From the Newsroom

Everyday

LA Times Covers Gansevoort West

By Eric Richardson — September 19, 2005
2 Comments

Brady had mentioned a couple months ago that the Trinity Auditorium building was going to be made over as a western branch of New York’s Gansevoort Hotel. Today the LA Times business section covers the building’s future. The Gansevoort West will be a trendy 170-room hotel, with quite the list of features and amenities. I think this is well located...


Everyday

LA Live! Groundbreaking Gives Kotkin Another Chance to Badmouth Downtown

By Eric Richardson — September 17, 2005
4 Comments

Lots of new coverage on the LA Live groundbreaking. The Downtown News runs a piece, while the LA Times yesterday wrote that ESPN will have a studio as a part of the project. My favorite bit of coverage, though, is in the Daily Breeze, who gives some ink to the always entertaining Joel Kotkin. Calling the project’s concept “more appropriate to Cincinnati...


Everyday

LA Times Talks LA Live vs. Grand Ave.

By Eric Richardson — September 15, 2005
2 Comments

A piece in the LA Times today titled ”2 Projects, 2 Visions of Downtown’s Future” talks about the differences between the LA Live and Grand Ave. projects, and includes some quotes from DLANC Board member Russell Brown. “If the two projects were more similar, they would be competition,” Brown said. “But being at the opposite...


Everyday

"Buildings are meant to be experienced"

By Eric Richardson — September 14, 2005
2 Comments

I have to thank Franklin Ave. for linking to Mitch Glaser’s interesting Paradox Unbound blog about city planning. In a post from Monday he comments on the Downtown News’ ”From ‘Deathstar’ to Screen Star.” He makes a point that I think is hugely important: I think it’s problematic to judge a building on its artistic...


Everyday

DLANC: September Board Meeting

By Eric Richardson — September 14, 2005
2 Comments

It feels like it’s been a while since I last did a DLANC meeting recap. Being secretary for a little bit I felt like my writing here interfered with my official minutes duty, but now I’m just treasurer. And there’s no money here to interfere with the DLANC money. It was a long meeting last night, so hopefully that means there were a few things...


Everyday

The Haves and the Have-Nots

By Eric Richardson — September 13, 2005

Dark Hallway

One thing I thought was interesting while walking around with the power out today was taking a look at which buildings had the generators to keep things relatively normal, and which did not. For instance, I heard my building’s generator kick in within 15 seconds after the power went out. It didn’t provide power to the units, but it did bring up sufficient...


Everyday

Pedestrian Life, One Way or Another

By Eric Richardson — September 12, 2005
2 Comments

Everyone else will cover the power outage better than I could, so I won’t really get into that. I will, though, say that it was fun to walk around the Historic Core and see so many people hanging out on the sidewalks. I started from my apartment and wandered over to Hill before coming back here and then heading up toward the Civic Center. Lots of people...


Everyday

September Art Walk Snapshot

By Eric Richardson — September 08, 2005

Snap to Grid at LACDA

Thanks to a 7 - 11pm class, my Downtown Art Walk today was about ten minutes long. I did make some quick rounds at the nickel (5th & Main), though, and really enjoyed the Snap to Grid show at the LA Center for Digital Art. The premise is basically that everything submitted was accepted, and hung on display in a roughly 8.5x11 format. I don’t know exactly...


Everyday

DOT Says No One Wants Midblock Crossing

By Eric Richardson — September 08, 2005

One year ago today (according to the City Clerk’s stamp) Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion (PDF) asking DOT to report on the cost of placing a midblock crosswalk on Spring Street between 6th and 7th. Now that just happens to be my block, so I was interested to hear about this. Just a week or so ago DOT finally returned a report (PDF). Basically...


Everyday

Food Carts and Street Life

By Eric Richardson — September 07, 2005

Fun tip email I got today… A reader writes There’s a new (licensed, it looks like) cart vendor at 4th and Bolyston. He opened for the first time yesterday. This puts carts in my work’s area (west of the 110) at two, as another guy is located just off 4th and Beaudry. To me, the presence of street food vendors indicates a returning vibrancy...