Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
It doesn't much matter where a newsroom is located — unless you work there. Then it matters a lot. Times retention and hiring may be impacted.
Archive: Downtown
It doesn't much matter where a newsroom is located — unless you work there. Then it matters a lot. Times retention and hiring may be impacted.
Report of a lease deal says the Times will have naming rights to the 62-story Aon Center on Wilshire Boulevard. The Times says it has not signed a lease.
Wong was based in Rancho Park and was training at his new station downtown when he fell from a ladder and died.
For years I've been intrigued by the long-closed fire station adjacent to Bread Lounge on Santa Fe Avenue. Finally got inside.
He's under 50 percent in the final vote tally and becomes the first councilman since 1999 to face a reelection runoff.
The view from Grand Avenue on DTLA's Bunker Hill.
The Sunday afternoon line outside the Broad Contemporary Art Museum went down the block
A few hundred thousand people on the streets all day and no arrests of any kind. Lots of great signs though.
Every location, in order, researched by reader Don Bentley and his brother.
Colyton Street.
Weekly newspaper has chronicled the downtown boom all the way along.
MONA had to leave downtown in 2011 but things are all right now. Visiting is like seeing old friends again.
Steve Lopez has written a lovely column on his friend, the Skid Row organizer and housing advocate and co-founder of the LAMP Community.
The start white and red apartment complex in the Arts District will get a softer look under new ownership.
Offices and retail in the older buildings, while it looks like the 1970s corporate side will be razed for apartments.
Onni group, based in Vancouver, has other projects in downtown and would redevelop the longtime LA Times home for offices and retail.
Before it was a boulevard and a suburban community, Van Nuys was a name from LA's past that people should know.
Sunday afternoon on East Olympic Boulevard.
For better worse, the hottest corner of the downtown Arts District boom now has a giant international art destination.
Click on the photo to enlarge. LA Observed photo from Sunday. Hennessey + Ingalls, the arts and architecture bookstore that shocked its fans by announcing last fall it was moving...
Time for the Broadway theater and entertainment district to be a year-round draw, says longtime activist Hillsman Wright.
They have been talking about it so long, the neighborhoods on both sides have changed.
A bike ferry across Marina del Rey? A pedestrian entrance to Dodger Stadium? Might work!
The downtown civic push to (re)reinvent Pershing Square took a step forward today with the naming of four final design concepts from which the actual plan will be chosen.
Chicago's Tribune Media wants to cash in on the hot real estate market in downtown Los Angeles.
Cannick was arrested by the LAPD while covering a Ferguson protest in DTLA as a reporter last November.
The web operation is still looking for the right LA headquarters, but for now BuzzFeed Motion Pictures is moving to Siren Studios.
Andy Bales caught the trifecta of Skid Row infections — E. coli, strep and staph — and now uses a wheelchair. "Conditions on Skid Row are worse than they have ever been…"
The Broad on Bunker Hill looks to be a hit. The Petersen, on the other hand, looks like something...
The 52-year-old bookstore is leaving Santa Monica for a new 5,000-foot bookstore space at One Santa Fe.
The suddenly rising crime rate threatens to undo a lot of good trends in Los Angeles.
For some, "the area can be a way station to a better place. For others, it’s a place where survival means community, drugs, and a regular spot on the street."
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.
Flush with new cash from NBC Universal, BuzzFeed is reported to be looking at the former Ford Model T factory across from Stumptown Coffee on Santa Fe Avenue.
During one stretch on Saturday, it rained steadily for two hours and lightning flashed across downtown. So why not some pics.
Prepare to be laughed at if you ever refer to Microsoft Square in DTLA.
Looks as if the Hyperloop engineers have made themselves at home in the Arts District.
Fun stock footage posted on the Internet Archive. Clifton's, the Golden Gopher, the Rialto and other theaters make appearances.
The former LA home of the Bank of Italy is on the way to becoming a hip hotel.
The color-colded grids are supposed to be simpler and more logical. That doesn't mean that people like them.
Désirée van Hoek says people ask why "a relatively wealthy, white girl from Amsterdam" spends her summers in LA taking photos of the poor and homeless.
KCRW's Lisa Napoli did a ride-along through the downtown Arts District recently with resident photographer Melissa Richardson Banks.
Wayne Ratkovich says that getting a historic designation on a building can be a good thing. He should know.
Sunday on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Also: the sidewalk outside downtown's venerable California Club.
The company told the LA Times that it's no longer pursuing the Farmers Field project.
Chief Beck opens the investigation by saying Sunday's police killing downtown appears justified, while Skid Row residents are upset.
The video shows a skirmish between officers and a flailing man, then an officer yelling to "drop the gun" before shots were fired.
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.
Saturday was one of those pretty cool LA days. Museums were free and packed, and thousands cruised Broadway on foot.
The former Broadway landmark has been closed since 2011, so this is progress.
Defining the borders of downtown remains an uncertain task, writes KCET's Nathan Masters.
Chicago is seeking a partner to turn the corner of 1st and Spring into some sort of big mixed-use project.
Activist Jasmyne Cannick, among the arrested, says flat out no dispersal orders were given by the LAPD at 6th and Hope streets. She is tweeting about her experience.
The final numbers are bigger than they looked on the live streams I followed last night (and more than reported in the media this morning.) Most arrests were for disorderly conduct.
I'm reposting this Gary Leonard photo from 2011 of the artist Richard Duardo, who died Tuesday.
But neither will Perez commit to an endorsement either way. Coverage is starting to crank up for the showdown in the Eastside and Downtown district.
Look for a brew pub kind of experience in about a year. The deal is for 20 years.
Some 10,000 square feet of landscaping needs to be replaced and repairs are already underway on the popular splash pad fountain.
There goes the view of the Jesus Saves neon sign and the rooftop panorama from the Ace Hotel.
Every familiar building, landmark, roofline and mural is photographed by Ian Wood. The challenge has been thrown down for quad-flying urban videographers.
Obamajam potential looks to be centered in Hancock Park and around the Four Seasons Hotel this afternoon and evening, then tomorrow in Brentwood and downtown at Trade-Tech.
The Herald Examiner building downtown has not been inhabited by real newspaper reporters and editors since 1989. But some of them may feel eerily at home in the jail sets recently added to the array of location sets available for rental.
Deon Joseph, a senior lead officer in the LAPD's Central Area, has had enough. Skid Row, where he has worked for 16 years, has "once again become an outdoor asylum without walls."
The sign at 8th and San Julian should be in a museum, Ed Fuentes blogs. Gorky's Russian cafe was a big thing for downtown in its day.
The fifteen Barouni olive trees were transported to LA on large trucks and transplanted into the plaza outside the museum.
Figueroa Street will be closed from 3rd Street down to Pico Boulevard from about 10 am to 1 pm, the city says. The parade starts at noon at 5th Street.
Red and yellow books arranged on shelves. The Last Bookstore, Downtown Los Angeles.
Front door of Iglesia Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles on Saturday morning.
A portion of the "Mother Ditch" that supplied the pueblo of Los Angeles, later encased in brick, has been uncovered and will be removed.
Man, it's hard to take a picture in Los Angeles without a palm tree sneaking in there.
American University Preparatory School, which is taking applications from high school students around the world, will open in the fall in the former Laemmle movie theaters and adjacent converted office building at 3rd and Figueroa streets.
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.
When the museum does open on Bunker Hill, there will be a public plaza and a restaurant whose partners include Bill Chait of Bestia and alums of Thomas Keller restaurants.
Lots of things are popular but not cool - like the Super Bowl, or crystal meth.
Number 5 on the New York Times Travel section's feature on 52 places to visit this year is Downtown Los Angeles. Right after Albania and before Namibia.
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.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck today placed on leave the three officers who shot and killed Brian Beaird after a chase that ended with the crash of his Corvette downtown.
The proprietors' grandfather founded Alta Dena Dairy in 1945.
A former storefront in place since World War II has been removed on 6th Street to expose a courtyard between wings of the Pacific Mutual Building. Pain Quotidien and Tender Greens are coming soon.
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Los Angeles historian Jim Beardsley, a scholar in the work of architect Ross G. Montgomery, says his man produced a rendering for the hall ten years before the building opened.
The county-owned Bob Hope Patriotic Hall on Figueroa Street a bit south of downtown has been getting a makeover.
Clifford V. Johnson steps out for the afternoon to draw.
The City Council president quietly formed a panel several months ago to look into allegations against an unnamed council member, probably Jose Huizar. Now Wesson makes nice — very nice — in front of a political insiders crowd.
Huizar spoke to Times reporter David Zahniser — in a stairwell — before today's City Council meeting.
City Council President Herb Wesson is billed as the "special guest" at a fundraiser on Tuesday to launch Councilman Jose Huizar's reelection campaign. Awkward timing, eh?
Hours after former deputy chief of staff files job retaliation lawsuit, Councilman Jose Huizar admits having "an occasional and consensual relationship" but denies her allegations.
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.
The Broad opened its doors to the media today for a hard-hat tour of the still under-construction museum and made some news.
The annual southbound migration of traveling Vaux's Swifts is underway — they are not using the chimney of the Chester Williams building at 5th and Broadway, but the nearby Spring Arts Tower. The first Audubon watch party is Saturday.
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.
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 latest fan of books to write glowingly about the 5th Street store is from The Paris Review.
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.
Less than two years after Eric Richardson allowed his site to be swallowed up, Blogdowntown will cease publishing. The archives will remain online.
Posted to Twitter by historian Michael Beschloss, without explanation. Click to see it big.
Francine Godoy, who left Councilman Jose Huizar's staff in April for a job with the Department of Sanitation, reportedly says in a complaint that she was harassed and endured retaliation because of her gender and "refusal to engage in sex." Huizar's spokesman said the councilman "strongly and emphatically denies the assertions."
The inexorable shift of downtown's Broadway commercial corridor from immigrant Latinos to New Downtowners is about to reach a new milestone.
Councilman Joe Huizar and Whole Foods made the announcement on Wednesday: the symbol of upscale organic-ness expects to open in 2015 at 8th Street and Grand Avenue downtown.
The Los Angeles Times headquarters in downtown LA will be owned separately from the newspaper — or sold — under the Tribune's new strategy. That makes the paper worth even less to a prospective buyer.
The Atlantic Cities observed last week that it was remarkable Los Angeles is thinking of narrowing Broadway's busy stretch downtown to three lanes as part of a plan to make the street more pedestrian friendly.
Claud Beelman was one of those Los Angeles architects whose work spanned eras and dramatic changes in style. He's responsible for noteworthy LA examples as different as the Eastern Columbia building downtown and the office tower occupied by Occidental Petroleum and the Hammer Museum in Westwood.
The longtime LA scribe writes at the LA Weekly today about his mother's affair with Clifford Clinton, the reform-era City Hall rabble rouser who ran the popular Clifton cafeteria chain. They met when Clinton patronized Mrs. Richmond's shop across Pico Boulevard from the Fox studio where men would show up seeking, and receiving, certain paid services.
The 47-year-old woman died after a speeding tow truck slammed into her bus at Broadway and 5th Street. There were no passengers aboard.
There was a time — actually a long time — when the Empress Pavilion at the north end of Chinatown was packed with hundreds of downtown and Chinese dim sum fans at lunch.
Dutch journalist and maker of LA-centric videos Joris Debeij has posted a four-minute exploration of the rivalry between Philippe and Cole's over the origin story of the French Dip sandwich. Animation included.
Tim Leiweke, who helped build the Anschutz Entertainment Group brands in LA — Staples Center, the Kings and Galaxy, plus more — was named president and chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. That's the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team, its arena, the NBA's Raptors and FC Toronto of Major League Soccer.
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.
Mike Ozanian, a Forbes staff writer on the business of sports, writes that the real reason billionaire Philip Anschutz terminated the sale of AEG — and parted ways with his longtime LA honcho, Tim Leiweke — involved a dispute between the men over how that sale was proceeding. Ozanian's backup for his report is unnamed sources "very close to the situation."
Before he shifted his sights to Hollywood, early motion picture impresario Sid Grauman built his first movie palace on Broadway at 3rd Street, beside the Grand Central Market and across the street from the Bradbury Building. The former Grauman's is now the Million Dollar, and I wandered around inside recently. It's open for tours this Saturday , but that night's showing of "Blade Runner" on the big screen is sold out. Pics inside.
Last week there were the media interviews and the promise to be more visible in LA's contemplations over NFL football. And tonight, Anschutz and his wife Nancy sat courtside as the Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings.
I'm told that what could be the final episode of the television drama "Southland" will shoot tomorrow morning in front of the Police Administration Building. Chief Charlie Beck is supposed to make a quick cameo appearance sometime between 11 a.m. and noon.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office issued the following statement regarding AEG Chairman Phil Anschutz's decision to not sell the company. Villaraigosa does not address the departure of the top Anschutz executive...
There were 354 sales of lofts and condos in greater Downtown LA's top 30 buildings last year, ranging in price from $120,000 to $ 4 million. A new report pegs the average at about $600,000, or $355 per square foot.
Mayor Villaraigosa "missed signals" from the NFL indicating problems with the AEG stadium plan, says a Yahoo football writer. "The problems with the plan are numerous, but the most essential one is the economics."
Author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean has a deal with Simon & Schuster to write a nonfiction book about urban libraries, based around the Los Angeles Public Library downtown. Apparently her starting point is the 1986 fire.
The new owner of the 1908 Pacific Mutual building facing Pershing Square plans to tear down a Verizon store and open up a pocket courtyard space facing the street that was there in the 1920s. It was later covered over to create a new storefront on the sidewalk.
Elisa Lam was last seen in or around the Skid Row-adjacent tourist hotel on Jan. 31. Surveillance video appears to show her acting strangely, and today the body of a woman was reported on the roof.
Photographer Gary Leonard took pictures this weekend of anyone who wanted to stand in front of angel wings painted by Colette Miller on the security shutters of the Regent Theatre downtown. John Rabe of KPCC went to observe — and pose — and reports back. Inside: Eric Garcetti gets wings.
The county has produced a nice video showing the restoration work going on inside the long-vacant Hall of Justice in Downtown Los Angeles. The sheriff's department and the DA will move back in when work is done in 2014, assuming all goes well.
Developer Korean Airlines today unveiled the AC Martin design for the new Wilshire Grand tower at Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street and said it will be 73 stories — one floor more than the US Bank tower downtown.
A new group, Friends of Pershing Square, is trying to get the conversation going. Why not tear down the walls, open up the park again and invite people to come in?
Dan Evans, the editor of the Times Community News papers, moved downtown from the Burbank area about six months ago to try living in the Arts District. Sounds like he mostly liked it until last Sunday night, when he was mugged about midnight near Sci-Arc. Now he caries a socket wrench.
If you don't get a $234 LAPD ticket this year for turning right at 7th Street and Broadway, you could have D.J. Prator to thank. He lives near the corner and noticed that LAPD traffic officers were always writing tickets there. Thus began a little crusade. Story on 'SoCal Connected.'
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.
One of the most potentially cool spots to locate a restaurant in Los Angeles could be moving closer to opening. But we have heard this before. Check out Fiona Apple in the space.
A race in the streets, downtown, at night, in the middle of winter. It's a concept.
Police in the Rampart division laid out for the media today all the stolen loot they say was retrieved from the car of Frank Chibbaro, a 38-year-old ex-con arrested hiding in a downtown garage on New Year's Day. It's a lot of stuff. Video inside.
The owner of Grand Central Market has launched a makeover aimed at capturing more of the new demographic moving into downtown. The new downtowners who are renting condos and lofts and walking their dogs on Spring Street and Broadway apparently don't appreciate the market's gritty vibe and sub-par produce. The redo is beginning with a "deep cleaning" and repainting. See the photos.
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.
Of the 2,066 voters who mailed in ballots, 73 percent voted to tax property owners in order to obtain funding for the $125 million loop mostly along Broadway and Hill.
How's that 110 freeway HOV lane working out for you? A lot of people are flouting the transponder rule, it seems.
It's Craig Thornton’s private Wolvesmouth dinners in a loft downtown, says Dana Goodyear in "Toques From Underground" in this week's New Yorker.
Have you seen this car? Veteran LA journalist Steve Devol was out early Sunday morning to shoot some dawn photos around Walt Disney Hall. So were a film crew and a guard who tried to stop Devol from taking pictures. Didn't work.
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.
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.
I don't know what they were filming over the weekend, but a neighbor of Lisa Napoli's spotted these bison at 5th and Grand, a corner now called John Fante Square.
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.
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.
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.
América Tropical, on a second-story outside wall of the old Italian Hall on Olvera Street, is the last surviving public mural by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in the United States that remains in its original location.
On Friday night, Zocalo held its first event outside in the new Grand Park — a co-branded dealie with KCRW. On the panel, Los Angeles Times arts reporter Jori Finkel...
Downtown's King Eddy Saloon, a favorite of the new urban enthusiasts for its patina of LA history and image as "Skid Row's last great dive bar," is about to go the full hipster route. A story on the AP wire this weekend talks about the link to John Fante and Charles Bukowski, and the likely arrival of craft beer and cocktails.
The county's Hall of Records might be the least appreciated of the government office buildings strewn around what used to be called downtown's Civic Center. I would bet that many visitors to Grand Park, which will open a new section on its back side in September, have no idea of the building's name or function. Its name is actually a misnomer these days — the county Registrar-Recorder took most of the eponymous records to Norwalk more than a decade ago. But the hall has sterling LA architectural roots.
Greg Wiliis, hired in January as to lead downtown's Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, reportedly resigned after it was reported that he was convicted in France of theft, fraud and embezzlement. He was reportedly sentenced to five years in prison and may be on the run.
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?
Lauren Bon's latest project is to install a large working water wheel to extract water out of the Los Angeles River (once the city's main source) and irrigate land beside the Broadway bridge, near the Los Angeles State Historic Park where her cornfield transformed a former train yard in 2005. Check out the prototype.
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.
The former Marriott hotel on Figueroa and 3rd Street is now the "L.A. Hotel," and the former Kyoto Grand has become the DoubleTree by Hilton.
City of Los Angeles historic-cultural monument #137 is the former Chocolate Shoppe on 6th Street, between Spring Street and Broadway. The shop has HCM status because the interior is covered in early 20th Century tile murals by Ernest Batchelder, the city's most revered old-time tile maker. Now, almost 100 years later, it could become a chocolate shop again.
The former park wasn't heavily used, but It was a nice spot for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character to celebrate bedding Zooey Deschanel's Summer in "(500) Days of Summer."
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."
The unreinforced brick building that houses Señor Fish at 1st Street and Alameda has to be moved or torn down for the Regional Connector underground light-rail line. It formerly housed The Atomic Cafe and at least one other '80s restaurant.
Ruscha became the last of four artists to leave the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art since the whole kerfuffle erupted over the removal of chief curator Paul Shimmel.
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.
Last night's downtown Art Walk included an Occupy LA protest and a skirmish line with police on Spring Street.
Basically USC to Chinatown, with feeder legs from MacArthur Park and Boyle Heights.
In an op-ed in the Sunday L.A. Times aimed at defusing the controversy over curator Paul Schimmel's departure, museum patron Eli Broad expresses his support for the direction the Museum of Contemporary Art is headed. He's fairly critical of some past practices and says he's happy with controversial director Jeffrey Deitch.
In Monday's edition, founder Sue Laris will tell readers that advertising has fallen out and the 40-year-old weekly needs $5 a month from readers. For now no editorial staffing changes are planned.
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.
Calder Greenwood, one of the artists who stationed some papier-mâché figures in the vacant pit where the state building in Downtown was razed five years ago, says he doesn't know what happened to his papier-mâché sunbathers. "But I'm glad people saw them while they were up."
The figures that showed up — briefly — in the Civic Center pit on Wednesday are made of papier-mâché and apparently the work of artist Calder Greenwood, the LA Weekly says. Sounds good to us.
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.
Who were those figures going to the beach in Downtown LA today — and where did they go? Investigate
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.
The LAPD says that Brian Mendoza, 23, has been arrested in the videotaped head bonking of an officer working the May Day rallies in downtown. He is 6 feet 280, she is 5'1" 115.
Some dude was caught on camera whacking an officer on the helmet with a drum during Tuesday's protest in Downtown. Pretty amazing that none of the other LAPD cops on the scene saw him.
Several Downtown streets will be closed temporarily and Metro bus lines detoured for May Day rallies and marches today. "Street closures will begin as early as 6 AM for the participant assembly area located on Broadway between 11th Street and Olympic Boulevard, as well as for the rally area located on Broadway between 1st Street and Temple Street," the city says. "Street closures for the rest of the route will begin as early as 9AM." Check the map.
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.
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...
Flavorpill's Los Angeles bias is showing through again — not that we're complaining. Its Flavorwire site has put Union Station, sometimes called the last great American rail station to be built, in 1939, high on its aggregation of The Most Beautiful Train Stations in the World.
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.
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.
Shooting the Times places "near USC" is actually five miles away in Baldwin Hills. The LA Times building itself is closer to the campus. For whatever reasons, grokking the inner map of Los Angeles is just not an LAT strength.
AEG has posted on Facebook a series of new views of the proposed Farmers Field football stadium and the changes it would bring to the Convention Center and LA Live area. Here are a sample.
It turns out that about 150 LAPD officers and other employees still work in Parker Center, the bedraggled former headquarters that most of the department gladly abandoned a couple of years ago. "Nobody is happy to be here,” says facilities manager Thom Brennan.
The seldom-seen head of the AEG empire says if necessary he will buy an NFL team himself and move it to Los Angeles.
Suzanne Rico, the former morning co-anchor on Channel 2 who hit the road after losing her job two years ago, is back living in the Los Angeles area and blogging....
The Los Angeles artist talks about doing three murals inside Bob Hope Patriotic Hall in Downtown.
The Central Library is getting a three-month rooflift starting today — and the LAPL website is warning patrons, staff and Downtowners that "traffic WILL be affected during this time."
Angels Flight Railway president John H. Welborne announced that the one-way fare to ride the cars up or down Bunker Hill in Downtown will rise next Monday.
The Da Camera Society's Chamber Music in Historic Sites series certainly will live up to the latter part of its name with Saturday's shows.
We told you earlier this week that the 1960s-era metal grates would be coming off the old facade of Clifton's Brookdale cafeteria on Broadway — and this morning they did.
At a ceremony later this morning, the original Broadway facade of the Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria will be uncovered and later restored.
The Last Bookstore on Spring Street in Downtown is big and if it lasts it may actually become the last bookstore standing in Los Angeles.
Councilmembers Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl reacted generally positively to the design, while Councilman Ed Reyes said the project should include more benefits for the area's residents.
Every Anglo L.A. cliche of local history and Mexican-American culture you could want, with some quaint pronunciations.
Adam Leipzig, publisher of the website Cultural Weekly, doesn't pretend to be objective about the city's move to remove the Latino Theater Company from the Los Angeles Theatre Center, its Spring Street home for six years.
Since 1977, Philippe has charged just nine cents for coffee — plus a penny in tax. Nice touch and marketing gimmick while it lasted
The secret City Council district maps were released publicly today, revealing whose ox is being gored. As she foreshadowed, Councilwoman Jan Perry is among the gored.
I kept seeing Twitter and Facebook posts go by marveling at the sunset over Los Angeles on Tuesday. I thought, well OK, sorry I missed it. Luckily, photographer Jonathan...
In my weekly commentary segment tonight with Lisa Napoli, we talk about media-shy Colorado mogul Phil Anschutz and his local right-hand, Tim Leiweke.
Connie Bruck's profile of Philip Anschutz, Tim Leiweke and their empire in downtown Los Angeles — Staples Center, L.A. Live, the Los Angeles Kings, the proposed Farmers Field football stadium and more — is behind the magazine's pay wall. Here's a brief pre-look.
Hard to see today, but Downtown was encircled on at least two sides by big hills that blocked access. As L.A.'s outlying areas grew, the traffic poobahs punched through the hills with tunnels.
Video from the only rehearsal of the local tradition at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
The Wilshire Grand, closing this week to be torn down and make way for a new high-rise hotel and office tower, opened in 1952 as the Statler.
Not many people probably know that there is a Mental Health Courthouse in Los Angeles County, or that when you report for Superior Court jury duty Downtown you could be sent to this building on San Fernando Road.
The Department of Water and Power has apparently decided to reopen its once well-regarded cafeteria to the public, KPCC says.
Kent Twitchell's mural of L.A. Chamber Orchestra players started going up in 1991
Ed Fuentes, the Downtown photographer and muralist, examines the case for preserving the mural created on the plywood box that city crews had erected in the Occupy LA camp to protect a fountain.
The breakdown is 290 booked for failure to disperse, one for battery on a police officer and one for interfering with an officer.
Raid looks like it's about to happen.
Police said the arrests were of protesters who refused to get out of the street opposite City Hall or who threw things at officers. The camp remains, but smaller.
Some campers have left, the crowd has grown with sympathizers, and there has been milling in the traffic lanes of 1st Street at Spring, inhibiting passing cars but no actual trouble. Police presence: light.
After that time, say Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Beck, the curfew banning overnight use of the City Hall park will be enforced. KInda sorta.
Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo told reporters today that Occupy LA will be cleared out some time next week, and the mayor's office followed with a statement.
Curbed LA made this video on life inside the Occupy L.A. camp on the lawns around City Hall.
Sounds like the choreographed sort of street protest crackdown, with marchers and police each playing their part.
Here's what a key Downtown corner looked like, showing some old cafes and a legendary saloon.
The worst of the bunch, in the latest Texas Transportation Institute study, is supposedly the stretch of the 110 Freeway from Interstate 10 to the Dodger Stadium exit at Stadium Way.
AEG and Gensler released fresh looks at the proposed Downtown football stadium.
Grand Avenue will be blocked in front of Disney Hall on Tuesday, or so the sign says.
A no parking sign of dubious origin, plus evidence of progress on the Eli Broad art museum on Bunker Hill.
The sign here was out front of The Pie Hole, a new dessert and coffee spot in downtown's Arts District.
Occupy Wall Street organizer David DeGraw spoke at Occupy L.A. on Sunday night and said focus would shift to the Los Angeles encampment during the New York winter.
Concrete in the 1933 bridge connecting Downtown with the Eastside is rotting from the inside and the structure is slated for replacement.
It appears the relationship is chilling between City Hall's politicos and the encampment of protesters outside on the lawn.
LA Observed contributing photographer Iris Schneider has been down on the lawn at City Hall shooting portraits of some of the participants in the Occupy Los Angeles encampment and protest.
If you've never shopped on Santee Alley in the downtown Fashion District, here's a short LA Observed video showing what the scene is like.
Staples announcer David Courtney tweets his excitement for tonight's Kings opener.
OK OK, too easy. Next time I'll make it a bit more challenging.
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 landmarked United Artists Theater at the south end of Downtown's Broadway movie palace district has been sold to Greenfield Partners, a national hotel developer and real estate investment company.
Miguel Angel Corzo, president and CEO of the new LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes near the historic Plaza, has been removed and there have been layoffs.
The landmark Clifton's on Broadway will be shut down for three to six months, according to Eater LA. The kitchen and the serving line will be redone, and the dining...
As of Monday, the Downtown blog will be under the banner of KPCC, the NPR station in Pasadena.
Cassie spent her adolescence on the streets of L.A. then got herself together, only to slip back into the rabbit hole of urchins, dealers and characters in...Frogtown.
The Vaux's swifts that come down the coast from Alaska every fall are roosting again in the chimney of the Chester Williams building at 5th and Broadway.
Author and humorist Ashley Ream blogs about stopping in to say goodbye to the Downtown bookstore.
Gotham City goons tried to stop Jeff Schultz from getting a shot of this weekend location shoot for "The Dark Knight Rises."
On tonight's "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW, lawyer David Pettit of the Natural Resources Defense Council introduced his comments about AEG's bill in Sacramento by saying that he — and NRDC — want the downtown NFL stadium to be built.
There are the San Diego folks, who are protective of the Chargers, and then a broader problem: the rest of the state don't much like L.A.
Councilman Jose Huizar tweeted tonight that Ezat Delijani, a leader in L.A.'s Persian Jewish community, died yesterday. No other details are immediately available.
A documentary will chronicle the store's final month.
The effect of moving the vendors and food trucks out of the crowded core of Downtown's Art Walk was, predictably, to steer some of the people to other blocks.
Food trucks will be kept outside the core area of this Thursday's Downtown Art Walk, the first to be held since the death last month of Marcello Vasquez when a car went up on the sidewalk.
On my trip to Seattle, my hotel room window looked out at the baseball stadium. We got to our seats in five minutes.
Don't expect too many surprises at City Hall.
The 84-seat landmark now charges 50 cents a cup on orders from owner and former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan.
You have to wonder whether it's worth all the time, effort and political maneuvering.
Whether Garcetti can deliver on any of the conditions is an open question, but here is his letter addressed to CAO Miguel Santana and the council's legislative analyst, Gerry Miller.
A two-month-old baby and its mother were struck by a sheared-off parking meter at 4th and Spring at the peak of tonight's Art Walk.
In "Berth Marks," Laurel and Hardy (and Hal Roach) show off the bridge and the old Santa Fe rail station that was beside the river.
L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison's blog quip the other day that actress Zooey Deschanel is a "snobby cow" for daring to diss an ugly corner of Downtown has elicited a big response — from Deschanel.
See the Museum of Neon Art begin its move out of Downtown to Glendale.
Following on the news about Village Books and Latitude 33 closing, Metropolis Books on Main Street near 4th Street was put up for sale recently.
The plot of the April 9, 1969 episode of the television series "The Outsider," starring Darrin McGavin, hinges on the destruction of the Bunker Hill neighborhood in Downtown.
The LAFD Historical Society has posted some good aerial photos of the Convention Center being expanded circa 1991 — before Staples Center or L.A. Live came to the Downtown neighborhood.
The Brian Setzer Orchestra with "Jump Jive An' Wail" in the old Fred Harvey diner at Union Station.
After yesterday's posts on the Fred Harvey cafe at Union Station, blogger Scott Lowe stumbled across a Fiona Apple video shot there.
The Southern California Institute of Architecture has bought the century-old former rail freight depot it occupies in the Arts District.
One of the little quirks about Downtown L.A. is that a major north-south street, Hope Street, stops at the Central Library. Yet Hope Street predates the library.
Bloomberg moved a story tonight saying that AEG's financial guarantee to the city on the NFL stadium the company wants to build near L.A. Live "falls short" of the assurances offered on Staples Center 13 years ago.
Tonight's Which Way, L.A.? on KCRW delved more deeply into today's City Council approval of the special lighting rules for the Korean-backed project planned for the Wilshire Grand hotel site at 7th and Figueroa.
If AEG gets the go-ahead to build its NFL stadium and events center on the footprint of the existing Los Angeles Convention Center, L.A.-based Gensler will be the designer.
The Museum of Neon Art isn't moving far — to the heart of Glendale's Carusoland — but it will be the end of an era.
One of the most eagerly awaited discoveries from the 2010 census (at least for me) is to find out how many people actually live in the Downtown neighborhoods after more than a decade of in-movement.
City Council veteran Jan Perry did what everyone expected her to do and filed the papers to form a fundraising committee for a 2013 mayoral bid. Nice and quiet, no...
Blogdowntown's weekly print edition hit the streets last August, and it stopped regular publication in February.
Ted Soqui at LA Photo has posted a page of pictures from this morning's memorial procession in Downtown for fallen LAFD firefighter Glenn Allen. Links to more coverage.
Streets around City Hall and the cathedral will be closed Friday morning for the funeral procession and service for Glenn Allen, the LAFD veteran killed fighting a fire in the Hollywood Hills last week.
This year's 25th run of Last Remaining Seats in the Broadway Historic Theatre District will open at the Orpheum with "Rear Window," the Alfred Hitchcock classic starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and end there with Harold Lloyd in "Safety Last."
In a story exploring the bios of the group appointed by Mayor Villaraigosa to report to him on the wisdom of AEG's downtown stadium, the Associated Press's Jacob Adelman cuts to the chase right in the lede.
AEG chief Tim Leiweke kept to the us versus them message in remarks today to reporters asking him about public doubts over his company's NFL stadium plans for Downtown.
'm getting used to the idea that there might be a football stadium dropped behind Staples Center, but if Phil Anschutz and friends want Angelenos to buy into the idea, they better come up with some better assurances — and drop the classless us versus them attacks.
Tim Leiweke met this week with Speaker John Perez, and with labor's backing for Farmers Field I have to bet Perez will give the Anschutz company whatever it wants.
The biggest political threat to the AEG stadium deal might be skepticism among die-hard Angelenos (and sports fans) who have heard it all promised before.
Pardon my mixed sports metaphors. After this morning's pep rally for the Downtown NFL football stadium, Mayor Villaraigosa announced the members of a "blue ribbon commission" to evaluate the proposal...
Mark's right over at LA Biz Observed. AEG's stadium show this morning, officially to announce the naming of Farmers Field but more importantly staged to make the downtown NFL stadium...
Phil Anschutz' football stadium at L.A. Live would be called Farmers Field under a $700 million naming-rights deal with Farmers Insurance to be announced tomorrow.
The former lead singer of X talks about the former punk venues of Downtown and her appearance tonight at the Redwood Bar and Grill on 2nd Street.
Miguel Angel Corzo, President and CEO of L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes, announced a halt to the archaeological excavation where the remains of early Angelenos have been found.
Bunch of developments in the campaign by AEG's Tim Leiweke to rush through approval of a football stadium next to Staples Center and, he hopes, secure an NFL team to play there before Ed Roski's proposed stadium in Industry gets one.
The Broad Art Foundation this morning announced the designs for The Broad, the name it's now using for the museum to be built on Bunker Hill to hold Eli and Edythe Broad's art collection.
Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne makes a civic splash in the L.A. Times by pointing out that the Downtown NFL stadium Tim Leiweke and Casey Wasserman are pushing is another case of Los Angeles going about it all wrong.
In today's L.A. Times, Bob Pool picks up and runs with Eric Lynxwiler's visiting blogger post from a couple of weeks ago on the terra cota angel that sits in his Arts District loft.
Tying up loose ends on the Bell story, Disneyland turns away crowds, re-thinking the Gray Davis recall and more.
The view is from the window at Langer's deli. I'm guessing lunchtime.
Natalie Portman decorates the cover of January's Vogue, from a fashion shoot probably in the Alexandria Hotel. Watch the video.
If the three competing designs for Phil Anschutz's downtown football stadium were an NFL division, LAT architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne says "they'd be the NFC West."
Right about now, at 5 p.m., AEG is formally unveiling prospective designs for the Downtown stadium it wants to build in place of the Convention Center's West Hall.
Brian Alexik has been talking a lot to Downtown News reporter Ryan Vaillancourt.
In a Visiting Blogger post at LA Observed, J. Eric Lynxwiler announces he has become the proud owner of a 1½-ton terra-cotta angel that used to stand guard over downtown...
Two experienced downtown planners from Michigan and Florida argue on the Times op-ed page that fooitball stadiums tend to be a bad choice for downtowns.
ports architects HKS and HNTB and L.A. Live designer Gensler are the three finalists to plan the stadium, says Sports Business Journal.
Going on the air in about 20 minutes to talk about AEG's proposal for a Downtown football stadium. The piece airs at 6:44 p.m. (my usual Monday spot) and is...
Today's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times profiles Philo Hagen, a Los Angeles writer and blogger who is the founder of Hooping.org — and whose video of hooping (and stripping) through Downtown inspired the story.
All of a sudden, the intrigue swirling around AEG's wishes to build a football and soccer stadium in place of part of the Los Angeles Convention Center has gotten more interesting.
The creators of the somewhat controversial reporting project The Entryway have posted their exit messages.
A photo tour of the 1925 Hall of Justice at Temple and Spring streets, closed since the Northridge earthquake.
The next executive director of the Art Walk will be expected to meet a lengthy list of skill and experience requirements.
With all the notoriety, of course people were going to show up.
President Obama returns Oct. 22 for a Democratic rally at USC. Here's what it looked like when FDR motorcaded through Downtown in 1935.
We're doing another LA Observed night on the world-famous Neon Cruise on Saturday, October 16.
Downtown property owners, i.e. some of the big beneficiaries of the monthly Art Walk's growing popularity, stepped up with $200,000 in funding to save the event and professionalize its operation.
The downtown real estate broker-poet missing since Friday in Joshua Tree National Park was found today and flown to a hospital, according to a family friend cited by Blogdowntown and...
Poet and L.A. River advocate Lewis MacAdams' dream of a park on the Union Pacific Piggyback Yard made a splash in today's New York Times real estate pages.
Search teams in Joshua Tree National Park shut down trails to preserve any tracks that may have been left by hiker Ed Rosenthal, and by nightfall had picked up "clear indications of Rosenthal's presence" several miles south of the original search zone.
Ed Rosenthal is the subject of an active search after his car was found over the weekend at the Black Rock campground in Joshua Tree National Park.
Last week's abrupt announcement that the Downtown Art Walk would cease being held monthly on Thursday nights is now being called an unauthorized statement by "former director" Jay Lopez.
When the official Downtown Art Walk returns in January, it will switch to a weekend day and be held quarterly, the organizers say.
The new owner of Clifton's Cafeteria will be appearing at a press conference shortly with Councilman Jose Huizar to announce that there will be 100 new jobs for the formerly homeless as part of the new Clifton's. Plus a DWP cafeteria update.
The last remaining Clifton's Cafeteria in Downtown, the forest-themed one on Broadway, has been purchased by Andrew Meieran, owner of The Edison.
Blogdowntown's Eric Richardson explains why the Jesus Saves neon signs tower above the United Artists theatre on Broadway — and digs into their travels since the first sign appeared on the downtown skyline in 1935.
Before she left town for Washington, former New York Times bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer did the tour of newer Downtown restaurants.
Ground was broken on a $9 million interpretive center for the American Tropical mural at Olvera Street.
Related Cos. said this week that it plans to request a two-year extension of its current February 2011 deadline to begin construction on the big Grand Avenue Project, citing the economy.
Why, I think that's a Kaufman and Broad home.
All that theater last week about Eli Broad not having decided to build his art museum Downtown? Theater.
Eli Broad insists that Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's news website misquoted him saying that his art museum will definitely be built Downtown on Grand Avenue.
I'm happy to announce that LA Observed is the new home of Gary Leonard's long-running series of Los Angeles street photos, still under the banner of Take My Picture Gary Leonard.
The Board of Supervisors today approved its part of the deal to lure Eli Broad's art museum to Downtown. After the vote, Broad called it a done deal despite the formality of another vote scheduled Monday by the Grand Avenue Authority.
The museum invokes the LAPD to cut down on scalping. An email warning to a ticket buyer.
Big crowds — possibly the largest yet — with dozens of food trucks and many familiar faces.
In the afternoon I parked on Wilshire, between Grand and Hope — so it was easy to spot that block in "Inception" a few hours later.
A whole lot of you watched — and by the sound of your emails, tweets and Facebook comments really enjoyed — the USC student film of 1956 Bunker Hill by Kent MacKenzie.
Five years before Kent MacKenzie made The Exiles, about Native Americans in Downtown Los Angeles, he made a 17-minute student film at USC showing everyday life in the Bunker Hill neighborhood in 1956.
In this week's final issue of the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen, founder and editor Jerry Sullivan completes the difficult last task of closing down a local newspaper.
Blogdowntown Weekly, which debuts Aug. 5 , will show up on Thursdays "focused on calendar and lifestyle content for Downtown."
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch praise the choice of Grand Avenue for Eli Broad's modern art collection.
Editor and publisher Jerry Sullivan has been notifying supporters and others all day that the July 23 issue of the Los Angeles Garment and Citizen will be the weekly's last.
L.A. journalist Anthea Raymond narrates interviews with players from the early Downtown music and arts scene.
Christopher Hawthorne seems to like what he sees happening at the new park envisioned for the ugly mall that runs from the Music Center east most of the way to City Hall.
I gather July's Downtown Art Walk is always pretty sizable, given the time of year. But turnout at last week's walk was especially large, apparently.
The powwow with AEG representatives included Speaker John Perez, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg and Maria Elena Durazo, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, James Wagner reports in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
The Los Angeles Business Council handed out its architectural awards today. The top prizes went to the new Los Angeles Police Department administration building across from City Hall and to...
A memorial service for Phillip Ortiz will be held at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Downtown.
This unedited and graphic video released by the Los Angeles Fire Department shows the crowd in Downtown attacking that taxi after the Lakers championship victory.
Here's how the mayor's press release glosses over that the Coliseum won't be opened at the end of Monday's Lakers championship parade. The Coliseum party, open free to anyone who could get in — the place filled to capacity — was the high point of last year's celebration.
At least 38 were arrested, an LAPD officer and a sheriff's deputy were hurt, an unknown number of others were injured, three vehicle fires were set, and some shops and restaurants had their windows broken or stuff stolen.
So much for the LAPD's threat to check tickets as a measure to keep Lakers fans from crowding the Staples Center neighborhood.
Brian Alexik, the 34-year-old New Jersey man arrested a month after he fled unit 701 of the Reserve Lofts in Downtown's South Park area just ahead of the law, faced some new charges today.
Mayor Villaraigosa just met the media under the stands at Staples Center and confirmed he will attend Game 7 of the NBA Finals, but declined to say in what official capacity he would perform.
Brian Alexik hadn't even fled Downtown, it seems. The Downtown News says he was arrested without incident at 1:40 p.m. in an apartment at 303 Hewitt Street, after police cordoned off a big swath of the Arts District.
Kent Mackenzie's 1961 film about Native Americans living in Downtown Los Angeles premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival but was not released commercially. It screens Wednesday at The Hammer.
In addition to the earlier mysteries about why Brian Alexik had counterfeit $100 bills, AK-47s, fake IDs and a CIA floor mosaic in unit 701 overlooking the Federal Reserve Bank, the Downtown News has posted an update with more good questions.
That's the market value of the city-owned parcel near Disney Hall that officials are thinking of giving to Eli Broad at $1 a year for his art museum and offices for the Broad Foundation
The first City council member who cites this poll as evidence of public support for a Downtown football stadium should be laughed out of the horseshoe.
The 10,000 fancy new parking meters being introduced around the city are getting most of their attention for being solar powered and taking credit and debit cards. But the fanciest thing about them is that they will let the city raise parking rates block by block and hour by hour in response to demand — or the desire to alter behavior.
Bella will enjoy her next kiss in "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which opens June 17 in its new downtown location at L.A. Live. See the full schedule.
Here's a photo of the CIA seal mosaic that was found in the floor of the Downtown loft where a counterfeit operation was found, along with AK-47s and fake passports.
Today's May Day rally crowds in Downtown fell far short of the bar set in 2006, but were bigger than last year — and way bigger than the turnouts for...
Police who broke into unit 701 at the Reserve Lofts found, in addition to counterfeit money and AK-47s, a handmade tile mosaic replica of the Central Intelligence Agency seal and a portrait of Huge Chavez.
Last week's bust in a downtown penthouse of a counterfeit-money operation has the makings of a great yarn, if only detectives can figure it out.
Tom Gilmore, whose adapative reuse projects in Downtown have benefited from a favorable loan from the city of Los Angeles, is facing a financial pinch and has gone back to the city for a new loan, the Garment & Citizen says.
Coverage of this morning's Daryl Gates services in text, photos and video.
Patt Morrison is stretching but only a bit when she writes that Monday's closed-casket viewing at the Police Administration Building — and Tuesday morning funeral at the cathedral — "will be the closest thing to a state funeral that Los Angeles could have."
That planted rectangle on the 110 near Downtown that Caltrans sold to Toyota last year for a Prius ad is being given a baseball-themed message.
Amusing piece at LA Eastside by guest blogger Matt Lucas on waiting at that Angelus Plaza bench for Zooey Deschanel to appear, as she did in "(500) Days of Summer."
President Obama will arrive a little before 5:30 p.m. Monday to raise L.A. campaign cash for the Democrats — Sen. Barbara Boxer and the DNC specifically — and wreak a little unfortunate havoc with local mobility. At least it will be a Monday, so the natural afternoon traffic should be a bit lighter than usual — but there's a Kings playoff game at Staples Center at 7 p.m.
AEG's Tim Leiweke and sports mogul Casey Wasserman are considering reviving the NFL stadium plan they first aired eight years ago.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed this morning for an injunction naming 80 suspected drug dealers active in the Skid Row area of Downtown.
Take 50 seconds and enjoy Saturday's celebration Downtown of National Pillow Fight Day, uploaded to YouTube by rhivanz.
Today was the annual Blessing of the Animals procession, in which a long line of pets with their owners line up to be received by Cardinal Roger Mahony just off the Old Plaza. If you have never been and want to catch the flavor of the event, here's our LA Observed video from last year.
David Allen, columnist and blogger for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, spotted this regulatory perplexer in Downtown's Pershing Square.
At 2:30 this afternoon, the Los Angeles Fire Department will supervise
the full evacuation of the Aon Building, the 62-story tower at Wilshire and Hope that was known as the First Interstate Tower when a fire broke out on the 12th floor in 1988.
I couldn't believe recently how bad the empty lot at 1st and Broadway looks — a deep pit filling with rancid- looking water and overgrown with weeds a block from City Hall.
Today's observation du jour regarding Angels Flight: the Downtown funicular, in a scene evoking its authentic pre-1969 setting, makes an appearance in a You Tube video for the End Times album by the band EELS.
I've been receiving some nice comments all day for posting yesterday's item about the Millard Sheets painting called Angel's Flight. Here's a cover from the literary journal Black Clock that shares the noir vibe and Bunker Hill setting.
In honor of Angels Flight re-opening Monday to paying passengers, let's return to the days when the funicular originally called the Los Angeles Incline Railway was an integral part of Downtown life.
After a lifetime in outlying parts of town, Abelardo de la Peña Jr., the editor of LatinoLA.com, and his family are trying Downtown. He's blogging about the transition.
Raimund Abraham, a visiting faculty member at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, died in a Downtown crash hours after giving a lecture at the school.
KCAL's news went out in the field this afternoon for a report from that Prius flower patch beside the 110 freeway where that makeshift memorial to Toyota victims was taken down — four days ago.
Spotted today on Alameda near 6th Street Downtown.
The L.A. institution is expected to open an outpost in the former Liberty Grill spot in the South Park area.
Anna Scott moves from the Downtown News to the Los Angeles Daily Journal on March 1.
The Starbucks at L.A. Live is trying a three-month experiment of closing at 2 a.m. six nights a week.
A day ahead of the official ribbon-cutting, the new JW Marriott hotel — that's the shiny tower that looms over L.A. Live these days — admitted its first guests today.
Philippe's has reopened after a bout with cockroaches.
Discussions this morning centered on the parking lot south of the REDCAT theater.
Los Angeles City Council member José Huizar and his wife, Richelle Rios, welcomed Aviana Rose this morning at 11 o'clock.
Howard Stiers was strolling last night's Downtown Art Walk when he stopped in at the ARTY Gallery and had a chat with the founder of a Los Angeles art institution.
The JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels at L.A. Live don't open until Feb. 15, but Blogdowntown was on hand last night when the tower was lit up for a City of Hope gala.
The Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy celebrated 25 years, the holidays and four photographers on Monday night in the Mayor Tom Bradley Room atop City Hall. Half the...
The first story to benefit from collaboration with Spot.us Los Angeles is a report by the Garment & Citizen downtown that seems aimed at getting country clubs on the Westside...
The so-called Lindbergh beacon was shining atop Los Angeles City Hall when Kevin McCollister captured the view during Saturday's storm. Click to biggify....
While we're on a bit of a music jag, Esther Wong was the godmother of punk in Los Angeles. Her restaurant-clubs in Chinatown and Santa Monica would be in the...
The National Autonomous University of Mexico, said to be the largest in the western hemisphere, has operated out of the Mexican consulate here for three years. But now UNAM has...
Caltrans has quietly installed new directional signs over the northbound 110 freeway out of Downtown, in the process taking down one of Los Angeles' all-time great guerilla art installations. In...
All this talk of the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner closing led Curbed LA to ask, sensibly, what has become of the plans to renovate the old...
Meridith Baer furnishes and decorates homes specifically to hook potential buyers. A New York Times Magazine writer lusts after the image of a life she created — mountain bike included...
The new Regal Cinemas' L.A. Live Stadium 14 debuts officially on Tuesday with the first showings of Michael Jackson's "This Is It." Variety sees the new Downtown cineplex — which...
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich enjoyed a split decision this morning, getting a Daily News editorial in favor of his bully approach to governing, and an L.A. Times editorial that rebuked...
Staples has re-upped its deal for the naming rights to Staples Center — extending its original 20-year agreement into an "in perpetuity" deal. Staples turned ten this month....
Downtown News staff writer Ryan Vaillancourt spent a year reporting on the inner workings of the Skid Row basketball league, starting by getting himself into pickup games at Gladys Park....
Gustavo Dudamel is making his long-awaited debut tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. The Dodgers are trying to avoid an epic collapse at the stadium. My choice of venues for tonight...
The Museum of Neon Art is leaving Downtown for Glendale's Brand Boulevard. Earlier post here and new L.A. Times story....
The Museum of Neon Art is thinking seriously about moving from Downtown — and Los Angeles — to the city of Glendale. "MONA needs a permanent location to display these...
Motor officers plan to meet the truck from Kansas City when it reaches Rosemead Boulevard on I-10 at 10:30 on Tuesday. The bikes will escort the truck to a mounting...
A media group was escorted Thursday through the new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters across Spring Street from the L.A. Times building. The new HQ, as yet unnamed, opens in...
While crackdowns on counterfeit clothes and DVDs get more attention, Ed Fuentes reports at Blogdowntown that "the Fashion District's illegal animal trade continues unabated." The photo is by Fuentes. According...
The Amateur Enthusiast is a blog devoted to drinking and dining in Downtown by political strategist Glenn Gritzner. In today's post, he struggles to bring his fellow Enthusiasts around on...
Zooey Deschanel, the co-star of the current L.A. paean "[500] Days of Summer," has broken down and sent her first Twitter blurb. Her link goes to the site for her...
The store's annual clearance sale began in the Convention Center today....
Most nights, it seems, one window remains brightly lit on the west face of the City Hall tower. Lisa Napoli emails that she and her neighbors on Bunker Hill watch...
"We're young, we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, we might as well have fun while we can," Zooey Deschanel's character says in "500...
I can't remember the last time I saw the Hotel Rosslyn roof signs on display over Downtown, but I was pleased to see the northern one of the pair fired...
For the first time in what feels like forever, Michael Jackson isn't mentioned in this week's LA Observed segment airing at 4:44 p.m. on KCRW. The subject this time is...
City Council prez pro tem Jan Perry has released the city's map on street closures designed to keep the ticketless masses far away from the Michael Jackson memorial at Staples...
LAPD chief William Bratton, speaking just now on Fox 11, said officers are trying to clear out the last groups still hanging around Downtown. He says there have been five...
Looks like over a thousand people are gathered in the Staples Center neighborhood right now, with some small fires being set in the street and quickly extinguished — including of...
In the ongoing contest of wills between photographers and the owners of Los Angeles' tallest skyscraper, the picture takers report some progress. The guards who try to block pictures of...
Taplin, who was involved with the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council from its inception in 2002, was killed Tuesday in a freeway car accident. Blogdowntown says that Taplin and her...
"The sudden appearance of these designs, even in provisional form, in the middle of a deep recession prompts a couple of questions. Why now? And why -- when the last...
Dogs, horses, rabbits, cats, turtles, birds — even a few lizards and a snake — got along famously at Saturday's traditional Blessing of the Animals at Olvera Street and...
Downtown has just a single construction crane left on the job, at the Ritz-Carlton tower at L.A. Live. How's that for a sign of the recession. "In the summer of...
Morley Safer did a nice piece on the connection between L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, with some reportage on the Downtown street musician's former life as a...
Poring over a century's worth of old L.A. newspapers, you see certain issues recur. Billboards, for one. Another perennial is what to do with the public space downtown that was...
Mark Lacter's Tuesday recession reports on KPCC keep getting better — and more ominous — as the situation worsens. Today I woke to Mark talking about the bleak picture for...
Photographer Gary Leonard is no longer taking pictures for CityBeat — they cut him in November — but he has moved his collection of Los Angeles photos to a new...
A group of shooters from the National Photographers' Rights Organization went downtown on Sunday to see if they would be blocked from taking pictures anywhere, and they did run up...
Took my honey to her first Lakers game tonight, and she wasn't disappointed. The Lakers romped over the Warriors 130-113, Kobe scored 31 and our seats were close enough for...
LACMA's board came out today and proposed in writing that the museum merge operations with MOCA. Here's a story by the LAT and the release from LACMA. Also, on KCRW'S...
Downtown blogger Eric Richardson got to see what the view will be like from the top floors of the Ritz-Carlton tower under construction at AEG's L.A. Live complex. Check out...
Here's a full-screen, high resolution 360-degree online tour of the bar and club in the basement of the Higgins Building downtown....
How important are bloggers to promoting the success of Downtown developments? Pretty important, based on this invitation by AEG for the Ritz-Carlton condos to be built as part of L.A....
The perking up of Downtown has reached the point that Sen. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at an Obama fundraiser at the hipster bar The Edison on Oct. 4....
Oddly, Philippe The Original's hundredth anniversary celebration next Monday isn't the only French dip sandwich news in my mailbox. On that day from 4 to 8 pm, Philippe's will roll...
AEG has shopped around a proposal to partner with a Los Angeles TV station on a digital channel to feature events at Staples Center and the Nokia Theater. They would...
Signs have begun going up in Downtown advising commuters. A funeral procession for Officer Spree Desha will begin at Parker Center at 8:45 am Thursday and move to the Cathedral...
Exciting and fairly big news in the world of Los Angeles blogs. Eric Richardson announced today that his blogdowntown has been accepted into an incubator program at Community Partners and...
This weekend I saw the recently finished Belmont Station apartments on the old soccer field at 2nd Street and Beverly near Belmont High and wondered if the subway tunnel opening...
The subject is the Alexandria Hotel, the Rosslyn Lofts project and City Hall's support of an $8 million subsidy for alleged slumlord Ruben Islas. Tibby Rothman, in the LA Weekly,...
Frank McCourt, the Dodgers owner of new, met Peter O'Malley at yesterday's Coliseum unveiling of a plaque honoring Walter O'Malley, the owner who brought the Dodgers west from Brooklyn. O'Malley...
Police and the fire department moved in today on an astonishing homeless encampment that was suspended above Figueroa Street on top of the ventilation shaft under the 1st Street overpass...
Mark Lacter isn't alone in predicting that Sam Zell would be lucky to get any value for the Los Angeles Times property in the Civic Center. Downtown guru Tom Gilmore...
CurbedLA's sharp eyes spot a new sign on the building....
Artist Kent Twitchell settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government and 12 other defendants for painting over his 70-foot tall landmark mural of Ed Ruscha at Olympic and Hill downtown...
Sure, the Tribune Co. has owned the L.A. Times since 2000. But the Chandler family's trust kept the land at 1st and Spring streets in Downtown, so the Times had...
This week's issue of The New Yorker carries a "Letter from Los Angeles" by Dana Goodyear on the movie being made based on Steve Lopez's L.A. Times columns about street...
What did they charge to see a silent movie in 1923, a quarter? At UCLA's Royce Hall this afternoon, many in the nearly full house paid $25 to see Harold...
Doug Davis broke in as the Downtown News editorial cartoonist by lampooning the insular concerns of downtown bloggers. He ruffled feathers, but "when I saw that reaction, I said, 'I...
Police were stumped trying to solve a string of nine residential heists pulled off inside Downtown's Orsini complex, a previously impenetrable place dubbed the Tuscan Rock by Curbed LA. Then...
Music Center president Stephen Roundtree said today that the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion will close for renovations in 2013, not 2011 as originally announced. Apparently, offices for displaced staff need to...
Over at Native Intelligence, Judy Graeme's third offering on Los Angeles photographers introduces a group of teenagers (and younger) who use borrowed cameras to shoot images of their gritty home...
Councilman Jose Huizar, downtown advocate Brady Westwater and, especially, the owner of several of the former movie palaces on Broadway are featured in a Wall Street Journal story today that...
Emily Banneker at Blogging.la is bummed that L.A. Freeway Kids, the 1984 Olympics-era mural that adorned a south wall of the Hollywood Freeway (or Santa Ana, depending on your interpretation)...
Downtown's usually dark neon signs atop the old Rosslyn Hotel towers were relit last night for a film shoot. Eric Lynxwiler and friends rushed out to capture the sight. Via...
Downtown's under-construction Nokia Theatre has booked its opening night for October 18. The theatre, part of the L.A. Live complex going up across 11th Street from Staples Center, promises that...
Motivated by yesterday's fun video of Broadway shot in the 1980s, Los Angeles photographer Robert Pacheco sent along his photo essay of Downtown in the 1970s. In his black-and-white...
Windows Steaks & Martinis, the restaurant with the amazing views atop what's now called the At&T Center, closes July 31. There has been talk of the office building going residential....
Yesterday's number of marchers was small compared to last year, perhaps 25,000 strong, and peaceful. But the day ended with police moving in to MacArthur Park after reporting that bottles...
Another Gran Marcha to support immigrants begins Tuesday morning at Broadway and Olympic, moves north on Broadway starting at 10 am, and heads to City Hall via 1st Street. Fewer...
Last month we posted on Southland Publishing's forthcoming debut of Los Angeles New City Monthly — you remember, the magazine that would "celebrate the intellectual and cultural 'renaissance' of L.A.'s...
Mark Lacter wonders if too much attention is paid to the 29,000 people who live downtown, in a city of four million. It's one of the smaller communities in Los...
Xeni Jardin reported on NPR's Day to Day about one of my favorite unofficial Wilshire Boulevard landmarks. One Wilshire, once a prestigious office tower, was converted long ago into a...
Correction to yesterday's item: it was a homeless woman who jumped to her death from the L.A. Times parking garage yesterday while staffers were arriving at work. Brief memo today...
Eric at Blogdowntown has posted a heat map showing where the homeless population is concentrated, based on LAPD counts. You can see distinct nodes of where people are sleeping on...
Times columnist Steve Lopez isn't the only one keeping a literal eye on construction of the new LAPD headquarters on the downtown block where a civic park should be instead....
Cops and others who work the streets downtown call the boils, abscesses and infections they see all the time Skid Row staph — a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It's...
Los Angeles mystery writer Naomi Hirahara, whose best-known character is Japanese American gardener Mas Arai, will be giving a private walking tour of Little Tokyo mystery sites later this year....
It's not unusual for someone to claim that a newspaper misinformed them. It is quite unusual, though, for the complaint to come from a Los Angeles Times contributor — about...
The power outage that knocked out lights and elevators across the Civic Center this morning has been mostly over since before 9:30 am, but the Hall of Administration's computers must...
Other than proximity to City Hall when the top brass has to make a visit, is there anything smart about the plans to erect the new LAPD headquarters in the...
Long before Hollywood came into being, a photographer for motion picture pioneer Thomas Edison traveled the Southern Pacific railroad shooting the first movie footage of locales in the West. Snippets...
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.
