commissioned by Lee Dembart, a former Los Angeles Times editor and writer, and painted in 2005 by artist Don Gray. Author Robert Crais posted about the garage door recently on Facebook.
Artist Colin Rich, who made a pretty stunning timelapse piece on Los Angeles at night last year, returns to the subject of illuminated LA. The music this time is "Echoes of Mine" by M83. Watch inside.
"The High Sierra beckons," Brown's Twitter feed says....
Rep. Howard Berman is airing two new campaign spots that push his record on issues in the Valley and show him being thanked by the Republican father of a soldier killed in Iraq. Also, rival Rep. Brad Sherman today alleged that Berman "enriched" his brother with campaign funds.
City Controller Wendy Greuel and Concilman Eric Garcetti put out statements on Zev Yaroslavsky's decision to remain on the Board of Supervisors and not join the field seeking to become mayor of Los Angeles.
Zev Yaroslavsky said today that he will finish out his term on the county Board of Supervisors and not make a bid to become mayor of Los Angeles. "While I have never been a supporter of term limits, I do believe that four decades is long enough for any citizen to hold elective office, especially in an executive capacity."
How dry are the hills around Los Angeles right now? So dry that a small herd of cattle showed up eating lawns on the edge of Chatsworth this morning. And last night. Then a mysterious woman with a bullwhip herded them back home.
The new leadership team at Channel 4 continues to make changes in the newsroom lineup. Today the station will announce that Michael Brownlee will be getting up really early from now on as co-anchor of "Today in LA" with Alycia Lane. Plus some other moves
Mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel unveiled three more endorsements today that are actually kind of interesting. One of them is Robert Hertzberg, the former Speaker of the Assembly who ran for mayor in 2005 as sort of a voice from the Valley, lost in the primary then joined Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign and had the title role in the transition.
This is a few years old. But with producers announcing the end of "The Office" after next season, here's a look back at a clip of LA Observed video showing the filming location on Saticoy Street. A little taste of Scranton (and Dunder Mifflin) in industrial Van Nuys.
Patrick Goldstein doesn't explain the end of his film column, but he seems to be defending how he went about it. The piece begins "When I began writing this column...
ABC is moving Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show into head-to-head competition with Jay Leno and David Letterman. "Nightline" flips back to 12:35, a big disappointment to the news types.
New details on the hiring that owner Aaron Kushner's team at the Orange County Register has authorized. Sports editor Todd Harmonson, who last week put out the word that he...
Once the LA Weekly dropped his longtime comic strip, the end was inevitable. "It was particularly aggravating that I wasn’t being printed locally in Los Angeles," Groening said. "If 'Life in Hell' were still in LA Weekly, it would probably have kept me going."
Diana Nyad's team says that she has swum 46 miles since leaving from Cuba on Saturday, and has made it through a storm and several jellyfish stings. Tonight she was joined by a pod of dolphins.
Author Robert Crais posts on Facebook: "Another reason I love LA is because people like this live here. They painted their garage door to look like book shelves."
Not just a paywall, but an emphasis on print. Many fewer blogs. No push to mobile phones. Possible new fulltime food writer and film critic — just like in the old days. And more, via OC Weekly.
Comic Phyllis Diller lived a good long time and had a long career. Many female comedians say she paved the way. She died this morning at her Los Angeles home, her manager Milt Suchin confirmed. Watch her with Groucho Marx on "You Bet Your Life," inside.
Longtime Channel 7 photographer Artie Williams died over the weekend while diving with a friend off Catalina Island, the station announced.
The Times has caught on to the demographic shifts in the middle of the Valley that are finding places like Van Nuys taking in more Latin American immigrants from beyond Mexico. As the stream of illegal arrivals from Mexico slows, "the greater Van Nuys area, with its apartment-rich neighborhoods, has become a thriving hub not of Mexican immigrants as much as Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Ecuadoreans and Peruvians." Plus our pictures from the hub of the community.
That the south side of working class Mar Vista is upset about declining city services is a less joke-producing turn of events than exclusive Holmby Hills making noises about leaving Los Angeles. But the chances of the Mar Vista-to-Culver City movement going anywhere are equally non-existent.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' home in Tarzana is gone, but the offices where his family business — and everything Tarzan — is administered remains behind a low wall on Ventura...
Fun and informative history piece on Los Angeles' first freeways by Nathan Masters on the KCET website. The very first freeway was not the Arroyo Seco Parkway from Pasadena to almost downtown, as many believe. Have you ever seen the Ramona Boulevard freeway?
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich kinda sorta comes through with some of the $100,000 for kids that he promised as penance for violating his no-run pledge. But mostly not. "It was a stupid pledge to begin with," his flack said Thursday.
The Valley's battling Jewish Democrats debated Wednesday night in a Catholic school cafeteria in Sherman Oaks — first time since the June primary — and if anything the race is getting nastier. Our columnist Bill Boyarsky was there, as were other interested journalists and a crowd that was a bit on the old side.
The undefeated Olympic champion shows she can handle 'The Daily Show' too. The episode re-airs tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Since at least February, National Park Service trackers have known that P-22 was roaming the canyons of Griffith Park. But his GPS collar has stopped working and they want to track and tag him again.
Michael Dawson, the collector and proprietor of the late Dawson's Books on Larchmont, announces the first book of photographs by William Reagh. "William Reagh: A Long Walk Downtown. Photographs of Los Angeles & Southern California, 1936-1991," shows his perspective on urban renewal and change in Los Angeles, with images of Angels Flight, Bunker Hill, Pershing Square, Broadway, Grand Avenue, Hill Street, Wrigley Field and Chavez Ravine.
Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen tracked down his man — the mysterious figure who stands up and dances at so many live music performances around town that he showed up in "Shut Up and Play the Hits," a documentary on the band LCD Soundsystem. Here's the scoop.
Helen Gurley Brown was the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazines for three decades and the author of the 1962 bestseller, "Sex and the Single Girl." "Helen Gurley Brown was an icon," said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation.
Kobe Bryant looks to have some fine new shoulders to ride with. The Lakers have agreed to acquire Orlando's Dwight Howard in a complicated deal that would send Andrew Bynum to the Philadelphia 76ers.
It's Marc Duvoisin, currently the deputy managing editor for projects and enterprise. The newsroom's number two job has been open since Davan Maharaj was elevated to editor in December. Here's the memo.
The pop culture and deputy television editor of the LA Times' calendar section gets the newly created job of Books and Culture Editor. Press was a book critic for VLS as well as culture editor at the both the Village Voice and Salon.
Two years ago, Misty May-Treanor wasn't sure she would even try out for the London Olympics. On Wednesday, she and Kerri Wash Jennings completed their stunning run through three Olympic Games, never losing a match — and only dropping one set. They beat the American team of Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to claim their third gold medal.
For more than five years, Sacramento's CBS TV affiliate has been investigating reports by drivers in Northern California who get parking tickets from the city of Los Angeles when they swear they weren’t there. The latest case involves a Sacramento area man who says his new car has never been in LA.
The National Weather Service says the combination of hot temperatures (over 100 in many areas) and higher than usual humidity for the summer "will create a prolonged period of well above normal and possibly dangerous heat." Some of the desert temperatures could take your breath away.
Former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley and members of his family are key players in a group that has agreed to purchase the San Diego Padres for a price believed to be about $800 million. O'Malley, who sold the Dodgers to Fox in 1998, had tried to re-buy the team this year but was bumped from the bidding early.
Officials fighting a major fire tonight at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, north of Oakland and Berkeley, have advised residents to stay inside in Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo.
Just your average cigar-smoking, tequila-swigging, pistol-packing lesbian Mexican ranchera singer who may have had a love affair with Frida Kahlo.
Extra time. The U.S. and Canada's women, bitter soccer rivals, are tied at 3-3. In the 123rd minute, just seconds before the game goes to penalty kicks, Alex Morgan scores off a header. The jubilant Americans go into the final on Thursday against Japan, a rematch of the last World Cup final.
Confirmation of the craft's complex soft landing on the surface of Mars came in to Pasadena at 10:31 p.m. PDT, about 14 minutes after it happened. (It takes that long for the communications data to burst across space.) The first thumbnail photos flowed a couple of minutes later, including scenes of the Mars horizon and a picture of a shadow cast on the surface by Curiosity.
In a nice guest piece for Native Intelligence, Joel Bellman tells stories from his years as a staffer, then the manager, of the Rhino Records sister store in his hometown of Claremont. "What a gig! Sit around in a rock t-shirt and jeans all day playing whatever records we wanted, hanging out, spewing opinions, and getting paid for it! I still can't believe it." The Kickstarter campaign for a Rhino documentary ends Friday.
"NBC paid over $1 billion to broadcast the London Olympic Games. The Wall Street Journal paid...less than that."...
"Gore was glorious before live audiences...I concluded by noting that he had pretty much done it all—novels, essays, plays—and won every award; I asked, 'What keeps you going? What gets you up in the morning?' He had a one word answer: 'rage.'"
Vidal died this evening at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers has been telling the media.
This seems more than a little embarrassing for Twitter. Seems the service suspended the very active account of Guy Adams, the Los Angeles-baed bureau chief for UK's The Independent, after a siege of weekend tweets pummeling NBC's coverage of the Olympics — and a complaint by NBC.
Sonic Trace, a radio storytelling project from KCRW and Localore — which is a nationwide initiative of the Association of Independents in Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — spent a morning talking to servers and other staff at Restaurante Guelaguetza before the venerable Oaxacan eatery in Koreatown opened for the day.
Dick Clark points out the DWP building and the new Music Center, then the Turtles play "You Baby" on the Grand Avenue sidewalk with City Hall in the background, in a clip from "Where the Action Is."
Los Angeles photojournalism stalwarts Nick Ut of AP, Al Seib of the Los Angeles Times and Jonathan Alcorn (who might be working for anybody on this one) at this morning's City Council discussion on medical marijuna.
Sally Ride, who grew up in the Encino and graduated from Stanford, became in 1983 the first American woman to work in space. She was also the youngest American at the time to fly into space for NASA. She died today of pancreatic cancer.
Embattled MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch sat down with the LA Times' Reed Johnson on Friday to give his side of the past month's turmoil at his museum. Deitch "vigorously defended his two-year record of exhibitions and programming. Meanwhile, a NYT critic who endorsed Deitch's hiring backs away some.
Don Wakamatsu, a former major league baseball manager (Seattle Mariners) who is now a coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, is getting some attention up there for the stylish calligraphy he applies to his lineup cards.
I really shouldn't be needling anyone else over typos, but reader Donald sent this in amused. Is Sharon Tay surprised to find there's no S in construction at KCAL? Is she just enunciating an O at that moment? "I'm amazed they spelled the recently coined (and lame) word 'Carmageddon' correctly!," says Donald.
BuzzFeed says this photo of Wednesday's thunderstorm over New York was taken out the window of an airliner at 10,000 feet by former NFL linebacker Dhani Jones.
Metro has decided when to drop the other shoe on the necessary weekend closure of the entire 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass. The follow-up to last summer's disruptive but successful closure will begin about 7 p.m. on Friday, September 28. The freeway will be scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. on Monday, October 1
The annual cattle drive through the streets of Paso Robles on Wednesday for the Mid State Fair, which opened today. The fair runs through July 29.
The Democratic strategist who joined the Howard Berman reelection campaign in March as a senior advisor is taking full charge of everything, campaign sources say. That would be a big and serious shift in approach by Berman, who for decades kept his political campaign machinery tightly in the hands of his brother Michael. For the first time, Berman is also using an outside pollster.
Cal Coast News.com, the website that the late journalist and professor George Ramos was leading when he died last year, says that a San Luis Obispo County supervisor is pressuring advertisers and sources to shun the site.
The lead singer for The Bangles released a new solo album today and made the rounds, including a conversation and mini-concert at the Grammy Museum last night and a visit to "Good Day LA" on Fox 11. Meanwhile, she performs with the original band next month in Pershing Square then goes out on tour. Oh by the way, she is 53 and the mother of two teenage sons.
NBCUniversal has killed a controversial proposal to build 3,000 homes on its property at Universal City. Instead the expansion will feature a new hotel and more room for the movie and TV studios and the theme park.
San Fernando is not Pacoima. The first clue for the graphics editor at Fox 11 should have been the sign visible in the background that reads San Fernando City Hall. There are 88 cities in Los Angeles County. San Fernando is one of them. Pacoima is not.
To the surprise of some transportation experts, the new Expo Line is drawing a healthy number of riders who use it to commute from the San Fernando Valley. They take the Red Line subway to the 7th Street station in downtown, then jump on the Expo Line heading toward USC then west to Culver City.
LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman's latest book is a page turner. Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History takes off from the 2003 killing of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Stephen Sorensen, by a hermit named Donald Kueck, to peel back some of the mystery and secrets about life in the Mojave Desert north of us. She reads this afternoon at Skylight Books.
You may have noticed that Sheriff Lee Baca is under intense scrutiny for his management of the Los Angeles County jail system. Nonetheless, Gov. Jerry Bown just announced he is appointing Baca to the Board of State and Community Corrections.
The Los Angeles Daily Journal had two staff photographers, Todd Rogers and Robert Levins. They have been cut loose in favor of freelancers and pictures taken by reporters for the legal paper. New cameras are on order, editor David Houston says in his note to the staff this morning.
Research readers will now have to pay to park at the Getty, and automated machines are replacing the money takers out at the Sepulveda gate. Still $15 a car to get in, or $10 after 5 p.m.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in late September, carried atop a 747 jetliner from Cape Canaveral in Florida. In mid-October it should begin the roll across town to Exposition Park.
The Jewish Journal, noting that Woody Allen has made movies in London, Paris and now Rome because he gets financial help from those places, is organizing a campaign to collect enough money to convince Allen to shoot in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
Anze Kopitar's privilege to spend 24 hours with the Stanley Cup might be a tad more meaningful for him than for some of the other Los Angeles Kings. He left Slovenia as a teenager to live in Canada and work hard to become his country's first NHL player. On his day with the Cup, he made sure thousands of Slovenians got to see the trophy.
The small but curiously interesting city of San Fernando has slid one more step into the bizarro world. Both of the City Council members who last year were reveled to be dating sought and received temporary restraining orders against the other, citing a violent argument over a disputed iPad.
Ask Google Maps to find you Tehrangeles, and it places the community on the upper floor of an apartment building in the 10600 block of Kinnard Avenue, between Westholme and Hilts avenues. That's in Westwood, about eight blocks east of Westwood Boulevard, the shopping street sometimes referred to as Little Tehran. Street view is even more specific.
KTLA reporter Lu Parker's rep confirmed today that she and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have split up, ending their relationship after about three years. The LA Times has been asking Villaraigosa in recent weeks to explain his status with Parker, but his answers had been evasive.
The news last week in the LA Times that the MOCA board of directors fired curator Paul Schimmel, with Eli Broad giving him the word, revealed deep discord in the arts journalism world about the direction of the Bunker Hill museum under the recent guidance of Jeffrey Deitch.
Reto Caduff is a Swiss-born photographer who lives part-time in Los Angeles and who, apparently, really likes beautiful women with facial freckles. His new book of images, called just Freckles, is a limited edition of 500 numbered copies which features "portraits of young women with various amounts of freckles – from a slight cluster on the cheek to faces covered with the beauty marks." His book is out Monday.
News artist, designer and visual journalist Charles Apple compiled and critiqued the front pages of more than 75 newspapers that covered this week's Supreme Court decision on the Obama health care reform law.
Eric T. Fresch, the city of Vernon's attorney and top administrator during many of the years that have been under investigation lately for financial improprieties, was found dead by rangers last night on the shoreline of Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay. He had been dodging a state subpoena to talk about the city's finances.
County Public Health's "Show Us Your Package" competition to design an official condom wrapper has a winner. It's Adam Lyons, 32, of Hollywood.
The Stanley Cup takes off next week for its trans-Atlantic tour of the homes of each member of the Los Angeles Kings. Here's the schedule, some pics and video. Before the Cup departs, Dustin Brown will visit Children's Hospital.
The affected employees are not on staff at the Register but at other Orange County units of the parent company.
Tablet magazine bills itself as "a new read on Jewish life," and it's through that lens the publication profiles the LA Times' food writer Jonathan Gold.
Ephron grew up in Beverly Hills, made a name for herself as a journalist in New York, got into screenwriting via collaboration with then-husband Carl Bernstein on a version of "All the President's Men," and grew into what People magazine calls today "one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood as the creative force behind such blockbusters as 'You've Got Mail,' 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'When Harry Met Sally.'"
Last night's meeting dragged on into this morning, but the Pomona City Council found a way to keep the city's lone public library open for another year.
The knowledgeable Los Angeles history aficionados at the Vintage Los Angeles page on Facebook located this scene as the 1950s at Santa Monica Boulevard and Fairfax, known then as the Crescent Junction on the Pacific Electric rail network. Posted by Jerome Melgar.
No blogger has written this before, I suspect. Allon Schoener, the New York author transplanted to Boyle Heights who posts as The Reluctant Angeleno, recently visited the iconic home of Charles and Ray Eames in Pacific Palisades for the first time in a long time. "I had been there often between 1951 and 1955," he says. Let him explain.
Journalists of the year are Larry Mantle of KPCC, Chuck Henry and Tara Wallis Firestone of NBC 4, Kim Masters and Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter, Chris Hedges from Truthdig, Francine Orr of the Los Angeles Times and Richard Clough of the LA Business Journal. Bob Woodward didn't come but took part via Skype. Link is inside to the full and very long list of winners.
Michael Heizer and LACMA unveiled his giant boulder this morning, and several hundred people came out to take a look. Lots of oohing, ahhing and picture taking under the boulder. As LACMA director Michael Govan said, how often do you get to see under a sculpture?
John Bogert figures he has written 6,500 or so columns for the South Bay Daily Breeze since he became the paper's columnist in 1984. In his final column, running today and accompanied by a story, he says the colon cancer he told readers about a couple of years ago has essentially won. He is off treatment, and also off the Daily Breeze payroll.
So, let's see. if a small power outage in Studio City knocks out two stations for a prolonged period, I guess we should write off the CBS stations in a big earthquake.
Eli Broad talked at length about his new book, The Art of Being Unreasonable, with Warren Olney on tonight's "Which Way, LA?" on KCRW. Broad said he's not unreasonable so much as impatient with too much discussion or pondering on major decisions. At some point, he says, you have to just do it. Listen to the interview.
The venerable but money-losing June Mountain Ski Area will not operate this summer and, more pointedly, will not have a ski season this coming winter. The future beyond that was left unclear in today's announcement. "June was perceived by many to be a more remote gem for skiers and snowboarders," says outdoors writer Peter Thomas.
Former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet and his wife, the author Dylan Landis, were snapped recently while riding the subway in New York, where he is now a managing editor at the New York Times. "He is reading 'A Guide to the Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot,' by B.C. Southam. She is reading 'Selected Poems,' by T. S. Eliot.," says the posting at The Underground New York Public Library.
Dave Gardetta of Los Angeles magazine explores the company behind the somewhat legendary, or at least time-tested, sex toy company that markets as Doc Johnson products. The real Doc Johnsons are Ron Braverman and his 30-year-old son, Chad. Their company is "the Procter & Gamble of sex toys. Each month the company pours 125 tons of rubber, manufacturing 330,000 dildos, vibrators, and synthetic buttocks."
It was ten years ago today that Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch found a dead fish on her car. There was a rose in the fish's mouth and a note that said: "Stop." She took it as a warning about her reporting — and she was right. Her life now is all about exposing corruption, she tells the Hollywood Reporter.
There's a new trickle of newsroom exits going on at the Los Angeles Times. The same day that editor Davan Maharaj announced that entertainment editor Sallie Hofmeister would be moving on, former Denver bureau chief Nicholas Riccardi sent his colleagues a nice if brief newsroom farewell.
Rodney King's fiancee called for help about 5:25 this morning, saying he was at the bottom of their swimming pool in the city of Rialto. Police officers removed King from the pool and attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Union organizers recognized the Walmart public relations rep who showed up in Chinatown yesterday to press the firm's case for a new store. Her card said Stephanie Harnett, senior associate at Mercury Public Affairs. But earlier this month, she came to an anti-Walmart news conference and interviewed activists as USC student journalist Zoe Mitchell. Busted.
Yes, that was the elusive Kings owner and Los Angeles power figure celebrating on the ice — his ice — with the Stanley Cup on Monday night. Some 18,000 Kings fans and a live television audience got their first looks at possibly the most powerful man in Los Angeles. Nice looking guy — let's see more photos and video of Phil Anschutz.
The Los Angeles City Council today blocked the airport's plans to offer free wireless at LAX, complaining that the deal reached by airport officials did not pass the smell test. Not that it was really going to be like other cities' free wireless — you would likely have to watch an ad — but it sounded better than the $9.95 that T-Mobile charges LAX inmates now.
The Kings began partying a few seconds before the final buzzer at Staples Center on Monday night and may not have stopped yet. Many of the players brought their children, wives, parents and friends on the ice for the post-game celebration.
By hockey tradition, the captain is the first to accept the Stanley Cup. Dustin Brown takes the Cup from National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman. After skating with the Cup, Brown handed it to Willie Mitchell, the team's veteran defenseman and the survivor of a serious concussion.
Life Books has released a new book with photographs from the magazine's archives and other sources: "The Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Rock ’n’ Roll." Were you at Anaheim Stadium in '78? Altamont Speedway?
No real news out of the morning skates in Newark. Both the Kings and the Devils warmed up their legs and had media sessions. Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final airs on NBC starting at 5 p.m., with the puck dropped about 5:15.
History has tried to forget that Merry Lepper was the first woman to run a marathon in the United States, 21 years before Joan Benoit won Olympic gold. Women could legally vote for president long before they could officially enter a marathon. David Davis met up with her in Tucson and sets the record straight.
Before leaving Beverly Hills this morning, President Barack Obama met privately at his hotel "with two dozen of Hollywood’s hottest young stars, urging them to involve themselves in his re-election campaign." Plus a pool report from View Park.
The announcement on Wednesday morning of Ray Bradbury's death has been a big story in Los Angeles and beyond. (My updated original post, and Denise Hamilton's personal piece for Native Intelligence from 2006.) Here's a smattering of some of the reflections and tributes since, with more certainly to come.
Take My Picture Gary Leonard at LA Observed...
President Obama began the fundraising day on Wednesday by flying to San Francisco (with Giants legend Willie Mays on board Air Force One and at his side) then on down to Los Angeles. He appeared tonight at the LGBT Leadership Council gala at the Beverly Wilshire, where Ellen DeGeneres and "Glee" star Darren Criss provided the entertainment, then at a more private dinner a little ways away in Beverly Hills hosted by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and his fiance David Miller.
Ray Bradbury died last night, his daughter has confirmed. For his 90th birthday, Bradbury talked about remembering his birth and the womb. "I have total recall of all of my life." Updated stories, links and video
The terminus of the Expo Line will extend to the Culver City station, and the Farmdale station near Dorsey High School, will both open at noon on Wednesday, June 20.
President Obama returns to Los Angeles late Wednesday afternoon for yet another campaign fundraising appearance, this time at the the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills. The event is a gay and lesbian community fundraiser for Obama. Here is some early traffic guidance.
The Kings needed heroic saves from goalie Jonathan Quick for the first half of Game 3, then the momentum turned their way. They ended up scoring four goals and shutting out the very frustrated New Jersey Devils. It the was largest crowd ever to see a hockey game at Staples Center — and the first Kings home game in 15 days — and they had a blast. Watch video of Justin Williams' goal.
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. His LA Sketchbook archive...
Dorothy Lucey, let go last month as the longtime co-host on Fox 11's "Good Day LA" show, talked about it this morning on rival station KTLA's morning show. Go inside to watch her video clip.
Jeff Carter, the Kings' big late-season acquisition from the east, scored in overtime tonight to give the Kings a 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils. This is huge in multiple ways.
The Kings and New Jersey Devils take the ice about 5 p.m. for today's second game of the Stanley Cup Final. Game 2 will be televised nationally by NBC and be on the radio here on AM 1150 and AM 570. No lineup changes for either team — not even the anthem singer. Official game notes
On Thursday night, Los Angeles-based Good threw a party at Atwater Crossing for its latest issue. On Friday, executive editor Ann Friedman and at least five other editors got the axe, pretty much clearing out the top levels of the Los Angeles editorial office. Here's what we know.
He asks the county Board of Supervisors to appoint a Chief Deputy Assessor to run the office while he is gone. Noguez is under investigation by the DA's public corruption unit over allegations of improper tax assessments to benefit political campaign contributors.
Starting July 1, Los Angeles County's public health department has to start enforcing new state standards for tattoo studios and artists. The Safe Body Art Act, as it's called, passed in October. Now the county's Body Art Unit figures to be swamped.
National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman gets snarky over New York Post report that the Los Angeles Kings are for sale. Plus: the Anschutzes attend Game 1.
Take My Picture Gary Leonard
The Dragon space capsule splashed down in the Pacific 560 miles off Baja California at 8:42 a.m., two minutes ahead of schedule. Boats will find and secure the craft, then it will be lifted onto a barge. In the photo, about 1,000 SpaceX employees in Hawthorne watched outside the control room. More
The SpaceX capsule was sealed off by crew members on the International Space Station on Wednesday. After 1 a.m. Dragon should be cut loose from the station, carrying 1,455 pounds of NASA cargo bound for home. Here's how everything should go this morning.
Los Angeles has many beautiful, awe-inspiring places and structures. But San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. Happy 75th, friends.
Glen Creason, the author of the stupendously grand Los Angeles in Maps, is the map librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. So when he calls this 1942 carte by Jo Mora "one of THE greatest maps ever" and "one of the true masterpieces of pictorial mapping and my favorite Los Angeles map of all," ordinary schmoes like me have to listen. Well, it turns out that LA Observed has played a small role in making reproductions of the map available for the first time.
Take a look backstage, in Sid Grauman's private VIP box and around the gorgeous auditorium of Hollywood's (and probably the world's) best-known movie palace. Public tours by the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation continue on Sunday morning.
The overall project is now four to six months behind schedule. This means that the plans to close the freeway over a weekend to finish tearing down the Muholland Drive bridge in Sepulveda Pass are now delayed at least until late summer. Plus: Wilshire Rampture by the numbers.
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. His LA Sketchbook archive.
Jillian Reynolds apologized to Dorothy Lucey for the bad things she has said about her "Good Day L.A." co-host all these years. Then they exchanged "I love yous" and hugged. "The most painful TV you'll watch all day: Jillian and Dorothy's cringe-worthy farewell and fake tears," TV Guide's Michael Schneider said.
Arena staffers and a few media types take part in a video to "Call Me Maybe" to commemorate the playoff weekend. Workers clocked in 55,000 hours over the four-day weekend siege of games, Staples says. Watch the video inside.
Take my picture Gary Leonard.
Artist J. Michael Walker sends word that his friend Calvin Hicks died on Sunday, from complications of cancer. Hicks' photography was most recently seen in the Pacific Standard Time exhibition, "Identity & Affirmation: Post-War African-American Photography," at Cal State Northridge.Also: Otto Jensen, Burbank photographer was 101
Who were those figures going to the beach in Downtown LA today — and where did they go? Investigate
I understand the emotion of Kings nation, and the passion of hockey fans generally. Still, I'm surprised by this turnout. Click to watch.
Diana Chang, who blogs at HRGBRG, posts: "In order from south to north, here's every Venice Boardwalk storefront that faces the Pacific Ocean. Photographs taken on May 17, 2012. With soundtrack."
Actually, they may leave the NHL's Western Conference championship hardware behind. Kings captain Dustin Brown didn't even look at the trophy after the Kings beat Phoenix tonight 4-3 in sudden death overtime to reach the Stanley Cup final for the first time since 1993.
Between Thursday and Sunday, the Kings, Lakers and Clippers played six games in 72 hours before 110,000 fans at Staples Center. That's tough on the arena staff. Getty Images put together a time lapse of the weekend.
Los Angeles car culture never saw anyone like Big Willie Robinson — or needed anyone quite so much. In the mid 1960s, when baby boomers were racing hot rods and fighting each other and the cops all around town, he created the International Brotherhood of Street Racers and brought some order to the subculture. (Big Willie stood 6'6" and people listened.) I'm guessing he was the only 6'6" black man to speak at Otis Chandler's memorial service. Tributes, backstory and video
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. His LA Sketchbook archive
The former Pulitzer winner at the LA Times elaborates for the first time on the paper's 2008 retraction of his story on the killing of Tupac Shakur, why he thinks the decision was wrong then, and what has happened in the case — and to him — since. The Times stands by its full front-page retraction of Philips' story.
Both LA basketball teams are on the brink of elimination, but Staples Center is warning of major traffic and parking issues around Sunday's noon-start Kings game.
Mayor Villaraigosa's budget calls for adding 50 more part-time parking officers to walk foot beats in crowded areas such as Downtown, Hollywood and North Hollywood. There already were 100 of these part-timers hired last year. It's all about bringing in more fines.
This tweaks the model for how to pay for big-city newspaper journalism. The Los Angeles Times, still one of the biggest newspapers in the country and by far the most potent in California, has accepted a $1 million grant to hire new reporters on selected beats. The money comes no strings attached, says the memo from editor Davan Maharaj. Read the memo
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. His LA Sketchbook archive...
The novelist, called in the New York Times obituary "Mexico’s elegant public intellectual and grand man of letters," died today in Mexico City. Fuentes was "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world, a catalyst, along with Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortazar, of the explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and ’70s known as 'El Boom.'"
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has begun the initial phase of work to restore the 1896 Southern Pacific Railroad depot from the San Fernando valley farming town of Lankershim, now known as North Hollywood. The decaying wooden structure sits at the corner of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards. Local historians took up the cause of saving the depot more than a decade ago.
Carroll Shelby, the auto racing legend who died last week in Dallas at age 89, apparently divided his time recently between Texas and Beverly Hills. The Southern California chapters of his career, though, are a pretty important part of the story.
Not a good day on the newspaper editorial pages for City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who wants to be seen as the frontrunner in the district attorney race. "Trutanich is not the disaster portrayed by many of his critics," the Times says, adding the inevitable but.
in June, the rebuilding of the Wilshire Boulevard on- and off-ramps will begin a year-long traffic disruption in one of the nation's congested spots that will be so majorly disruptive it's being called The Rampture. We've been warning you this was coming. In case you were hoping it would just go away, it didn't.
President Obama told the guests at tonight's Democratic Party fundraiser in Studio City that his comments yesterday on completing his move into the yes column on same-sex marriage were "a logical extension of what America is supposed to be." Plus notes on who attended, what else Obama said during his 19-minute talk.
Click to view the latest weekly photo for LA Observed by Gary Leonard.
Santa Monica's city hall and the Ocean Avenue landmark Chez Jay are not playing well together. The city is developing the parcel around Chez Jay into a park and wants a restaurant that will point inward to the park — not out to the street — and will serve healthier fare than the steaks and stuff drinks that Chez Jay's current patrons like.
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. Click to view bigger.
Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian, who represents Studio City, says he has been told that the area south of Ventura Boulevard around Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Fryman Canyon will be pretty much a mess between 8 and 10 p.m. on Thursday. He also confirms that President Obama will stay overnight in Beverly Hills, as on recent trips.
President Obama returns to Los Angeles on Thursday to separate more Democrats from their $40,000. He's going to George Clooney's house in Studio City's Fryman Canyon, but how he will get there nobody's saying. The president will overnight somewhere in the LA area — back in Beverly Hills or does a new hotel get to host Obama this time?
The Los Angeles Times is taking its newly vacant position of books editor in a somewhat new direction — emphasizing knowledge of pop culture and adding a focus on "California and the West" to the editor's job. The title is even being redefined to as "Books and Culture Editor."
The latest cartoon by Steve Greenberg. 
Word got out this morning that Austin Beutner was telling friends and supporters that his quest to become mayor of Los Angeles next year was over. Mark Lacter had an item earlier at LA Biz Observed. Here's Beutner's statement this afternoon.
Yes, the long wait is over. We now know what the bathrooms will look like when the Hollywood Bowl season opens. Courtesy of ZevWeb.
Parking fines in Los Angeles are already way disproportionate to the crime, but in his desperation to balance his budget Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is planning to ask for the sixth increase in his time in office. Is it a policy move because parking violations are becoming some kind of civic nuisance? Uh, no. It's about money — and parking after the street sweeper comes could cost you a day's pay.
It's not just Lara Logan. The presence of Anderson Cooper probably helps too. But it's an interesting ratings trend. "The oldest newsmagazine on television," writes Brian Stelter in the New York Times, "might have figured out how to halt the aging process."
The Inglewood artist died over the weekend, just a week after the opening of the Expo Line, which features his artwork in the Crenshaw station. The MTA joined friends on Facebook in announcing his death.
The LA Kings' amazing playoff run continues. They swept out the St. Louis Blues on Sunday afternoon, winning 3-1, and are now 8-1 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Kings are going to the third round, the Western Conference finals, for the first time since Wayne Gretzky led the team in 1993. Inside: Photo of Phil Anschutz at the game, ticket info for round three, video of the handshake.
The office of City Councilman Richard Alarcon released a statement this morning repeating that Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon, are not guilty of the voter fraud and perjury charges filed yesterday by District Attorney Steve Cooley.
They got to play at home Thursday night for the first time since forcing their way into the second round of the NHL playoffs — and they didn't disappoint the standing-room crowd of screaming fans at Staples Center. You know who also had a great night? Photographer Harry How of Getty Images.
Superior Court judge Kathleen Kennedy dismissed the DA's two-year-old perjury and voter fraud case against City Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes de Oca Alarcon, saying the prosecution failed to present evidence to the grand jury that undercut its case. Prosecutors indicated they would refile the charges.
Councilman Eric Garcetti has given the people what they want before by posting to Facebook his inside-the-rope cellphone pics of celebrities receiving stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in his district. Today he caught a good view of the cameras watching actress Scarlett Johansson watch them.
In another nod to the importance of what the paper does online, the Los Angeles Times is stationing veteran foreign correspondent Carol J. Williams on a desk in the newsroom to write for the paper's World Now blog.
Cartoon by Steve Greenberg.
Donna Myrow, the founder in 1988 of the teen-written free newspaper L.A. Youth, is telling anyone who will listen that the paper is facing financial calamity this month. Two alumni of the paper offer compelling arguments for finding the money, somehow — especially with the anniversary of the riots so prominently on the city's mind.
As part of its CityThink efforts, Los Angeles magazine hosted another of its breakfast conversations this morning at Kate Mantilini, this time with Ben Hecht, the president and CEO of Living Cities. The May issue features a return of the 52 Great Weekends feature, and a profile of KFI power talkers John and Ken, and a Q&A with Controller Wendy Greuel.
Here's a side of Clippers' play-by-play man Ralph Lawler that you probably didn't know. The 1960s stage musical "Hair" changed his life. He's this week's guest DJ on KCRW.
USC professor of physics and astronomy Clifford Johnson has been waiting for a train line to campus. He's been known to pedal his bike to USC and to ride transit all over Los Angeles. On Saturday he finally rode the Expo Line and shot a video.
There has been so much terrific journalism published and aired and posted around the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 riots. It's been an especially awesome week for "Which Way, LA?", started by KCRW right after the riots with Warren Olney providing the steady hand.
The grand opening to unveil the new Expo Line light rail train is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at the 7th Street/Metro station in downtown. That kicks off a weekend...
The Los Angeles Conservancy says that the 1959 home by architect Lloyd Wright was torn down on Wednesday, "the day after the Palos Verdes Estates City Council denied the Conservancy's appeal of the decision to allow the home's demolition."
April 29, 1986 — the day the Central Library was torched by an arsonist. The building didn't reopen for good until 1993. Some 200,000 books were destroyed, plus irreplaceable periodicals, drawings from patents, historic maps, fine art prints, photography negatives and newspaper archives.
I woke up this morning to an LA history story of a sort by Nick Roman of KPCC. He reported on the Los Angeles debut 50 years ago this week of the young heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay. Two years later, as Muhammad Ali, he joined the leader of the Nation of Islam on stage at the Olympic Auditorium.
The New York Times Travel section on Sunday offered a tour, with online slide show, of locations in the Los Angeles area that the late Julius Shulman photographed. "Shulman captured Los Angeles and its surroundings in the middle of the 20th century as the city was shedding its small-town roots and becoming an international capital."
During both days of the book festival at USC this weekend, trains were running on the Expo Line just south of the campus. No riders, though. These were test runs. Would it have killed Metro to accelerate the opening one week with thousands of potential Expo Line users already going to USC?
The store inside Aroma Cafe in Studio City closes May 17. "In the words of Orson Welles, 'If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.' This is our happy ending," a note says.
I missed this note on Alice Walton's site this morning. The City Hall reporter who launched The City Maven in 2010 as a newly minted master's degree holder will now blog on the KPCC website. Read more
Pedro E Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life" is on exhibition at the Woodbury University Hollywood Gallery through April 25. Guerrero, who is now 94, was a close friend of, and the photographer for, Frank Lloyd Wright.
LAPD cancelled the car impound of a city official's husband, Villaraigosa's budget, ex-appraiser admits trying to spur donations to Assessor John Noguez and more.
As usual, writers from LA Observed will be all over the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend at USC. I'll be there both days signing books and schmoozing with anyone who drops by.
Ying Wu and Ming Qu are profiled at USC's Neon Tommy by a Chinese journalism student who was able to gather information in Mandarin from social media. Corrina Shuang Liu writes that the pair came from humble backgrounds, unlike the image some believe that they were spoiled rich kids.
The artist and his wife are staying in an Airstream trailer at LACMA during the installation of Levitated Mass. He gave architect Frank Gehry a tour of the site this week.
The New York Times wants your help identifying people in photos by the late Garry Winogrand from the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 1960.
Jesse Linares, the city editor of Hoy Los Angeles, died on Saturday after a battle with cancer. From El Salvador, he had previously worked in the newsroom at La Opinión.
Television legend Dick Clark has died. The popularizer of "American Bandstand" in Philadelphia in the 1950s went on to become a true TV programming impresario. "The oldest living teenager" reportedly suffered a heart attack this morning after an outpatient procedure at St. John's hospital in Santa Monica.
Mayor Villaraigosa, architect Alex Ward and others consider replacements for the 6th Street Viaduct on "DnA" with Frances Anderton on KCRW. Listen there Previously at LA Observed: 6th Street...
Flavorwire has posted another of its 25 most beautiful lists — and they do aggregate some gorgeous photos and noteworthy locations. This time it's the 25 most beautiful public libraries in the world.
Talk about a new era at the Pulitzers. The Huffington Post just won its first Pulitzer Prize, in the national reporting category for David Wood's 10-part series on the lives of severely wounded veterans and their families. "We are delighted and deeply honored by the award, which recognizes both David’s exemplary piece of purposeful journalism and HuffPost's commitment to original reporting that affects both the national conversation and the lives of real people," said Arianna Huffington. Politico's political cartoonist Matt Wuerker, who is from Los Angeles, wins too. Click for list of winners.
Sharon Waxman of The Wrap has now read the script that Joe Eszterhas turned in for the Mel Gibson production of a film about the Jewish hero Judah Maccabee. It's very bloody, but true to the story.
Today's the day that television station KCET has to be out of its historic former movie studio on Sunset Boulevard. Everyone has been told to vacate by 3 p.m., I'm told. The new home is in Burbank in a media building adjacent to NBC.
Molly Munger, reward in USC area murders, Kelley Lynch, Shereen Meraji, Vin Scully and more.
On Monday, Nirvan Mullick posted his short film about nine-year-old Caine Monroy and the cardboard arcade he built last summer in his dad's auto parts store in Boyle Heights. The rest is Internet history.
Interesting exercise on the New York Times website, with six writers or experts from Los Angeles taking part.
Endorsement in DA's race, a meeting for Brad Sherman, parsing the Farmers Field EIR and more.
A player on the opposing San Jose Sharks bench interfered with the puck while the Kings were making a rush that could have won the game. “It’s a shame that a guy can cheat and get away with it in a game this important,” AEG chief Tim Leiweke said afterward.
Paul attracted a healthy crowd of about 5,000 for Wednesday night's rally in the tennis stadium on campus.
The campaign treasurer for many California Democrats pleaded guilty this morning in federal court in Sacramento.
Mayor and the city retirement age, a tunnel for NoHo, Lohan walks away a free woman, the Langer's effect on the Expo Line, what's in the new Slake and a nice feature on downtown photographer-artist Ed Fuentes.
Richard Parks' documentary film about epic Los Angeles record collector Murray Gershenz, who's pushing 90, debuts on The Documentary Channel on April 21 and will also be on NPR's All Songs Considered website.
Fisher did not take questions from reporters at the Thunder's practice, but he did make a short statement.
Pasadena police zig on Kendrec McDade case, more Dodgers sale reaction and head-scratching, Adelson says Gingrich is at the end of the line, assemblyman quits the Republican Party, "Downton Abbey" ratings are boffo and KCAL's Chuck Hollis has died. Plus more inside.
Former Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez has signed a minor-league deal worth $500,000 with the Oakland A's and will report to spring training later this week in hopes of winning a job.
The entreaties from Village Voice Media executive Mike Lacey didn't work. LA Weekly editor Sarah Fenske posts on the LA Weekly website.
A food blogger for the Village Voice misread our latest post on Jonathan Gold and wished Gold the best of success at the LA Times, saying that LA Observed confirmed the move. Except, of course, we didn't.
Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell tells a horrific story in his online tribute to the New York Times' Anthony Shadid.
The popular and respected food writer Jonathan Gold was spotted shaking hands in the Los Angeles Times building yesterday. The buzz is that he will rejoin the paper shortly after his upcoming Gold Standard tasting event, but the Weekly would like to keep him.
"Whitney Houston was one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades," Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow says.
Publicist Kristen Foster told AP on Saturday afternoon that the singer had died. TMZ reports she died at the Beverly Hilton, where she was to attend a Clive Davis party tonight.
Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer and the author of books on Gabby Gifford, Chesley Sullenberger and last lecture professor Randy Pausch, died Friday of injuries suffered in a car crash.
I didn't really know the Jill Kinmont story until reading today's LA Times obituary, but it has so many noteworthy elements. I've spent an hour reading about her.
Posted at Brian Wilson's Facebook page, along with the line "who's watching the Grammy's on Sunday?"
Los Angeles is likely to be well represented in the commercials that air during Sunday's Super Bowl. Like this one showing a flying saucer crash near Downtown.
Martin Springer, who lives in Alhambra, was arrested by sheriff's detectives this morning after a short investigation into new reports of lewd acts with children.
New at LA Observed
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.
