Life in Angel City

Up to now, most local bloggers have approached the draining of Silver Lake from two predictable angles:
(1) The ugly, gaping asphalt crater left behind now that the water’s gone, and
(2) The ongoing controversy between water officials and Silver Lake residents over whether or not the lake should be permanently covered.
Donna Barstow at Griffith Park Interrupted, [...]

This week I had an appointment with some musty old manuscripts in the Rare Books Dept. of the Los Angeles Central Library, located downtown at 5th and Flower. Unlike some respected fellow bloggers who enjoy using mass transit to buzz about the metro area, I’ve always been an unrepentant disciple of Southern California’s automotive cult.
The [...]

Well, my number came up. Again. I’ve been summoned to jury service.
Thanks to the current system, jury prospects now get to call an automated number the night before their service is scheduled to begin. A computer voice tells you whether you actually need to show up or simply remain “on call.”
In the past year every [...]

Swamped with pressing deadlines, I should’ve stayed locked indoors working like a dog today. Instead, I did what hundreds of other Angelenos decided to do on this glorious Holy Saturday and literally took a few hours to go to the dogs — and cats, and parrots and every other creature imaginable.
Yes, today was the annual [...]

One of the best things about the 90026 zip code is our eclectic mix of homes. No cookie-cutter housing tracts for us. We prefer our neighborhoods to express charm and character through a variety of architectural forms. Victorians, California Bungalows, Mediterraneans, Mid-Centuries, 1960-70s stucco Dingbats, Moderns, Post Moderns — you name it, they all stand [...]

Here’s an oddity that recently turned up on a nearby Elysian Heights street corner. My only guess is that, with the 2007 Holiday Season upon us, someone decided it was finally time to clear their living room for a fresh tree. (And you thought people who leave their Christmas lights up year round were tacky…) [...]

I read with some amusement Curbed L.A.’s post on a group of newly (some are saying poorly) built homes in Silverlake that are finding no buyers–or renters for that matter. It’s another chapter in a long saga whose backstory Curbed L.A. has no way of knowing. As a former homeowner on the street, however, I’m [...]

The big buzz this side of town is the huge pot farm authorities busted this week in the Verdugo Hills. Ironically, the field of approximately 5,000 marijuana plants (worth an estimated $10 million) was sighted by a helicopter crew performing a routine fire patrol. Checking for potential hotspots, they noticed an unusually lush green patch [...]