Last look at Van Nuys location
WNET and the influence of David Koch
If you lived in Los Angeles in the 1960s and were inclined toward rock and roll, you might have seen Ray Manzarek and The Doors play at Sunset Strip clubs, at Ports O'Call in San Pedro — or at your high school. Memories are flowing on social media.
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News, observations and links about this location the world calls Los Angeles.
Life, cultures, architecture, geography, neighborhoods, history, demographics, urbanism, nature, the environment. And anything else.
Life, cultures, architecture, geography, neighborhoods, history, demographics, urbanism, nature, the environment. And anything else.
If you lived in Los Angeles in the 1960s and were inclined toward rock and roll, you might have seen Ray Manzarek and The Doors play at Sunset Strip clubs, at Ports O'Call in San Pedro — or at your high school. Memories are flowing on social media.
Parents and five girls from Sweden was found walking on Sepulveda Boulevard near LAX at 4:30 a.m. on Friday. They were out of money after changing their return flight itineraries due to a health emergency at home.
Remember our report in April on the twin agave century plants just starting to sprout in Meg Sullivan and Steve Roe's front yard? Well you better look again.
A little taste of Scranton (and Dunder Mifflin) on Saticoy Street.
A Los Angeles County sheriff's helicopter crew flew 60 miles off the coast on Monday to rescue a scientist with a serious leg injury. A crew member taped the aerial rescue on a helmet camera.
KCRW producer Matt Holzman embedded with cops in the LAPD Air Support unit to see what it's like in the helicopters that patrol Los Angeles skies. Listen inside.
Dutch journalist and maker of LA-centric videos Joris Debeij has posted a four-minute exploration of the rivalry between Philippe and Cole's over the origin story of the French Dip sandwich. Animation included.
Rosalind Wyman will throw out the first pitch before tonight's game with the Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. Roz Wyman was the youngest member of the Los Angeles City Council in 1957 when she joined with Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to bring the team to LA.
The National Hockey League made it official and announced that Dodger Stadium will host an outdoor, night game between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks next January 25. But in the 1940s, there was hockey at the Tropical Ice Gardens in Westwood Village — including at least two matches involving the Montreal Canadiens.
A group of Jewish real estate men that migrated over from Nibbler's in the 1990s sits down every Sunday morning and receives politicians — including Greuel and a Garcetti — and has welcomed both Yitzhak Rabin and Vicente Fox.
Randy Kraft was arrested almost 30 years ago with the body of his latest victim in the front seat of his car, and photos of many other victims under the Toyota's floormat. The computer programmer was convicted of 16 murders and linked to 65 others. He's still languishing at San Quentin, now 68 years old.
Richie Trimble's two-wheeler rose 14.5 feet and barely fit under the San Diego Freeway overpass on Venice Boulevard during Sunday's Ciclavia. “Everyone looks at you like your nuts and they’re right!,” he says.
Many fans are loath to say anything negative about Ciclavia, but USC physics professor Clifford V. Johnson — as enthusiastic a supporter as there is — has some constructive criticism after Sunday's mass turnout across the Westside. One, there were too many bike traffic jams. More inside.
All the electronic billboards I usually see on the Westside were turned off today. The companies that operate 77 digital boards in the city of Los Angeles, Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, were told by a judge to darken the signs by 5 p.m.
The high school social studies teacher gained legend status on the Eastside for his mentoring of Chicano students and for being arrested during the 1968 Chicano walkouts. The middle school on the campus of Belmont High was named for Castro in 2010.
Another of Southern California's fast food pioneers has died. John Galardi was a student at Pasadena Junior College when he started working for Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell. Galardi opened his first hot dog stand on Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington, next to a Taco Bell, in 1961.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Terry Green has ordered that Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor turn off most of their digital billboards in Los Angeles by 5 p.m. today. These are some of the signs that the City Council told the companies they could fire up as part of a controversial settlement deal in 2006 that allowed the conversion of up to 840 existing billboards.
Jason Torchinsky, now 41, bought his 1973 Volkswagen Beetle when he was 18. So it kind of sucked when the car was stolen last week.
Meg Sullivan and Steve Roe came home Sunday to find the agave in the front yard beginning to sprout the big reproductive thingy in the middle. Same for a nearby plant: two century plants sprouting at the same time. Anyone want to take pictures?
Just days after Henry's Tacos opened in its new location on Tujunga Avenue in Studio City, the popular spot's old location on Tujunga and Moorpark has been leased: to a competing taco joint. Hmm, I wonder if the landlord had a hand in this?
A quick update to the story of the Doheny Glatt Kosher Meat Market, which has been accused of selling meat that isn't as kosher as advertised.
Doheny Glatt Kosher Meats has been for years "the premier retailer to kosher consumers in this densely populated Jewish neighborhood" of Pico-Roberston, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles says. But the store has had its kosher certification yanked by the Rabbinical Council of California after an investigative report on KTLA said that the store sold meat that was not truly glatt kosher, a higher designation than merely kosher. The scandal keeps expanding.
The mystery of the ill sea lion pups overwhelming rescue centers in Southern California has been upgraded to an official "unusual mortality event" by the National Marine Fisheries Service. More sick pups have shown up on local beaches so far in 2013 than in many previous years combined.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky writes on his blog that his position on same-sex marriage didn't evolve so much as flip 180 degrees after a conversation with his daughter a decade ago. He says now that in 2008 he presided at the wedding of City Clerk June Lagmay and her partner.
Justin Lee heard his dog barking madly and rushed downstairs to come face to face with a brownish California black bear inside his Monrovia home. He grabbed the dog, ran back upstairs and called 911.
The Orange County whale watch boat that has been providing lots of great video of offshore sea life today has posted footage of a bottlenose dolphin appearing to swim with a dead calf on its back, while other dolphins in the pod slowly accompany the first.
People up in the Eastern Sierra noticed recently that the sky was kind of hazy, and the usual culprit — dust from the Owens Lake bed that the Los Angeles DWP dried up years ago — could not be blamed. Turns out the haze was caused by suspended particles from "a massive dust event last week in the Gobi Desert" that rode the jet stream across the Pacific.
LA Times architecture Christopher Hawthorne continues his survey of changing Los Angeles area boulevards with Wilshire — a street that he writes "has always stood apart from the city it slices through." Let's see what he says.
Before he shifted his sights to Hollywood, early motion picture impresario Sid Grauman built his first movie palace on Broadway at 3rd Street, beside the Grand Central Market and across the street from the Bradbury Building. The former Grauman's is now the Million Dollar, and I wandered around inside recently. It's open for tours this Saturday , but that night's showing of "Blade Runner" on the big screen is sold out. Pics inside.
Vulture compiled every facet of sex, relationships and New York that Sarah Jessica Parker's lead character wondered aloud about during the six seasons of "Sex and the City."
On Sunday, a male and female did the courtship dance for several hours alongside and under a Dana Point whale-watch boat and other craft full of amazed onlookers. In the video, the whales even appear to rub against a sailboat and set it to rocking.
A slab of concrete that is billed as bearing the signature of old-timey movie star Cary Grant from the wall of the legendary 1940s Hollywood nightspot is up for sale on eBay. Bidding starts at $5,000 — so it better be real.
It has been more foggy than not along the beaches for the past week or so. Blame the recurring Southern California weather phenomenon known as the Catalina eddy, shown here. NASA explains how it works.
In case you missed it
Sunshine ice rink
When the Kings and Ducks play next year at Dodger Stadium, it won't be the first outdoor hockey game in LA. Story
Desert waterpark
Emily Green took pictures at the defunct Rock-a-Hoola Waterpark in the eastern Mojave Desert. More
Trains and bridges
Night photo along the Los Angeles River by Kevin McCollister. Bigger at East of West LA.
Drive-by studio
LA photographer Johnny Tergo shoots his street scenes with a camera rigged to the passenger seat of his Chevy Silverado. More
Pico House
The fourth annual Los Angeles Heritage Day was held inside Pico House — the city's oldest historic hotel, beside the old plaza in El Pueblo. LA Observed photo.
Something big grows in Rancho Park
In Meg Sullivan's front yard, both giant century plants are sprouting the big, dramatic reproductive thingies out of their centers. More
Let NASA explain about SoCal's marine layer generator.
LA as climate lab
NASA's ambitious Megacities Carbon Project is monitoring the greenhouse gas emissions of "the largest human contributors to climate change: megacities." Story
Dressing for Last Remaining Seats
Ed Fuentes offers his annual tips for dressing, drinking and dining during the upcoming film festival that is mostly downtown. Native Intelligence
Streetscape: Mar Vista market
A day of sunshine brought out a crowd to the Sunday farmers market on Grandview Avenue. Bigger
Lost train depots of LA
Nathan Masters has done a really nice piece at KCET's website on the train stations that dotted Los Angeles before rail service was consolidated at the "union" station in 1939. More
Route 66
Veronique de Turenne admires the sign on Santa Monica Pier that marks the traditional end of the highway that brought millions across the continent to California. Here in Malibu
LA's class divides
Map's shadings offer a dramatic relief to what's become one of the most polarized regions of the country. LA Biz Observed
KCRW will air a show on Eastside vs. Westside.
Los Angeles basin
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield had another good day tweeting photos from the International Space Station. Bigger
Streetscape
Streetscape: Mar Vista market
A day of sunshine brought out a crowd to the Sunday farmers market on Grandview Avenue. Bigger
Streetscape: 6th Street
Tropical Plaza Mall. LA Observed photo: click to see bigger.
Streetscape: Self storage
Vanowen Street in North Hollywood. LAO photo
Hollywood Mennonites
A choir of Mennonites prepares to sing on the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk on Saturday afternoon. See larger. Photo by Judy Graeme.
Streetscape: Bike lane
Spring Street's green lane in Downtown.
Downtown dog
5th Street near Spring, downtown Los Angeles. LA Observed photo; click it for bigger.
Mary Jane's Place, Lincoln Heights. 
Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista.
Tractors on Wilshire
Big lawn mowers barrel around the corner of Wilshire and Comstock, possibly headed for the greenery of the Los Angeles Country Club. Bigger
Endeavour arrives
Who says there is no street life in Los Angeles? NASA photo | View larger
Westwood bonsai
Car covered with bonsai plants on Westwood Boulevard. The disabled parking placard is a nice touch. View larger
Go to the LA Observed Photo Gallery
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