Is There Any Chance We’ll Be Riding A Subway To The Sea Before We’re Old and Grey?

Probably not. Like most of you, I was disheartened to read earlier this week that the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s timetable for the much-discussed “subway to the sea” means we’ll be card-carrying AARP members before ever getting to ride it.

If, of course, these dates are met — and honestly, I still wonder if even the promise of a subway to Westwood by 2032 is too optimistic. (At least I’ll still be just 58 — perhaps we’ll celebrate Franklin Avenue’s 30th anniversary by taking a group ride down the Purple line; see you there.)

Jason at MetBlogs LA asked Metro about the timetable, and got back some pretty unsatisfying answers from a PR rep:

The next steps before subway construction could start are estimated to take 2 to 3 years. This includes full environmental review, approvals, engineering and design. We then estimate that construction could take about 7 years (1) depending on what the final project ends up being & (2) if all funding is available.

The funding generated by Measure R will come in over a 30 year period and therefore the schedules are based on an allocation of these revenues to many projects over the life of the sales tax. The schedule for the Westside project which identifies completion to Westwood by 2032 is driven more by the availability of funding than the time needed to construct. The actual time needed to construct the Purple Line Extension to Westwood would be considerably less than 23 years.

In case you missed it, here’s what Metro has currently set as a timetable for rapid transit:

Subway to La Cienega — 2019
Subway to Century City — 2026
Subway to Westwood — 2032
Expo Line light rail phase II, Culver City to Santa Monica — 2015
Gold Line light rail extension — 2017
Wilshire Boulevard bus lane in city of Los Angeles — 2015
Crenshaw Boulevard light rail or bus rapid transit — 2029
Green Line to LAX — 2016 to 2018
Westside to San Fernando Valley transit project along the 405 Freeway — 2038
Regional Connector downtown light rail — 2018

I guess it’s at least encouraging to see the Expo Line (gah, c’mon Metro, grow a pair and bring back the “Aqua Line” name!) expected to hit Santa Monica in six years.

Lost in 2008: Another Rough Year for Preservationists, With a Few Bright Spots

(Flickr pic by Neonspecs.)

2008 marked another tough round of disappearing buildings and signs for Los Angeles preservationists. Gone were buildings such as Lou Ehlers’ Cadillac dealership on Wilshire (and the Bob’s Big Boy across the street). The year ended with a new threat: This time, to the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City.

Also, above: Our friend Eric Lynxwiler gave us the sad news that the cool old Dan-Dee Shoe Repair sign in Hollywood has vanished. The Museum of Neon Art had hoped to save the sign — following the mysterious fire at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, which shut down the store for good — but wasn’t having any luck getting ahold of the proper people. And then… one day, the sign was gone.

(Flickr photo by eyetwist.)

Ditto the huge neon sign for the massive Glendale/Atwater Village branch of furniture outlet Levitz. Seen for years off the 5 freeway, the sign recently disappeared from view, Eric notes at the ModCom message boards.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t all doom and gloom in preservation land: The nearly demolished Harvey’s/Johnie’s Broiler in Downey was ready to live again, now as a part of the Bob’s Big Boy chain. And two more L.A. landmarks, the Hollywood Palladium and Downtown’s P.E. Cole’s restaurant, reopened with what appear to be generally high marks for their renovation/restoration. (I know there are some objections to the Cole’s changes… but they seemed to be tempered by the fact that the place wasn’t completely altered.) And Macy’s also got raves for its restoration and retrofit of the old Bullock’s location on Lake Ave. in Pasadena.

A Proposal: The Johnies 99 Cents Only Diner

(Flickr pic by Usonian.)

Our recent post on the film “Miracle Mile” got me to thinking more about the Johnie’s site at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax (where a chunk of the movie was set).

Johnie’s — one of the best surviving examples of Googie architecture in L.A. proper — hasn’t operated as a diner since the start of the decade. But it’s still a well-known Wilshire landmark, and remains popular for film shoots. The 99 Cents Only company owns the site (and currently uses Johnie’s parking lot for that 99 Cents Only store location next door, which is rumored to be the company’s highest grossing outlet).

So here’s an idea: Why not turn reopen Johnie’s with a theme — Make it the 99 Cents Only diner.

Keep the sign and the architecture, obviously (although the building is in dire need of repairs, having been neglected for the past 8 years). Maybe hire the 99 Cent Chef to put together the menu, or dig into the 99 Cents Only cookbook. Perhaps open the restaurant for a limited period to test the concept.

Probably not a good idea to open a restaurant right now.. but hey, given where the economy’s going, perhaps a Johnie’s 99 Cents Only eatery would be a hit.

Retro Friday: "Miracle Mile"

As Will mentioned below in the Variety sign post, our new offices here at 5900 Wilshire play a big part in the 1988 cult classic thriller “Miracle Mile.”

Plot aside, I just love watching these clips to get a glimpse of the Mid-Wilshire area 20 years ago. Check out Johnie’s in full, light bulb glory — complete with the old Johnie’s Fat Boy sign (whatever happened to that?). There’s the old May Co. building at Fairfax and Wilshire — now a part of LACMA — back when it was still operating as a department store. Check out the boarded-up Pan-Pacific Auditorium, before its mysterious destruction by fire.

And then there’s the 5900 Wilshire building, here in its days as the Mutual Benefit Life building.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Pan-Pacific, here’s a home video of the structure, taken in 1987 by Dean Mardon:

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1815802809621295455&hl=en&fs=true

Variety Lights Up

I took a momentary break from my all-Jay-Leno-all-the-time coverage to join in the Wednesday night festivities formally welcoming Variety to its new 5900 Wilshire home.

City Councilman Tom LaBonge said a few words — and handed a loaf of pumpkin bread from Hollywood’s Monastery of the Angels (it’s famously LaBonge’s calling card) to 5900 Wilshire developer Wayne Ratkovich.

Ratkovich spent $34 million renovating the skyscraper, which as of last night now features a fully-lit Variety logo on the top, facing north and south.

Also attending the sign lighting: L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart and Variety publisher Neil Stiles.

Variety has more here. The building, meanwhile, noted a few facts about the sign:

Size of the Variety Sign: Overall layout is 11.6 ft. x 44.2 ft. with the ‘V’ being 11.6 ft. and the remaining letters at approx 8 ft. in height.

Weighing the Variety Sign Letters: The ‘V’ is the heaviest letter at approximately 300 lbs, not including the ‘V’ swoosh that was fabricated in sections and assembled on the building. Letters were kept as light as possible using all aluminum construction and no steel framing. Also, LED lights were used to illuminate the sign, which is much lighter than neon components.

Hanging the Variety Sign: It took three crew workers two weeks to haul the fourteen sign letters for the north and south side signs to the top of the 31-story tower, install them and complete wiring and test illumination.

Lighting the Variety Sign: Signs are illuminated with red mini LEDs from SloanLED, Inc. Each set of letters utilizes approximately 1400 LEDs and 15 power 60 watt power supplies, or about 900watts (7.5 amps at 120v). In comparison, neon illumination would have required approximately eight and a half times the power or about 64-70 amps. LEDs are also more energy efficient than neon lighting.

The building had previously sported a sign for People’s Bank on the west and east sides; those letters came down a year or so ago.

The Variety Tower Sign Goes Up

They’re prepping the new sign touting Variety at 5900 Wilshire Blvd., the skyscraper across the street from LACMA. Soon to be named “The Variety Tower,” here are a few shots (taken by my colleague, Kirsten Wilder) of the letters being installed.

The tower’s naming rights were formerly held by People’s Bank, which was pasted atop the building for several years. 5900 Wilshire, where Variety moves in at the end of the month, has been undergoing a major $34 million rehab over the past few years. The relocation of Variety resulted from developer The Ratkovich Company’s interest in attracting a marquee tenant.

The red Variety lettering will appear on the building’s north and south sides.

Meanwhile, Variety legend Army Archerd — who’s been with the publication more than 55 years — recounted the newspaper’s homes through the years:

I started April 24, 1953 in Variety’s Hollywood office at 6311 Yucca Street. It was Variety’s second Hollywood site, having launched on Vine Street in 1933. In those days the office was filled with the sound of crackling typewriters, rude telephone rings with loud conversations to match. Carol Burnett’s mother Louise worked the switchboard. “I visited her to see her plug in the calls,” Carol recalls. “She told me about you. I was at UCLA majoring in theater and working as an usher at the Warner Brothers theater on Wilcox”–from which she was fired for refusing to seat a customer on the final minutes of Hitchcock’s “Stranger On A Train.”

“The manager ripped my epaulettes off my shoulder,” Carol now laughs. The theater’s since demolisher but Carol has one of its doors in her Montecito home’s media room.”

In The ’50s, Variety’s office air was filled with cigarette smoke–some of it mine–and that of vet TV/radio editor Jack Hellman’s cigar–when he wasn’t long-lunching at the nearby Brown Derby on Vine Street. There was no air conditioning in that first office, and during one blistering heat wave I daringly wore shorts (and a tie, of course) to the office. Editor Joe Schoenfeld was not amused.

Variety then moved to offices on the second floor of the Gang, Kopp, and Tyre bui0lding on 6404 Sunset where young attorney Bruce Ramer was soon to become a partner as they moved to Beverly Hills as Gang, Tyre, Ramer and Brown. We moved down the street to 1400 North Cahuenga in a building which formerly housed the Alan Gordon camera company. We were still close enough to Vine Street where many staffers enjoyed (lengthy) lunch interviews. We expanded and this time moved up to the new Wilshire Courtyard.

Daily Variety just celebrated its 75th anniversary in Hollywood; the Variety mothership is now 103 years old.

Museum of Neon Art Settles Into Its Temporary Digs

Long located in downtown on Olympic near FIDM, the Museum of Neon Art was forced to vacate its home a few years ago after rents rocketed sky high. MONA finally found temporary digs in the Historic Core, at 136 W. 4th St., earlier this year.

The problem with the new space: The front door is too small to haul in some of the museum’s impressive pieces. But at the same time, some pieces that have been in storage for years is finally being displayed.

We visited the museum on Saturday night to take one of the MONA’s famed double-decker bus nighttime neon tours, courtesy the museum’s Eric Evavold. More on that tomorrow. But first up, today, some shots from the new MONA space:

Larchmont Hardware recently went out of business — another victim of escalating rents; in this case, in pricey Larchmont. The MONA managed to save this piece.

Here’s how it once looked, before being removed.

Maria’s favorite, the flying woman.

Chris & Pitts’ BBQ!

The remaining letters (remarkably, all but the “K” survived) from the Miracle Mile’s “The Darkroom.” (Where El Toro Cantina and Busby’s are now located.) Urban anthropologist Eric Lynxwiler, who happened to be taking the tour as well (he frequents as an MC on the neon tour, but was taking the night off), housed the letters for a while during the MONA’s move, and filled us in on how the letters were saved.

Eric also posted the story on his Flickr account:

When the store changed tenants, the stainless-steel sign was tossed out and thought to be lost forever.

Decades later, the man who was hired to remove the sign from the facade came forward. He had recognized the sign’s importance and kept what he could salvage of it (minus the absent K) in the rafters of his sign studio and, just a few years ago, donated it to the Museum of Neon Art (MONA).

As a fan of Wilshire and neon, this piece was an incredible find and I was thrilled it went to MONA and back on public display. However, after just a few years back in the public eye, the museum lost its lease and shut its doors for a year. Although MONA has now reopened in a new-yet-temporary space, the sign had to go somewhere in the interim.

And, of course, I volunteered to store it and a few other museum signs in my loft in downtown LA. Yes, that’s right, I was storing The Darkroom sign in my loft for the past year and was giddy to share it with anyone who walked in my door. It fit perfectly right under my window.

And here’s how The Darkroom looked back in the day.

Another SoCal fave: Manny Moe and Jack, of Pep Boys fame.

“The Zodiac Room,” plus an old exit sign from the Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

A sight once seen all over SoCal: The Van de Kamp bakery.

Funland!

"’Jacko’ Lantern" And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part III

And one more round of pics from the annual Wilshire Courtyard pumpkin carving contest. Here are a few entries from the East building, which includes E! and other Comcast nets:

My favorite: “‘Jacko’ Lantern,” by E! Networks News Cam.

“Jack-O-Womb,” by E! True Hollywood Story. Hmm, a statement on Prop 4?

“Eddie Lives,” by Comcast/E!

“Engineers Gone Mad,” by the Engineering Dept.

“Valet Jack,” by the Wilshire Courtyard Parking Dept. Nice use of orange cones and valet tickets.

“Humpty Dumpty,” by E!

“Dr. 90210,” by Wilshire Courtyard Security

More:

“Holly Would…” And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part I

Joe the Plumber And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part II

Joe the Plumber And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part II

“Joe,” by the Weinstein Company

“Dia De Los Muertos,” by Rebel Entertainment Partners

“Bloody Bunny,” by Brierley & Partners

“Cheez Louise,” by ASG Media

“Crave for Change,” by Comcast Entertainment Networks on-air promo

“Mommy! Is That You?” by Comcast Networks IT Ops

More from this year:

“Holly Would…” And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part I

“‘Jacko’ Lantern” And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part III

"Holly Would…" And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part I

It’s an annual tradition here at Franklin Avenue: We chronicle the Wilshire Courtyard pumpkin carving contest, as the mostly media-related tenants in the complex attempt to put their spin on the traditional Jack-o-lantern.

Some early entries:

“Herman,” by Universal McCann

“Holly Would…,” by BWR/Ogilvy PR

“Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater,” by Initiative

“Vulture in a Cage,” by RBI

“Jack-Meister,” by Wenner Media

“Jack-O-Lantern in a Box,” by Fox TV

More from this year:

Joe the Plumber And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part II

“‘Jacko’ Lantern” And Other Creations: It’s the Wilshire Courtyard Pumpkin Contest, Part III

A few blasts from years past:

2007′s contest

2006′s contest