(StockXchange)

What will dog owners do now? With apparently no better issues to solve in a city facing massive infrastructure and budget woes, L.A.’s city council spent an inordinate part of the week debating, and ultimately voting for, a ban on plastic shopping bags. (A 10-cent surcharge on paper grocery bags also goes into effect.)

Dateline>City of Angels predicts that the ugly, unintended consequences will soon include an increase in doggie-doo along city sidewalks and greenbelts. L.A. Times

4 More Items…

• In an ironically tragic end to an exceptionally long life, a 101-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed in Burbank by a 91-year-old driver. The pedestrian turned out to be a well-known photographer. L.A. Times

• The San Gabriel Valley’s oldest Lutheran church celebrates 120 years as a congregation May 26. The historic Pasadena church played a first-hand role in the founding of many other Lutheran congregations throughout the Southland. Pasadena Star-News

• Philatelists and Tinseltown fans rejoice! The U.S. Postal Service has debuted a new series of Forever stamps honoring four classic Hollywood directors. Before clicking the link, can you guess who they are? The Wrap

• Remember when L.A.’s Silverlake neighborhood was gay, gay, gay? That was before the hipsters moved in. Now there’s yet another sign the area has gone straight — very straight. The Eastsider

(Amazon image)

What kind of crazy mixed-up book review is this? I haven’t even finished Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep yet. In fact, I’ve barely started it. But already I’m hooked and highly recommend it.

Embarrassing as it is for a self-proclaimed “true Angeleno” like me to admit, I’ve never read any of Chandler’s works. I guess I was jaded by all those over-the-top gumshoe parodies and bad Film Noire copycats. I expected his prose to be trite, even laughable.

It’s not. It’s crisp, fresh, fast-paced and engaging even today, decades after it was first put to the page. Sure, Chandler dishes up plenty of hyperbole and, shall we say, “daring” simile. Yet it all goes down surprisingly comfortably — like a good, smooth brandy and soda on a balmy Los Angeles night. (Trust me, Chandler could say it better.) He remains the all-time expert, and it’s easy to see how he inspired an entire slew of poorer imitators and satirists.

In The Big Sleep Chandler introduces his famous detective Philip Marlowe. From page one the character development is masterful — not just for Marlowe but each new figure who crosses the sleuth’s path. What’s more, the plotting is equally expert — the intrigue draws you in immediately.

But that’s all I can tell you. I’ve made it a point not to research the plot or characters ahead of time, so I really can’t add anything more to this upside-down “review.” If you’re like me, however, and have never cracked a Chandler book before, you may want to pick up a copy and join the adventure.

Our target. (Eric Gonzales)

The FBI will probably put me on some sort of watch list for this post, but I don’t care. I can’t resist crowing about a brand-new experience I had this past weekend: a shooting spree at the downtown Los Angeles Gun Club.

The whole idea came about while sitting over coffee Sunday afternoon with friend and partner in crime Eric Gonzales. (Well, maybe “partner in crime” isn’t the best choice of words here.)

Eric confessed to a fear of guns and wondered if actually shooting one might be the best way to overcome it. I confessed to skeet shooting in college once, but never having fired a handgun.

Before we both knew it, we were signing in at the indoor gun range near 6th and Central. The crowd there was surprisingly young and diverse, male and female, of every conceivable background. It truly was a microcosm of Los Angeles — not the redneck stereotypes we expected.

Eric with his gun.

“What kind of gun do you want?” asked one of the courteous but well-armed professionals behind the counter.

“Something small and easy to handle,” I replied.

“And not too scary,” added Eric.

Well, OK, Eric didn’t actually add that, but it’s what we were both thinking.

“This is a Smith & Wesson .357, a good one for beginners,” said the attendant, demonstrating a silvery revolver with a matte-black grip.

After a quick primer in gun safety and house rules, we grabbed our ammo, goggles and ear muffs and took up our position in one of the firing lanes. We chose a hostage-situation-themed target.

“You go first,” insisted Eric. Slowly, I raised the revolver, aimed it, cocked the hammer, and lightly squeezed the trigger.

Me shooting. (Eric Gonzales)

Blam! The noise and recoil didn’t surprise me nearly as much as the lighning-like flash from the barrel. Never had I held such lethal power between my sweaty hands. Rather than the feeling of awesome invulnerability I’d expected, a wave of realization swept over me. This thing really could kill — all too quickly, easily and accidentally.

We each fired off 50 rounds before calling it an afternoon. Unfortunately, the hostage on our target didn’t fare too well.

The experience left me smiling, but I wouldn’t say I had “fun” in the usual sense of the word. I never really got totally comfortable with the gun. Rather, I gained a deep respect for the weapon. (Properly handling and firing one is nothing like what you see in the movies.) The fun derived from a sense of accomplishment at trying and succeeding at something new — something beyond my comfort zone.

Most of all, however, I got a feeling for the true responsibility attached to handgun ownership, should I ever decide to buy one. And for that reason alone, my little downtown shooting spree was more than worth the cost of admission.

William Dryden (LAPL Digital Archives)

Melodramatic as they might be, modern courtroom TV reality shows wouldn’t hold a candle to the legal antics of 19th Century Los Angeles. Throughout the mid- to late 1800s, the town’s circus-like court system produced a parade of offbeat trials filled with colorful characters and preposterous verdicts. But for sheer entertainment value, there was probably no better courtroom to stumble into than that of Judge William G. Dryden.

Born near Richmond, Kentucky, in 1807, Dryden first made a career of trading along the Santa Fe Trail, and even served as a foreign-born captain in the Mexican Militia before eventually switching sides to become a covert Texan operative on the eve of the Mexican-American War. When the war finally erupted he assisted American forces as an interpreter. After the American victory, Dryden made his way to Los Angeles in March 1850, joining the bar and holding a variety of public offices, including city attorney (1851-1852), city clerk (1850-1860) and district court judge from 1856 until his death more than a decade later.

No Perry Mason

But Dryden’s career only underscores how easy it was for any self-proclaimed “lawyer” to hang his shingle in Los Angeles back then. There were no law schools or bar exams; simple acceptance by the town’s legal community sufficed. As an attorney he built a reputation for profanity-laced theatrics. Upon securing a seat on the bench, he took his act to even greater heights.

In 1854 the higher Court of Sessions reprimanded Dryden, then a Justice of the Peace, for holding an outdoor autopsy without a coroner then leaving the body unburied for animals to scavenge. Another prominent Angeleno of the time, Harris Newmark, characterized Dryden’s knowledge of the law as “extremely limited,” accusing him of an audacity that “frequently sustained him in positions that otherwise might have been embarrassing… [talking] with the volubility of a Gatling gun, expressing himself in a quick, nervous manner…”

(LAPL Digital Archives)

To be sure, Angeleno trials in the old Clock Tower Courthouse (pictured) were notoriously rowdy, with attorneys frequently hurling insults, inkstands and even fists at one another. To give him some credit, Dryden did at least strive for a semblance of courtly decorum. At one point he ordered that “attorneys while in attendance upon court will be required to wear a coat of some kind and will not be allowed to rest their feet on the tops of tables or whittle or spit tobacco juice on the floor or stove.”

Still, a trial before Dryden could easily descend into the sort of shoot-em-up chaos often caricatured in modern B westerns. Newmark tells us:

“On one occasion, for instance, after the angry disputants had arrived at a state of agitation which made the further use of canes, chairs, and similar objects tame and uninteresting, revolvers were drawn, notwithstanding the marshal’s repeated attempts to restore order. Judge Dryden, in the midst of the mêlée, hid behind the platform upon which his Judgeship’s bench rested; and being well out of the range of the threatening irons, yelled at the rioters: ‘Shoot away, damn you! And to hell with all of you!’”

Also an aspiring entrepreneur, Dryden was first to make a real stab at the city’s water problem. In 1858 he established the Los Angeles Water Works, the region’s first water company. Erecting a massive wooden water wheel along the Los Angeles River’s banks near Solano Canyon, he conveyed the river water via the Zanja Madre (Mother Ditch) to a central brick reservoir in the main plaza.

The fledgling venture didn’t last long, however. By the winter of 1862 flooding had demolished Dryden’s operations, and the judge suddenly found himself scrambling to resurrect his brainchild amid competition from several rivals. In the end, his efforts proved futile: the Common Council terminated his contract and awarded the franchise to Jean Louis Sainevain.

Cruel Twist of Fate

Colorful as he was, Dryden managed to court the famous Ana Josefa Juliana Dominguez. Hailing from one of Southern California’s wealthiest and most prestigious families, she was also considered one of the town’s most beautiful “Spanish Belles.” She could’ve had any man she wanted, but spurned numerous suitors well into her 40s. When at last she fixed her eyes on Mr. Right, it was the aging widower Judge William G. Dryden. Married in September 1868, the newlyweds took up residence at Fifth and Los Angeles Streets.

Unfortunately, their domestic bliss was short-lived. Just shy of their first wedding anniversary, on the evening of Sept. 10, 1869, the 70-year-old Dryden suffered an untimely heart attack and dropped dead in their parlor.

(Stockxchange)

Some DIY hobbies are just too insane to pursue — like building a homemade canon, for one. Yet that’s exactly what a pair of San Diego County men recently did, firing it off with predictably disastrous results. (Call it the shot heard ’round the Twin Lakes Resort mobile home park.) At least one of the two men was also injured in the blast. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Garnier House. (Wikimedia)

That’s the question raised by this March 2 Los Angeles Daily News article. (Well, the article doesn’t actually mention the “haunted” angle, but we’ll get to that below.)

It would be a shame if budget cuts force Los Encinos State Historic Park to close. For those lucky enough to stumble across it, the place offers a tranquil escape back in time from the hustle and bustle of modern Ventura Blvd. Plus, the 5-acre park boasts a diverse history. Fed by a natural spring, the site was originally a Tongva Indian village, then a Basque ranch and, eventually, a Butterfield stagecoach stop.

Nowadays it’s a popular field-trip destination for hundreds of schoolchildren. What the Daily News article doesn’t tell you, however, is that Los Encinos is also a favorite haunt of several ghosts.

In his book, The Haunted Southland, ghost hunter Richard Senate describes the park as a hotbed of paranormal activity, with a spectral monk and blacksmith haunting the grounds. The site’s De la Osa Adobe also apparently harbors a female spirit. But the spookiest wraiths inhabit the Garnier house, built in the 1870s:

“For years the house has been closed to the public, but in that time visitors have seen faces in the windows on the second floor… A visiting psychic saw three children at a window; two girls and a boy. “They are trapped here for some reason,” the psychic said. “They are waiting for someone to come for them.”

There are no clues as to the spirits’ lifetime identities, let alone why they remain at Los Encinos. Some people theorize they have been abandoned to time, awaiting a stagecoach that never arrived. Perhaps they stare out the windows wondering which of the park’s visitors will finally help them find their way home.

Whatever the case, let’s all hope Los Encinos can be saved — for the sake of the children and the children ghosts.

Friendship Pagoda. (M. Imlay)

This week my camera and I had the chance to get up close and personal with the Korean Bell of Friendship, located in San Pedro’s Angels Gate Park.

This shot captures some of the intricate ceiling detail of the ornate stone pavilion that houses the bell.

The bell was a 1976 bicentennial gift to the U.S. from the Republic of Korea celebrating the friendship between the two countries. The pavilion is situated atop a hill with amazing vistas of the Los Angeles Harbor, Point Fermin Lighthouse and the islands off the coastline.

Cast in Korea, the 17-ton bronze Friendship Bell is based on that country’s bronze Divine Bell of King Songdok, created more than a millennia ago. The bell is 12 feet tall, 7 1/2 feet in diameter, and has no clapper. It is rung only four times a year by means of a long wooden log suspended beside it.

Full pagoda view. (M. Imlay)

The San Pedro bell and pavilion are also highly symbolic: On the bell the Goddess of Liberty and other Korean spirits hold aloft symbols of freedom, nationalism and peace. The pagoda-like bell house (pictured here) is supported by 12 columns representing the Korean Zodiac.

For official information and directions, visit this Korean Bell page at SanPedro.com.

Stockxchange image.

Treasure hunters be advised: finders aren’t always keepers.

At least that was the verdict of a U.S. judge in the case of a centuries-old sunken treasure discovered off the coast of Spain. The cache of coins is worth an estimated half billion dollars, but the U.S.-based salvage company that hauled them up from the briny deep has now been left high and dry.

Apparently, Spain argued that, despite its sinking 200 years ago, the frigate that carried the booty is still a Spanish naval vessel, meaning all its cargo is still government property. The treasure is now headed for Spanish museums, but Odyssey Marine Exploration, the shipwreck’s finders, is appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the lower court’s decision defies all legal precedent.

No word yet on how this decision affects all those geeky guys with metal detectors at our local parks and beaches.

Stockxchange image.

For me, Leap Day just means one more day in February to get things done and work on my writing. (Kind of like a free deadline extension.) Apparently for others, however, Leap Day is a very big deal.

Check out the Seattle Post Intelligencer’s pictorial review of “10 weird and awesome things about Leap Day.” Methinks they doth stretch too much, but entertaining nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has a fun and informative piece explaining why we have Leap Day in the first place.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the famous 1997 North Hollywood Shootout in which two armor-clad bank robbers with assault rifles held off hundreds of outgunned LAPD officers. The gun battle lasted nearly 45 minutes, with the robbers firing off more than 1,000 armor-piercing bullets and police unleashing more than 750 rounds. Ultimately, the LAPD triumphed, thanks to officer professionalism and clever police tactics. Above is a video of the scene. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Daily News offers a fascinating look back on the incident. In addition, morning talk host Bill Handel has eight minutes of riveting audio from the shootout on his KFI web page.

As everyone knows by now, “The Artist” was named best picture at last night’s 2012 Oscars — the first (mostly) silent film to win such honors in 83 years. The last silent movie to receive similar accolades was “Wings,” a 1927 flick about World War I fighter pilots starring “It Girl” Clara Bow and Charles “Buddy” Rogers. In fact, “Wings” won Outstanding Picture at the very first Academy Awards, which were held at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel in 1929 just as talkies were igniting the silver screen. The above one-minute clip is the film’s action-packed trailer.

Automobiles with fins cruising broad boulevards and open freeways; street cars and paper boys; well-dressed people lining up to dine at the Pantry; industry and commerce — these are just a few of the sights recorded in this nostalgic view of 1950s Los Angeles. If you grew up Angeleno during that era, enjoy the trip down memory lane.

(StockXchange image)

The KCRW Shortcuts blog has a new post exploring the facts and fiction surrounding Los Angeles’ oft-ignored network of underground tunnels. The post includes links to several in-depth features on the topic by local news outlets.

Worthwhile as the item is, however, it unfortunately left out an entertainingly bizarre story about L.A.’s subterranean landscape: the mysterious Lizard People and their underground city.

Yes, as the Los Angeles Almanac reports, there really is such an urban legend, and over the decades it has lured many a would-be Indiana Jones on a futile search for the ancient caverns.

The whole idea seems to be based on a 3,000-year-old Hopi myth about a race of humans who chose to dwell deep within the earth. It’s not clear if they actually resembled reptiles or were called the Lizard People merely for their burrowing behavior. Either way, even prominent Angelenos have bought into the legend, including (allegedly) Charles Lummis, the famously eccentric writer-researcher of Native American culture.

The search for the Lizard People’s lost city apparently reached a fever pitch in 1934 when geophysicist and treasure-seeker G. Warren Shufelt sank a 250-foot shaft into Fort Moore hill, sure that he would find it. According to this January 29, 1934, Los Angeles Times article, Shufelt was led to the site by extensive “scientific” research that included radio X-rays.

Sadly, like numerous explorers before and after, all Shufelt ever dug up was dirt.

Colma mausoleum. (M. Imlay)

On my recent holiday jaunt to San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to visit the nearby city of Colma. Founded in 1924 and billed as the “City of Souls,” Colma has a unique history — it’s basically San Francisco’s necropolis, boasting 16 crowded cemeteries within its approximately 2-square-mile jurisdiction.

Colma monument. (M. Imlay)

In 1900, San Francisco outlawed burials within its city limits. Twelve years later, it went further and “evicted” all the dead, with the exception of those buried in two historic graveyards at Dolores Mission and the Presidio. Just a few miles to the south, sleepy Colma became the destination of choice for those seeking eternal rest. (Residents now like to quip that their municipality has more than a million and a half residents, about 1,700 of whom are actually living.)

As you might expect, Colma’s many cemeteries are filled with notable personalities. William Randolph Hearst, Wyatt Earp, Joe DiMaggio and William Henry Crocker are just a few of those taking their big dirt naps within the city’s boundaries.

A lion guards a plot at Colma. (M. Imlay)

The above three photos were taken at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, one of the town’s larger cemeteries. Established in 1892, the place brims with the sort of artistic headstones, monuments and crypts that once defined American cemeteries before mundane “memorial parks” like Forest Lawn ruined all their ambiance.

Foothill and Altadena. Photo: M. Imlay.

The aftermath of Wednesday night’s Santa Anas lingers on in Pasadena, which was hit hard by the blusters. This morning I came across the above scene at the intersection of Foothill Blvd. and Altadena Drive: Cleanup from a triple-car collision caused in part by a pair of non-functioning signals that were both snapped in two by the high winds.

Photo: M. Imlay.

This second photo to the left offers a closer look at one of the mangled light standards.

Driving around town, I didn’t see a single neighborhood that wasn’t significantly beat up in some way. Pasadena is a foothill city known for its streets lined with vintage homes and big old pines, stately cedars, gnarled oaks and other tall trees — and every block seemed to have at least one of them dangerously twisted or uprooted. (Many of which displaced sidewalks, gas, electric and water lines when they fell.)

Like many Southland residents, I’m “stunned” at the wind carnage. Road closures are everywhere, and power has yet to be restored to many neighborhoods. The cost in terms of damaged homes and buildings will be astronomical.

Unfortunately, I can’t see this region fully recovered for a very long time.

Whether summery hot or wintry tepid like the ones shown above that are currently ravaging Pasadena and the Greater Los Angeles area, Southern California’s fiendish Santa Ana winds are the stuff of legends.

In his story Red Wind, Raymond Chandler described them as “those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.”

Around here they’re blamed for all sorts of pandemonium: Making people irritable, making them horny, making them murderous, and even making “earthquake weather.” While the winds’ ability to do any of the above remains scientifically debatable, one thing’s painfully obvious:

“Santa Anas can cause a great deal of damage. The fast, hot winds cause vegetation to dry out, increasing the danger of wildfire. Once the fires start, the winds fan the flames and hasten their spread. The winds create turbulence and establish vertical wind shear (in which winds exhibit substantial change in speed and/or direction with height), both posing aviation hazards. The winds tend to make for choppy surf conditions in the Southern California Bight, and often batter the north coast of Santa Catalina Island, including Avalon cove and the island’s airport.” [Source: UCLA.edu]

As local meteorologists will tell you, the Santa Anas can blow virtually any time of year, but are especially strong from September through November — one reason why September is typically this region’s hottest month.

Despite the legend that the “devil winds” were originally named for Satan, or a corruption of “santana,” most historians agree they take their moniker from Orange County’s Santa Ana Canyon, a natural funnel between the Mojave Desert and the greater Orange and Los Angeles County regions.

The dry, offshore winds actually have their beginning in the Great Basin of the United States. When high pressure builds there, the air stream is forced toward Southern California, picking up speed as it sweeps across the Mojave Desert and squeezes through mountain passes (like Santa Ana Canyon) into the Los Angeles basin.

For a more in-depth historical-cultural look at the Santa Ana phenomen, visit this San Diego history site and this UCLA site. UCLA also offers this quick Santa Ana Winds FAQ.

Source: Wikimedia

Today marks the 136th anniversary of the hanging of Tiburcio Vasquez, notorious California outlaw and folk legend.

According to Los Angeles A-Z, my bible for everything L.A., he was the “last of the Mexican bandit leaders who roamed Southern California from the 1850s to the 1870s. Along with Joaquin Murrieta and Juan Flores, Vasquez was the most famous bandido, and the most durable.”

Born Jose Jesus Lopez at Monterrey in 1835, he began his criminal career as a teenager by knifing a lawman at a fandango. From that point on, he changed his name and lived as a fugitive in California’s hillsides, leading a gang of desperados and generally menacing the countryside while ironically spreading quite the reputation as a passionate and irresistible ladies’ man. In 1857, he was sent to San Quentin for horse thievery but escaped for a brief period in 1859 until his re-apprehension.

Completing his sentence in August 1863, Vasquez graduated to yet more heinous criminal pursuits. No dummy when it came to PR, he cultivated an image as a sort of charming Mexican Robbin Hood, raging against California’s New American Order. He would later relate:

“A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believed to be my rights and those of my countrymen. I believed we were unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us.”

In 1873, already wanted for a spree of Northern California killings and robberies, Vasquez turned his attention to Southern California, where he supposedly buried loot amid a rocky hideaway some 40 miles from Los Angeles that now bears his name.

The following year the state legislature placed an $8,000 bounty on his head and Angelenos organized a posse of Californio rancheros, Yankee vigilantes and rangers determined to put an end to his thuggish ways. He was finally captured at a farmhouse near the present-day West Hollywood intersection of Santa Monica and Kings Rd. (Rumor had it that henchman Abdon Leiva set his boss up as payback after catching Vasquez in bed with Mrs. Leiva.)

During his incarceration at Los Angeles, Vasquez became a celebrated jailbird, holding court with society women, tourists and journalists, who fawned over him for autographs, photos and interviews.

In due course, the romantic villain was transferred to San Jose, where he was tried and ultimately executed. Given the traditional chance to say a few last words from the gallows, Vasquez merely responded, “Pronto!”

His body now rests in the cemetery of Mission Santa Clara.

Battle:LA, Sony Pictures

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but friends report that Battle:LA features a character named USMC Corporal Lee Imlay. (They also take great joy in telling me he’s a motor-mouth who gets blown to smithereens by aliens.)

Apparently, there’s also a newly released video game based on the movie in which players can take on the role of Corp. Imlay.

Forgive the crowing, but to my knowledge this is the first time my family moniker has ever appeared on the big screen or in other popular entertainment. Until recently, Imlay has been rare as far as surnames go. As late as about a generation back, only a scant 400 households bearing the name could be found in the U.S.

Ironically, the Imlays trace their American heritage to early Colonial days. A family of wealthy shipping merchants, they settled along the Eastern seaboard, mainly in New Jersey. When the American Revolution broke out, they did what they could to help finance the Continental Congress’ war against the Crown. In fact, John Imlay’s mansion is a historical site in Allentown, NJ. (Then there was Gilbert Imlay, a somewhat obscure American author and family black sheep.)

I’d love to know what inspired Battle:LA’s writer Christopher Bertolini to include the name in his script. Did he know an Imlay? Grow up in New Jersey? Visit this blog? Or just randomly pull the name from a phonebook?

Unfortunately, the movie isn’t doing all that well review-wise. Roger Ebert derided it as “noisy, violent, ugly and stupid,” and so far most other film critics seem to agree.

Old Hollywood Estate. (Photo: M. Imlay)

The entry gate of an old Hollywood estate near Runyon Canyon. When practicing my photography, I try to look for subjects that suggest a story. Somehow these rustic doors caught my imagination: How long have they stood? Which historic names, if any, have passed through them? What momentous events have they witnessed over time? Who or what is hiding behind them now?

(And why hasn’t he or she changed the burned-out light bulb?)

If only walls and gates could talk, the stories these might tell!

(LAPL Digital Archives)

NBC Los Angeles reports that concrete slabs bearing the original footprints of Sid Grauman, Douglass Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have been found in — of all places — a local airport hanger. Along with the still-lost footprints of Norma Talmadge, the silent-era imprints date to 1927 and, through a quirk of fate, were the very first to grace the famous Hollywood forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Exactly how and why the historic footprints were made, removed in 1958, lost, and eventually rediscovered by TV personality Chuck Henry is a story filled with bizarre plot twists. Ultimately, Henry stumbled across the artifacts while visiting a local airport this past December, and NBCLA has spent the two months since authenticating his find.

(LAPL Digital Archives)

Predictably, the slabs’ reappearance is erupting into an epic tale of Tinseltown avarice. Mann Theatres CEO Peter Dobson has told NBCLA he’d “like them donated to the Chinese Theatre. And I would like the slabs put in front of the forecourt, back to where they truly belong.”

But Hollywood developer Nick Olaerts, who now claims ownership of the famous concrete chunks, has wasted no time in rejecting the proposal, saying bluntly, “I have no interest in giving them back to Grauman’s.”