Judy Graeme noticed an especially bad sidewalk rupture on Prosser Avenue, just below Pico in Rancho Park.
As the centerpiece of an end-of-year ritual it really works, says a writer.
O'Brien, Nick Offerman and Patton Oswalt will take part in a family-friendly benefit for the Geffen Playhouse Story Pirates Play/Write program.
I guess it's good news that the president's main venue on Feb. 15 will be in Holmby Hills, at the home of soap opera producer and writer Bradley Bell and his wife Colleen.
The secret City Council district maps were released publicly today, revealing whose ox is being gored. As she foreshadowed, Councilwoman Jan Perry is among the gored.
Armin Mueller-Stahl, the German actor who has settled in Pacific Palisades, recently returned to his birthplace in East Prussia to receive honorary citizenship. Oh, but it's so much more complicated than that.

A new history book, UCLA: The First Century, has hundreds of photographs of the campus through the years, but this might be my favorite.

A Venice landscape designer has a Facebook album of almost two dozen dog noses poking out as she walks by.
Celestino Drago has decided not to renew the lease for Drago on Wilshire Boulevard.
Mr. Cecil's Ribs on Pico is gone and Orris is going. But there are a couple of fresh new entries in Westwood Village.
Metro says it has no cause yet for the failure of a retaining wall section on the 405 freeway improvement project in Sepulveda Pass.
Meg Sullivan photograph from the Rancho Park neighborhood.
Confirming what we reported in October, Barnes & Noble stores CEO Mitchell Klipper says the only reason the store is leaving Westside Pavilion is the mall's rent hike when the...
Main Street, Santa Monica by Judy Graeme.
The Expo Line has taken its next big step on the path from construction project to actual light-rail transit line.
LA Observed readers have known since October about the Westside Pavilion store shutting down.
The 28-story condo tower once proposed for the vacant northeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Barrington Avenue has been downscaled to a six-story apartment building.
The worst of the bunch, in the latest Texas Transportation Institute study, is supposedly the stretch of the 110 Freeway from Interstate 10 to the Dodger Stadium exit at Stadium Way.
The California Public Utilities Commission gave its go-ahead to the grade crossings proposed for the second phase of the Expo Line, west from Culver City across the Westside to Santa Monica.
Time-lapse video of the tear-down work on the north side of the Sunset bridge.
LAPD K-9 units last week escorted the delivery of what the flackage calls 60 German Shepherds from a dog boarding facility in downtown.
Hushed talk has been around for a few weeks, but now the red clearance signs have gone up — 30 percent off on a lot of books — and store clerks acknowledged the news today.
KCET producer Karen Foshay Kolesnikow and friends made this video as a school fundraiser.
L.A. gets acquainted with a new level of Obamajam while President Obama himself stops for takeout and politics at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles.
A byproduct of the geological research for Metro's Westside subway extension is that the northern end of the deadly Newport-Inglewood Fault is better understood by scientists.
Josh Stephens, the editor of the California Planning and Development Report, set up a recent event to brainstorm solutions to the decline of Westwood Village with a revealing passage on how much they are needed.
Metro's experts panel of seismologists, geologists and engineers also says tunneling poses no threat to Beverly Hills High School.
Robert Redford romps on the roof and inside the Village movie theatre in Westwood in a 1965 clip shot by actor Roddy McDowall.
Only about 12 of the 275 union workers who were laid off when the Hotel Bel-Air closed for renovations two years ago have been rehired
On- and off-ramps serving Sunset Boulevard at the 405 freeway will start closing Friday for 14-day periods of rebuilding. It's the other shoe falling from the earlier demolition of half...
If you were caught in traffic near Sunset Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Brentwood between 9:30 and 10 a.m., that was just President Obama heading for his helicopter.
So far the timing of the president's moves across the Westside seems to be smooth and on schedule.
Coming up on my Monday KCRW commentary: why presidential visits are mainly traffic events for Angelenos, and why they also tend to create the worst jams.
President Obama woke up in San Francisco, is in La Jolla now for a fundraising lunch and will be in L.A. this afternoon.
Presidential visits (of both parties) typically create the most intense surface street traffic jams most of us have ever seen in L.A., but they tend to be localized and avoidable if you just plan ahead.
Check out the car hanging over the edge of a parking structure on Wilshire Boulevard near Veteran Avenue in Westwood.
The City Project has posted a series of photos of wall art that has been popping up in Westwood Village.
In my Monday afternoon column coming up on KCRW, I praise today's Expo Line groundbreaking in Santa Monica — and the Libros Schmibros bookstore at the Hammer Museum.
As part of David Kipen's Libros Schmibros pop-up bookstore at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, artist and author J. Michael Walker created a map that spans 23 feet by 5 feet that depicts L.A. literary figures.
The proposed Gayley at Wilshire would be wedged into an irregular-shaped-lot at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Gayley Avenue formerly occupied by a video store and gas station.
"The feeling is that this could be much worse" than Carmageddon, says the president of the Westwood Homeowners Association.
With so many NPR staffers in town the past week, L.A. stories are getting a good ride on the network.
Now that the big media event is over, it's back to the routine closures that users of the 405 freeway have experienced over the past several months. Here's tonight's partial list.
It's been real quiet across the Westside with no 405 freeway spewing white noise for miles around. Villaraigosa thanks "the people of Los Angeles for doing their part."
It's not bad out there. I came over Sepulveda Pass about 2 o'clock, and except for what seemed to be a bit of lookie-loo slowdown on both sides approaching the...
With the final election night ballots counted, and most of the mail-ins tabulated, the county registrar says it's 54.56 percent for Democrat Janice Hahn and 45.44 percent for Republican Craig Huey.
The Automobile Club of Southern California Archives have some stunning photos from the years in which the L.A. area was discovering its relationship with the car. Like this one.
Metro has posted a six-page fact sheet on construction of the Westside subway extension, a project whose future is still tied to decisions yet to be made in Congress.
The latest news and gimmicks on the coming 405 shutdown, including the LAPD asks a favor of Lady Gaga.
The Google street view glimpse of the Santa Monica apartment house where Boston crime boss James Bulger was living shows a unit for lease sign up.
Bulger, a fugitive since 1994, was reportedly arrested tonight in Santa Monica, the L.A. Times says citing "multiple law enforcement sources."
A robber hit the Fast Fix jewelry store in the Westfield Century City outdoor shopping mall about noon today, and while running to a waiting car he fired one shot in the air as a security guard gave chase.
Craig Huey, the Republican running against Janice Hahn in the 36th congressional district, says he had nothing to do with it and called the video "inappropriate [and] highly offensive."
"It's how we live on the Westside of L.A....pay my 80 bucks for six things and get the heck out."
Richard Bloom is getting in the race to succeed the terming-out Julie Brownley. Torie Osborn, the onetime adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, is also in.
In tonight's column I visit Pacific Palisades, one of the city's richest corners, and hang around the bookstore the community could not keep open.
How LAX is planning for the worst weekend ever. Isn't it weird how the best job of covering the 405 freeway construction disruption so far hasn't been by any traditional media at all, but by the websites of Metro and of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky?
Katie O'Laughlin announced today "with great regret and sadness" that she will close Village Books on June 30, after fourteen years in Pacific Palisades.
Gjelina's no substitution policy has always been ridiculously amateurish, but this time the Venice hot spot did its Menu Nazi act on Victoria Beckham. And Gordon Ramsay.
A three-car train is due to be tested on Metro's new Expo Line between today and Thursday.
The county's Department of Beaches and Harbors website blames "budget curtailments" for the cancellation of the traditional beachfront fireworks show.
When was the last time you saw a news release issued jointly by Caltrans, Metro, the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. Fire Department?
The MTA board passed its largest annual budget ever, held fares at current levels, gave support to — but declined to fund — a Crenshaw rail station at Leimert Park, and approved 7.7 miles of interrupted peak-hour bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard.
It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better — and be prepared for two years of disruption near the busiest intersection in Los Angeles.
A Notice of Intent to Circulate a Petition that would make most circumcision a misdemeanor was filed with the city of Santa Monica this week.
It will be Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey in the July 12 runoff to succeed Jane Harman in Congress.
The only real surprise is that Craig Huey, the unknown Republican businessman who finished second in the 36th congressional district, didn't get more votes. Here's why.
Tonight's KCRW column, airing at 6:44 p.m. talks about the massive I-405 freeway makeover and the plans to close the freeway for a weekend in July.
All lanes of the freeway will close in Sepulveda Pass for an enitre weekend in July. You've been warned, but you will be warned again.
Pool reporter from the LA Times gets the name of Obama's restaurant wrong. Can't say she wasn't warned.
There is no article in Tavern, and no solid news on how to avoid traffic from president Obama's visit this evening.
President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX at about 2:45 P.M. Thursday. He then has to get to the Sony lot for a 4:30 fund-raising appearance, then up to Tavern in Brentwood for dinner and another fundraiser.
The latest to form a fundraising committee is Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who filed so he can accept checks to finance a run for District Attorney, if DA Steve Cooley decides not to seek reelection in 2012.
Federal officials say Ron Hirsch, 60, was arrested Monday night in Cleveland.
The tank painted with the words "This looks a bit like an elephant" was towed from the field along Pacific Coast Highway on Friday.
The Jewish Journal cover story this week poses the question to the community: will Jews support the expansion of Metro's subway, other rail lines and busways?
And now from a real photographer: Jonathan Alcorn, out early Sunday at Marina del Rey.
Bowen, the California Secretary of State, announced today that she will be a candidate in the special election to replace Jane Harman.
County Health says that 170 people who attended that party at the Playboy Mansion on Feb. 3 have since been reported as feeling symptoms afterward.
Many conventioneers go to the Playboy Mansion hoping for a special experience, but attendees at the DOMAINFest conference really did catch something special.
Looks like there will be yet another p[ening and possible special election in the South Bay to Westside crescent.
The proposal to dedicate a lane each way of Wilshire Boulevard to Bus Rapid Transit during the hours when the street is already at its most packed has picked up a new obstacle in Westside Councilman Bill Rosendahl.
Ernest Marquez, who's a fellow author at Angel City Press, has been working to hold on to access to the cemetery, which through the years has been surrounded by homes and yards.
Robert Bucksbaum, the Majestic Crest Theatre savior who got out of the cinema biz last year, sent an email to his former patrons today saying he now owns a guest ranch in Colorado. And you're invited.
The Hollywood Reporter calls the sale of the Horizon at Playa Vista, at about $300 million, "one of the biggest real estate deals in Los Angeles in years."
The Los Angeles Conservancy sent out an alert this afternoon saying the owner of the 1961 building that housed the Friars Club has begun razing the unofficial landmark, with no plans yet filed for a new structure at the site on Little Santa Monica Boulevard.
One of Google's new locations is the Frank Gehry-designed former Chiat/Day ad agency studio on Main Street with the distinctive binocular sculpture out front.
Actor Peter Fonda was driving in Pacific Palisades this afternoon when he discovered an apparent suicide. Plus: Jane Fonda tweets.
Ack. Another independent bookstore in Los Angeles is closing.
Mark at LA Biz Observed has been watching the slow demise of the Borders chain, and in particular the Westwood Boulevard store near his home. Now Gendy Alimurung of the...
The plan to sell off the city parking garages is not going over well in Westwood Village.
This might be the biggest thing to help Westside traffic congestion that is in the works.
The Daily Beast runs an email, apparently of the Beverly Hills neighbor-to-neighbor gossip sort, reporting second-hand that someone saw a black man in gang garb brandish a gun at a driver on Benedict Canyon a week or so before Ronni Chasen's murder.
The Broadway Deli, opened in 1990 by Bruce Marder and Marvin Zeidler, closed Monday after the landlord said the restaurant had to be out by Nov. 30.
Longtime radio reporter Michael Linder plans to launch a Venice Beach-based Internet radio outlet after the first of the year.
Longtime Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, 64, was found dead of five gunshot wounds about 12:30 a.m. today in her Mercedes-Benz E-350, which had crashed into a light pole on Whittier Drive just south of Sunset Boulevard.
Today's MTA vote approving the Wilshire subway route leaves out the West Hollywood detour and the politically sensitive Crenshaw station, leaves undecided the dicey political question of just where the tunnel will go under Century City and Beverly Hills, and should put to rest for now Mayor Villaraigosa's inoperative "subway to the sea" meme.
No actual knowledge of what happened, but I'll assume L.A. Live lured Film Independent's last Spirit Awards Downtown with a special deal — then didn't offer it again for next...
The New York Times Travel section checks in on the Bay City with an update on what's interesting since Santa Monica Place reopened.
Tonight the giant concrete muncher begins taking down the northern side of the Skirball Center Drive bridge over the 405 freeway deep in Sepulveda Pass.
Nowness.com has posted a slide show of scenes from inside the late artist's "imaginarium" in Venice, along with features on Graham and on Angelica Huston.
Caltrans and Metro have all but finally decided to alter the way the impressively high, 1959-era Mulholland Drive bridge is replaced during the I-405 widening project. It's a simple change that will reduce headaches and could save $10 million.
Jeb Corliss wants to be the first person to jump out of an airplane and land safely without a parachute.
Robert Bucksbaum, who recently announced he is giving up the Majestic Crest theatre in Westwood, says in his final email to customers that a chain will be taking over and continuing to show movies.
Abbot Kinney Boulevard's sidewalks were packed for tonight's monthly First Friday extravaganza — with pictures — plus an exhibit for L.A. Times photographer Carolyn Cole.
Three bodies were found in an apartment shortly after "shots fired" calls came in from the 600 block of North Kings Road, just off Melrose, about 9:15 p.m. West Hollywood...
The Beverly Hills PD cracked down on drivers failing to yield to a plainclothes officer crossing Wilshire Boulevard at Palm Avenue, the intersection where the city says it gets the most complaints.
Email about one of the city's cinema treasure from owner Roebert Bucksbaum, who saved the theatre from closing once and has been trying to sell it since 2008.
The freeway alert sign on the 10 West approaching Santa Monica is warning people this afternoon that parking in downtown Santa Monica is full. It's because of today's opening of...
Say that Metro Rail ever reaches as far west as Westwood Village. It's going to need a station. But where should it go?
A controlling interest in WeHo News, the West Hollywood cyber newspaper, has been purchased by Mark Hundahl and David Stern, the partners in Frontiers Media LLC, which publishes the gay magazine Frontiers IN Los Angeles.
he Sunset Boulevard bridge over the 405 freeway in Brentwood is being torn down, piece by piece, for replacement. When it was completed in 1956, the road was still being called the Sepulveda Freeway.
Mark posted this earlier at LA Biz Observed, but everybody I've shown it to loved it so much here it is again.
A head-on crash this afternoon involving a semi-truck and more than one car blocked all lanes of Sunset Boulevard for awhile at Bellagio Road, adjacent to the north side of UCLA in a spot called Dead Man's Curve in L.A. lore.
A tribute that Westwood restaurateur and community leader Steven Sann wrote about architect Stephen Kanner, who died Friday of cancer at 54, shows how one architect can freshen and re-shape a place like Westwood (itself planned in the 1920s) while honoring its past.
Lane closures after 10 a.m. at Sunset Boulevard.
Mike Barbour, the project manager on the big 405 freeway rehab and widening project from the Westside through Sepulveda Pass to the Valley, will take questions on the Metro website from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
There's some kind of demonstration on Wilshire Boulevard in front of the Westwood federal building
Expect a busy night of work and traffic disruption on the San Diego Freeway below Sepulveda Pass (on the Westwood side, not the Valley side.) Here are the scheduled closures.
The 405 freeway widening project begins a new phase this week, and you're not going to like it. Got to be done, but still — beware if you can. There will be full freeway closures at night this week and next heading up into Sepulveda Pass from the Westside, for restriping of lanes. That's because this month a giant "hoe ram" — a crane equipped with a massive jackhammer — will begin smashing the Sunset Boulevard bridge over the freeway.
Since the prize of the Frances and Sidney Brody art collection — “Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur” — sold at auction last night for a record $106.5 million, the New York Times offers a look inside the mansion where the Picasso used to hang.
From May 17-31, Rhino Records will re-open near its original Westwood Boulevard location. Rhino, which closed in 2006, did the resurrection by pop-up thing during the holiday season in 2007....
Since we seem to be on the Pinkberry closure beat now, let it be noted that the Abbot Kinney outpost of the empire — mildly controversial when it opened two Julys ago — shuts down on May 3.
The little shop on Huntley Drive where you or someone you know probably lined up for tart yogurt-like icy stuff — and possibly earned a parking ticket or two —...
The Apple Pan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar turn 63, plus Jackie Robinson and the Hollywood Freeway.
Myrna Loy crossed over from the silents to carve out a career as the witty, urbane type in 1930s Hollywood fare. She attended the Westlake School for Girls, but for decades a statue said to be based on her stood outside Venice High School. Venice alumni raised the money to restore the sculpture, and on Saturday a restored sculpture will be re-dedicated.
All the TV stations I saw tonight went live from UCLA due to a fifth recent attempted sexual assault on or near the campus.
The Bruin and the older Village (the one with the Fox sign on the tower) are being taken over by Regency Theatres.
A big rent hike and the desire by the landlord to break up the space at the south end of Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade looks like it spells the end, the Santa Monica Daily Press says.
It's not quite the return of Will Rogers, but when Jimmy Delshad rotates into the office of mayor tomorrow he will become the country's highest-ranking Iranian-American public official. Again.
With the local Blockbuster closing, Tabloid Baby blogs that the community at the far end of Sunset Boulevard from Downtown — home to Hollywood heavies such as Steven Spielberg, Kate Hudson "and until yesterday, Peter Graves" — will be without a bricks-and-mortar video outlet.
You'll start to see K-rails brought onto the San Diego Freeway tonight as part of the carpool lane and bridge repair project in and around Sepulveda Pass.
No criminal charges are expected in the death of Julia Siegler, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake School who was struck by two cars Friday morning while crossing Sunset Boulevard.
Metro just tweeted that restriping of the northbound lanes has been completed for now. Southbound restriping won't begin until March 3 at the earliest.
Sharona Alperin was a 17-year-old at Fairfax High School and the girlfriend of the lead singer, then 25, when The Knack's 1979 hit My Sharona made her name famous.
Northbound freeway traffic was snarled briefly near Getty Center Drive.
Sunday at midnight is the final closing for Equator Books on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. The owners sent a note to customers and friends saying, "We ask that you come by...
This past season wasn't so great at the independent bookstore in Pacific Palisades, so they're asking customers to come in for a 25 percent off sale this weekend.
Three, four or five armed men in ski masks walk through Century City's outdoor shopping mall, storm into Tiffany and Co., order the employees on the floor, then use hammers to smash the jewelry cases before fleeing with loot — and they aren't seen by dozens of nearby shoppers at 6:30 p.m.?
When work begins Wednesday night on the Sepulveda Pass Widening Project — the first full closure of the northbound freeway is after midnight — Metro's man in charge will be an Iraq veteran.
Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington expressed doubts about Dr. Christopher Thompson's remorse for stopping short and injuring two cyclists on Mandeville Canyon Road. Millington also claimed the five-year sentence...
Think the new construction project only affects the freeway? Ho ho ho.
The first story to benefit from collaboration with Spot.us Los Angeles is a report by the Garment & Citizen downtown that seems aimed at getting country clubs on the Westside...
Residents of Santa Monica have been warned to expect low-flying military helicopters over the city during the lunch rush on Tuesday. It may look and sound like a war zone,...
Leonardo da Vinci's "Angel in the Flesh" is hanging this week at the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood, the drawing's first public showing ever in the Americas. The piece used...
While we're on a bit of a music jag, Esther Wong was the godmother of punk in Los Angeles. Her restaurant-clubs in Chinatown and Santa Monica would be in the...
Since we broke the news Friday night about Eli Broad's museum talks with Santa Monica, there have been copycat blog posts — plus a nice mention by Tyler Green at...
At the Broad Art Foundation's 25th anniversary event tonight in Santa Monica, there was talk that a museum for Eli Broad's art collection — formerly contemplated in Beverly Hills —...
Actually, Santa Monica. The Santa Monica Daily Press is hiring a GA reporter. Full-time there means 10 to 12 stories a week, some holidays and weekends, and "if there’s a...
The Hollywood power lunch spot near the Cedars medical buildings on West 3rd Street is soon to shut its doors, after 20 years. “It’s not without some sadness and remorse,"...
The new Regal Cinemas' L.A. Live Stadium 14 debuts officially on Tuesday with the first showings of Michael Jackson's "This Is It." Variety sees the new Downtown cineplex — which...
Phase 1, going from downtown to Culver City, was supposed to be finished in 2010, but now they're talking about only a partial opening. Spokesperson Gabriela G. Collins tells Curbed...
Talk about a story that's going nowhere fast (the above video is from 2007 and not much has happened since). As the FAA and the city of Santa Monica...
Tonight's main showing of "Julie and Julia" ended with applause from the crowd at the Westwood Crest Theatre, but the first ovation of the night was for owner Robert Bucksbaum....
News items: Westwood movie future bleak and Westwood's Mann Festival RIP. Click the cartoon to view it larger. See more by Steve Greenberg in his LA Sketchbook archive...
Today's L.A. Times follows on our Thursday night news about the Festival theater closing and adds a triple whammy of bad news for Westwood: Mann is giving up its leases...
Hat tip to the New Beverly Theater's Twitter poster for noticing that the Mann Festival has put up a final message to patrons. Known previously as the Egyptian (and as...
This week's exploratory subway drilling is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at San Vicente and Gracie Allen (that's near Cedars-Sinai), Wednesday in UCLA parking lot 36 near Wilshire and Veteran,...
Esa-Pekka Salonen's house in upper Brentwood has gone on the market for $4.1 million. It has six bedrooms, 5.5 baths and a chilly Scandinavian demeanor throughout. Check out the sauna...
Tomorrow's New York Times real estate page ventures into the Century Plaza preservation dispute. Diane Keaton, listing the hotel's supposed glories, likens the design to a "sexy woman surrounded by...
When visiting Venice, notes the blog Yo Venice, "it is advisable not to block a driveway when you park your vehicle. Odds are that two towing trucks, two parking enforcement...
Smoke is much reduced out here. Jonathan Alcorn shot this photo when the plume was still growing....
The Getty Museum is being evacuated down through Brentwood as a precaution due to a fire burning in brush a ridge or two to the north in Sepulevda Pass. Damn...
Local Iranian-Americans demonstrated today against the election results and ensuing violence in Tehran, in the usual spot outside the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. Jonathan Alcorn has...
Westside city councilman Bill Rosendahl admits that he is actively considering a run for the U.S. Senate if Dianne Feinstein steps down in 2012. This even though, as the LA...
Now that the owner of the Century Plaza wants to tear down the hotel, Dakota Smith at Curbed LA dug up what developer Michael Rosenfeld's release said when he bought...
A local journo wonders in email if the new Yvonne Brathwaite Burke Park in Marina del Rey, near where the retired county Supervisor used to claim she lived, will have...
Author and Slate blogger Mickey Kaus has several friends at the Los Angeles Times, but for years he has been advocating the demise of the paper — partly in the...
Architectural photographer Marvin Rand was 84 when he died on Feb. 14. Along Abbot Kinney Boulevard, where he kept his studio, Rand is being called one of them — a...
A private plane has crashed and burned on takeoff at Santa Monica Airport. The plane stayed on airport property. Channel 2 says two people on board are believed to have...
Author and former state Senator Tom Hayden, writing at the Huffington Post, praises the late sculptor Robert Graham for his quiet work with the street gangs in Venice. In the...
The city of Santa Monica website says that Katz, a member of the City Council, died today with family and close friends by his side. The family appreciates everyone�s prayers...
Village Books struggles to get by in the little shopping district of Pacific Palisades, but things seem especially grim on that street this year. The bookstore has loyal fans, though,...
Owner Robert Bucksbaum, who saved the Crest Theatre on Westwood Boulevard and turned it into one of the most fun movie venues in L.A., has listed it for sale after...
Sign on the Sepulveda and National Hamlet on the Westside cites loss of the lease, but skeptical Chowhound posters suspect "loss of customers" is behind the closure. "We'll certainly see...
Tibby Rothman's Venice Paper picks up street talk that the murder of a young man Sunday night after the Abbot Kinney Festival was a targeted gang hit. Just talk at...
Actress-writer Heather Thomas's monthly breakfast gatherings (with her husband, entertainment lawyer Skip Brittenham) in Santa Monica lead the roundup of a "burgeoning breed of über-stylish salonistas" in the September issue...
Supervisor Gloria Molina joined the two Republicans on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to reject placing a sales tax increase question on the November ballot, citing friction between...
Excellent piece by Max Taves in the LA Weekly on elderly identical twin sisters in Pacific Palisades who "had spent years fanatically feeding the Palisades� rat population. Although the full...
Oakley's Barber Shop is the last of the original businesses in Westwood Village, dating to 1929. It started on Vermont, near the original UCLA campus that now houses Los Angeles...
Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp subsidiary that includes Myspace, signed a 12-year lease agreement to move next June into a new facility at the Playa Vista development. TechCrunch has...
Eric Lynxwiler and I will be the featured speakers in Westwood today at 4 pm at the inaugural literary salon of the Friends of the Westwood Library. It's a benefit...
Erika Schickel chatted up Bo Diddley on a plane to New Mexico. She was ten and headed for sleep-away camp. Denise Hamilton loved Pest Control the Musical so much "my...
Crews this morning began cutting down the disputed ficus trees on 2nd Street near Wilshire. Activists lost a court bid to block the city from removing the trees, which it...
Nice photo by Lawrence K. Ho of the Los Angeles Times, to go with a story today about Westwood Village merchants hoping that the opening of the new Palazzo complex...
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, most modern single-screen in Westwood...
The body of Alexander Merman, 35, was found shot to death in his Montana Avenue apartment last night. Over the weekend, aspiring actress Juliana Maureen Redding, 21, was found in...
CNNMoney.com did a little web photo feature on where successful website startups such as Craigslist began. In the case of Digg, it was Kevin Rose's apartment at 3255 Sawtelle Blvd.,...
Slope slides down to the street, knocks out power and pretty much screws traffic in that part of Westwood. LAT Also: Commuting isn't fun on Pacific Coast Highway either....
Writer and blogger Tom Teicholz was on the Santa Monica Promenade this afternoon when he spotted a woman strolling naked and preening for a video camera and still photographer. "This...
Once the home of long-running hit movies, the National at Lindbrook and Gayley in Westwood Village is most of the way demolished. The Daily Bruin at UCLA poked behind the...
Much honored Los Angeles sci-fi writer and alternate historian Harry Turtledove writes about time travel in his Crosstime Traffic series. Could he be predicting the future with the sixth book...
An LA Observed reader who works at Cal State Long Beach stopped by Wilshire Books in Santa Monica and found the store cleared out. "Quietly closed at the end of...
Larry Mantle this morning took on one of the lesser issues of our time, but one that's still interesting and perplexing for locals: should we refer to freeways by their...
The 12-screen Landmark opens in five weeks at Pico and Westwood, in the annex to Westside Pavilion. It will be the flagship of the Landmark theater chain, featuring indie fare,...
Allied Model Trains, which opened in 1946 and calls itself "the largest train store ever built," has been sold by longtime owner Allen Drucker. A version of the store will...
CityBeat columnist Andrew Gumbel enjoys spending time at The Talking Stick on Ocean Park Boulevard in lower Santa Monica. It's "pretty close to the perfect coffee shop, not only a...
This shouldn't happen at the Los Angeles Times. In the staff-written web story about the UCLA student who got the stun gun, the Times says the incident has prompted "outrage...
Sure it's not the Westside stench, or even the Long Beach reek, but sensitive noses have again come through. An American Airlines 757 headed for Miami returned to LAX about...
This week's Palisadian Post leads with the news that Mort's Deli might be for sale. The owner isn't talking, but plenty of others are. Former mayor Richard Riordan is said...
Big Sunday package in the Daily Breeze details the proposed redevelopment that would see the number of boat slips reduced, some live-aboard residents displaced and older apartments replaced by newer,...
Reader T. J. Sullivan emailed this photo from Westwood Boulevard. If you can't read the sign, the Rhino Records extinction sale is this weekend. Chris Morris had an appreciation in...
The rumors about the Rhino record store on Westwood Boulevard closing are apparently true. Reader T.J. emailed that he went by today and the marquee said that they lost the...
Mickey Kaus has posted a follow to my follow to my original post on his original post about a Halloween night gang fight on the border between Santa Monica and...
Friday morning's traffic jam caused by President Bush's stay-over at Bradford Freeman's $10 million mansion in Brentwood was even worse than the night before. Today's Daily News banners a story...
President Bush has arrived at LAX and is heading toward Beverly Hills by helicopter. Once he lands, traffic officials are expecting a rough time in the area around UCLA during...
We never did get a satisfactory explanation for the unsavory odor that wafted over a wide swath of L.A. last week. But now they are complaining about a similar thing...
More readers are reporting in that they too detected the bad smell wafting through the Westside. Author Deanne Stillman writes that it was all over Venice and Marina del Rey...
The first email this morning I ignored, figuring the moment would pass: Here's a scoop for you: the entire city of Beverly Hills smells like garbage this morning. My house,...
KNBC reported that the LAPD has issued a threat advisory after federal officials received an "unsubstantiated potential threat of an attack" planned against an unspecified West Los Angeles shopping mall...