blogdowntown: Life in Downtown Los Angeles

Also Inside:

Robert Graham, 70, Leaves Downtown a Legacy in Bronze
Yesterday, 01:09 PM
Hotel Cecil Applies for Liquor License
Tuesday

AEG's Partnership with Panasonic to Bring 8,000 Square Foot Screen to L.A. Live Hotel

By Eric Richardson — Yesterday, 11:02 PM

Eric Richardson

|Photo Gallery| A massive 8,000 square foot screen is slated to go on the side of L.A. Live's convention center hotel as part of a deal announced today between AEG and Panasonic System Solutions. The sponsorship deal will place the manufacturer's high-definition screens all over the entertainment complex.

At a press conference on the Nokia Plaza this afternoon, both AEG and Panasonic talked of their desire to make the campus a technological showplace. — Continued Inside...

Art Walk Preview for January, 2009

By Ed Fuentes — Yesterday, 01:28 PM

Tomorrow marks the first Downtown Art Walk of 2009. It happens that January is also L.A. Arts Month, a civic and private partnership designed to encourage the exploration of art in Los Angeles. For you Art Walk veterans, that’s not a new idea at all. But in case some new people are reading, the Downtown Art Walk is held every second Thursday of the month and...

A Resolution for Restaurants: Post Your Hours, and Stick to Them!

By Eric Richardson — Yesterday, 09:29 AM
6 Comments

I've lived on Spring street for a touch under five years now, and for two of those I've enjoyed having a pair of great eateries flanking my building. On the one side, California Fresh, offering great salads and pizza. On the other, L.A. Cafe, where I'm a sucker for the chipotle chicken panini and the L.A. Sliders. And yet, ask me what the hours are for these...

Robert Graham, 70, Leaves Downtown a Legacy in Bronze

By Ed Fuentes — Yesterday, 01:09 PM
3 Comments

|Photo Gallery| This morning, services were held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for sculptor Robert Graham, who passed away on December 27. In the week since, many appreciations have been written of Graham's perfectionism, along with varied interpretations of the recurring intimate imagery of the female form. All noted how he mastered the space around his public...

Hotel Cecil Applies for Liquor License

By Eric Richardson — Tuesday
3 Comments

Since launching Stay, the boutique hotel-hostel hybrid now running on three floors of the Hotel Cecil, operator Lanting Hotel Group has been busy. On the hotel's ground floor they've opened Arty, an art gallery space, Marty, a convenience store. Now the hotel's transformation attempt is in for its biggest test. The company has applied for a Conditional Use...

Did You Know: Hotel Figueroa was Built for Businesswomen?

By Eric Richardson — Tuesday
4 Comments

Did you know that the Hotel Figueroa was built in 1926 as a hotel for "business, traveling and professional women and their husbands and children"? The 409-room was built by the Y.W.C.A., and was billed in the L.A. Times as the "one of the largest financial transactions ever consummated by a body of organized women."

The End of Painted Ads on Hotel Figueroa?

By Eric Richardson — Monday
3 Comments

The massive murals on the side of the Hotel Figueroa are famous far beyond Downtown, appearing on TV coverage, films and even as a protest site in the lead-up to the 2000 Democratic National Convention. In the last month, though, the works on the side of the 82-year-old hotel have taken a subtle but important turn. The last two ads plastered on the giant walls...

New Year's Eve, Steam Punk Style

Tuesday

I never used to do anything special on New Year's Eve. That all changed the year I moved downtown. There always seems to be so much to do that if stay...

2 Comments

Around the Halls: January 5 - 8

Monday

It's Monday, January 5, and the Los Angeles City Council is set to begin 2009 with a week that's light on meetings but heavy on Downtown interest. Coming...

Weathering the Holidays

January 02, 2009

Christmas week was hectic. The flu flew into our home and took a stronghold in each of us, one at a time. Los Angeles is notorious for having non-Holiday...

9 Comments

Little Tokyo Says Hello to 2009

January 02, 2009

“Oshogatsu in Little Tokyo” is the New Year’s Day Festival that's been held since 1999, and it's certainly not a bad way to start the year. On and around...

1 Comment

Let's Discuss the Late Night DASH

January 01, 2009

The six-week Late Night DASH Holiday Pilot took its last runs early this morning, ending up service at 3am on New Year's Day. The privately funded, $23...

10 Comments

Catching Up With... Quimby Fees

By Eric Richardson — Monday
1 Comment

As we start 2009, we thought it useful to take a look at some of the important Downtown projects working their way through the system. One of the biggest Downtown issues of 2007 muddled its way into 2008, as no real progress was made on using Quimby fees collected from condo developers to create new park facilities for Downtown. The new year saw an audit by...

Flyaway Gets a Little Pricier for 2009

By Eric Richardson — Saturday
11 Comments

Downtowners who traveled over the holidays may have gotten a little surprise on their return. On January 1, the one-way price for a ride on the FlyAway bus between Union Station and LAX went up 50%, to $6.

Thanks for a Great 2008

By Eric Richardson — December 31, 2008
2 Comments

In this last day of 2008, I just wanted to take a moment to say how much I've enjoyed running blogdowntown this year. As I mentioned in the pledge drive kickoff, this year has been one of big growth for the site. We've now run 825 stories in 2008, which equates to just a hair under 250,000 words.

L.A. Live: Not Quite 'Downtown's Mecca,' But Still Full of Potential

By Ed Fuentes — December 30, 2008
18 Comments

|Photo Gallery| At a Menorah lighting on Sunday evening, Vic "The Brick" Jacobs claimed that "L.A. Live is Downtown's Mecca." That's a claim that would find plenty of disagreement. The highly-anticipated complex and plaza have their share of detractors, who say the space fails as a public gathering space and doesn't integrate into the community. It's not for lack of variety...

Catching Up With... Industrial Land Use

By Eric Richardson — December 28, 2008
12 Comments

As we go through the last few days of 2008, we thought it useful to take a look at some of the important Downtown projects working their way through the system. The first issue to rear its head Downtown in 2008 was that of Industrial Land Use, as the Planning Department and Community Redevelopment Agency announced an agreement that, among other things, limited...