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Topic Archive: Physical Los Angeles
Rafting (or canoeing, kayaking, etc) the Los Angeles River is one of the old standby L.A. feature stories that some journalist will propose every few...
Posted April 29, 2008 07:15 PM
The Los Angeles Conservancy is out with its preservation award winners for the 27th year. Of the residential restoration of the Eastern Columbia building downtown,...
Posted March 27, 2008 11:35 AM
As a reporter, I liked to write about L.A's infrastructure — freeways, water, refuse. I always thought there was a book in the history of...
Posted March 26, 2008 12:58 PM
Demolition didn't take long. A crew took down the scaffolding yesterday, leaving a bare lot at the corner of Gayley and Lindbrook where the newest,...
Posted March 20, 2008 11:45 PM
A San Marino home has about a million bees buzzing around it — in the walls and in the house — and honey is oozing...
Posted March 12, 2008 09:53 AM
Donna Barstow takes some pics and blogs her thoughts about the Department of Water and Power....
Posted March 7, 2008 04:57 PM
High waves are pounding the coast and rip currents are making the sea more treacherous than usual. Piers at Manhattan Beach and Seal Beach were...
Posted February 25, 2008 08:52 AM
With seven residential projects containing 900 units already under construction — and another two dozen projects approved — the most upscale shopping street across the...
Posted February 24, 2008 12:18 PM
One of my favorite quirky L.A. public sculptures — the gold panner of Carthay Circle — has been stolen and recovered. The bronze cast in...
Posted February 15, 2008 04:45 PM
The first of hundreds of stores to get a toned-down design hoping people will stick around is located off the 60 freeway in Hacienda Heights....
Posted February 14, 2008 01:48 PM
Crews are on hand today at the old Ambassador Hotel site on Wilshire Boulevard, taking down the Cocoanut Grove, ballrooms and last remaining remnants. The...
Posted February 12, 2008 01:43 PM
Who knew? I'm told, by Los Angeles poet Richard Beban, that this morning's verse about opossums was no lone wolf. He says there is something...
Posted January 30, 2008 04:29 PM
In The Oldest Living Thing in L.A., Larry Levis observes an opossum trying to cross Wilshire and Santa Monica. Sample: A few steps forward, then...
Posted January 30, 2008 08:21 AM
Jay Babcock at Nature Trumps: An L.A. River Blog posts this scene from November, looking upstream from the footbridge toward Los Feliz Boulevard and the...
Posted January 26, 2008 03:16 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa announced some road closures in the park as the rains continue. “The park has experienced some minor to moderate debris flows and flooding...
Posted January 25, 2008 02:15 PM
Spotted in the Daily Breeze, by staff photographer Robert Casillas....
Posted January 8, 2008 09:10 AM
One of the most unusual, and storied, commercial buildings on Wilshire Boulevard is back on the market. The one-story, ranch-style office complex at the southeast...
Posted January 7, 2008 01:24 PM
The DWP has decided to dump all the water in Silver Lake and the Elysian reservoir because of unusually high traces of the carcinogen bromate,...
Posted December 14, 2007 04:59 PM
Editorial judgment or just luck? I dunno, but the big story on the cover of the November issue of Los Angeles (ignore John Cusack) is...
Posted October 22, 2007 10:45 PM
It's going to be windy in a big way this weekend. The National Weather Service this morning posted an upgraded high wind warning for the...
Posted October 20, 2007 11:36 AM
The newest feature on the Los Angeles skyline is something old. Congratulations to Amy Inouye, the artist whose years-long project to reunite L.A. with Chicken...
Posted October 18, 2007 02:10 PM
Westwood Village's Mann National closed in April, reopened a little later as an indy screen and apparently locked the doors again on Oct. 7. Not...
Posted October 16, 2007 01:28 PM
La Fonda de Los Camperos has been fighting eviction from its historic building at Wilshire and Carondelet, but the restaurant and its world-famous Mariachi Los...
Posted October 14, 2007 11:20 PM
The band will headline a benefit concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Oct. 14 to raise money for rebuilding the Garfield High School auditorium that...
Posted September 29, 2007 09:20 PM
Emily Banneker at Blogging.la is bummed that L.A. Freeway Kids, the 1984 Olympics-era mural that adorned a south wall of the Hollywood Freeway (or Santa...
Posted September 27, 2007 11:13 PM
In his talk today at Town Hall Los Angeles, Times publisher David Hiller said he may launch a free tabloid patterned after the Tribune's Redeye...
Posted September 27, 2007 09:31 PM
Oh my God. Spotted in Valencia (also seen over the weekend in malls all over the Valley.) Photo: Daily News / David Crane...
Posted September 18, 2007 08:54 AM
A three-judge panel of the state's Second District Court of Appeal sided with local groups and the city of Santa Monica and ordered that construction...
Posted September 13, 2007 11:12 PM
The largest pre-industrial metropolis in the world, in today's Cambodia, relied on elaborate waterworks — and died away in the 16th century after "overpopulation and...
Posted August 13, 2007 10:55 PM
Retired L.A. Times garden editor Robert Smaus has moved to the Pacific Northwest and says goodbye to the soil of Rancho Park in a piece...
Posted August 9, 2007 11:31 AM
David Markland posts at Metroblogging L.A. that the circa-1925 Rialto Theatre on Fair Oaks Avenue will be shuttered by its operator, Landmark Theatres. It's a...
Posted August 9, 2007 08:45 AM
Nice of a little overnight rain to clean the sky. This time of year our murky air is mostly old-fashioned smog, stuck in the basin...
Posted July 23, 2007 08:28 AM
It's not as classic as Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, but a YouTube user named Meadowlawn has posted a video of downtown's Broadway district as...
Posted July 11, 2007 10:37 AM
Amy Alkon, the syndicated Advice Goddess and blogger, was the first reader to identify Charles Dickson's Martin Luther King Memorial in Watts. The sculpture bears...
Posted July 9, 2007 11:55 PM
There's a cool story behind this piece of street art located somewhere in Los Angeles. Be the first to email with the location and win...
Posted July 9, 2007 01:57 AM
Garden expert Lili Singer acknowledges that the opossums that roam Los Angeles at night look like bloated rats, but she's a fan nonetheless. The first...
Posted June 28, 2007 10:43 AM
A tribute to the history of the gardeners — Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden — opens on Sunday at the Japanese American National Museum...
Posted June 15, 2007 12:14 AM
Andrew at Here in Van Nuys blogs about a home in Studio City where the front exterior has been completely sheathed in 16-by-16 inch marble...
Posted June 6, 2007 02:43 PM
The L.A. Weekly's David Zahniser is out with a cluster of stories on one of the least talked-about big stories in Los Angeles: the push...
Posted May 31, 2007 08:56 AM
Veronique de Turenne at Here in Malibu says signs are posted everywhere about the year-old German shepherd taken by a 50-ish overweight woman with bleached...
Posted May 30, 2007 06:55 PM
Our long reptilian nightmare is over — they caught Reggie this afternoon. The alligator dumped in Machado Lake way back in ought five — and...
Posted May 24, 2007 05:52 PM
Environmental rehab of the Santa Susana Field Lab site in the West Valley has been inadequate, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti ruled. He told...
Posted May 3, 2007 07:58 AM
It's retro month at LA Observed. First Sharon Tay returns, now Reggie the wayward alligator has apparently been spotted at Lake Machado in Harbor City...
Posted April 30, 2007 04:09 PM
Sen. Dianne Feinstein's opposition on behalf of neighbors posed too great an obstacle and the FBI will look for another location to build its new...
Posted April 27, 2007 08:55 AM
That was a little 3.1 earthquake at 12:30, centered just northwest of San Fernando. Here in Westwood, some in the same office did feel it...
Posted April 23, 2007 12:39 PM
Curbed LA designates the off-putting, easily ignored mall known as Hollywood & Highland: It's not based purely on aesthetics, that we can all agree. There...
Posted April 17, 2007 11:28 PM
There has been at least one home heavily damaged and roof fires are reported on others along North Beverly Drive in the Franklin Canyon area...
Posted April 12, 2007 02:29 PM
Times columnist Steve Lopez, looking for an angle, went out to Malibu to check out the hard-to-reach public beach near Tribune buyer Sam Zell's estate....
Posted April 6, 2007 09:26 AM
Needing to escape Los Angeles for a few hours, Judy and I took the Amtrak Surfliner to San Diego and back on Saturday. During a...
Posted April 1, 2007 11:03 PM
Inspectors poking around to find out why a big piece of plaster fell off the Theme Building at LAX discovered pervasive rust damage. Encounter, the...
Posted March 8, 2007 10:38 PM
Designer and blogger Marc Grobman (the guy campaigning to de-uglify Donald Sterling's Times ads) became so curious about the crows invading his Santa Monica neighborhood...
Posted February 20, 2007 01:26 PM
TJ Sullivan catches it over Century City last evening. Full size here. Photo: TJ Sullivan...
Posted February 14, 2007 02:19 AM
Results are in for The History Channel’s City of the Future design competition. On-line voters selected Chicago the winner. New York came in second. The...
Posted February 8, 2007 09:49 PM
Still only moderate by the way the National Drought Mitigation Center classifies things, but that darker brown shade to the east and south of us...
Posted February 6, 2007 11:45 AM
If you are waiting for some big rain to come along and deep-soak your trees, don't. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just cancelled its...
Posted February 2, 2007 01:55 AM
Kim Masters writes in Slate that the I.M. Pei-designed former Creative Artists Agency home on Wilshire is nothing but trouble. First, co-owners Michael Ovitz and...
Posted January 26, 2007 11:07 AM
Children who grow up close to busy highways "have significant impairments in the development of their lungs that can lead to respiratory problems for the...
Posted January 26, 2007 10:51 AM
Back in the middle of last week I received a prophetic email from Beverly Hills lawyer Eric Spiegelman. From: Eric Spiegelman Sent: Thursday, January 11,...
Posted January 18, 2007 04:23 AM
Not just a little bit either. There was a snow plow working on Kanan-Dume Road this afternoon, and lots of school kids at play beside...
Posted January 17, 2007 05:01 PM
There's been some in the Santa Clarita area, apparently. (SCVTalk says it's hail.) The National Weather Service at 9:30 issued a winter weather advisory for...
Posted January 17, 2007 10:11 AM
Some lovely holiday finds around the LA Observed blogs: On old Mulholland: Veronique de Turenne ventured into the hills above Malibu in search of The...
Posted January 15, 2007 06:41 PM
Regarding the bad smell on Wilshire, an employee of KNX NewsRadio emails that it's definitely coming from the excavation at Wilshire and Hauser. In this...
Posted January 12, 2007 10:17 AM
"Potentially record-setting cold conditions," the National Weather Service says in a special weather statement for the Los Angeles area — and not just in the...
Posted January 11, 2007 03:41 PM
Variety and the other occupants of 5700 Wilshire Boulevard have been alerted to a funky odor in the neighborhood almost across from the La Brea...
Posted January 11, 2007 02:28 PM
Climatologists say the odds are that this year will be the hottest on record, based on a resurgent El Niño in the Pacific and global...
Posted January 5, 2007 12:58 PM
Cybele's off-shore report at Metroblogging L.A. says that 20 gray whales have been spotted traveling south across Santa Monica Bay this week, one has been...
Posted January 3, 2007 11:14 AM
Yesterday's New York Times offered some backhanded praise of Los Angeles architecture, with writer Robin Pogrebin taking the position that L.A. design is leaving the...
Posted December 26, 2006 04:55 PM
Greg Goldin, the architecture critic for Los Angeles magazine, thinks outside the box in today's West and defends the McMansions that have been altering Los...
Posted December 17, 2006 04:39 PM
Curbed LA has the skinny and the renderings of the proposed new Midtown Crossing where Pico, Venice and San Vicente come together. Lowe's will anchor....
Posted December 13, 2006 04:12 PM
From Eric Lynxwiler at LottaLiving.com I learned that this classic-style, fully functioning neon sign on the Rose Motel in Harbor City was taken down before...
Posted December 5, 2006 09:14 PM
Dockweiler State Beach and the northern half of Manhattan Beach — from Ballona Creek south to the Manhattan Beach Pier — will be posted with...
Posted November 27, 2006 11:36 AM
Jenny Price's detailed directions on how to find and get into Malibu's less-well-marked beaches pretty much nixes any chance that David Geffen would give up...
Posted November 27, 2006 12:18 AM
Around the grassier neighborhoods of Los Angeles, November means the unpleasant aroma of lawns being fertilized, Native Intelligence contributor Denise Hamilton writes on today's Times...
Posted November 7, 2006 01:35 AM
This was the warmest November 6 in downtown Los Angeles since 1898. It was 91 by the ocean at LAX and 90 in Westwood —...
Posted November 6, 2006 05:49 PM
Thick, soupy fog used to cover parts of Los Angeles a few dozen times a year and interfere with traffic at LAX. Not so much...
Posted November 6, 2006 10:07 AM
If I had the power, I would fly Martin Schall to Los Angeles and present him a key to the city. Herr Schall, as LA...
Posted October 27, 2006 02:10 AM
Mayor Villaraigosa returned to City Hall today almost giddy from his fortnight in Asia. Flanked by twenty fellow travelers, the mayor met the media this...
Posted October 23, 2006 05:22 PM
USA Today jumps on the palm tree story, pointing out that demand in Las Vegas and Arizona has pushed prices to $20,000 for some Canary...
Posted September 14, 2006 09:38 AM
Check out Veronique's photo of a monarch butterfly and sunflower at Here in Malibu....
Posted August 28, 2006 11:55 PM
The Daily Breeze gathers together all the reports of big cat sightings through the years on the Palos Verdes peninsula — and official assurances that...
Posted August 28, 2006 09:53 AM
It's been awhile since those mysterious smells wafted over Los Angeles, but Long Beach firefighters were dispatched this week to look for the cause of...
Posted August 25, 2006 12:16 PM
Blogger Tim McGarry at Angels and Vagabonds captures the trees in Windsor Square, near the mayor's official residence. "The camphor trees along Sixth, among the...
Posted August 24, 2006 11:14 PM
There's no denying that palm trees are an iconic feature of the Los Angeles landscape, despite being non-native and ecologically almost worthless. In this week's...
Posted August 24, 2006 10:49 AM
Every summer it seems the whale boat captains talk up sightings of blue whales out in the channel. This year Channel 4 has video....
Posted July 13, 2006 09:49 AM
This morning on KPCC's "Airtalk," Prof. Robert Bruegmann will explain and probably defend his thesis that "sprawl is not the worst thing that ever happened...
Posted July 11, 2006 02:46 AM
Seven members of a family hiking at Hansen Dam in Lake View Terrace had to be rescued by LAFD helicopter Sunday night after becoming stuck...
Posted July 10, 2006 11:18 AM
Good guesses on the corporate name that used to adorn (or despoil) the Wilson Building before Mutual of Omaha, Asashi and Samsung: it was General...
Posted July 7, 2006 03:24 PM
At one time Wilshire and LaBrea was the most heavily traveled intersection in the city. It's still plenty busy, as marketers for Asahi Beer learned...
Posted July 6, 2006 12:35 PM
Michael Walker at Laurel Canyon the Book hopes the cat run over on Barham Boulevard wasn't the one that had been using his lower deck....
Posted June 27, 2006 03:58 PM
If it's clear tomorrow night, start eyeing the western sky after 7 pm. Vandenberg has scheduled the launch of a Delta IV rocket between 19:00...
Posted June 26, 2006 03:17 PM
Since we're talking cats this week, a reader in Glendale passes along more sightings: No photographic evidence; but up here on the shoulder of the...
Posted June 23, 2006 02:33 PM
Wednesday's Morning Buzz reprinted an email from the president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council warning residents that a dog had fallen prey to...
Posted June 22, 2006 11:25 PM
© 2003-2008 • About LA Observed • Contact the editor
| This time, two Romanians have dismissed their discrimination and fraud case against the film's producers. Nicolae Todorache and Spiridom Ciorebea,...
| Gas prices ease: Not that you'll notice. The Auto Club survey shows that the average price of self-serve regular gasoline...
| Those who say we in LA don't read have obviously never parallel parked on our streets, where we not only read, but debate the subtext and hidden meanings intended by the author.
| Pretty sure I was sitting behind Andrew and Brian Kamenetzky this afternoon, but not positive.
| The annual event could make its way to the Nokia Theatre in 2009
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