Archive: Coast

Veronique de Turenne is following the Woolsey fire aftermath at Here in Malibu.

Veronique de Turenne: Praying for everyone in all of today's mind-boggling number of fire zones.

As Lynne Seemayer, she created an indelible part of LA street art lore and became something of a legend.

Helpful road signs on PCH now help locate you.

The crucial transportation link in Santa Monica reopens today after being closed for more than a year.

Early-rising onlookers and photographer Gary Leonard observed ET-94 as it came around the breakwater this morning and was offloaded.

Newsweek goes long on an exploration of the mysteries about Richardson and the LA Sheriff's Department.

Downtown to Santa Monica (or back) by train for the first time since 1953.

It's the first time the LAPD chief has recommended charges in the killing of an unarmed suspect.

Elevated bacteria counts plus the discovery of hypodermic needles and tampon applicators are tied to Hyperion's switch this week to a pipe dumping treated sewage just a mile offshore.

Right at midnight, unannounced booms from fireworks barraged the coast cities on Santa Monica Bay.

My favorite police blotter item of the summer, from Marina del Rey.

Jenny Price's very first post at LA Observed -- in 2006 -- began a series that agitated for access to the public Malibu beaches where wealthy property owners kept putting up obstacles.

There's no real surprise here. Yes, the tar that washed up on local beaches came from 100 miles away.

Affected beaches range as far south as San Clemente. Heck of a coincidence if this is not found to be connected to the Santa Barbara County spill.

Units that are really just vacation rental businesses will no longer be allowed to take in paying guests unless the resident is there too.

A Missouri couple received apologies from a climber rescued off a cliff at Point Dume.

The officer was killed last night when he was trapped between a loose boat and rocks near the Green Pleasure Pier.

Scientists think they know now what has killed millions of starfish along the Pacific coast, though they aren't so sure why. The destruction has been quite visible in tide pools.

The Malibu Times says that Diana Armstrong was on her deck facing the beach on Saturday night when she a large fish in the surf. She dragged the bluefin out of the water and it became dinner.

Lightning strikes at the water line are very rare here. Which is fortunate, because they are scary.

Owner John Evans says the store will likely be gone by Sept. 21, months before the lease ends. Not enough business to justify the rent.

The race to succeed Rep. Henry Waxman in the 33rd congressional district just got more crowded. Miller will take a leave from KCRW and his Washington Post column.

Greuel is going with old Villaraigosa hands to run her campaign this time, but Ace Smith and Sean Clegg also advised one of the so-called independent PACs that pushed Greuel for mayor last year.

This is pretty awesome. Ernie Marquez, a member of the land-grant family that owned Santa Monica Canyon, grew up in the canyon himself and later in life became an LA historian and collector of historical photographs.

Greuel doesn't live in the Westside and coastal district, but the law doesn't mind — the voters may be another story. The list of other candidates still may be long.

Rep. Henry Waxman's decision to retire rather than run for another term makes available one of the Democrats' most valuable congressional districts.

A dark or silver Mercedes-Benz struck an LAPD officer and his motorcycle on Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset a little before 8 p.m. tonight. The officer was taken to UCLA with non-life threatening injuries.

Tibby Rothman returns to the LA Weekly with a piece on all that has been lost as Venice transforms from "an island off the coast of Los Angeles" into what the locals endure today: "They went to bed one night living in a community and woke up in an ad."

Historian Michael Beschloss posted this image to Twitter and said it was Venice in 1947. It looks to actually be in Santa Monica. Inside: UCLA under construction around 1928.

Plesko, the Budapest-born author "known for Beat Generation-inspired novels," died on Monday morning after jumping from the roof of the building where he lived in Venice, the authorities said.

In the bird world, I guess this is exciting news. The species rarely seen around here was spotted in the ocean off Gladstone's in Pacific Palisades.

Ernest Marquez likes to say that his family lived in three countries — Spain, Mexico and the United States — without ever leaving home. Their home was in Santa Monica Canyon, before the artists and the actors arrived. Nice profile in the LA Times and video of the family's hidden cemetery in the canyon.

Police said they have arrested Nathan Campbell, 38, on suspicion of murder for Saturday afternoon's horrific incident on the crowded Venice Beach boardwalk. One woman died and 11 other people were hurt.

Rich Capparela won't have to drive downtown anymore for his Friday afternoon show on the classical music station at 91.5 FM. "KUSC at the Beach" will air from a studio in his beach-view condo in Santa Monica.

Anne Soble, the weekly's owner, publisher and editor, has developed serious health problems. Her son posted a note saying she cannot continue and asked if someone would like to take over the paper, a fixture on the Malibu coast.

As I mentioned earlier, the Obamajam potential for Friday's short visit by President Obama is not bad. He's coming in mid-morning and leaving early afternoon so the driving disruption should be localized. But it's still Santa Monica in tourist season, so traffic could be a challenge.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has apparently decided that banning fires for health reasons at Dockweiler State Beach — under the LAX takeoff path and downwind from the massive Hyperion sewage treatment plant — didn't make sense scientifically or environmentally. So a revised proposal for fire rings on beaches will be released today that incorporates "better and more information than we had two months ago."

The Kickstarter campaign to support the hidden beach access app that grew out of an LA Observed series runs only until May 30 — that's Thursday. The LA Times featured Jenny Price in today's Column One feature.

Jenny Price's posts revealing the secrets of how to get onto Malibu beaches despite the efforts of residents to keep you out have been some of the most popular entries ever at LA Observed's Native Intelligence blog. Now she's turning Malibu's hidden beaches into an iPhone app.

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.

Happy holidays from Venice Beach.

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.

Heal the Bay's 23rd yearly cleanup of the coastal watershed on Saturday yielded nearly 20 tons of junk that shouldn't be in the ocean. Oddities this year included the body of a rooster with its head cut off, found at Santa Monica Beach, and a rifle barrel.

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 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.

Terry Tracy moved to the beach in Malibu in 1956, built a shack and became "the personification of the rebellious surf subculture that emerged in California in the late 1950s." He may — or may not — have also been the first surfer to call beach girl Kathy Kohner "Gidget."

Arnold tells the New York Times' Adam Nagourney that he understands why the bodybuilder community fears being pushed out of Venice by the Google hordes. The company's expansion plans may include the building that houses Gold's Gym. "As soon as I walked in, they said: ‘You heard about Google?'"

One of the other charming little hockey things that happens is the winners of the Stanley Cup get to take the trophy pretty much wherever they want for a day. For many that means taking the Cup home to small-town Canada (or Slovenia) for what can sometimes turn into very emotional celebrations with the folks you grew up with. But first, Venice Beach. Here are some links that let you follow along.

It's been pretty dang nice along the beaches so far in these final days of official spring. But as anyone with very many summers in Los Angeles knows, a marine layer could blanket us in a deep, gray, soul-sucking June gloom at any moment. A good read on how the marine layer works and why.

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."

ABC devoted a two-hour "20/20" special edition this past weekend to Sunset Boulevard, "a curving slice of American romance running from the rough edges of East LA through the music of Hollywood, past the riches of Beverly Hills and ending at the Pacific Ocean." Well, not quite East LA, or even the Eastside, but hey it's the promotional side of national news — what do they know.

Douglas retired last year as executive director of the California Coastal Commission, a regulatory entity he helped create.

Eighteen-degree gradient between the beach and the Valley. The fog is definitely in.

Honestly, I'm not sure that's better news for the residents of Malibu.

A sheriff's department spokesman said he may have died of natural causes, rather than being shot or beaten.

Just 17 seconds, uploaded to You Tube by Jonathan Alcorn.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the head of the county's beaches department will meet the media at 6 p.m. on the steps of the Hall of Administration to further explain the Board of Supervisors' vote on beach Frisbees.

County officials seek to clarify all the misinformation out there — but yes, Frisbee throwing is still illegal during summer.

One from Channel 9 and the other from the LA Times could not disagree more.

Coming up on 4 p.m. on October 12, the LA Observed weather center reports a Downtown temperature of 99 degrees. 97 in the Valley, 88 along the KOST (sorry, couldn't...

The Malibu Surfing Association, which formed at Surfrider Beach in 1961, held its annual MSA Classic this weekend.

Four fighters, apparently F-16s, and an AC-130 gunship flew over the coast of Santa Monica Bay on Saturday afternoon.

An Antarctic storm has spun off large swells that are expected to begin pounding local beaches with the summer's biggest waves on Thursday.

Riding the canals, in still frames from Yo! Venice.

The citizen redistricting commission 'visualization" for the congressional district that Janice Hahn just won shows just how bad it would be for her if the lines stay as drawn — and invents an entirely new concept of community of interest.

Author and long-ago L.A. Times enviro reporter Philip L. Fradkin and his photographer son, Alex L. Fradkin, walked the eleven-hundred miles of California coast and have married their words and images in “The Left Coast."

Flying and filming over the beach and skate park.

Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, Gidget herself, will be a guest of honor at Saturday's Santa Monica Pier Paddleboard Race and Ocean Festival.

The county's Department of Beaches and Harbors website blames "budget curtailments" for the cancellation of the traditional beachfront fireworks show.

Veronique de Turenne breaks some personal news today on her blog.

If you never saw the short-lived but very popular amusement park that was at the Ocean Park end of Santa Monica Beach — or want to see it again — check out this Nancy Sinatra video.

The weather geek who sent me this photo loves the wind vortices evident in the clouds off the Southern California coast this week. I just see a nice image.

At least eight ailing sea lions were rescued along the coast this weekend, including this one at Santa Monica Beach.

Scientific American has dug out of its files a 1901 story and photographs about interesting rock features on the Southern California coast, including the arch rock north of Santa Monica.

Jonathan Alcorn went to Venice Beach for the first warm day of spring in Los Angeles.

In all the decades that Mammoth Mountain has been a destination for SoCal skiers, this looks to be the winter with the most snowfall. At least since they began keeping records in 1969.

The nuclear power generating station near San Luis Obispo on the central California coast was allowed to open without an emergency plan for earthquakes — and still doesn't have one, the HuffPost says.

L.A. Creek Freak posted this video of Friday's tsunami wave rolling uphill in Ballona Creek.

As if the March 11 quake off Japan's northeast coast needed any more historic cred, the USGS recalculated it upward in magnitude.

This clip catches the start of Friday's tsunami flooding into the streets of Kesennuma, in Miyagi Prefecture, and watches up close for six astounding, frightening minutes.

Japan is probably the most prepared country in the world, but the spreading misery and risk of nuclear disaster shows that you can't prepare adequately for an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Sped-up video of the tsunami surge entering and leaving Crescent City's harbor on Friday morning, leaving extensive damage behind.

These are always a mix of awesome and frightening.

Crescent City, near the Oregon border, appears to have suffered significant damage to its harbor.

TV reports are showing not much happening along the Southern California coast as the hour passes for the arrival of tsunami surges.

NOAA has put up a tsunami advisory for us and a higher tsunami warning for north of Point Concepcion.

Updated monitoring of media reports on the Japan earthquake, which the USGS is calling a magnitude 8.9 event. Number aftershocks over 6.0 have occurred.

Heal the Bay put out the call for help with the massive die-off of sardines and other fish inside King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

I don't know if folks will be as bemused in Redondo Beach, but the LAT's holy cow approach to the fish die-off works for me.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of dead anchovies are floating this morning in King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

The tank painted with the words "This looks a bit like an elephant" was towed from the field along Pacific Coast Highway on Friday.

Jonathan Alcorn spots this latest Banksy piece on a tank at the base of the palisades along PCH across from Will Rogers Beach. Recently: LAT: The truth of 'Exit Through...

This afternoon's successful launch was the largest ever on the West Coast.

Every time I post a photograph from Venice Beach's oil era, such as the Charles Brittin shot from 1957, readers email in disbelief. So here above is further evidence, uncovered...

Douglas Kmiec, the Republican law professor at Pepperdine who endorsed Barack Obama for president and became U.S. ambassador to Malta, was seriously injured in a one-car crash near Calabasas that killed a nun.

The holder of the lease says he got a 30-day eviction notice. The landlord growled that it was none of a reporter's business, then said "the restaurant is open and...

Santa Monica city councilman Richard Bloom was sworn in today as the south coast representative on the California Coastal Commission, succeeding Larry Clark of Rancho Palos Verdes. More than a...

This is how nice a day we had for Thanksgiving: Veronique de Turenne could see Downtown Los Angeles from the cove that Here in Malibu calls home. Multiple, larger views...

OK, Mark Gold of Heal the Bay, how do you really feel about the owner of Malibu's Paradise Cove getting a big break from the state's clean water regulators, despite...

The feds have formally removed pelicans from the endangered species list, hailing the bird's recovery as evidence that the species law works. Brown pelicans were declared endangered in 1970, when...

A series of waves out of the Pacific crashed into Samoa and American Samoa, apparently killing at least dozens and wiping out some villages, but media in the region are...

Lifeguards in Los Angeles County plan to clear the sand and harbors will make ready for some sort of swell generated by the earthquake this morning in American Samoa. It's...

Saturday is Coastal Clean-up Day, the 14th annual, if anyone's counting. Heal the Bay and the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors are taking the lead in our...

If this Getty Images shot (via the NYT) doesn't give you nightmares tonight, I don't know what will....

It's bad enough when a Malibu couple gets creamed by Bernie's outrageousness. It's even worse when the couple has to give up its Malibu Colony home to Wells Fargo. But...

Lots of festivities on tap, including musical performances and a big fireworks show tonight in Santa Monica Bay. It's likely to be a mob scene later on, so city officials...

For want of a permit that officially is easy to get but that nobody seems to know how to issue, Veronique de Turenne has three parking tickets — and a...

An LA Observed reader phoned in this photo from Marina Del Rey, where they're expecting Zac Sunderland's return this morning from his round-the-world solo sail. Sunderland's blog says he is...

Out at Paradise Cove yesterday, Veronique de Turenne watched Laird Hamilton paddle across the cove and ride a few waves. More at Here in Malibu....

The state Coastal Commission reportedly just turned down the City of Los Angeles application to create permit parking districts near the beach in Venice. The vote was 9 - 1...

The young migrating gray whale is spending much of its time in the main Marina del Rey channel. KABC's Michael Linder says you can often spot the whale from the...

This stormy President's Day is when the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon would have been run under one of Frank McCourt's schedules. The race was postponed until Memorial Day, and at...

The reader who sent this photo into LongBeachReport.com said it was the last of three water spouts seen descending offshore before 9 a.m. Story there....

Anthony Citrano was taking pictures with his Nikon on Santa Monica Pier when a security guard for Pacific Park said he would have to show ID and sign a waiver,...

Syd Lovelace and Booda on a paddleboard off Will Rogers State Beach this evening, with Catalina in the background. "Syd and Booda (who is a rescue dog) are Venice residents...

My segment on the air at 4:44 p.m. centers on the ailment afflicting brown pelicans, with a little mention of the SS Catalina meeting its demise. It's about icons of...

Heal the Bay says its staff spent the past year reviewing eight years of records on wastewater discharges kept by the Los Angeles Water Quality Control Board. The findings: "A...

Decades after the damage from DDT almost destroyed the Southern California brown pelican population, something is causing the coastal birds to get sick and turn up distressed in unusual places:...

Snow-capped peaks, sailboats and sea lions: just another winter day in L.A. The video features the Marina Peninsula and Marina del Rey, Ballona Lagoon, Santa Monica Bay and Santa Catalina...

You really can't see anything near the coast, and there's a fog advisory in effect until 9 a.m. as far as Downtown that is expected to be a factor for...

Veronique's sunrise photo over the cove at Malibu captures the day in Southern California. It's 93 in downtown Los Angeles right now, with 5% humidity. Here in Malibu...

Heal the Bay is out with a new beach report card today saying that California's beaches were much improved this summer due to a monitoring program — but that Gov....

As a reporter, I liked to write about L.A's infrastructure — freeways, water, refuse. I always thought there was a book in the history of the Los Angeles sewer system,...

High waves are pounding the coast and rip currents are making the sea more treacherous than usual. Piers at Manhattan Beach and Seal Beach were closed yesterday due to the...

They tore down Malibu Lumber yesterday. Veronique de Turenne took in the scene: Acreage keeps getting subdivided and those subdivisions get split into ever-smaller plots topped by gigantic, ridiculous houses....

Five men aged 18 to 27 have been arrested in connection with the Thanksgiving weekend fire that burned 53 homes in Malibu. Authorities said the fire started as an illegal...

Hollywood location meister Harry Medved, co-author of Hollywood Escapes, has a piece on MSN about the locations used in this year's Oscar-nominated movies. If the beach in Letters from Iwo...

Wrap: Four homes and a guest house destroyed, four other structures damaged. Full containment by 8 pm. The blog Code 6 Charles monitored the scanners and pros checked the fire's...

Dockweiler State Beach and the northern half of Manhattan Beach — from Ballona Creek south to the Manhattan Beach Pier — will be posted with closed signs Tuesday though Thursday,...

Jenny Price's detailed directions on how to find and get into Malibu's less-well-marked beaches pretty much nixes any chance that David Geffen would give up his quixotic quest to buy...