2 Hour Walking Tour of Historic Dwntown LA Sunday September 1st at 11 AM from The Last Bookstore If Get 3 More Reservations by Tonight

Special  SUNDAY AND MONDAY Labor Day Weekend Walking Tours of Historic Downtown LA!

The Last Bookstore (and its  2nd floor with 50,000 books at ONE DOLLAR each!)  Presents  2 hour walking tours of the The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles - Just Endorsed By - LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE!

For this Labor Day Weekend only, I will also give tours on both Sunday and Monday September 1st and 2nd with tentative starting time of 11 AM if I have 3 more reservations by tonight for Sunday Sept. 1st or 4 reservations for anytime Monday by Sunday night

So either call me at 213-804-8396 or email me at bradywestwater@gmail.com. And if I do get a total of four reservations for any of those additional times and days, I will post those times and dates as being firm and anyone can show up without a reservation. 

And you will see - among many other things - where Eric Richardson founded blogdowntown in 2005 and the place where Eric was conned into, I mean... convinced by me... to run for a seat on the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.

Then the following Saturday, I will resume HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour EVERY Saturday of September  starting at either 10:30 or 11 AM depending on public response.   And there will also be tours on other upcoming weekends.  And all tours start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring and they are still only $15 per person.

And  besides our regular scheduled tours, we will be offering customized tours on different days and different times and from one to three hours including weekdays - depending on your schedule.  With a minimum of four reservations, we will design a tour of any part of Downtown focusing on any subject matter you choose.  These tours can be after work, during lunch breaks - or??

FOR MORE INFORMATION  - contact Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 - or bradywestwater@gmail.com

BRADBURY BUILDING

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.  

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

Grand Central Market's Hours Extend to 8 AM to 6 PM as of Tuesday September 3rd

The start of the transformation of Grand Central Market into an early morning to late at night venue for both grocery shopping and dining begins this Tuesday when the traditional 9 AM opening is rolled back to 8 AM. The news was transmitted via fliers posted on each of the stalls today.  As for the coming expansion into the evening hours - we were told at a Planning Committee Meeting of the Neighborhood Council that should start later this fall.

Grand Central Market's Hours Extend to 8 AM to 6 PM as of Tuesday September 3rd

The start of the transformation of Grand Central Market into an early morning to late at night venue for both grocery shopping and dining begins this Tuesday when the traditional 9 AM opening is rolled back to 8 AM. The news was transmitted via fliers posted on each of the stalls today.  As for the coming expansion into the evening hours - we were told at a Planning Committee Meeting of the Neighborhood Council that should start later this fall.

Little Tokyo Community/Recreation Center Passes Half-Way Point in Fund Raising

Rendering courtesy of Little Tokyo Service Center via Downtown News

Long before most of us ever thought of moving Downtown (and before quite of few of us were even born), the Little Tokyo Community has been fighting to get a recreation center for its youth (since the 1970's) and a place where the community as a whole could gather.  It took decades before a site could be selected and agreed upon - and acquired - in 2011 - and now - the half way point has been reached to raise the money to build it.

The Downtown News yesterday reported that 1.3 million in Prop K funds will push the raised amount to around 11 million of the needed 22 million dollars.

Little Tokyo Rec Center Gets $1.3 Million Grant

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - The effort to build a $22 million recreation center in Little Tokyo got a big boost recently. Scott Ito, the project manager for the planned Budokan of Los Angeles, said the development from the Little Tokyo Service Center will receive $1.3 million grant in Prop K funds.
The money brings the fundraising campaign to nearly the halfway point, with about $11 million raised, Ito said.

The project would create a 38,000-square-foot facility between Second and Third streets. It would include a four-court gymnasium, community space and a rooftop garden with a jogging track. 

The rest of the story and the proposed time frame for construction and completion can be found at the Downtown News website. 

What's New in the One Dollar Section of The Last Bookstore's LABYRINTH

Just One Corner of the American History Section of The Last Bookstore's One Dollar Room

Summer is ending and a flood of new/old one dollar books has hit the The Last Bookstore's LABYRINTH filling its sections to overflowing.  Particularly crowded is the American History and Culture section that - not satisfied with displacing the Arts section - has just jumped the main corridor and has invaded five more shelves.  I stopped trying to estimate how many books there are in that section when I hit 2,000 - all at one dollar each.  And we have many, many very hard to find books starting from the beginning of the last century until today as well as many recent best sellers.

And since I am in the store about 8 hours a day - just ask to see the guy in the black cowboy hat if you have any questions

Moving on to our Russian history, culture and literature section, it now has had many rare and unusual items recently added to it - which brings its total to over a hundred often hard to find titles at any price, much less a dollar each.

Our German, Italian, French, Icelandic, and Czech sections - among others - also have a number of hard to find translated novels.  And our far more 1,00 book plus collection on the history England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland also has hundreds of novels, short story collections and books on literary history & studies.

And while the psychology section had been hard hit over the past few weeks - multiple major donations have packed it again with over 1,000 books. Other sections with many just arrived books and which are at the 1,000 or more level are literary studies, Judaic, combined European history, Asia, business & economics (well over 2,000), religion & theology, military/planes/ships, medicine & health, wine & cookbooks, self-help of every possible kind (easily 2,000), travel (split among multiple sections),  science/math & natural history combined and well over 2,000 in our social sciences section (sociology, archeology, anthropology, folklore, political science, education, feminism & woman's studies and other related fields).

In the realm of the 100's we have law, music, film, theater, African-American & Africa, home repair, real estate sales and investments, poetry (and that is very strong at the moment), gardening, Latin America, the new and old left, pets of all sorts, sports (with a special section on the history of women in sports), golf, home decoration and design, gay and lesbian (also very strong at the moment) gambling, cards, horse racing & games of all types, the occult, ghosts, astrology, UFO's & all things weird and wacko and the Middle East and Islam.

Plus we have smaller collections on everything from flower arranging to needlepoint to philosophy to cars to camping to mountaineering -  and every week we get large collections for many of those sections and we also get collections of more unusual or harder to find topics.

And - as always - over half of our books are novels which are located on separate shelves from the non-fiction except we do shelf some of the better literary fiction with each country.

Lastly, The Last Bookstore is at 5th & Spring in Downtown Los Angeles in the Spring Arts Tower at 453 S. Spring and we are open seven days and nights a week from 10 AM every day and until 10 AM every night except Monday, Friday and Saturday when we are open until 11 and Sunday when we are open until 9 PM.

Should MOCA Split the Director's Position Between Two People - at Least on a Trial Basis?

With Tyler Green announcing Ann Goldstein's resignation - effective December 1st - from Stedelijk, that clearly puts her at the head of the list as a possible new director for MOCA.

Tyler Green ‏@TylerGreenDC2h

Stedelijk announces director Ann Goldstein's resignation, effective Dec. 1. Sure to kick off much speculation about a return to MOCA.

William Poundstone over at Los Angeles County Museum on Fire instantly pounced on the subject.

photo courtsey of William Poundstone's  Los Angeles County Museum on Fire Blog

Ann Goldstein-MOCA Speculation

Ann Goldstein has resigned as director of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, effective Dec. 1. As Tyler Green points out, this is sure to raise speculation about a return to MOCA.
Goldstein was born in Los Angeles and worked at MOCA for 26 years(!), assuming the post of senior curator from 2001 to 2009. The Stedelijk press release says “Ms. Goldstein indicated that her work at the Stedelijk Museum is now done and that the museum is poised for a new Artistic Director to lead it into the future.” That’s the usual press release language that doesn’t really say anything. Needless to say, MOCA is looking for a director (as is the Hirshhorn for that matter).
My initial reactions:

Well, for his initial reactions - you will have to go to his blog. 

But here is what I posted in his comments section:

Brilliant idea, with one caveat. MOCA should also appoint a co-director in charge of fund raising and in charge of handling some of the more ‘keeping the trains running on time’ aspects of running a museum.

And this person should report to Ann.  And Ann, of course, would still  be charged with spending a serious portion of her time fund raising.

 Now while this might – or might not be – the best long term solution, I don’t know.

But I do know that finding a brilliant director and a brilliant fund raiser in one person in this short a period of time is... simply not gonna happen.

 So why not try the splitting the position - but only for a specified period of time - to see if it works?

And my one final thought since then is that Ann Goldstein - despite an already long and distinguished career - 26 years just at MOCA - is still in the prime of her life having just reached her mid-50's.  But she is also just old enough to want to start to find and groom candidates to eventually replace her when she feels she wants to move on to new challenges.

Kevin Roderick of LA OBSERVED Looks Back Upon What Eric Richardson and blogdowntown did for Downtown Los Angeles.

LA's Main Media Observer, Kevin Roderick of LA Observed, appropriately is the first major media source to reflect upon KPCC's abrupt shutdown of Eric Richardson's blogdowntown.  And starting with this weekend's walking tours of Historic Downtown LA - the place where Eric lived and created blogdowntown will be added to the tour.

photo of Blogdowntown's short lived print edition courtesy of LA Observed

Blogdowntown is folding into the KPCC mainstream
By Kevin Roderick | August 27, 2013 11:52 PM

Blogdowntown was started by Eric Richardson in 2005 to chronicle the community where he wanted to live. Richardson created and coded the backend of the blog, built a community of readers who relied on his independence, and experimented with different funding models, including nonprofit status for awhile. As he was doing the blog, DTLA become a hot story. Richardson became, I think somewhat to his surprise, a journalist. Blogdowntown published writers and photographers such as Ed Fuentes and became a go-to online observer of the downtown transformation.

He briefly tried breaking into print, but that was harder than he realized going in. Less than two years ago, Blogdowntown wasacquired by KPCC, and Richardson worked at the station for awhile before moving out of state. Hayley Fox has kept the blog's content going, but today KPCC announced (somewhat tersely) that it will fold into the station's other web coverage.

The rest of Kevin's story can be found here at LA Observed.

Blogdowntown 2005 - 2013, RIP. KPPC Shutters blogdowntown

photo by Eric Richardson
Eight years after Eric Richardson started one of the first blogs in Downtown LA and two years after he handed it over to KPCC when he moved to Atlanta, KPPC announced that there will be no further postings on the blogdowntown site and all future coverage of Downtown LA will be on their main news page.

And, starting this weekend, the place where Eric Richardson lived and started blogdowntown will be added to my walking tours of Historic Downtown LA. on all three days of this Labor Day Weekend.

KPCC moves blogdowntown coverage to main news site

By BLOGDOWNTOWN STAFF
Published: Tuesday, August 27, 2013, at 02:07PM

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — As of today, KPCC is moving blogdowntown coverage to our main news site, KPCC.org. As a result, blogdowntown will no longer be updated, and the Twitter and Facebook accounts associated with blogdowntown also will be inactive.

 Blogdowntown reporter Hayley Fox will continue to report on Downtown and other issues of interest to Los Angeles residents as part of KPCC's ongoing mission, and her reports will appear on our main news site.

 Fox will also continue to tweet from her Twitter account, @EPfox. You can also follow KPCC's Twitter account, @KPCC, twitter.com/kpcc, and get updates on KPCC's Facebook page, Facebook.com/kpcc.

 Existing blogdowntown posts will remain archived here.

Please share suggestions for future coverage with us. You can let us know by email, on our Facebook page or on our Twitter feed (just "@" mention @KPCC). 

I'll share some thoughts and recollections on this later.

Special Days & Times for 3 Days of Labor Day Weekend Walking Tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles UPDATE

Special 3 Days of Labor Day Weekend Walking Tours of Historic Downtown LA!

The Last Bookstore (and its  2nd floor with 50,000 books at ONE DOLLAR each!)  Presents  2 hour walking tours of the The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles - Just Endorsed By - LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE!

For this Labor Day Weekend only, besides the 10:30 - 12:30 tour this Saturday August 31st which is confirmed - then - BY APPOINTMENT ONLY - I will also give tours on both Sunday and Monday September 1st and 2nd with tentative starting times of 11 AM and/or 1:30 PM both days - since it is the end of summer - and it is projected to be from the mid-70's to low 80's during the walk on Saturday and the low  to high 70's with a later high of 80 on Sunday and Monday. UPDATE- Just received arequest by one person for 11 AM Sunday Morning? Any other interest in that time?

HOWEVER, this will only happen if I have four or more reservations by Saturday night for Sunday and Sunday night for Monday. BUT - since I am close to full  - but still have spaces - for Saturday already - I think I will be getting reservations for Sunday at least and I can also do a walk later Saturday afternoon if that might work

So either call me at 213-804-8396 or email me at bradywestwater@gmail.com. And if I do get a total of four reservations for any of those additional times and days, I will post those times and dates as being firm and anyone can show up without a reservation. 

And you will see - among many other things - where Eric Richardson founded blogdowntown in 2005 and the place where Eric was conned into, I mean... convinced by me... to run for a seat on the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.

Then the following Saturday, I will resume HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour EVERY Saturday of September  starting at either 10:30 or 11 AM depending on public response.   And there will also be tours on other upcoming weekends.  And all tours start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring and they are still only $15 per person.

And  besides our regular scheduled tours, we will be offering customized tours on different days and different times and from one to three hours including weekdays - depending on your schedule.  With a minimum of four reservations, we will design a tour of any part of Downtown focusing on any subject matter you choose.  These tours can be after work, during lunch breaks - or??

FOR MORE INFORMATION  - contact Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 - or bradywestwater@gmail.com

BRADBURY BUILDING

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.  

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

New Art Project Along Main and Los Angeles Streets Connects DTLA & Union Station & Demonstrates Need for Federal Artist Relocation Program

In order to make the walk from Union Station to Downtown Los Angeles more pleasant, the city is in the process of widening the sidewalks along Main and Los Angeles Streets where they cross the infamous 'Slot" where the freeway cuts off Downtown from Chinatown, the Plaza and Union Station.  The City is also installing some 'art'  along the sidewalks of Los Angeles and Main Streets.  CURBEDLA has some details and a link to the city website describing the project.  

No mention, however, is made in either place of the name of the artist who has, presumably, already been whisked away for their own safety and placed in the artist protection program prior to the installation of the art pieces.

More Proof No One Really Knows Everything - and Often - Anything - About the History of Los Angeles UPDATE More Early Pre-1902 Cars Built in LA

William Varner driving a Durocar photo credit Jerry & Barbara Walkers via vintage motoring.blogspot
In a recent post,Kevin Roderick of LA Observed correctly corrects the Wall Street Journal statement that the 1902 Tourister in the "Becoming LA" exhibition at the Natural History Museum was not just the first car ever made in Los Angeles, but that the Tourister was the only car ever manufactured in Los Angeles.

Leaving out LA's history of car manufacturing

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday ran a couple of good Leisure and Arts stories on museum exhibits in Los Angeles. Both are exhibits we've written about and liked: Never Built: Los Angeles at the A+D Museum, and Becoming Los Angeles at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the latter story observes that one of the objects on display, a 1902 Tourister, was the first car produced in Los Angeles. The story says, however, that it's "the only car to be manufactured in Los Angeles."

Oops. That leaves out a lot of cars — thousands. The WPA guide "Los Angeles in the 1930s" noted in 1939 that there were assembly plants here for General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Studebaker and Willys-Overland. 

And the rest of his story is here.

So, as you see, Roderick mentions a few of the many automobile manufacturing plants in LA that were branches of Detroit based companies to prove the WSJ wrong as do and Natural History spokesperson, Kristin Frederick, agrees that the WSJ is in error.

But the minor point everyone ignores is that the first car ever made in Los Angeles was actually manufactured in 1897 on Fifth Street in Downtown Los Angeles by S.D. Sturgis to the design of engineer J. Phillip Erie. And here is a link to a photo of it which seems to dispute the claim that the car never ran again in the other linked to article.

Also ignored is that Los Angeles actually had many locally based auto manufacturing companies and another source describes how by 1907, Los Angeles even had an almost fully locally integrated  headquartered car company (the Durocar, which had a manufacturing plant at 935 S. Los Angeles Street where the Cal Mart Building now stands.) which was started by two people who had worked or sold cars for at a still earlier car manufacturing company based in LA - the Auto Vehicle Manufacturing Company - that manufactured a car called the Tourist.

That car, of course, is probably the Tourister - and is likely the same car as the Tourister in the Natural History Museum.

And those two companies were just the start of locally based LA car manufacturing since by the 1920's, besides factories that later churned out the major Detroit brands, at least 81 different makes of cars had been already been manufactured in Los Angeles, primarily by locally based companies.  

UPDATE - I decided to take a quick spin around the web to see if any other cars might have been built in LA prior to 1902 - and it turns our, there may have been a lot of them - and two of them are at the Petersen Museum.  

First, they have the 1897 electric car built by then 17 year old Earle C. Anthony who was, of course, later one of LA's most famous car dealers.

One of the first cars built in Los Angeles, this spindly vehicle was constructed by 17-year old Earle C. Anthony using lumber, wheelchair gears, bicycle forks and other available components. Though young, Anthony was a competent electrical engineer who also designed and built the 1.5-horsepower electric motor that powered the car. This is believed to be a reconstruction, which was crafted in the early 1920s using the original metal parts attached to a new wooden framework.

Second, there is the 1900 Breer car  also on display at the Petersen.

Our first display as you walk into the museum is the Breer Blacksmith shop and there's Carl Breer in the black at the shop an American working with metal in a Blacksmith shop, reshoe horses and building wagons and things like that, and in the front the display is the Breer steam-powered car from 1900, one of the first cars built in Los Angeles was steam-powered car called the Breer Car. Carl Breer was a blacksmith. No real formal education but very ingenious and have lot of ingenuity and he built this car that runs and drives and what happened with Carl Breer is by 1924 he became the first Chief Engineer of Chrysler Motor Company with no formal education but with the technology and the things in his head and his thought start process, he was able to build this car and then become the chief engineer at Chrysler and that's the story.

WOW! Bon Appetit Has Just Called Downtown's Own Alma Restaurant Right on Broadway - the Best New Restaurant in America in 2013!

Just when you think Downtown Los Angeles can't get any more attention - besides opening a new cool restaurant virtually ever week - we now can boast the best new restaurant in the entire country for the year 2013.  Yes - the number one new restaurant in the entire country. Here is the opening of the article:

Alma:

Best New Restaurant in America in 2013

12:00 pm / August 12, 2013 / By Andrew Knowlton / Photos by Michael Graydon + Nikole Herriott / KEYWORDS: Alma, Best New Restaurants, Los Angeles, The Hot 10 2013

Ari Taymor has a knack for knocking on doors, and a talent for showing up unannounced at a restaurant’s service entrance. He’s not afraid to call a chef every day for a month to ask if he can come work for free.

In other words, he can be a royal pain in the butt. But it’s that won’t-take-no-for-an-answer attitude that led him, at just 26 years old, to open Alma. The story of how this unassuming, 39-seat restaurant in Los Angeles became the restaurant of the year is, to put it in sports terms, like that of a minor league baseball player who goes from batting .200 one year to hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth with two outs to win the World Series the next. Yes, it’s that unexpected.

Taymor grew up in Palo Alto, California, on a steady suburban diet of Food Network (he was partial to Good Eats and Iron Chef) and Taco Bell (his go-to order: two chalupas and a Crunchwrap Supreme). But it wasn’t until 2007, when he had a monumental, eye-opening meal of lamb leg à la ficelle at the legendary Chez Panisse, that food became more than entertainment and cheap fuel. From that point forward, Taymor wanted to cook.

That’s not to say that the road to Alma was linear. Along the way, he was fired from an externship at Lucques in Los Angeles, honed basic culinary skills at a community kitchen in Berkeley, and hunkered down at San Francisco’s Flour + Water, where he spent six months only making pasta. I’ve seen better résumés on The Hot 10. It was while working as an unpaid stagiaire at La Chassagnette, a country restaurant with its own garden in Arles, France, that Taymor adopted the techniques that became the foundation of his cooking style (not to mention where he became enamored with the idea of having a farm).

These varied experiences gave Taymor a vision for his own concept—and bolstered the tenacity required to pull it off. In February 2012, less than five years after that pivotal meal at Chez Panisse, he launched Alma as a pop-up in Venice, California.

What would soon become his trademarks—almost no butter, lots of vegetable stocks, and selections that changed nightly—shined in the three- and five-course tasting
menus. It was an overnight success, but seeing as it was a pop-up, his success was over almost as soon. Taymor was about to take a job opening up someone else’s restaurant when he got a call about a permanent space in downtown L.A. He had 24 hours to decide his future. Taymor and his business partner, Ashleigh Parsons, signed the lease and opened Alma an unheard-of two weeks later.

The restaurant nearly failed. Some nights, no one came in. “I was terrified,” says Taymor. “I kept running out of money.”

To be completely honest, the first time I ate there, I had my own doubts about the place. Alma is situated in an area undergoing a cultural and culinary renaissance, but there are still pockets of seediness, like the bubble gum–stained block on which Alma’s modern, wood-paneled facade stands out. Inside, you can feel its makeshift roots. It resembles a temporary gallery space more than a bona fide eating establishment (chalkboard wall; simple wood finishes; a long open kitchen where, behind bouquets of flowering herbs and tiles doubling as plates, Taymor and his merry band of cooks work all night, barely stopping to look up).

Could a restaurant stuck between a hostess bar and a former marijuana dispensary steal the top spot on this year’s list? By the time the seven-course, $90 tasting menu began, I looked at my wife and said, “This place has a chance.

And to read the rest of the review -  go to Bon Appetit.

Still Room on Tomorrow's Sat. August 24th 2 Hour Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Los Angeles Starting at The Last Bookstore 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM

The Last Bookstore (and a  2nd floor with 50,000 books at ONE DOLLAR each!)  Presents  10:30 Summer START TIME FOR 2 hour walking tours of the The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles - Just Endorsed By - LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE!

I am continuing the  HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour EVERY Saturday this August  including August 24th at 10:30 AM  (with the temperature predicted to be in the upper-70's - and  Saturdays, August 31th and September 7th  also with the NEW start time of 10:30 AM and an ending time of 12:30 PM; one-half earlier in both cases.   And there will also be tours on other upcoming weekends.  And all tours start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring and they are still only $15 per person.

And  besides our regular scheduled tours, we will be offering customized tours on different days and different times and from one to three hours including weekdays - depending on your schedule.  With a minimum of four reservations, we will design a tour of any part of Downtown focusing on any subject matter you choose.  These tours can be after work, during lunch breaks - or??

FOR MORE INFORMATION  - contact Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 - or bradywestwater@gmail.com

BRADBURY BUILDING

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.  

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

Eric Garcetti's Proposed Four Year Agreement With the Largest DWP Union

First for background on how the City of Los Angeles lost control of its own water and power department, here is my article giving some of the back story.  And now some specifics from Catherine Saillant and David Zahniser of the LA Times on what has been agreed upon.

(photo by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / July 1, 2013)

By Catherine Saillant and David Zahniser August 22, 2013, 1:31 p.m.

 A tentative Los Angeles Department of Water and Power labor deal that holds the line on raises for three years, reduces pensions for new hires and sets a path for changing outdated work rules signals a turning point in labor power at City Hall, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday.

“Today the balance of power at the DWP shifts to the people," Garcetti told a packed news conference where he outlined the details of the pact. The mayor thanked voters for electing him and praised the City Council for standing “firm as a city family during these negotiations.”

 “We showed the power that we have. It’s the power of the people," Garcetti said, flanked by most of the City Council members, City Atty. Mike Feuer, Controller Ron Galperin and key city staff. “This department will now be managed by its owners, the people of Los Angeles.”

The city struck the four-year agreement with Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers late Wednesday. It includes three years of no raises followed by a 2% raise in the final year, lower pension benefits for new employees and the creation of a labor-management panel that would seek to revise work rules that drive up costs.

 It also sets aside 2% of DWP workers’ pay as a contribution toward active workers' healthcare. Total savings from the deal will be $456 million over four years and $6.1 billion over three decades, officials said.

 The accord was struck after weeks of push and pull among the mayor, council leaders and labor officials. At one point Garcetti threatened not to sign the agreement if more concessions weren't made by the union. 

The rest of the story can be found at the LA Times website.and here is the background on why this agreement is so critical to the city's future.

"Today, the Balance of Power With the DWP shifts to the People," Eric Garcetti, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles.

At this morning's press conference announcing the new labor agreement with the largest DWP union, Mayor Eric Garcetti's opening statements make it clear that the DWP was from now going to be run by and for the people of Los Angeles.  And that message was far more important than any of the reforms reached in this contract. 

It was both Garcetti's acknowledgement that the DWP had NOT been run by or for the citizens of Los Angeles for many years and his commitment that this situation will no longer be allowed to continue.

All this was made possible when Brian D'Arcy, the business manager of  Local 18, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW),  decided to spend millions of his union members dollars to not just select a city council that would do his bidding, but to also elect Wendy Greuel as Mayor. That decision not only doomed her bid, but guaranteed the election of Eric Garcetti.  

This gave Garcetti the clearest possible mandate to retake control of the DWP and return it to the city and to also - hopefully - end the ability of a single union to largely determine who can be elected to public office in this city.  

But Eric Garcetti couldn't have done this without a lot of support.  And among his many supporters, he has had the support of the city's neighborhood councils on this issue and the support our new city controller, Ron Galperin, the first neighborhood council board member ever to be elected to citywide office.  And Ron was not just a neighborhood cornily board member - he was also active with many of us on DWP issues and we served together as budget reps where he first began to get citywide notice for his innovative ways at looking how the city spends - and how it receives - money.  

And if any one action in the past few weeks changed how the public and the press felt on this issue (which then emboldened city council members to change their positions) - it was Ron Galperin's  brilliant review of how the DWP pay scales and job rules and financial/accounting tricks that had taken hundreds of mullions of dollars out of rate payer's pockets over the years.

Mayor Garcetti, DWP Union Head D’Arcy Reach Deal on Contract While Dining at the New City Hall North

The New City Hall North - Edendale

According to Dakota Smith of the Daily News, not  only is the deal done, but the final details were done in a meeting between Mayor Eric Garcetti and Brian D’Arcy which a LA Times reporter, David Zahniser witnessed at the Edendale Grill in Silverlake.  And for some background on this issue - here is a link to my Huffington Post story and below is the opening of Dakota Smith's story.

Mayor Garcetti, DWP union head D’Arcy reach deal on contract

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Dakota Smith

Mayor Eric Garcetti and Brian D’Arcy, business manager of the Department of Water and Power union, have reached an agreement over a new employee contract at the utility, a source close to the negotiations said late Wednesday night.A press conference to discuss the contract is scheduled for Thursday, according to a press release sent Wednesday night by the mayor’s office.

A spokesman for the mayor’s office declined to comment Wednesday night. D’Arcy could not be reached for comment.

An announcement of a deal was expected to come this week. Earlier in the day Wednesday, several city councilmembers were told Garcetti and D’Arcy were meeting to discuss the proposed four-year contract that night, sources told the Daily News. A Los Angeles Times reporter tweeted early Wednesday evening that he saw the pair at Edendale Grill, a popular Silver Lake restaurant.

The rest of the article is at the Daily News site.   and when I looked up the new power center of Los Angeles  - the Edendale Restaurant - on GOOGLE Maps - it turns out to be in an old 1924 firehouse only a couple blocks from where I was born.

THEN  

NOW