Urban Living in California

Image from Damian Dovarganes/AP

When the Century Plaza Hotel emerged on the LA landscape in the 1960’s, it was modern and sleek. Now that it is dwarfed by taller, thinner buildings, new owner Michael Rosenfeld wants to demolish the building and replace it with two sleek new towers.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and actress Diane Keaton stand in opposition to this new project. They want to protect this historic hotel because of its cultural value and distinctive shape. Other concerns include the un-green notion of tearing down a perfectly good building and building another for mainly aesthetic reasons.

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Article and photo from Infrastructurist by Jebediah Reed.

In road-building circles, the “concrete vs. asphalt” debate is every bit as intense as that drunken discussion (eventually devolving into a weepy shouting match) every year at Thanksgiving dinner between your right-wing uncle and your pinko vegan cousin.

On the rhetorical battleground, one of the strongest anti-concrete arguments has always been: “So pricey!” But perhaps that is changing. In Minneapolis, when bids came in on a project that includes new bus lanes and wider sidewalks (on Marquette and Second Aves near the convention center, for those familiar with the local terrain) the concrete and asphalt options cost more or less the same, according to a local business paper.

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Photo Credit: Brammo

From Green Tech by Martin LaMonica

Would you like an electric bike to go with your new DVR?

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The owner of the historic theater is looking for a buyer or a partner. By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

A downtown Los Angeles theater that has hosted some of the biggest names in entertainment since the 1920s but struggled in recent decades is once again in search of a white knight — one who could pay $12.5 million to buy it.

The Variety Arts Center was purchased in early 2007 by the former owner of the Pasadena Playhouse, David Houk, who hoped to stage plays and musicals in the historic five-story building at Figueroa and Ninth streets.

But Houk was unable to secure the federal tax credits he had hoped would help fund restoration and operation, he said, so now he must sell it or find a new partner willing to buy into his dream of bringing the old stage back to life.

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By Eric Richardson – BlogDowntown.com

Eric RichardsonDowntown delegates stand outside the Portland Streetcar maintenance facility back in April.

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