Archive: Hollywood area

The old owner is still fighting eviction by the Chinese buyer of the Hollywood hillside landmark.

The original Filthy McNasty's occupied the Sunset Strip spot now the Viper Room. He also ran FM Station in the Valley.

Lost LA's Nathan Masters curates a look at the urban carnage wrought by construction of the Hollywood Freeway in the 1950s.

The proprietors of Traveler's Bookcase on West 3rd Street announced to customers via email that they are in the process of shutting down. The closing clearance sale begins today and...

Only five hours for supper, but it's enough time for the hard-core Musso's types to run in for a martini and a steak.

Writer Geoff Manaugh has posted at BLDGBLOG his observation that from above, the shapes of blocks, yards and even specific homes reveal the existence of old streets we can't see anymore. And more.

By Santa Monica, they mean Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood.

This news from the state geologist won't be good for the developers of the proposed Millennium Hollywood tower or their friends in City Hall.

Alison Martino's Vintage LA community on Facebook has turned up another gem. It has been seen before, but check out the video.

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and at least some of their kids were at the premiere of the new Disney film "Maleficient" tonight at Hollywood's El Capitan theatre. A Ukranian man who has harassed other celebrities was arrested.

Photographers are noting the abrupt closure today of Calumet's Hollywood store, along with the shutdown of all other American stores in the Chicago-based photo supply chain. An LA photog explains why it matters.

Former LA Times reporter Hilary MacGregor describes quite amusingly the battle between her neighbors on Las Palmas Avenue in the Whitley Heights section of Hollywood, and the drivers who want to park there.

The California state geologist released revised earthquake fault maps today as required by state law — with possible big consequences for development in Hollywood and in the city of West Hollywood.

Brian Wilson calls "Be My Baby" the "greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.” It came from Phil Spector's Wall of Sound studios in LA with girls from Spanish Harlem whose lives were never the same. The NYT weighs in.

For the first time in 83 years, one of Los Angeles' "rarest naming rights assets" is available. All media references to the Theatre will carry your brand name, the pitch promises investors.

Swarms of about 40 young men and women ran down Hollywood Boulevard Tuesday night, grabbing merchandise and attacking shop keepers and tourists. Police responded en masse but most of the youths got away. Video inside.

These new towers would be built on the parking lots around the Hollywood Palladium near Sunset and Vine. "Holy shit," says Curbed LA, "there have been rumors about some kind of development at the site of the Hollywood Palladium for ages now, but here they finally are, for real....two big-ass towers."

"Dear Hollywood Wax Museum," says a story in Vice. "I recently visited your Los Angeles location and was exceptionally disappointed with what I saw...It was all of your waxworks. They look like something from the nightmares of a person who has been blind since birth and has no real concept of what human beings look like."

"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone," says Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. "Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians."

All the electronic billboards I usually see on the Westside were turned off today. The companies that operate 77 digital boards in the city of Los Angeles, Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, were told by a judge to darken the signs by 5 p.m.

The shopping center at Beverly and La Cienega boulevards was evacuated early this afternoon after a man reported finding a suspicious briefcase in his car. The case was removed and detonated, and the center reopened about 5 p.m., according to media reports.

A slab of concrete that is billed as bearing the signature of old-timey movie star Cary Grant from the wall of the legendary 1940s Hollywood nightspot is up for sale on eBay. Bidding starts at $5,000 — so it better be real.

I suspect Angelenos will still call it Grauman's Chinese. TCL Chinese Theatre just doesn't have that certain something.

Two Hollywood area narcotics officers have reportedly been implicated by four women. The accusations go back several years. The LAPD moved against the two officers on Thursday after one of the women filed a lawsuit.

Signs are posted on Sunset Boulevard and elsewhere in Hollywood reminding Halloween revelers that even the possession of silly string is illegal in Los Angeles — but only on Halloween and only in Hollywood.

Saida Méndez Bernardino, the 27-year-old mother who was killed with her daughters Hilda, 6, and Stephanie, 4, when their car was struck head-on on Highland Avenue at Willoughby, is survived by a 12-year-old daughter. Friends and Oaxacan community organizations are trying to raise money.

The LA Times says that Solomon Mathenge, who is 74 and lives in Lawndale, had his drivers license suspended for not showing up in court on a traffic ticket. His DMV record includes citations for speeding and talking on a cellphone. The mother and daughters who died have been identified.

I can just imagine the tragic news rippling through the day across several communities. Awful.

Out are short ribs, canned salmon, a triple-decker sandwich with tongue, macaroni salad and peppered beef. In are panini wraps, more salads, more breakfast choices and a cocktail menu.

Everyone got down safely, but there was a scary moment over Hollywood Monday afternoon. Helicopters for Channel 5 and Channel 2 were covering the report of a gunman in Hollywood when Stu Mundel, the pilot for KCBS' SKY2, noticed smoke spewing from the engine of KTLA's Sky5.

Author Robert Crais posts on Facebook: "Another reason I love LA is because people like this live here. They painted their garage door to look like book shelves."

When the Cinerama Dome opened on Sunset Boulevard in 1963, it was the first new movie house built in Hollywood in three decades. Now part of Arclight Hollywood, the dome in late September will begin a week of classic Cinerama films, including the comedy that opened the place: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Also on the bill are "How the West Was Won," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and assorted shorts.

The LA Times architecture critic's expanded essays based on walking the Los Angeles area's "iconic boulevards" took on Sunset this weekend. He previously visited Atlantic Boulevard.

KCET's longtime home near Sunset Junction, turned over to the Church of Scientology in April, will become the home of a religious broadcasting center to promote Scientology teachings over TV, radio and the Internet. No timetable was given.

Last night on Facebook, Mayor Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff updated his profile photo and included a sly comment: "Hmmm...I feel like this pic makes me look like I'm running for office. Perhaps I should change it ... ;)" Today he let it be known that he has submitted his resignation to the mayor and will join the crowded race for the open City Council seat in the 13th district.

The knowledgeable Los Angeles history aficionados at the Vintage Los Angeles page on Facebook located this scene as the 1950s at Santa Monica Boulevard and Fairfax, known then as the Crescent Junction on the Pacific Electric rail network. Posted by Jerome Melgar.

Take a look backstage, in Sid Grauman's private VIP box and around the gorgeous auditorium of Hollywood's (and probably the world's) best-known movie palace. Public tours by the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation continue on Sunday morning.

Councilman Eric Garcetti has given the people what they want before by posting to Facebook his inside-the-rope cellphone pics of celebrities receiving stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in his district. Today he caught a good view of the cameras watching actress Scarlett Johansson watch them.

The so-called "teardrop rapist" appeared to stop in 2005 — at least no victims have come forth. Now DNA evidence ties the same criminal to a sexual assault last November around Adams and Normandie. Women should not walk alone at night, an official says. Video

Starts in the Valley around Magnolia and Woodman, moves slowly and almost politely through Hollywood, Los Feliz and Atwater Village, then into the city of Glendale.

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.

Interesting exercise on the New York Times website, with six writers or experts from Los Angeles taking part.

The DWP, which is scrambling to repair a flurry of water main breaks it blames on work at the distant Lower Franklin Canyon reservoir, says that West 3rd Street will remain closed between Fairfax Avenue and Ogden Drive until 7 p.m.

Check out Veronique de Turenne's photographs from inside the gate at the Hollywood sign.

Tonight's fire at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Orange Avenue wasn't just in another storefront. It's the former location of Radio Recorders, a legendary sound studio.

Largest crowd for a Walk of Fame star ceremony that many could remember, outside the Capitol Records tower on Thursday. Photo by Gary Leonard.

All those posters around town for Lana Del Rey worked. Pretty much everything she's doing seems to be working, including that bad turn on SNL.

Los Angeles police outside a 1987 show by The Ramones and Black Flag at the Hollywood Palladium.

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.

City code since 1974 has required helipads on top of tall buildings. (Luckily for the First Interstate Building, circa 1988.) Things could be different, though, if plans move ahead for skyscrapers along Hollywood Boulevard. Empire State Building anyone?

Lots of tweeting and checking-in online tonight from the final night at Angeli Caffe on Melrose Avenue. And a call for food trucks to come feed the staff.

It may come back, but for now The Music Box on Hollywood Boulevard has the feel of a former venue

The German native is 24 years old and suspected of setting as many as 53 fires, with property damage over $2 million.

A German man who several sources said "is believed to be the same person seen in a surveillance video released by police Sunday" was detained by a reserve sheriff's deputy this morning near Sunset and Fairfax.

The new fires, inside the Hollywood and Highland parking structure and in a Hollywood home's carport, came as authorities deployed hundreds of extra firefighters, patrol cars, undercover officers and helicopters to fight the mysterious ongoing arson string.

The music industry veteran who was shot in his Mercedes by Tyler Brehm in Friday's rampage in Hollywood died of his injuries this afternoon, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced.

Top aide to Mayor Villaraigosa heard the shots and the screams, and a local photojournalist takes the money shot of the gunman lying wounded.

Twitter video from above shows the gunman in the Hollywood intersection and cars jamming on the brakes and making u-turns to escape. The gunman was later killed by police....

Police and fire officials had to close off the Grove when the crowds got too big for the Christmas tree unveiling ans show, NBC 4 says.

Recording star Shakira poses after receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this morning.

The La Brea Avenue video rental store will stop renting Saturday and put everything on sale. Doors close at the end of the September.

Today would have been the 75th birthday of the rock and roll pioneer who died at 22 in the 1959 plane crash that also killed Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson. At 11:30 a.m.outside the Capitol Records building, Holly's widow Maria Elena Holly will accept his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Adam Roberts began blogging about food in 2004, grew it into a part-time gig with The Food Network, and now calls himself a full-time food writer.

Police are at the Channel 5 studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Todd Martens posts at Tumblr that it was pretty jarring to watch a dispute on the Red Line rapidly escalate to a fatal stabbing. His report of Friday night's incident,...

It comes just a day after a near-riot broke out at the premiere of a documentary on the Electric Daisy Carnival.

Crowd had assembled outside the theater, which had been premiering a movie about the Electric Daisy Carnival festival.

This warning has popped up just off the Mulholland Highway segment in upper Hollywoodland, east of the Lake Hollywood reservoir.

The Hollywood Bowl is celebrating its 90th year by posting a Twitter-sized nugget from the archives on the web each day.

Lewis Brown played high school ball for Verbum Dei and starred for the UNLV team in Las Vegas. The 6-11 former center has been living on the streets of Los Angeles for ten years.

Here's how the developer foresees the streetscape of Hollywood miraculously changing if approval is forthcoming for high-rise towers around the Capitol Records building on Vine Street.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has posted four surveillance videos showing a Hollywood transient who broke into Temple Israel and apparently set a small fire in a second-floor classroom.

Aileen Getty, a former heroin and cocaine addict with AIDS, has quietly donated millions to the homeless of Hollywood.

The caller, a grade school friend from 30 years ago, demanded $2,500 from the author of a new novel on homeless kids in Hollywood.

The LA Observed contributor's book, The Bad Mother, is set among street kids in Hollywood.

Runyon Canyon's mystery mansion gets some ink in the New York Times.

Mark Frauenfelder went for a fun Saturday walking tour of the old Hollywoodland development in Beachwood Canyon.

The Los Angeles Film School wants to build a large new classroom building at the Ivar and Selma intersection where the Hollywood farmers market has operated on Sundays since 1991.

Tony winner John Lithgow was mistaken for John Cleese this morning at a Hollywood photo lab, causing howls of disbelief in the room.

Friday is the last day for the Hollywood Boulevard restaurant and bar that the new AOL Patch Hollywood says helped clean up a blighted stretch of the street.

The Hollywood Farmers Market can continue in its current location and size for 90 days while the market and L.A. Film School continue to negotiate. From the market's side, former Councilman Michael Woo has circulated an email detailing why a final agreement didn't get done.

My piece today commented on the observations of L.A. I've mentioned recently by a gifted migrant to the city, Christopher Isherwood, and by 50 native (or close to it) Angelenos in Los Angeles magazine.

It's a dispute with the L.A. Film School, say operators....

A truck parked across three lanes of the Hollywood Freeway near Sunset Boulevard and a band climbed up top to play a song, "Traffic Jam 101," that it says is about raising awareness of homeless children.

Nice piece by writer Steve Oney on the memories evoked by the city covering the old concrete pavement of Outpost Drive, with its embedded paw prints of a long ago...

The Times' website refers to a fire on Bronson Avenue in Hollywood as in "the Hancock Park area of the Hollywood Hills."

The arrival of an American Apparel billboard, plus new bars and shops, in Hollywood's Thai Town district is being taken as a sign of the hipster apocalypse.

The YouTube video poster at Discarted is something of a photographer-activist, mostly in a good way, though you could read that as troublemaker too.

Daily News sports columnist Tom Hoffarth was not amused to come across the installation activity on Hollywood Boulevard for ESPN's Chris Berman.

Hugh Hefner helped put up the last chunk of money in the Trust for Public Land's campaign to buy and preserve acreage west of the Hollywood sign. Councilman Tom LaBonge will talk up the effort this evening on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW.

Three years ago, the family that owns the Hollywood property where Yamashiro and the Magic Castle sit put the 10 acres up for sale. They accepted an offer from Sean MacPherson, impresario behind the Maritime Hotel, Jones, Bar Lubitsch and other hip spots.

The city attorney's office says 20 new cease-and-desist letters have gone out and that at least eight supergraphics have come down or will shortly.

A judge went along with City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's request for $1 million bail for a man charged with three misdemeanors for posting an illegal sign near the Oscars theater in Hollywood.

Montalvo, an 11-year-veteran of the LAPD's Hollywood division, was the officer who died in an off-duty crash in Diamond Bar on Thursday.

The first reviews of how it fits in the cityscape are mixed.

Plans to tear down the old CBS radio and television home at Sunset and Gower for a condo tower go to the city planning commission tomorrow. There are several old...

Some streets are already closed for Sunday's Hollywood Christmas Parade, aka the parade that refused to die. Hollywood Boulevard from Orange Street to Highland Avenue and Orange from Hollywood Boulevard...

The billboard one (and ex-candidate for governor) has filed what Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter calls "a hilarious, $500,000 breach of contract lawsuit against the Community Redevelopment Agency." Angelyne,...

The new hotel going up across from the Pantages opens its recruitment officer, or "Talent Center," this morning at 11. "Available positions range from Whatever/Whenever Agents to Style Supervisors, from...

Charles Bukowski narrates a tour of the Hollywood and Western area, highlighting his favorite bars, hangouts, hookers and dope-dealers. From "The Charles Bukowski Tapes" (1985), by Barbet Schroeder, via...

It hasn't been called the Showcase for awhile now, and many longtimers still think of the movie house on La Brea Avenue south of Melrose as the Gordon. Doesn't matter...

The nuns at Monastery of the Angels in Hollywood are famous for their loaves of pumpkin bread, but it seems they also know how to play the game in Los...