The city of Los Angeles used to plant ficus trees, or laurel fig's, in the parkway between the sidewalk and the curb. Now everybody realizes that was a mistake, though City Hall keeps talking about making the current property owner liable for injuries and the cost of sidewalk repairs.
Judy Graeme noticed an especially bad sidewalk rupture on Prosser Avenue, just below Pico in Rancho Park.
Vanessa Whang, the director of programs at the California Council for the Humanities in the Bay Area, contributes a reminiscence of the 1971 Sylmar earthquake on the Zocalo Public Square website. Her family lived in Sylmar, slept in the car for a few days after the quake that killed 65, and remembers some dogs and families fleeing the neighborhood never to be seen again. At magnitude 6.6, it was the biggest quake along the Southern California coast since the 1925 quake that destroyed downtown Santa Barbara. The 41st anniversary of Sylmar is Thursday.
I don’t know when it started or who made up the story, but as kids growing up in the San Fernando Valley, we all lived in fear of the Big One—the massive earthquake on the San Andreas Fault that was going to separate L.A. from the continental U.S. and make Palm Springs beachfront property. In science class, we were shown black-and-white films of earthquakes toppling tall buildings and wreaking havoc on hapless populations. This would be our fate. This is what we should be prepared for (though it didn’t seem like there was really any way to prepare). Mostly, we just accepted the notion that one day it would all be over; that was the way things were. Besides, other places had hurricanes or tornados or ice storms, so it wasn’t like you could escape disaster. It was a matter of picking your poison.So it wasn’t a mystery to me what was happening that early morning on February 9, 1971. I knew immediately it was an earthquake. I was on the top bunk of a bunk bed in the room I shared with my older sister, and I woke to the sound of screaming. At some point, I realized I was the one who was screaming.
I posted some then and now photos last year on the 40th anniversary. The quake struck at dawn, 6:01 a.m. These clocks came out of one of the downed hospitals.
On a world scale, the underwater earthquake that triggered the deadly tsunami in Japan last March 11 was magnitude 9.0 — many times stronger than Sylmar.
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Now the Los Angeles Times headline and story:
Ball playing, Frisbee tossing now allowed on L.A. County beaches
Take your pick. The gist of both stories seems to be that the Board of Supervisors clarified 37 pages of rules covering the beaches, and raised the fine to $1,000 for throwing a Frisbee or a football when the beach is crowded in summer. But a beach ball is OK — and none of the throwing restrictions apply between Labor Day and Memorial Day.
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Former L.A. Times reporter Anne-Marie O'Connor's book, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, is out this month and she will be making appearances here over the next few weeks. It's the story of the ”Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,” the Klimt painting looted by the Nazis in Austria, recovered in 2006 for a Cheviot Hills woman named Maria Altmann whose family had owned the painting, brought to Los Angeles and sold later that year for a record $135 million.
Louise Roug, another former L.A. Times reporter, is returning from Denmark to be foreign editor at Newsweek and the Daily Beast. We noted when she left the U.S. to host a television news show in Copenhagen.
And ex-LAT critic Paul Brownfield had a piece in last weekend's New York Times Magazine on the explosion of podcasts by comedians and the paradox that it’s "at once a minirenaissance for comedy and a retreat by comics further into themselves — a sort of talking cure for a group of people who suffer from something not yet covered, I don’t believe, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: a need, when not formally doing comedy, to talk about how and why one does comedy."
Also on the media beat today:
Update: He is reportedly being brought down in a basket by firefighters.
We told you earlier this week that the 1960s-era metal grates would be coming off the old facade of Clifton's Brookdale cafeteria on Broadway — and this morning they did. Andrew Meieran's plans for the Downtown institution include restoring the original facade, revamping the ground-floor cafeteria line, upgrading the kitchen, relaunching a Clifton's brand commercial bakery and hipsterizing the upper floors with a nightlife lounge.Handout photo from Clifton's
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In the March issue of Golf Digest, Dodgers broadcaster (and former CBS golf announcer) Vin Scully talks about his love of the game and of just being out on the course. "The crack of the bat in baseball is a gorgeous sound," he tells Guy Yocom. "But you don’t quite get the full effect unless you’re very close to the field, because the roar of the crowd often gets to you before the crack of the bat does. In golf, there is all that delicious silence, so the sound of a top pro hitting the ball is so pure. The feeling the pro gets—that sweet sensation that goes through the hands, up the arms and into the heart—the sound gives the fans a taste of that."
Scully shares some favorite experiences on the course at Bel-Air Country Club with the late columnist Jim Murray and others, such as Sandy Koufax. He also shares some of his fears about retirement and why he's coming back next month for his 63rd season with the Dodgers at age 84.
Some people die twice: once when they retire, and again when they actually pass away. Fear of the first one is a big incentive for me to keep working. Players, writers, people who work at the ballpark and front office, when I quit I know I’ll never see them again. I’ve never been the type to come to the ballpark and hang out; I’ve gone to one game in the last 60 years that I wasn’t working. I keep working because I don’t want to lose my friends.
Scully also reveals he's a reader: when he moved from Pacific Palisades to Hidden Hills in the Valley, he donated close to 400 books to the library. "For a realistic view of baseball at the major league level, get 'Three Nights in August' by Buzz Bissinger," he says. And this quip about having bad teeth through the years: "if I were to write my autobiography—which I will never do, by the way—I would title it, 'My Life in Dentistry.'"
]]>Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned 21 people in his first year in office and rejected parole for 71 first- and second-degree murderers who had been recommended for release by the parole board. LAT, Bee
DWP workers earned an average of $96,805 annually in 2010, higher than other city workers because of the influence of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Bloomberg
The Los Angeles City Council renamed City Hall East for Jim Hahn, the former mayor and current Superior Court judge. DN, City Maven
FBI agents probing allegations of bribe-taking at the city Building and Safety department have obtained records and questioned individuals about a Koreatown building inspector who retired nearly a year ago. LAT
The City Council voted to restore the City Hall Park with less grass and more native plants, in a compromise between previously suggested alternatives. LAT, City Maven
Los Angeles Unified's budget deficit has swelled to $557 million, and the district faces layoffs of up to 7,500 employees and cuts to some of its most successful programs without a revenue trifecta to bring in cash. DN
The city departments of Planning and Transportation announced a series of “Think Lab” workshops inviting Angelenos to envision a new way of moving around the city and using its streets for mobility and beyond.
Imagining the shapes of the newly proposed City Council districts as animals. LA Weekly
A Patch insider tells Jim Romenesko that "the AOL-owned hyperlocal news sites plan to cut staff and freelance budgets and start producing 'easy, quick-hitting, cookie-cutter copy.' Romenesko
John Glionna, chief of the LA Times' Seoul bureau in South Korea, will be relocating to Las Vegas to cover the western United States. Should be there by May, he says.
Bridget Johnson, formerly managing editor of the American Enterprise Institute website and online editor for The Hill, has joined PJ Media as Washington editor and columnist.
Jodi Kantor of the New York Times talks about her book, "The Obamas," on "Airtalk with Larry Mantle" at 11:40 a.m. on KPCC.
This week on KCET's "SoCal Connected," correspondent Brian Rooney takes to the streets with some of the LAPD's 422 reserve officers.
KCET also announced that "L.A. Tonight with Roy Firestone" returns in March with a special week-long series of half-hour interviews with Andre Agassi, Burt Bacharach, Chris Botti and Steve Tyrell. Show Tracker
Nearly a month after the Pasadena police department switched to a digitally encrypted radio signal, city leaders have no plans to allow local media live access to police chatter. Star-News
As rumored up north, The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley have signed a formal letter of intent to merge within 30 days. Jim Romenesko
One of two girls who accused a Miramonte Elementary School teacher of fondling her has recanted her story, according to law enforcement sources. LAT
Plus: A female former aide's affectionate letter to a student is being investigated. LAT
Commerce City Councilman Robert Fierro pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted trying to influence a federal investigation into his campaign's financial dealings. LAT
Plans for the redevelopment of Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance will be unveiled later this month. Daily Breeze
Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr. have sold "Empty Mansions: The True Saga of the Copper King W.A. Clark, the Reclusive Heiress Huguette, and Their American Family of Wealth, Scandal and Mystery," to Ballantine Bantam Dell. Summary: "The history of the family, gathering a unique collection of Clark family photographs, letters and memoirs, and sharing many conversations with Huguette Clark about her life and family, with a rare private tour of Bellosguardo, her mysterious $100 million oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara." Publishers Lunch
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Rick Santorum swept the Republican contests in three states on Tuesday, injecting a new element into the race. But it's Mitt Romney who will get the attention of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in an address tonight to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Washington. Immigration is the subject of this excerpt at BuzzFeed.
For the first time in modern memory, a major political party is poised to nominate a presidential candidate who has abandoned immigration reform and instead advocates self-deportation.We have a candidate who on Martin Luther King Day, a day celebrating racial reconciliation, had the architect of Arizona and Alabama’s draconian anti-immigration laws campaign for him.
This is beyond the pale.
And we are obligated to say so.
We must defend the tradition of sensible immigration reform…
A tradition that until recently was a bipartisan one that ran from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
Villaraigosa's office says he'll be back in Los Angeles on Thursday.
]]>The Dodgers are the immediate priority, with at least nine bidders still in the running to buy the team and several of them courting Soon-Shiong."We have participated in several meetings during the last few weeks and have concluded that we will absolutely participate in pursuing the Dodgers," Chuck Kenworthy, the representative for Soon-Shiong, said in a statement.
"At this time, we intend to take follow-up meetings in order to determine which group will best serve the team, the loyal Dodger fans and our great city."
Monday on LA Biz Observed: Who are the strongest contenders for the Dodgers?
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Rob Eshman, the editor of the Jewish Journal, devotes his editor's letter this week to the little Los Encinos State Historic Park in Encino that the state wants to close for budget reasons. It may be the birthplace of the San Fernando Valley as we know it, but it doesn't bring in revenue so the bean counters say the green space and historic buildings are expendable. Neighbors are working to stave off the closure, and as we ">reported last month, an anonymous donor has stepped forward with $150,000 to get the park through this year. Eshman endorses the effort.
I didn’t visit the park in order to write this story, because I don’t have to: I know it like I know my backyard. I grew up in Encino, about a half mile from the park, and Los Encinos was my personal retreat, my youth’s ideal companion. It’s where I went to read a book, to daydream the spring into Walden Pond, to picnic on the Tempo falafels from across the boulevard.I’m writing this to pay the park back for all those peaceful moments, and to pay it forward for the next bookish, sensitive teenager who needs a refuge from suburbia....
How ironic that we send money to buy trees for parks in Israel, and let one just down the block from us languish.
Encino's past and present is intimately linked to trees. The original Mexican rancho and the present-day community are named for the California Live Oak trees that still shade its older streets, the most impressive and ancient trees in the city of Los Angeles. A half-mile from Los Encinos, the Lang Oak — city historic-cultural monument #24 — used to stand in the center of Louise Avenue. It fell during a storm in 1998, revealing itself to be about 1,000 years old. The oak did not pass unnoticed, as I observed in The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb.
Admirers came all weekend to gawk at the limbs, while city crews sought equipment stout enough to penetrate the massive trunk. Some neighbors who had tended the giant through infections, car crashes and numerous storms carried souvenir branches as they left, wiping away tears. The Times headline the next day captured the sentiment: "If a Tree Falls in the Valley, We All Hear It."
Even 14 years later, the Lang Oak that most Angelenos never saw (though the stump and a marker remain) has a Facebook page and a Wikipedia entry.
Recently posted at LA Observed:
Donor puts up $150,000 to keep Rancho Los Encinos open
Valley of 'It's A Wonderful Life'
New York Times declares war on Encino
Top photo from January: John Rabe; lower photo of Lang Oak, Los Angeles Public Library.
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I watched a bicyclist get hit by a car today in Westwood Village, right in front of me. He walked away, with help. But he caused himself some pain (and all the witnesses a scary moment) by trying to speed from behind past a car turning right on a green light. So I had bike riders on my mind when I found a story on a big push tomorrow to get more more women riding, featuring Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal. Yes, again with Long Beach and the bikes — go figure. From ZevWeb:
On Wednesday, February 8, a coalition of women cycling advocates is set to gather in Long Beach to announce an ambitious goal: doubling the number of female bicyclists on Southern California streets within five years.The initiative is led by a relatively new organization, Women on Bikes SoCal, which seeks to promote the “joy, beauty and benefits of bicycling for women.” Its campaign includes establishing the nation’s first women-only scholarship program for League Certified Bike Safety Instructors. (Information on supporting the initiative is here.)
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On a recent bicycle tour of her city, which is noted for its large and growing network of bike-friendly amenities, Lowenthal made it clear that dressing like Lance Armstrong—and riding like a Tour de France champion—are not required to join the cycling revolution.
“I want to wear my heels. I want to do all sorts of kinds of things that are about regular lifestyle,” Lowenthal said. “You don’t have to be the 50-mile-a week-spandex athlete. You can move about with your children and make it a very family-oriented, healthy, active lifestyle.”
Photo of Lowenthal: Allan Crawford/Women on Bikes SoCal
Brad Greenberg, the editor-in-chief of the UCLA Entertainment Law Review, and the Jewish Journal's (now longtime) God Blogger, argues in the main UCLA Law Review that the best hope for newspapers online is an exemption from anti-trust laws. It should be a narrow exemption, and just for a limited time. Letting the news industry work together and set prices for awhile will protect consumer choices and preserve First Amendment values, he Greenberg writes. It also will preserve the journalists, a societal good he says should be furthered.
The purpose is not to preserve two-newspaper towns or even multi-newspaper regions—but simply to preserve newsgatherers. Competing newspapers need to collaborate if they are going to overcome their prisoner’s dilemma and move toward charging for online content....The exemption this Comment proposes would give newspaper executives a limited window within which to gather and collectively develop a definitive model to charge for access to online content. Participants could collude on the exact date to put content behind a paywall and decide on the application of the paywall (1) to all online content or only certain sections of the newspapers, (2) to readers from the moment they visit a newspaper’s website or only after a reader exceeds his or her gratis limit, and/or (3) to stories individually or to the entire bundle of newspaper content on a subscription basis.
Newspaper executives would be free to set that price at whatever point they felt the market would support, and government oversight would be limited to ensuring that newspapers did not exceed the scope of the exemption.
He discusses the Los Angeles Times, MediaNews Group and the future of the Register in Orange County in his argument. Greenberg is a former reporter for the UCLA Daily Bruin and the Daily News who started writing about religion on The God Blog at the Daily News in 2007, billing himself as "a God-fearing Christian with devilishly good Jewish looks." Greenberg and the blog moved to the Jewish Journal the same year. He won the LA Press Club's best blog award in 2008, and the following year left fulltime journalism to go to law school. He's in his final year at UCLA Law.
Here are more papers on the media by Greenberg.
Los Angeles news boxes: LA Observed
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Los Angeles police outside a 1987* show by The Ramones and Black Flag at the Hollywood Palladium, from the LAPD Communications page on Facebook.
* Updates: Couple of things. The LAPD Communications Facebook page labeled the photo 1987, but it's actually from Nov. 17, 1984. Henry Rollins, lead singer of Black Flag, has written about the LAPD action that night. And — most notable of all — the photo is by our own Gary Leonard.
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