Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
After a City Hall panel voted Thursday to take over Hollywood's Florentine Gardens and build a new fire station, fans of the club began shouting "Shame! Shame!" then adjourned to the sidewalk—led by a man dressed as Charlie Chaplin and another as Sylvester Stallone. Outside, they took up the old Cesar Chavez chant "Sí, se puede" and marched around City Hall, but ran into a simulated protest complete with picket signs being filmed for the television show "Cold Case." Writes Jessica Garrison in the Times:
The actors stopped to let the real protesters go about their business.
She says that Florentine Gardens opened as a nightclub in 1938 and "became the toast of Hollywood's golden age. Al Jolson sang there. Marilyn Monroe held her first wedding reception there..."