You are invited to help create a more livable West L.A. This is your opportunity to learn about the community planning process, hear the latest updates and provide your opinion on design and streetscape improvements, mobility plans, parks and community services.
The Los Angeles Housing Department showed up unannounced to The Lofts at Noho Commons today. This is the first of two days they will be conducting unit by unit inspections. Some of the residents have voiced anger because there was no prior notice given to the residents. They felt unauthorized entry is not except-able, unless there was an emergency.
Although there has been some significant improvements in the day to day upkeep of the common areas, the problem with dog feces and urine has not subsided.
ALLN is the only independent organization in L.A. to focus exclusively on granting community college scholarships to deserving students. There are a lot of smart, capable people who for a variety of reasons are not able to matriculate to four year colleges and universities. ALLN
pays for tuitition, books, transporation and meals, and it provides weekly mentoring to help students stay focused and on track.
ADVISORY Tuesday, August 26, 2008
For Immediate Release
The Wall Las Memorias Project’s 8th Annual Strike Out AIDS event at Dodger Stadium is next Friday, September 5th
Note: EDITOR'S NOTE: THE DODGERS ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT THE START TIME FOR THIS GAME HAS BEEN MOVED IN ORDER TO ACCOMODATE ESPN'S NATIONAL TELECAST. FIRST PITCH WILL NOW BE AT 7:08 PM, NOT 7:40 PM.
At a recent Churches of NorthEast LA Monthly Breakfast Gathering Chief Murphy challenged the churches to become involved in helping to reduce crime in the streets of NorthEast LA area. In immediate response the churches and other religiously-based community organizations represented at the meeting said let's do a peace march and so was born the Peace in the NorthEast Community March and Resource Fair, which we believe will become an annual event.
The Churches of NorthEast LA present:
PEACE in the NorthEast Community March & Resource Fair
Saturday, August 16 10a-5p
Gather: 10a Highland Park Sr Center 6152 N Figueroa St
March: 11a York Blvd just below Figueroa St
Resource Fair: 12noon–5p Victory Outreach 4160 Eagle Rock Blvd
Check Out: http://www.myspace.com/peaceinthene
Supported by: The Churches of NorthEast Los Angeles in cooperation with Northeast LAPD, Mayor Villaraigosa, Councilmember José Huizar, Councilmember Ed Reyes, Council President Eric Garcetti, LA Board of Education Member Yolie Flores Aguilar, Assemblymember Anthony Portantino, RemixOurWorld.org, Highland Park Ministerial Association, Historic Highland Park NC, Arroyo Seco NC, Eagle Rock NC, Glassell Park NC, Silver Lake NC, Greater Cypress Park NC, Lincoln Heights NC, LA32 NC, Highland Park Chamber of Commerce, Glassell Park Chamber of Commerce, Greater Highland Park Kiwanis, Victory Outreach, Iglesia Pentecostal Esmira, St Bernard Church, Peace over Violence, Simon & Lupita Reyes & Armando Guerrero, Anahuak Youth Soccer Association, McCormack Baron Salazar, Machete Tacos, Gifts Plus, Luther Burbank Middle School, Jesse Rosas, David Solis, Jose Carmona, Dr. Nicole Gatto, Kendra Gratteri, Jarritos Where’s the Fruit, Sparkletts Eagle Rock, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Swift-Tee screenprinting, Las Cazuelas Restaurant & Pupuseria, Inca Real Estate, Las Casas Realty, KIA of Glendale, Southland Real Estate, Southwest Museum Coalition, District 17 American Legion, Figueroa Produce, Jim's Chevron, Rey-Crest Roofing, Encore Tax, Marquez Family and Hecho de Mano
As per testimony by the residents of numerous complaints to the leasing staff, at The Lofts of Noho Commons, at 11136 Chandler Boulevard, North Hollywood, California 91601, currently under the supervision of Octavio Sanchez, regarding security, maintenance, and health and cleanliness issues, you and your staff have had knowledge of resident dissatisfaction since the introduction of Legacy Partners Residential, Inc. There has been a steady decline in all areas. In all fairness to your staff, we understand there has been some level of dissatisfaction regarding these same issues under Jodie Piccinino, while she was the community manager representing Alliance Residential Company.
North Hollywood is currently going thru many changes by business owners and developers, hoping to solidify a strong and safe community. One property stands out, The Lofts at Noho Commons. It is a beautiful property, centrally located in the Noho Arts District, across the street from the Metro Station on Lankershim Boulevard. Even through the architecture sets a tone more of a resort than that of a family based residence. There is a hidden story developing here. Under the facade of the modern design and amenities, there is a story of dangers developing. Due to numerous requests by the residents for security directly to the owner(s) at Redwood Partners, Inc. and the management company Legacy Partners, assaults, theft and vandalism run rampant with no resolve. The general consensus is focused on the well being of the children and families that reside here, as well as to deter the inevitability of more violence, further property loss and death.
Saving the South Central Farm: Listening to the Land
A teaching story
By Juan Santos and Leslie Radford
“The secret of storytelling amongst the poor is the conviction that stories are told so that they may be listened to elsewhere, where somebody, or perhaps a legion of people, know better than the storyteller or the story’s protagonists, what life means. The powerful can’t tell stories: boasts are the opposite of stories, and any story however mild has to be fearless and the powerful today live nervously.
“A story refers life to an alternative and more final judge who is far away. Maybe the judge is located in the future, or in the past that is still attentive, or maybe somewhere over the hill, where the day’s luck has changed (the poor have to refer often to bad or good luck) so that the last have become first.
“Story-time (the time within a story) is not linear. The living and the dead meet as listeners and judges within this time, and the greater the number of listeners felt to be there, the more intimate the story becomes to each listener. Stories are one way of sharing the belief that justice is imminent. And for such a belief, children, women and men will fight at a given moment with astounding ferocity. This is why tyrants fear storytelling: all stories somehow refer to the story of their fall.”
From John Berger's That have not been asked: ten dispatches about endurance in the face of walls.
It’s not always a matter of justice; there are simply too many of us who know not to expect justice from this system that profits at the expense of all life: Sometimes it’s not a matter of justice, but as John Berger says above, it’s a matter of “luck.” Good luck or bad. Good Karma and bad, who’s in synch with the flow of change and the Times, and who stands foolishly against the tide. It’s like that this time. It’s a matter of luck, of grace, of Karma, of what is necessary as the times change. This time, we are determined: the last shall be first, life will come before profit, the poor before the wealthy, the natural will supercede the artificial. This time, if we have something to say about it- and we do – all of us – the Conquest is over.
No one could have predicted it, and frankly, no one did. There were those of us who had nothing to go on but this: we listened to the land, and the land spoke to us. We listened; we listened to what might be possible but seemed impossible; We refused to surrender dreaming; we refused to forget what had been born, the ancient, magical connection of land and a newly arising culture that touched so many of us here in LA: a connection that touched a nerve so deep in us that its resonance spread in a web of connection – and yes, we will say it – hope – across the world. Mayan Indians in a Zapatista community prayed for the land and for the life unfolding there. Native elders came and shared the lessons of their peoples. Red tailed hawks visited the trees.
The Churches of NorthEast LA presents Peace in the NorthEast Community March
On August 16, 2008 at 10am, lead by the Churches of NorthEast LA, the NorthEast LA community will be meeting at the Highland Park Adult Senior Citizen Center, 6152 N Figueroa St, to march down York Blvd to Eagle Rock Blvd and down Eagle Rock Blvd to a Resource Fair. Snacks will be served at both the staging area and the Resource Fair. Bottled water will also be available for marchers. The Resource Fair will end at 5:00pm. Along with the Resource Fair there will be music and a Mini Car Show.
Community groups, families and other local organizations are encouraged to join the march and bring organizational / identificational banners. And, we can still use more help in organizing the Peace March / Resource Fair, so we also encourage you to become involved. Call 626.831.7970 for more information.
Join us for an idyllic day featuring delicious
food, games, and music by Ellen and Matt, The Hollow
Trees, Tomas O'Grady, and Foreign Born. And of
course, our renowned Silent Auction, where amazing
deals are to be had. There will also be a quilt for
auction which is handmade each year by the families,
truly an heirloom. The NNS Spring Fair is a Silverlake
tradition not to be missed!
A "green" event-BYO water cup when possible.
Nike and the LA84 Foundation to Announce Plans to Renew 84 Play Surfaces throughout Los Angeles
Nike and the LA84 Foundation are committing $4 Million to renew 84 play surfaces to benefit young sports enthusiasts in Los Angeles. The new play surfaces will help rejuvenate the community by creating spaces for the youth of Los Angeles to play so they can be healthy and live active lives.
WHEN: Thursday, March 13, 2008
3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Holiday Inn (pool deck)
1020 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
One late evening, my husband, Drew, was shopping at the new, convenient, high-end Ralph's Fresh Fare supermarket at Ninth and Flower in downtown Los Angeles. He noticed the copious amounts of prepared food that had gone unpurchased and asked the Ralph’s employee what was to become of it all at the end of the day. The employee replied that it all gets thrown in the garbage. It was a LOT of food.
Note: This submission was received from LA Voice Reader "Laura" who was having difficulty posting it herself... given the time and effort she has put into this, we offered to post it for her. The views expressed are entirely her own...
Join the Pat Brown Institute (PBI) tomorrow for their launch of the California Agenda 2008 Lecture Series with “Civic Engagement Across California Communities.” It should be an interesting event—especially with Shirley Jahad as the moderator. Seats are still available for this free event but you must call Tarren Lopez to RSVP or go online. Below are the details.
For Immediate Release
Friday, December 20, 2007
Contact: Frank Aguirre Jr.
213.688.2802 or faguirre@ypiusa.org
Los Angeles, CA. Tomorrow, the Youth Policy Institute will have its culminating event of the Valley Family Technology Project (VFTP) alongside state Senator Alex Padilla. AT&T will present a check of $10,000 to VFTP for their continued work to integrate technology tools in the hands of underserved populations. The VFTP provides 100 families per year with a computer system and free internet service.
It was an incredible experience for the children with cancer and their families—as well as the volunteer army assembled to put it on. Although it’s the ninth time PADRES has hosted this event, this year was by far the biggest and grandest PADRES Holiday Christmas Posada yet.
Exploring news places, whether it's across the Atlantic or right down the street, is one of my favorite pastimes - and living in LA affords endless exploration opportunities.
I recently found an incredible website called Hubbuzz.com that essentially lets you take a virtual stroll through all the 'hoods and cities in LA County. Hubbuzz profiles over 70 neighborhoods and cities and includes photos, community blogs and maps plotting the location of cool restaurants, museums, fitness centers, boutiques and shopping centers.
You can also see Los Angeles Apartments by neighborhood, or search by neighborhood characteristic (think diverse, trendy, kid-friendly). So when I find that perfect neighborhood in all my urban exploration, I can find an apartment there too.
Check it out, maybe you'll find a cool new 'hood to explore.
In addition to bringing to you the latest and greatest from the world of journalism, the LA Press Club also puts on events with opinion-leaders and newsmakers from a wide swath of public affairs. Our event this Monday night is no exception and for the first time ever, two premiere social entrepreneurs here in Los Angeles, Paul Vandeventer and Tom Riley, will be leading a panel discussion on social entrepreneurism and civic engagement.
If you’re curious as to what “social entrepreneurism” means and/or interested in the state of civic engagement in Los Angeles, you wont’ want to miss it. The evening will also be dedicated in the memory of Dr. Carol Baker Tharp, who both men knew personally through her community work and who lost her battle to cancer earlier this week.
Los Angeles. A number of organizations are planning a series of public actions targeting Countrywide Home Loans in cities throughout California—where it is estimated the company services 50,0000 loans. While Countrywide CEO, Angelo Mozilo, has taken literally millions of dollars from the company before the initial decline of its stock, thousands of homeowners are set to lose their homes, and some 12,000 Countrywide employees will be fired before the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mr. Mozilo will be the Grinch who stole the home, hearth, and the American dream.
Cuesta creer que en una ciudad civilizada como Buenos Aires se hagan pactos entre un gobierno saliente y otro entrante para subir los impuestos con el objeto de equilibrar las cuentas del gobierno saliente.
It's not all that often when Santa Monica takes the lead from other cities but here it is: Santa Monica will likely join other municipalities like BH, Burbank and Calabasas with strict anti-smoking ordinances. The next step, of course, will be banning the use "Smokin'" when referring to heavyweight boxing great, Joe Frazier, and when using lines from "The Mask." Below is James Ricci's piece from today's Times.
Unfortunately I've given up on any sort of sound reasoning on the part of the parks dept. and their steadfast refusal to reopen areas of the park untouched by the fire so that work crews will have unfettered access this fall. Yes, many unburnt areas are still closed and summer is almost over. And yes, there are signs that say they are closed. But more and more people are ignoring these signs. The sense I get is that people are fed up and are going back into their park because, well, they can.
The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, a non-profit public interest legal organization, is now conducting free presentations on fair housing and home ownership rights.
A press conference will be held later this morning at 11 a.m. on the south steps of the Los Angeles City Hall to announce HML’s fight against vehicle confiscations for merely lacking licenses and proof of insurance. HML National Director, Nativo V. Lopez, will be available for interviews tomorrow and throughout the week. There is also a Spanish translation of this communiqué at the end.
I emailed Tom LeBonge's office and heard back from someone today. She said:
"The parks department is not without their reasons for keeping the park closed, but as of right now we think there is not sufficient justification for the closures. The fire recovery team has not yet settled on what strategy they will use to prevent erosion this upcoming winter. One of the strategies being considered will require exclusive access to the burn area for the department. And RAP's thought process says that it is better to keep the park closed and for the recovery team to complete their work and then open the park, rather than opening the park now only to have to close areas of the park off and on for the next six months. But, the Councilman disagrees with this train of thought."
So we've got a three-way game of "thought process" chicken going on here between RAP, Tom LeBonge and the evil bikers and hikers.
I've been posting comments at the laparks.org Griffith Recovery blog. It was suggested that I also post here. The following is from my last comment posted on Wed. June 27. More to come...
This past weekend I was told by the guards at the Vermont entrance and also by a guard at Griffith Observatory that all paved park roads were open to bikes. I asked about the road to Mt. Hollywood summit and going through to Travel Town. The guards said they were indeed open.
Happily, I went for a great ride up Vermont to Mt. Hollywood summit and through to Travel Town. I saw other cyclists during my ride. We smiled and waved to each other, obviously glad that the roads were open again. Along the route there were signs on a lot of trails that led uphill from the road saying they were closed. I thought that made sense. People will know what's off-limits but at least we can use this road.
What was odd to encounter was that THIS ROUTE WAS UNTOUCHED BY THE FIRE...
There's lots of fun these days up in the Antelope Valley--and you won't read about it in the Times
Lancaster Councilmember Ed Sileo placed bogus ‘Ethics’ complaint on the City Council agenda for the sole purpose of trying to silence concerns about the questionable lobbying practices of his father, said Councilmember Ron Smith.
This homemade solution will destroy Skid Row staph on surfaces: Mix 1/3 hydrogen peroxide (the 3% kind you buy at the pharmacy) 2/3 clear water. Shake. Add a bit of dry laundry detergent. Shake again. You must use rubber gloves when applying. Put some of the solution on a surface. Allow to stand a minute or two. Clean off with clear water.
The commercial "antibacterial" cleaners used by most hospitals are not alkaline enough to kill these new superbugs. Staph bacteria can actually live in most commercial solutions. So make your own. It is much cheaper, and it WORKS.
Note: EDITOR'S NOTE: LA Voice does not dispense medical advice and the opinions expressed are solely those of the individual author of each post...
A funny thing happened on the way to the West Hollywood City Hall. A few weeks ago some "NIMBY" activists finally went laughably a bit too far while opposing a development of a mixed-use project of apartments and retail space at Santa Monica and Crescent Heights in West Hollywood. They began circulating an old article from the "Real Property Section Review" (a publication read by developers and land use folks) written by Robert I. McMurry and Dwight Merriam, tilted, "How to Kill a Development Project in 10 Easy Steps."
The article reads more like satire than a "stop development manifesto" with suggestions like:
-"We don't just Bamboozle them, we Google Them."
-Dirty Tricks Even Richard Nixon Never Thought of: (I.e. form a non-profit corporation, recruit celebrities, etc.)
-Taint and Paint: (Claim Native American Rights Exist)
In fact, the article reads exactly like the "Action Items" list currently being circulated by the project's opponents which will be anchored by a well-designed Walgreens, once built. The action items under serious consideration by opponents of the project meant to throw up red flags at City Hall include:
-Research how to form a non-profit corporation
-Get Celebrities to join the cause
-Find out how to make this area a historic site
-Research if we can claim Native American Rights.
I love the thought of turning a run-down 1960's strip mall into "an historical site" as if West Hollywood is suddenly a part of the San Fernando Valley!
But here is where irony kicks in--the original "How to" article credits lawyer Todd Elliott for his "witty and unrestrained editing."
Elliott is a name partner of the law firm Truman & Elliott, LLP, the project developer's land use attorney. While the "how to" article was intended as humor, if the developers prevail, the joke will surely be on the ultra intelligent NIMBYS.
Looking for tenants who will be (or have been) displaced because their landlord is converting their apartment to a condominium
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Much discussion has begun via e-mail regarding a park planned to be built in the distant future over the 101 freeway. Some complain that it may not be well ventilated while others wonder why a park when we can't remain safe due to lack of officers on our streets. Some throw darts at the elected officials (that's the juicy e-mails) for allowing over-development while giving a pass to developers regarding open space requirements and parking needs. Some (me) say that parks must have plans in place along with appropriate funding to make them truly safe places for children to play and residents to recreate. What do you have to say?
I get a bunch of commercial pitches all the time that never see the light of day on LA Voice because that's not what this blog is all about, but one just came across the transom that is worth mentioning-- because it involves a free Pabst Blue Ribbon beer!
For years now, I have heard all the hubbub about how Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills is the place to "see and be seen," but until Saturday, I only vaguely knew where it was and to expect lots of dogs wandering off their leashes.
To put my mind at ease, I clipped on my iPod Shuffle, checked out Google Maps and made the thirty minute walk to Vista north of Hollywood.
I got a chuckle at the hordes of people fighting for a close parking space to the Canyon. Two or three blocks away--say, South of Hollywood Boulevard--there's available parking. Yet people jockey for positions to get the closest parking spaces...so they can go for a hike.
Am I the only one who finds this somewhat ironic?
Councilman Tom LaBonge is now talking about taking away some of the canyon's open space to put in a parking lot. Maybe what we need isn't new parking but new priorities, people!
In a gushing profile of Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Mount Washington, the Times notes: "But housing costs still seem reasonable, compared with West Los Angeles. And some west-Angeleno types are moving in."
My favorite line was actually in a photo-caption: "Residents of Northeast Los Angeles enjoy vistas of Mount Washington, which could be mistaken for Tuscany."
The Disney Company is all set to expand the operation in Orange County and turn Anaheim into Orlando West, which might sound a bit scary to anyone who has ever been to central Florida, but actually might be the best thing for a city in need of something new.
Sunset Triangle, Sunset & Edgecliffe
19 Mar 06:30 PM
This is the small park at Sunset & Edgecliffe in Silver Lake next to the Farmers Market site. Bring something to share if you can -- words, a snack, light music -- what you think would be appropriate at a vigil. Kids & pets OK
"On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA. The program will open with Councilman Jose Huizar at 11 AM speaking on the need to preserve our historic civic resources and, in particular, about how we need to restore the historic theaters of Broadway."
Shuster recalls an armed Martin Lawrence stopping traffic at a Sherman Oaks intersection, loudly demanding that motorists “fight the power!”; Jack Nicholson attacking a Mercedes with a 2 iron in Studio City; Alec Baldwin punching out a paparazzi in Woodland Hills; and Margot Kidder hiding in the bushes in Glendale.
This sweetheart deal brings to a close a close to 25 year saga where Geffen thumbed his nose at the state of California and the general public, reneging on the most basic of deals and misappropriating some of the most valuable real estate in California.
Preserve LA posts writer Chris Epting's article from Preservation Online that calls out LA as being "one of the worst cities in the country" when it comes to historical preservation.
Ouch.
Judge for yourself, but I think Epting's argument is full of holes.
Although sex offender accusations against West Hollywood City candidate Ed Buck have proven to be false, subsequent investigations have revealed a long, and sometimes entertaining record of legal troubles for the anti-development candidate.
Buck protested over fliers distributed in West Hollywood exposing him as "a homosexual Sex Offender in 1986," when Buck lived in Arizona.
A subsequent investigation by IN Magazine turned up no sex offender record in Arizona or elsewhere, but turned up two felony indictments and at least two restraining orders sought against the candidate.
Curbed LA has a post this morning about the cost of renting in LA.
According to a new survey, LA is the 8th most expensive rental market in the country, with an average rent of $1,360/month.
The comment thread kind of focuses on the economics of the buy/rent decision, but the post begs the fundamental question, "Will the average person soon be able to do either?"
Posted by: Ryan_Knoll on Thursday, February 08, 2007
Last night, the City of West Hollywood unanimously approved the 152-unit Greenwich Place development at San Vicente and Beverly Boilevards.
Located on the former Tail O' The Pup property, the Regent Properties development will add 117 new market-rate condominiums and 35 affordable units to West Holywood's housing stock.
Here, in Venice, we have a tradition of championing the rights of poor people, as in 1965 when the City of Los Angeles tore down one third of Venice's 1600 structures in an attempt to get rid of the recalcitrant hippie population:
“They were stopped in court by the NAACP and the Peace and Freedom Party, who organized to protect the poor. The city's dream of building high rise hotels and apartments like Miami Beach was thwarted. Venice looked like it was bombed during World War 2 as little was rebuilt during the next decade.” (Wikipedia)
And, throughout the 70s, when the then Venice Town Council, in direct contrast to our present Venice Neighborhood Council: “felt that the poor had just as much right to live in Venice as the rich people who were buying property to develop. They realized that rapidly rising property values were on a collision course with the community's entrenched low-income population. The Venice Town Council's goal was to delay or at least scale down any project that might affect surrounding property values and the rents landlords charged ..."
I have a confession to make. I, too, dream of making it in Hollywood. For a tiny while during my misspent youth, I yearned for work as a a studio photographer / location scout. And now look at me ... (rimshot!)
Patrick Ecclesine not only got my dream job, but he's tackling something of a dream assignment - documenting the city's richest artery in portraits. FacesofSunset.com is an engaging (if aggressively lit) portfolio of Angelenos anchored to Sunset Boulevard, ranging from powerbrokers and public servants (Villaraigosa, Bratton, Bammatre) to Industry types and construction workers.
In a dazzling showcase of NIMBY rebellion, a small faction of Cheviot Hills IMBY’s have launched LightRailForCheviot.org to inform the world that not all Cheviot Hills Homeowners are scared of mobility:
We want mobility – mobility not involving cars, driving, and parking – mobility that will raise property values in Cheviot Hills as gridlock worsens.
See you all in court?
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The New York Times Travel Section, no less, now declares that Culver City is hip.
“Restaurants are spilling into Culver City because there's nowhere else to go,” says the chef Michael Wilson. He chose Culver City as the location of his new restaurant Wilson — Culver City's most ambitious endeavor, serving dishes like truffled pasta and slow-roasted pork with cherry sauce — over the tonier (and more crowded, competitive and pricey) neighborhoods of Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. “The rents are a lot lower so you can really get away without charging astronomical prices for good food,” he said. “In five or six years you won't even recognize Washington Boulevard — it will be the new little restaurant row.”
Word to Culver Citizens nauseated by the thought of chic-seeking tourism ruining their bucolic peace: Silver Lake survived. So can you.
Elections for the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council will be held Sat. March 31 from 10:00am - 4:00pm at Eagle Rock City Hall. NOW is the time to throw your hat in the ring and become a candidate! An informational meeting will be held on Jan. 27 and the deadline to file as a candidate is Feb. 26 ...
He's got a great, formal color photographer's eye - shots of antique cars, train tracks, store fronts - capturing the sort of hyper-realistic images of cityscapes that should be catalogued and set up under the twitchy eyes of guards at the Getty. They remind me of the images we saw and devoured today at the Getty photography show, Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection ...
The animated map of homeless data captured by the LAPD is interesting in that it lets you see - over time - how the homeless population has migrated and thinned out as the weather downtown approaches the freezing mark.
It'll be interesting to watch as winter progresses into spring and people return to downtown.
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Thursday, January 18, 2007
If you're selling a house this month in L.A., don't bother letting reality get in your way:
The specter of L.A. realtors snatching themselves bald in eternal torment over the fast-crashing housing market seems to have had no effect whatsoever on pricetags: Houses are sitting on the market for months, but sellers are still jacking up the prices.
The latest numbers from DataQuick saw L.A. home prices rise 6.5% last year, to a new median of $522,000:
For the full year, Los Angeles County's median home price rose 8.5% in 2006, while sales fell 16.8% compared to 2005. Price appreciation for the county peaked in 2003, when the year-over-year median price rose 24% from the previous year ...
The LAPD's "Safer Cities" assault on Skid Row crime is working, with dramatic results according to Capt. Andy Smith, who brought the Downtown Neighborhood Council the good news this week.
As seen in Don Garza's video, Smith declares the crime rate downtown is at its lowest point since 1944, and then offers crime-fighting benchmarks he says Chief Bratton will tout soon in a press conference:
The 50 extra officers added to Central Division in October have helped the department make 4,100 arrests and identify 172 gangs dealing drugs to the homeless (18th Street, 5th and Hill and 8-Trey, among the larger ones) ...
Okay, road resurfacing is definitely needed, but it's been a mess for more than a week now, the paving equipment's all parked in place along the roads, and still no paving has occurred.
Yet just two blocks away, tiny Avenel Terrace was thoroughly (and beautifully) paved the day the equipment arrived ...
The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment doesn't care enough about the Neighborhood Councils it's supposed to be administering to even let them help plan their own semi-regular congress, Ken Draper writes at CityWatch LA ...
Charlotte Laws, a 912 Commissioner and Greater Valley Glen Councilmember, makes the following comments in response to a report issued by a team of USC researchers who are studying the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system. Their project is called the USC Civic Engagement Initiative. Before reviewing Dr. Laws' comments, you may want to look at Mack Reed's article called "USC: Neighborhood Councils Are Not a Failure." The researchers say they welcome input from the community; they will soon be compiling their final draft of the report.
_____________________
Dear Los Angeles,
Below you will find my comments related to the findings and recommendations presented by USC researchers on Saturday, December 16. I am specifically concentrating on items of potential disagreement or that I feel are in need of further clarification ...
If you're tired of smelling urine while using the free wi-fi in Pershing Square, here's some (mostly) good news:
The city's considering spending $165,000 expanding downtown's free-wireless nodes to include Bunker Hill, the financial district, the historic core and Little Tokyo.
The Community Redevelopment Agency wrapped the hardware expense into a larger new appropriation for its "official" ExperienceLA calendar site and, oh, just happened to tack on some money for more wi-fi surveillance cameras ...
LAObserved points us to City Watch L.A., "an insider look at city hall" that has apparently been publishing since November, though an email newsletter has been running since '03. Wish I'd known of it earlier - it's a valuable, level-headed look at city politics.
The site boasts a comprehensive calendar of L.A. panel and board meetings, columns by my friend Marc Haefele and some interesting public-affairs articles.
Among them is a piece by the USC team that has been studying the successes and shortcomings of the city's overly-criticized Neighborhood Council system:
If you drive downtown via Cesar Chavez much, you may have noticed some fast-moving heavy construction bustling along on the south side at Grand Avenue.
It's my fellow man - at Christmas - whom I cannot stand. My fondest memories of snow-frosted New England Christmases, filled with love, warmth, song and good food completely shatter the minute I step out the door into the bull-goose madness of L.A.'s shopping frenzy.
So here - without much fanfare and more than a dollop of "HUMBUG!" are the Top 10 Obstacles to Xmas Shopping encountered in just four lunchtime hours of Christmas shopping this week - and notes on how to dodge 'em. Feel free to add your own:
E's promising a smoother interface in the new year. Until then, it's kind of fun flipping through all 224 - a quick fingertip tour of Broadway. If you're feeling really nostalgic, you can compare them side-by-side with Jim's set to see what's changed.
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The sylvan image of UCLA and Westwood - complete with apple-cheeked coeds in kicky, trendy togs shuttling merrily between noshes at Diddy Riese and saving the world in civics class - is a big, fat lie. Or so Westwood Ca. Blight (tagline: "A hard look at the dark side of Westwood") would have us believe.
When I toured Skid Row with Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph back in September, we rolled at one point through a pungent cloud of pot smoke near the corner of 5th and San Julian. "This is where the weed is," he told me - a customary spot for dealers to peddle marijuana and harder drugs.
Today, he vows publicly that he and his fellow officers will "take down" that "stronghold" and return the park to the people of the city:
If you missed this op-ed piece in the Times, now's the time to check it out.
LAPD Officer and novelist Will Beall offers an eloquent, powerful cop's-eye view of 77th Division's bailiwick, South Central. What's striking about it is the unflinching view of what murder does to African-Americans in South Central, and how they respond:
U.S. News and World Report just popped a profile of Skid Row that chats up all the usual sources: LAPD Chief William Bratton, downtown developer Tom Gilmore and Central City Association head Carol Schatz.
The article touches on many of the most recent events in Skid Row's history - September's 50-officer LAPD staffing boost and ensuing crackdown, the against-all-odds development boom, the ACLU suit ending the sidewalk-sleeping ban, and the woes of merchants who have to step over filth and down-and-outers to get to work.
And it pulls a few choice quotes, among them Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's declaration of Skid Row as "a national disgrace" ...
If anyone had doubts about Chief William Bratton's ability to make LAPD more effective than Bernard Parks ever did, here's the proof: Part 1 (violent) crimes are down again for the fourth year in a row.
But unless he gets more money for more officers, Bratton warns, he can't hold the downward trend to an 8% drop every year.
This seems an easy bet to make, since the horribly under-manned LAPD won't likely to get a substantial bump in investment from the city's notoriously cop-stingy taxpayers, and since the cyclical nature of crime will likely result in a bottoming-out and possible reversal of the crime rate's downward trend next year.
Does your neighborhood feel safer than it did in 2002? Do you think more officers on patrol will make a difference?
The map shows the number and concentration of homeless people living on Skid Row's many corners in two-week increments represented by the LAPD's biweekly homeless counts. The samples are then set up in javascript layers to show dynamically how the population is shifting geographically from one corner to the next.
While Eric admits the map has limitations of precision, it does seem to be a potentially useful tool for police and for policy-makers to track how their work with homeless people is affecting - or being affected by - the conditions of the streets, buildings and businesses around them:
All students who live in LAUSD's boundaries are eligible to apply for the many amazing magnet schools with in the system. In a few weeks all current LAUSD parents will be receiving the Choice brochure. If you are not a current LAUSD parents, you can pick up a brochure at any LAUSD school.
LAUSD is having a magnet school information fair Saturday December 9th from Saturday, from 8:00 am - 12:00 noon at Cal State Los Angeles (California State University, Los Angeles. 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032). Materials will be presented on Magnet programs, Public School Choice (PSC), Gifted/High Ability/Highly Gifted Magnets and Permits with Transportation (PWT) Program. Personnel from many of the schools will be in attendance and able to ask many of your questions. This is a free event, open to everyone. They tend to get crowded, so I advise getting their early.
That's the city's umbrella euphemism for benches, bus shelters and, now, automated crappers: Ignoring for a moment the (privately-funded) $1-million cost and the ongoing maintenance expense, the new Central City toilets being installed in the next few weeks sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
L.A. Downtown News provides the geek-executive summary:
You may be wondering who left the freezer door open after temps dipped into the 40s last night. But the LAFD says the National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning, as brisk, dry Santa Ana winds setting us up for another round of wildfires.
Don't flip your tiparillo butts out the window, try not to back your hot sport-tuner exhaust into tall, dry grass, and watch where you park in the hills.
Here's more from the LAFD News & Information blog:
FED UP WITH FILM CREWS?
email me at stopfilmabuse@earthlink.net
FED UP WITH FILM CREW ABUSE OF YOU AND THEIR PERMITS?
FED UP WITH POLICE, LAPD, CHP THREATS & RUDENESS ON FILM SHOOTS?
FED UP WITH FILMLA NON RESPONSE TO YOUR COMPLAINTS?
I’m a in pro per (acting as my own attorney) preparing a lawsuit against FILMLA, CHP, LASD, LAPD, a production company and the big company that contracted for the commercial they shot. After 7 years of submitting formal, documented complaints to EIDC, FILMLA, CHP, etc. with zero improvement, I am committed to achieving real, lasting solutions through court rulings, injunctive orders. Individual efforts & complaints& phone calls & letters & even community meetings aren’t getting it done Let’s stop the endless B.S., lies, lip service, empty promises, non-action and abuse ...
Curbed L.A. just posted this fascinating spreadsheet (prepared by Peter Dreier at Occidental College) detailing how the $1-billion Measure H affordable housing bond crashed and burned - district by council district.
No surprise, the bid to issue bonds to build housing for homeless and low- and middle-income Angelenos scored tremendously well in districts in the city's poorer core (Councilmembers Perry - 82.3% yes, Parks - 81.9% yes, Wesson - 79.4% yes, Reyes - 77.9% yes) and much more weakly in affluent, home-owning west L.A. and the West Valley (led by 55.6% noes in Greig Smith's district - Granada Hills, Northridge, etc.).
What surprised me was that the measure did as well as it did overall - 62.29% yes to 37.71% no - close, but not quite over the 66.6% approval needed for passage. Anyone got thoughts on why it got the votes it did?
My bully Ruby and I walk all over downtown, but certain routes are saved for special moods. Sometimes at dusk when we both feel alert and frisky, we head for the heart of Skid Row, Fifth Street between Main St. and Central Av. ...
Touted with fruity marketing language such as " Wired within Sunset Silver Lake's architectural framework is an inspired array of tools and amenities," the project promises to deliver crisp condos to upwardly mobile hipsters. According to a Curbed L.A. correspondent, sales might not be going so swimmingly:
To read the L.A. Times yesterday, you'd think Koreatown residents have "never felt less safe," are living in fear of a serial rapist and a rash of robberies and shootings and are generally suffering a headline-worthy crimewave.
This morning, the LAPD Blog puts the lie to that scenario, saying that violent crimes in Koreatown's 29 reporting districts are down by 12 percent overall, but up in just five of them.
The anonymous blogger (Lt. Ruben de la Torre?) then takes Times editors to task for using an anomalous triple-homicide last month, and a few interviews with frightened residents to gloss over the facts:
Well, this'll make traffic on the 101 interesting, but it does have the ring of a Grand Idea:
The burghers of Hollywood want to roof a half-mile stretch of the 101 through Hollywood in a tunnel and put a park on top.
It already has backing from Councilman Tom LaBonge, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the L.A. Redevelopment Authority are meeting tonight to see if they can squeeze $120,000 out of business execs to fund a feasibility study for the ... wait for it ... $209 million project ...
It's not often that new paranormal lore erupts in Los Angeles - the Hollywood Roosevelt ghosts, the Queen Mary's resident haunt, and the poltergeist in the L.A. Weekly conference room and others are all pretty well-known.
But this Halloweek, the Times points us to the the legend of the haunted Griffith Park picnic table. - supposedly possessed by the ghosts of two young lovers who were crushed to death in flagrante delicto atop said table by a falling tree back in 1976.
A Griffith Park tree trimmer swears that a newly-felled tree he was working on gave him the heebie-jeebies - and then started bouncing up and down on the fateful picnic table. Griffith Park Chief Ranger Albert Torres scoffs: "It's a big park, somebody's got to haunt it." Indeed.
If it sounds too amazing to have suddenly popped up on the Halloween radar, then you have probably realized that the ghost of Orson Welles smiles down on this story, because the clever and industrious Will Campbell is having you on.
We've all been there, at one time or another: wide awake at 2:30 a.m., gritting your teeth, listening to your neighbor's dog bark his fool lungs out. Don't they HEAR it?, you wonder. Isn't there a LAW?
Turns out you actually do have legal rights, and can file complaints about problem barkers (and their do-nothing owners) with the L.A. Department of Animal Services, using this form.
Palms resident George Garrigues finally got sick of losing sleep to his neighbor's dog, and writes in journal format in the latest Palms-Village Sun that he's taking his gripe to the city in an upcoming hearing:
There's a guy in North Hills who's staged a fake airline disaster in front of his house using parts from a Gulfstream jet that he apparently acquired during his day job as an aircraft mechanic.
Just about everyone who's seen the display so far likes it, once they realize it's not a real accident.
The only complaint the homeowner says he's received is that the display is creating a traffic jam in the neighborhood because so many people want to see it.
One night a year, a teensy west-L.A. burg (pop. 39,000) becomes California's seventh largest city (pop. ca. 500,000). People in and around West Hollywood either run cackling to or flee screaming from the cacophonous blowout debauch that is the Halloween Carnaval.
This year, if you want to avoid the mobs, but don't want to sit lonely at home and watch the whole thing on Stickam, you can check out Saturday's Venice Carnevale. The event at Windward Circle in Venice promises arts installations, video mixing, a costume contest, a beer garden and car show plus DJs Jason Bentley, Todd Spero and others will be spinning.
But if you absolutely positively must join the WeHo Carnaval noise on Tuesday, here's the schedule of pre-Carnaval events, Carnaval acts and a ton more useful information:
It appears that Field Operations, one of the three finalists to design a new historic park at the Cornfields says we should:
Their proposal would involve razing historic Dodger Stadium and building a new, $500 million ballpark on the Cornfield site. They would transform the remaining acreage into a five-story aboveground parking lot. On its roof, a park would sit flush with Broadway and connect on its northern end to Elysian Park. The second component of their project would involve redesigning Elysian Park, adding nature walks, golf courses and soccer fields, and creating 1,000 acres of green space.
In the stadium's place, the team described a multi-use, high-rise development perched on the bluff of Elysian Park that would include 25,000 residents, police and fire stations, and even a school. The money garnered from selling that land - estimated at $350 million - would fund the entire project.
Sorry - but what's that you're drinking? It seems to have gone off.
Thanks to the City Council, doing something about visual blight in the city as part of the CDO process may become that much harder.
An agreement to settle a lawsuit brought by Clear Channel and CBS, both of which maintain billboards on Lincoln, gives these multi-billion dollar outdoor advertising companies carte blanche to convert up to 450 existing billboards to double faces, digital displays, and something called "tri-vision", which consists of rotating electronic prisms in three different panels on one billboard.
You may or may not remember this before seeing the ballot on Nov. 7, but City Measure H wants you to approve $1 billion in bonds to provide "affordable housing" for the city's low- and middle-income earners.
Times staffer Steve Hymon devoted all of five paragraphs - buried three-quarters of the way down in a city-measures story stuffed into the bottom of page 9 in an 11-page "Voter Guide" - to one of the largest tax measures this city has ever faced ...
The Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council is forming an ad hoc grievance committee. This committee would work as an advisory committee suggesting resolutions for grievances between stakeholders and the Eagle Rock Council, between stakeholders and between board members.
We are looking for 2 people who live, work, or belong to an organization in Eagle Rock and 3 people who live or work outside of Eagle Rock to join this committee. We are hoping to attract people who have negotiation and mediation skills.
Training will be provided and the committee will only meet as necessary. If you are interested in serving the public in an advisory position or for more information please contact Cherryl Weaver ERNC Secretary at 323-254-1352.
The Times says Police Chief William Bratton remains cagey about a new round of negotiations with the ACLU, but City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo apparently found a way to let the police address Skid Row's squalor while skirting the ACLU's objections to the civil rights violations it says are contained in the city's anti-vagrancy ordinance:
Bratton is quoted as saying things went forward because there were more than 100 open beds available in Skid Row shelters that the displaced street-campers could migrate to for the night, or a string of nights ...
One thing that just killed me on the Skid Row ride Wednesday was seeing little children mingling with junkies.
They were mostly right outside the missions, where their parents must have been seeking help. But there's nothing quite so heartstopping as the sight of a 3-year-old girl doing a happy little dance on trash-strewn San Julian, surrounded by hundreds of lost and wasted adults.
Here's another view of childhood on Skid Row: WowTV gave three young teens there a video camera and turned them loose on their neighborhood ...
I've been writing about Skid Row for way too long now without having spent much time there. A handful of city-desk briefs for the Times 11 years ago, a coupla recent lunchtime walks and some fast drivethroughs do not an expert make.
Time to see close-up the day-in, day-out meat-grinder street culture of Skid Row that has defied eradication for decades now.
After a couple hours at Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph's side, I'm still no expert. But I know far more than I did before, thanks to his generosity, experience and non-stop narration.
So, no punditry today, just facts and observations about Skid Row through the eyes of a cop who has to police it ....
L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley's office finally got wise to the recidivist problem on Skid Row: He announced he'll start dinging convicted Skid Row drug offenders for probation violations any time they're caught returning to Skid Row.
The Times reports that Cooley's plan - effective as of Tuesday - makes 4th, 5th and 6th Streets between Central and Broadway a "stay away" zone for anyone already convicted of selling, buying or using drugs. This will give the 50 cops just added to the beat some teeth in the fight to break up the brawling Skid Row dope trade, as well as giving Cooley's 10 new Skid Row case-handlers something to focus on immediately ...
The closed-door 3-10 vote (with Weiss, Huizar and Rosendahl supporting it) apparently cleared the way for the City Attorney's office to appeal an April 14 federal appeals court decision that prohibited the city from banning sleeping on the street so long as homeless beds in SROs and shelters are in short supply.
If the bald numbers are any indication, the city has something of fight on its hands: with 90,000 homeless people countywide, vying for 9,000 to 10,000 beds - you do the math ...
So far, the criticism over Tuesday's news about the LAPD/ACLU agreement on letting sleeping junkies lie and ghettoizing them into a "free-sleep zone" has been harsh and swift.
Downtowners polled by the Times rightly point out that the measures do nothing to keep addicts from shitting and leaving crack pipes on their doorsteps, nor help push them into shelter, counseling or mental health care ...
Three months ago, the South Central Farm was a hive of activism, a magnet for media attention, a cause celebre for hundreds of people who blocked the streets around it and the actors festooning its trees.
For months after the bulldozers moved in on landowner Ralph Horowitz's behalf and scraped the pocket farms of some 350 families off the 14-acre parcel they had been tending since the 1992 riots, the land was quiet, dark and dead.
But for some occasional saber-rattling from SCF leader Tezozomoc and his supporters and some token gardening of city parkways surrounding the farm, the place seemed to be dead and buried.
Today, L.A. Independent Media reports, the farmers won a court victory when a judge tossed a lawsuit Horowitz had filed accusing the farmers of abusing justice by filing a 2003 lawsuit blocking destruction of the farm plots ...
Well, it took a closed-door meeting between the LAPD, the ACLU, the city attorney and the mayor's office, but it looks like the cops finally have permission to keep Skid Row streets free of tents and sleeping people.
During the day and early evening, that is.
The Times reports that compromise lets Chief William Bratton's officers bust anyone found lying or sleeping on the sidewalk from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. - and anyone camping within 10 feet of a home or business entrance.
This'll either encourage a few more homeless folks to find long-term solutions or just teach them to get better and faster at pitching tents, IMHO ...
Re: Crimes and other Violations of Law by Officers of Ocean Towers
Dear Mayor Holbrook:
I gather from your silence that neither you nor other officials of the City of Santa Monica have any intention of fulfilling your responsibilities to residents of Ocean Towers, despite overwhelming evidence of incessant criminal offenses and other violations of law by officers of Ocean Towers ...
Today mad props go to Beverly Hills City Manager Roderick Wood (a shortened version of that is certainly someone's porn name) for articulating my nagging unease with my recent forays into Mr. Wood's fair city. It is, apparently, those oh-so-pedestrian sidewalks. Mere concrete, it seems, is not sufficient to differentiate Rodeo Drive's extended collection of incredibly overpriced shops from anyone else's, and so Mr. Wood has fashioned a remarkably appropriate solution.
Okay, summer's officially over, all the demagogues are waking up from a well-earned nap and preparing to yell at each other (and us) again about immigration reform and how wrong the other guys are.
In addition to the Labor Day weekend immigration marches, I just got a press release emailed from ANSWER L.A. fairly shrieking that we should all "Protest Racist Minutemen in Maywood" when they arrive there for their own protest at 11 a.m. Saturday.
The L.A. Times' Steve Lopez went off Saturday about LAPD's Central Division was failing to stop drug sales from happening right under his indignant nose.
The LAPD snapped back today with a first-hand view of precisely how hard it is for cops alone to make a dent in a drug culture that runs through Skid Row like the grain in hardwood. Too bad, Steve: might as well bitch about the weather, for all the good it'll do. The problem is far deeper and worse than you'd like to have us believe.
UPDATE BELOWBy more than a few indicators, Skid Row is getting worse - despite a huge influx of cash, cops and care over the past year.
The Times unspools an excellent look at the LAPD crackdown on Skid Row crimes - big and small. *
It seems to be failing:
The Central Division has made about 7,000 arrests so far this year. During the same period in 2005 and 2004, there were more than 9,000, the department reported. That 23% drop comes at a time when arrests in the city as a whole are flat ...
The U.S. Library of Congress has posted "Los Angeles Mapped," a rich collection of historic, artistic and - in some cases - simply goofy maps of the city.
BoingBoing points out the 1942 map by Joseph Jacinto Mora, which is packed with historical detail and whimsy, including animated ballplayers at Wrigley Field and Will Rogers twirling a lariat.
This press release just came across my desk. The hundread-dollar-plate-fundraiser is just the latest attempt to fund a decade-old battle to keep the few remaining Lincoln Place tenants in their apartments.
Produced by a coalition of Venice "Progressives" and a number of prominent Westside and Hollywood Limo- Liberals, the event is evidently aimed at folks who don't actually need affordable housing themselves. But what the heck, if you have more disposable cash lying around than I do and this is something you feel strongly about, then I would encourage you to pony up and attend.....
How's the crime in your neighborhood? Do you feel safe walking at night? Leave your car unlocked? Keep the ground-floor windows open after dark?
If not, maybe you'll want to join the National Night Out, a sort of moral booster shot for neighborhood watch activities all over Los Angeles.
The LAPD Blog has a huge neighborhood-specific list (.PDF) of nearly 100 neighborhood meetings, block walks, pot lucks and candlelight vigils going on around the city tonight.
This trailer is worth a look: Erin Grayson - a tenant of the Lincoln Place Apartments in Venice that are slated by the management company for condo conversion - pulled together a documentary on the fight called "Venice Lobotomy." Here's a trailer, and a couple notes after the jump:
KCET's Life and Times just ran a segment on the ongoing clashes between artists, vendors and free-speech advocates who scramble for space on the Venice boardwalk.
They also asked me and a couple other folks, including blogging.la's Jillian Tate (a current Venetian) and longtime Venice activist (and sometime LAVoice contributor) Marta Evry, to comment.
Marta posted some fascinating - and kinda nauseating - observations about racist taunting among the vendors at a recent meeting:
The land of the filthy-stinking-rich and dirt-poor just snapped into sharper focus:
Zillow published a heat map of Los Angeles, showing where they all live - or rather, showing where the ones who can afford to buy houses live.
Dirt cheap: Downtown and the Inland Empire are mapped out to $150 to $299 a square foot, while - no surprise - homes are going for up to $1,199 a square foot in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica Malibu and assorted pockets of prime real estate all up and down the coast. There are a couple of weird little hotspots in WeHo and downtown, as well ...
She's in the hospital - apparently still alive after a guy with an assault rifle shot up a car in South Central this afternoon in an alleged gang shooting, and bullets passed through the car and hit the child in the abdomen and leg.
This makes two, now: LAPD detectives are still looking for leads - and dangling a $105,000 reward - in the case of a triple slaying on June 30. More if/as this develops.
The LAPD Blog just posted a mystery with a triste twist:
Witnesses said this guy was throwing himself on the ground in front of passing cars in Hollywood on Friday, June 9, and one of them finally hit him.
He's in a coma and police are trying to identify both him and the driver of the car that put him into the hospital:
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact West Traffic Detectives at 213-473-0234. On weekends and during off-hours, call West Traffic Division Watch Commander at 213-473-0222.
If L.A.'s a sprawling, complex city today, it's due largely to the fact that it has always been that way.
Brent C. Dickerson has built a brawling, pungent historic tour of old industrial-age Los Angeles bustling with horse and bicycle traffic,
Divided into 30 episodes, "A Visit to Old Los Angeles" walks you around downtown block by block with old photos, post cards, sound clips and text of a slightly bemused fin-de-siecle flavor:
A while back, I worked with computer researchers who warned that without proper safeguards, clever crooks could mesh two or three government databases and come up with virtually every shred of your personal data.
I just stumbled across another such resource - PropertyShark lets you look up the square footage, land value, tax status and, in some cases, phone number of virtually any house in Los Angeles.
I just spent half an hour checking out comps, peering at houses from our old West L.A. neighborhood (did we get a good price when we sold last year?) and generally being an evil snoop ...
Padlocks, bulldozers and real estate law be damned. The organizers and activists behind South Central Farmers failed bid to cling to their community garden are still at it.
They're still griping mightily about "backroom deals" and generally ignoring the fact that - in the end - they apparently pissed off David Horowitz to the point where he just didn't want to sell them the 14-acre plot where they'd been squatting rent-free for three years.
They're camping out outside the fence, tending crops and flowers they've planted in the 30-inch strip of parkway between curb and sidewalk, and generally refusing to give up. Protests are planned for this weekend, starting this morning at City Hall just minutes from now:
While the ambitious Grand Avenue Master Plan moves forward on well-greased bulldozer treads, there's still a little room for input:
A public hearing at 5:30 tonight is seeking your ideas for what to do with the big 16-acre park at the heart of the redevelopment plan, says Eric at Blogdowntown.
The city is planning to re-engineer the pedestrian shoulder along the eastern edge of Silver Lake Reservoir to make it safer for the hundreds of runners, bikers and dog-walkers who circle the lake at dawn and dusk.
The plan involves ripping out 23 old trees in order to shove the retaining wall away from traffic on Silver Lake Boulevard, replace them with new plantings, build a proper running path with curb and generally increase the distance between cars and bodies ...
Here's a thumbsucker for you: What makes a great walking neighborhood great? On that level, is Hollywood great? Could you live there - or anywhere in L.A. - without a car?
Council President Eric Garcetti's leading a walkabout of Hollywood this Saturday morning with a small group of architects and planners - and anyone else who wants to join in strolling the 'hood and trying to answer these philosophical questions:
Man, I'm torn: the outdoor smoking ban now blankets every city, county and state beach in L.A. County but three - Redondo, a sliver of Palos Verdes Estates and part of Leo Carrillo.
On the one hand, I'm sick of stumbling across stubbed-out butts in the surfline or my kids' sand castles. On the other hand, honestly, how much dangerous second-hand smoke can a single cigarette generate in a 22-knot offshore breeze? Might as well try to ban passing gas ...
Looks like property rights is L.A.'s issue of the week.
Consider this: Rocky Delgadillo's office sued a Van Nuys landlord company for forcing people out of rent-controlled apartments in upcoming neighborhoods so it could upgrade and rent the units at a higher "market rate."
On the one hand, rent control was established to prevent this very thing: kicking people out of their homes to make a profit. Condo conversions and runaway gentrification in L.A. neighborhoods ranging from Venice to downtown are forcing poorer families to move away from friends, family and businesses they've had for decades, and rapidly eroding the foothold in the city that many Angelenos have fought to maintain ...
If generator noise from late-night shoots downtown has ever ruined your sleep, this may interest you on a couple of levels:
Last January, Councilmembers Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti asked the DWP to look into a proposal by urban environmental firm Plasmatic Concepts to have the city install "infrastructure nodes" at prime downtown filming locations to provide water, power, storage and data to the film industry.
Okay, so it's a cliche, but for the South Central Farmers, it really is all over but for the shouting.
The L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't. evicted them and restored custody of the land to legal owner Ralph Horowitz. Bulldozers flattened much of the crops. The celebrity tree-sitters got booked and went home to regroup for a press conference about 50 minutes from now.
And the 40-odd protesters who got busted for lying in the middle of Alameda Street or bucking the LAPD signed whatever papers were necessary to move their cases into the court system ...
SOUTH CENTRAL FARMERS AND LINCOLN PLACE EVICTIONS -
OPEN LETTER TO ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA
From: Jim Smith
Memo to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:
Dear Brother Antonio,
It�s been a long time since our union days when we could sit down together and have a drink with friends while discussing the issues of the day. But if we could do it today, I'd like to steer the conversation to the South Central farmers <www.southcentralfarmers.com>, who are fighting to save L.A.'s largest urban farm and a source of nutritious food for poor people and to Lincoln Place <www.lincolnplace.net>, where tenants are fighting to save their homes and 696 affordable garden apartments. As you well know, there have been massive evictions at both Lincoln Place and the South Central Farm ...
UPDATES BELOW including news that the landowner set a price, then balked when the Annenberg Fondation offered to meet it.
Looks like all those flyovers by L.A. County Sheriff's choppers were recon missions:
Sheriff's deputies began evictingevicted the South Central Farmers at around dawn this morning from the 13-acre industrial lot where they've built a farm over the past 14 years - and been squatting since the city sold the land in 2003.
Arrests have been made, bulldozers are in position flattening the crops, and the eviction is continuing at this hour, Fernando Flores reports on the farm's web site:
LASD chopper scoping out the South Central Farm
(image via LAIndymedia)
It's been an interesting week for the South Central Farmers, who continue to wait for sheriff's deputies to evict them on a court order handed down three weeks ago:
When a kid is murdered, L.A. goes looking for culprits:
While Westside detectives are searching for the kid who actually shot 17-year-old Venice High student Agustin Contreras to death Monday, everyone else in the realms of L.A. power and influence has been searching for the Real Killers - the systemic breakdown or social tension that put the shooter's finger on the trigger.
But Agustin's death doesn't fit into the neat little blame box that LAUSD and the less-introspective news media were hoping for:
Nearly 1 million L.A. County residents seek help from soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters every year - 34% of them with at least college or trade school education.
The costs of gasoline, housing and food are driving up hunger rates to the point where 957,000 people have to lean on the system to put food on their plates, says "Hunger in Los Angeles County 2006," PDF), a report from the L.A. Regional Food Bank ...
Yeah, something's afoot - bureaucratic perfect storms, satanic gremlins in the election machinery, I have no idea.
Because in addition to last night's Diebold shocker, my poll experience today was completely SNAFU'd for a while.
We moved to Silver Lake in December, finally got around to changing our DMV info in March. But in the two and a half months since then, we never got confirmation of our voter registration - let alone a sample ballot or the ceremonial cartload of 4-color campaign junk mail.
I checked the voter rolls at our polling place on Rowena - nope, the previous occupant is still registered at this address. So I set off across town to our old polling place on the West side ...
After years of planning, lobbying, cajoling, and intense opposition, the mall giant's plan to gut and rebuild Santa Monica Place with 21 story condo/retail/office towers is dead. Today's LA Times reports that the company will come up with a more modest redesign of the Santa Monica mall - open air, more unusual shops, a third-floor food court with ocean views, and a connection from the mall to the Third Street Promenade and the ocean.
Cool: The LAFD's Engine Co. 9 has the words "Skid Row" proudly painted on its engines and rescue vehicles.
Lame: Some nannyhead griped long and loud enough to the city that the department is now planning to erase the words because they're somehow offensive ...
I've been wondering lately why the L.A. County Sheriff's Department has held off on evicting the South Central Farmers from the 14-acre plot they've been borrowing from landowner Ralph Horowitz for the past 13 years. (Anyone have information on that? Please comment.)
If it's a tactical move, it may have been a mistake, because the farmers and activists have dug in:
I love downtown Los Angeles in the summer - there are so many things to see and do. The LA Dept of Parks and Recreation are kicking things off by throwing an event in Pershing Square called "Meet Your Neighbors" on Saturday, June 3, 2006. Their website encourages attendees to "pack a picnic, take an L.A. Conservancy tour, and listen to live music", among other things, between noon and 4pm on Saturday.
If you want a glimpse of downtown L.A.'s future, the L.A. Downtown News' new Development section is a good place to start:
LADN lists 156 active projects including a 512-bed jail next to Parker Center, a $4M renovation of the L.A. Theatre Center (why don't they spell it theatre centre? Just asking) and the Anschutz Entertainment Group's megalithic, 4-million-square-foot L.A. Live center.
As of today, L.A. Live's multi-use sports-and-entertainmment center is just a bustling hole in the ground (see right) ...
By the time you read this, the demonstration to save the South Central Farm (downtown @Figueroa & Pico) may already be over.
There's a little ticker running on the farm's home page: At this second, it says, "Only 2 days, 15 hours, 13 minutes and 49 seconds left to Save the Farm."
Monday morning, the clock runs out for the 30-day grace period the Trust for Public Land had won for the farmers to give them more time to scrape enough money to buy the land from owner Ralph Horowitz - who plans to build warehouses there ...
And unlike the stomping murder last week of Kristi Morales, these two have no positive ID's yet. Just two more lives wiped out. Make of it what you will ...
What do you get when you mix chronic drug abusers, alcoholics, mentally ill individuals, young families in transition, newly emancipated youth, youth transitioning out of group homes, and those who are homeless because they just got out of prison/jail? Skid Row! That is the demographic and dynamic of Skid Row. And that is what is planned for the Gower Street "Demonstration" project - Permanent Supportive Housing for Chronically Homeless Adults. All of these individuals will live together under one roof ...
On top of evidence that the Southern California housing market is slowing down, yesterday's Los Angeles Times had, tucked away on page C3, a little blurb with the oh-so-nonchalant headline, "Mortgage Defaults Rise in State."
Ask yourself: Has the high (if falling) number of murders in Los Angeles completely numbed your reaction to the point where news of a killing is no more shocking than a traffic report - sort of a flesh fender-bender? Just so much background noise?
I just stumbled across a couple of items that made me wonder, too: The L.A. Police Commission finally answered homicide commanders who were begging for more "cold-case" detectives ($767,000 worth per year) to handle evidence against sex-slaying suspects - including four serial killers ...
L.A. is full of characters - public figures, stone weirdos and street cartoons.
You grin or grimace when you see them, wonder who they really are underneath the "act," register them as part of the streetscape and take them for granted. One such character just died, reports Will Campbell, who never took the guy for granted.
Will noticed "El Circo Loco" missing from Silver Lake. He inquired of the L.A. County Coroner's office. And he delivers a lovely, bittersweet elegy for the odd, squinty guy in the technicolor toreador costume, whose legal name we learn was "Antonio Ruiz" and who may have OD'd ...
Looks like the South Central Farm is still clinging to its disputed turf while lawyers for the 300+ farmers duke it out in court with landowner Ralph Horowitz Shapiro. They're not too happy with SFV councilman Dennis Zine's noisy rant against them a couple weeks ago, either:
Meanwhile, Perry Crowe writes in L.A. City Beat that farmers camping nights at SCF got a Late-night drive-by from Councilman Dennis Zine. Only problem was, he was traveling in an unmarked LAPD unit, wearing an LAPD raid jacket, with two cops - one of whom drew a handgun on a 13-year-old girl ...
If you're somehow well-off enough to be saving up to buy a home in Los Angeles, this news might make you wait a bit longer:
Bank foreclosures on defaulted mortgages are up by 63% this quarter over the first quarter of 2005, thanks to everyone overextending their buying power with too much credit and aggressive financing, according to DefaultResearch.com.
Pare away the commercial foreclosures and you're looking at 77 percent increase in defaults on single-family homes and an 88% jump in foreclosures on duplexes ...
Yes the title of this article is true. There was an art exhibit hosted by Maestro Cafe on Saturday, April the 15th. The art exhibit was showing life and figure drawings by students of the Maestro's Fine Arts Program (presented by Art Center College of Design). I was invited so I decided to go check it out with my friends.
I did not expect it to be so great. I knew there were some talented ghetto kids in the classes but the degree of talent strewn across the walls in nude and clothed model drawings was incredible. The place was swarming with people. It smelled like sweat, coffee, and drawing pencils ...
I was wandering around the web tonight as I relaxed after coming home from work, trying to find information on the new Arroyo Seco Historical Parkway signs (which I just saw tonight) and on the U.S. Bank Tower changing its lights back to white, from the blue last week.
I stumbled on Caltrans's District 7 Rental Properties and thought, ooh? Maybe Caltrans is renting stuff out for under market value. I am blissfully happy where I live now, but shoot, if Caltrans has got a house they're renting out for cheap I would be all for that. Plus I know that Caltrans owns a bunch of the nice Pasadena and South Pasadena property along the defunct 710 extension, and usually government stuff is cheaper than retail...
I was one of about 15 people to speak at a Planning Department hearing in favor of downzoning a chunk of our cluttered little residential hillside from commercial to residential.
As I've noted before, my new neighbors already shot down plans last spring to build two big apartment buildings with a total of 40 units near the base of the hill.
The rezoning (headed for a full Planning Commission hearing on June 8) would make it basically impossible to build almost anything but single-family homes on the hill - and if you've ever driven any of those streets, you'd probably agree that's a very good thing ...
Maybe you've always thought of office-tower security guards as guys who flunked the LAPD entrance exam (or were "retired early" from the department) and now spend their worknights sucking doobies and snoozing with their bootheels up on the spycam monitors.
You thought wrong. Turns out they're supposed to be patrolling their turf like growling, hair-trigger Rottweilers, ever-vigilant for signs of terrorist infiltration. Too bad the turnover rate for security guards is 243%.
Councilman Eric Garcetti blogs that he and Jack Weiss want to change all that by beefing up training and job-retention efforts for private security firms so they can work more closely with firefighters and cops if/when the someone actually approaches the Library Tower with wicked intentions ...
It's getting easier to get online around greater L.A. without being tied to your office. This is either a good thing - you can work outdoors or over a cup of coffee for free - or a bad thing: you're never far from the obligations and distractions of your online life.
Latest add: Santa Monica has been hooking up free hotspots at places like Third Street Promenade and the city's library and Virginia Avenue Park, reports the Lookout.
Next up: Civic Center, the Ken Edwards Community Center and the Santa Monica Pier and the City Hall courtyard ...
The Times posted L.A. County's list of 14 possible sites to be picked for expansion into the five regional multi-service centers needed for its ambitious and politically risky $100-million homeless stabilization plan.
I threw together a map of the sites with the Google API that shows their precise locations - which you might want to check against your own address - and some interesting distribution patterns:
Obviously there's a good concentration downtown, where most of the county's estimated 80,000 homeless people now live ...
I'll never forget the first night I rolled into LA from the midwest back in 1993. I was fresh off a dead marriage, most everything I would still own was jammed into my Camry, and it was Valentine's Day. I had made a reservation for that first night at a random Ramada Inn (this was seriously pre-Internet everywhere)... in West Hollywood, an area I knew nothing about, being from conservative ol' Cincinnati and all. I unpacked and headed to the closest bar, which just happened to be The Palm on Santa Monica. Needless to say, I was the only cajone-sporting biped in the place and just couldn't get my bearings. I think I finally gave up after the bouncer's fourth round of "are you SURE you want a beer in THIS bar?" It was full of women, and not a guy in sight -- of course, I did! LOL ...
This should be interesting: new L.A. City Planner Gail Goldberg will unveil her "vision for Los Angeles" Thursday evening at (of all places) The L.A. Zoo, RowenaCommunityVision reports.
Goldberg, you may recall was the San Diego City planner who encouraged the development philosophy of "villages" in her former city - pedestrian-friendly collections of housing, businesses, schools and public facilities fed by mass transit ...
Just finished riding the L.A. Treasure Hunt - a twisting 25-mile bike cruise through Echo Park, Los Feliz, Griffith Park, Silver Lake, downtown, MacArthur Park, more downtown and Chinatown.
Kicked off with free tamales at Echo Park Lake and framed as a scavenger hunt to collect food and toiletries benefitting the Union Rescue Mission, the ride was everything a good, intimate 2-wheeled journey through this city should be: colorful, smelly, joyous, dangerous, painful, grimy and rewarding.
We had crystal-blue skies and cool destinations and nobody in our crew got doored ...
There are lots of very cool business establishments opening up in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles City Council District 14. One of my favorites was Dante's Chicken and Ribs which until last month was a great place to get ribs on Eagle Rock's main drag (Colorado Boulevard). I guess I'll have to get my ribs at Original Texas Barbecue King on Cesar Chavez Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. I'd love to hear from other Angelenos where you think the best ribs in town are.
On Sunday afternoon, there will be a rally in Hollywood to protest the proposed taking of Bernard's Luggage (and other small businesses) to make way for a City-sponsored "W" hotel. Details are ...
For years now, I have heard all the hubbub about how Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills is the place to "
, checked out Google Maps and made the thirty minute walk to Vista north of Hollywood.
Today mad props go to Beverly Hills City Manager Roderick Wood (a shortened version of that is certainly someone's porn name) for articulating my nagging unease with my recent forays into Mr. Wood's fair city. It is, apparently, those oh-so-pedestrian sidewalks. Mere concrete, it seems, is not sufficient to differentiate Rodeo Drive's extended collection of incredibly overpriced shops from anyone else's, and so Mr. Wood has fashioned a remarkably appropriate solution.
