www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-lofts13sep13,1,3215131,print.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
In an otherwise excellent article by the usually virtually seemingly always accurate reporter, Roger Vincent, about the new condo project in the old Broadway Building at Hollywood and Vine, the following paragraph can be found:
Elsewhere in east Hollywood, Santa Monica-based Palisades Development Group expects to start work next month on 60 loft-style condominiums in the 1929-vintage Equitable office building at the northeast corner of Hollywood and Vine, said Avi Brosh, president of the firm.
East Hollywood? Uh, Hollywood and Vine is - and was - the heart of Hollywood, period. I am not sure where East Hollywood starts - but it sure as hell ain't in the heart of old Hollywood.
And I know this is a week old, but I just got around to reading it tonight.
Brady,
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised by the error in this article by Roger Vincent but wonder about the copy editors at the LA times since this is not the first time I've noticed that the TImes staff seems geographically challenged. Case in point, about a year ago there was a story about the changing Latino community just west of downtown in the "Pico Rivera" neighborhood. I assumed they meant Pico Union.
This led me to wonder....have the Chicago tranpslants working at LAT never heard of the Thomas Bros. or have I missed some major geological shifts that have rearranged the geography of So. Cal?
I have noticed other examples of this, especially in the Thursday calendar section, but can't give anymore specific examples at the moment.
I am a fourth generation Angeleno, urban planner and historian. It seems to me that this very lazy approach to local geography by our major paper reflects and reinforces the weak sense of place that many in LA experience.
Another example of this happens pretty frequently in my neighborhood of Highland Park. Newcomers confuse the Avenues (our numbered streets, ie Avenue 43, Avenue 64) with the numbered streets in downtown, eg, 1st street, 33rd street, etc. Right now, there is a huge billboard at York & Figueroa adverstising a new clinic at "Figueroa and 59th", which would be in South LA, when they really mean Figueroa and Avenue 59.
Glad to know that I'm not the only person who notices such things!
I've had several LA Times writers tell me that editors change their correct facts - and geographic descriptions - to incorrect facts and descriptions!
ReplyDeleteAnd Vincent really knows LA, so I was so surprised by him getting this wrong - if indeed it was his mistake.
The worst offender, though, was our previous architecture critic (Nicolai Ouroussoff) who for the first year had blatant errors in almost every article about LA. Luckily, Christopher Hawthorne seems to have a real interest in engaging the city.
But the other new hires at the Times seem to have no interest in learning anything about this city.
Even something as well known as Hancock Park has been described as a gated communtiy - wrong, that is Fremont Park Place, the home of the Getty Mansion - wrong, that is Windsor Square - and the home of a mansion that was built before Hancock Park was even subdivided - wrong, that was Westchester Gardens. And that was all just this sunner.