freezing to death in the nuclear bunker

2006-07-13T01:54:00.000-07:00

I'll be over here for the next little while.

2006-05-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

Either I never knew that New York Air existed or I completely forgot about it, but I was psyched to find this long lost souvenir of my hometown's sort-of-recent past on AirlineMeals.net:

Photo Taken by: J Zeltzer, early 1980's
Flying From: LGA-BOS, LGA-DCA
Aircraft: DC-9-30
Comments: "The Flying Nosh, originally a nylon bag replaced later by paper, contained a bagel, a container of Philly Cream Cheese, Napkin and knife. All 110 passengers on the shuttle flights got this and a beverage on flights that were as short as 30 minutes on the east coast shuttle.
New York Air was set up by Texas Air Corporation (Frank Lorenzo) as a non-union carrier to compete with the Eastern Shuttle and was later merged with Continental Airlines."

Some New York Air timetables, via AirTimes.com:

2006-05-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

A large share of the attention being paid to the nu-urbanism of Mayor Villaraigosa's Los Angeles is on the downtown development frenzy -- luxury residential skyscrapers, Gehry-overseen retail and entertainment meccas, etc. I understand how PR works and that every massive undertaking needs a big, marketable idea to hang its hat on, so as long as what's happening doesn't displace any of the current residents (whoever they may be) or shop owners, and the homeless are treated fairly, I'll withhold judgment for now. With gritted teeth.

However, the real urbanism in Southern California seems to be happening more quietly but with wider dispersal and on a smaller scale -- in well-designed, often affordable low- and mid-rise housing developments situated in already existing neighborhoods. The LA Times has the story...

First sprouts of a vertical cityscape
L.A.'s top architects turn their eye to three- and four-story complexes that could provide a creative answer to the mayor's call for more housing.

By Janet Eastman, Times Staff Writer

ARCHITECT Lorcan O'Herlihy's custom touches were exactly what Sara Beugen and Stephen Mabry wanted in their new home — a light-filled, industrial modern in West Hollywood with polished concrete floors and open-to-the-sky steel catwalks crossing the upper levels of the condominium complex.

Over in South Pasadena, two other architects, Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, created a private retreat and communal experience for Juan Posada, whose second-floor loft has soaring ceilings and a terrace overlooking a courtyard where he and his neighbors barbecue.

Yet none of the architects worked directly for, or even with, these residents. O'Herlihy, Moule and Polyzoides adhered to the principle that sharp design could entice people into a compact vertical lifestyle. They, along with other progressive local architects, see enormous creative opportunities in multifamily housing of fewer than 50 units on an acre.

And the timing couldn't be better. The designs, which are more about good use of space and light rather than square footage, could help coax Angelenos out of single-family homes and a horizontal way of life.

Adding new homes — a few dozen small ones at a time — to existing neighborhoods is part of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to relieve L.A.'s housing shortage. If the new dwellings are close to public transit, all the better. If they rid the neighborhood of an eyesore, longtime residents win too.

Villaraigosa's newly appointed city planner S. Gail Goldberg, who is credited with helping San Diego turn around its downtown with multiunit housing, believes well-situated three- and four-story buildings, not monolithic high-rise towers, are the way to re-energize communities. San Diego's approach to density was to create a city of villages. For Los Angeles' boulevards, Goldberg sees shops, restaurants and people-watching spots. Down the side streets, houses. Filling in between the existing shops and houses, multifamily designer dream pads.

Even critics of the mayor's call for higher density see this as a better way to grow.

"I don't think there is a desire for massive density but a low- and midrise strategy makes a lot of sense," says Joel Kotkin, an urban commentator and author of "The City: A Global History." He often disagrees with Los Angeles politicians, developers and others who "get on density jihads." That includes the mayor, he says.

If built in an underutilized area or if replacing "a crappy strip mall," however, a small condo development is not a high price to pay for a better district, says Kotkin, a longtime house owner in Valley Village. "This is particularly attractive if it brings in stores and other amenities that are in walking distance of single-family homes."

With less open space for traditional single-family homes, housing experts say that a portion of new development will be devoted to urban, mid-size projects especially in existing neighborhoods. Good design, architects and developers say, can make a big difference in attracting residents doubtful about sharing walls with their neighbors.

"There is a new language in housing, a new market for those who want to live in urban areas and who have an appreciation of design," says O'Herlihy, whose Culver City architectural firm shifted from sleek contemporary houses with ocean or hillside views to multifamily projects two years ago. His first project was the condo complex in West Hollywood that Beugen and Mabry moved into in January; the 10 units there sold out before construction was completed. He now has nine mid-size projects under development or construction in Los Angeles. "Our previous residential work was a lab for these new projects."

Many of the new dwellings are 21st century twists on the classic 1920s courtyard apartments designed by Irving Gill, Richard Neutra and others who artfully interpreted living in close-quarters. Besides creating a sun-filtering, roomy and indoor-outdoor ambience, many of the new designs offer custom floor plans, private terraces, generous storage areas and designer touches such as translucent channel glass and stone shower stalls.

And unlike high-rises and economical apartment buildings of the 1960s and '70s, in which budgets and construction restraints dictated look-alike floor plans and tunnel-like hallways, these new mid-rise buildings are designed not only for looks but also for getting people out of cars — "feet on the street," as city planner Goldberg puts it.

"We fell in love with this place," says Posada, 36, a photographer who lives in his one-bedroom loft in South Pasadena with his wife Sally McKissick, 39, and their 10-month-old daughter, Maria. They wanted to buy a house with a yard but sticker shock brought them to this rental near the Gold Line's Mission Station.

Although the three-story, brick-clad, Mission-style structure looks like the century-old building next to it, generous windows wash his rooms in sunlight. "There is lots of light, and it feels big with 18-foot ceilings," Posada says.

Where he and his family live used to be a parking lot. Now parking is underground for the block-long redevelopment, a mix of ground-floor shops with courtyards, lofts, Craftsman-style duplexes and single-family houses designed to blend with the 1920s single-family bungalows across the street.

The courtyard approach is appearing in high-end and subsidized mid-size housing. For the Crescent in Beverly Hills, where monthly rents are as high at $7,000, architect Johannes Van Tilburg designed the apartments to face a courtyard, while brownstone-style town houses front the street. Brian Lane's award-winning contemporary apartments on Harold Way in Hollywood where rents don't exceed $700, is built around two courtyards where streamlined stairways almost resemble sculptural installations.

Beugen and Mabry's high-design condo is across the street from an auto shop and stucco apartment building — what architect O'Herlihy refers to as "six pack," repetitive units stacked on top of each other. An orderly line of single-family houses fills out the rest of the block, with stores and restaurants around the corner.

Beugen, 32, a marketing and communications professional at Cresta West, says her new neighbors are as design demanding as she and Mabry. "We had an informal talk here about everyone using a similar window treatment," says Beugen, who grew up in Chicago next door to architect Walter Netsch in a contemporary house her father built. "We took a deep breath when we saw that no one hung big drapes, but simple off-white museum shades."

With so many restaurants so close, the couple is surprised that since they moved here they have enjoyed more meals at home. "There is more room in the kitchen than in our old place," says Mabry, 45, an actor and photographer, "and we like to eat on our patio. We have two chefs who live in the building, one, Albert Melera, is a private chef for celebrities, and they come by and ask, 'What's for dinner?' "

HAROLD WAY: Private but public housing

"THERE are no hidden corners here," says Brian Lane, left, of Koning Eizenberg Architecture in Santa Monica. He wrestled with a tight budget, ignored the pitfall of designing bland affordable housing and found ways to make 51 apartments near a busy intersection off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood feel safe and private.

As a built-in safety measure, the four-story buildings line up around two interior courtyards. "All units are accessed from exterior walkways so neighbors can see the activities," says Lane, near one of the open stairways that make it easy to watch comings and goings. Even the community laundry room in this stylish gated complex has windows to the courtyard and playground.

For privacy, entrances to most of the three-bedroom town houses and one- and two-bedroom apartments are set back 3 feet from public walkways to create a porch-like setting. Apartments have their own decks, patios or balconies. Trees and bamboo are strategically placed to screen views for privacy. Bedroom windows are tucked away from areas where people congregate.

Subsidized rents for the 500- to 1,200-square-foot apartments go for $350 to $700. The complex built for the Hollywood Community Housing Corp. received Residential Architect magazine's affordable housing merit award in 2004.

Future project: Hancock Corner in West Hollywood with stores and restaurants, 38 condos and affordable apartments.

— J.E.

*

MISSION MERIDIAN: Going for the Gold Line

"ALOT of people fear density because there are a lot of terrible, overly dense projects in Los Angeles," says Elizabeth Moule of Pasadena-based Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists. "Making slightly denser places around transit lines is a way to accommodate the growth to L.A. that also preserves single-family houses and yards."

When Michael Dieden of Creative Housing Associates of Los Angeles asked Moule and husband Stefanos Polyzoides to create housing and shops on a block near a Metro Gold Line stop in South Pasadena, the duo came up with a series of buildings with different heights and façades, right, to blend into the Mission Street neighborhood. "We wouldn't put a high-rise on a street like that," says Moule.

A brick-clad, three-story nearest the busy street has small shops on the ground level — a bakery, florist, spinning gym and a gift store; none is a chain store.

Above them are 14 lofts that make the most of their 845- to 1,120-square-footage with a minimum of interior walls and two-story-high windows. Two levels of parking underneath the building accommodate residents' and train riders' cars.

Next to the flat-roof brick building are four duplexes built in the Craftsman style. These green-shingled buildings with pitched roofs begin to blend — in height and façade — with the new housing with the street's original single-family houses.

Adjacent to the duplexes, at the end of the new development, are three 2,400-square-foot single-family bungalows that fit in with the 80-year-old ones across the wide street.

To encourage occupants to people-watch, architects designed porches and large windows. "People like urbanity and being with one another," says Moule, who co-founded with Polyzoides and others the Congress for the New Urbanism, a national association of architects, planners and environmentalists focused on improving suburbs and urban centers.

Three courtyards in the center of the buildings also create a sense of community, Moule says. Residents pass through courtyards to reach their front doors. One night last year, the electricity went out and neighbors took their dinner plates and candles to the courtyards and ate together.

There are no security gates to block the courtyards from the sidewalk, a decision the architects made so neighbors can have a more positive experience when strolling by.

The 67 homes were completed in June and sold during construction for $350,000 to $850,000. The development received a Tranny Award from the California Transportation Foundation, and it will be featured in the Urban Land Institute's annual book on outstanding housing projects.

Future project: Granada Court in Old Town Pasadena with 31 flats and town houses, private balconies, decks or patios, two internal pedestrian courts and an auto court.

— Janet Eastman

*

THE CRESCENT: It's valet all the way

"THIS is all about livable cities with the focus on the street, actually the sidewalk," says Johannes Van Tilburg, above, of Santa Monica-based Van Tilburg, Banvard & Soderbergh, whose new complex is the first apartment building constructed in Beverly Hills in 25 years.

In 2001, the architect looked at a parking lot with a chain-link fence and a worn commercial building on Crescent Drive. Van Tilburg knew he could upgrade this area near the famous Rodeo Drive with a new type of luxury housing.

"Small lawns in front of live-work town houses and garden apartments on top is a very European and urban lifestyle," says Van Tilburg, who worked with Los Angeles developer J.H. Snyder Co.

Residents and their guests can enter the property through the motor court, hand their keys to the valet, pass the concierge in the atrium lobby and enter into one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, which rent for $4,000 to $7,000.

The 12 two-story town houses that front the street have the silhouettes of traditional brownstones but with a California contemporary twist. They have bay windows, Juliet balconies, stoop entries, awnings and private gardens.

Exterior walls have alternating sand-colored plaster and red-brick veneer to create the look of a streetscape that has evolved over time.

The town houses hide parking from street view, and there's also subterranean spaces.

Overlooking a landscaped courtyard at the 1.7-acre site is a building that houses 76 apartments. Amenities in the 815- to 1,810-square-foot spaces include stone-finished showers, stainless steel appliances and walnut-stained cabinets.

Future project: Granite Park in Pasadena with 71 live-work town homes and flats sited around courtyards and an auto court.

— J.E.

*

GARDNER STREET: Lighten up

"LIGHT is an architectural material, equally important as others," says Lorcan O'Herlihy of Culver City-based Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, who designed a tight, but sun-catching cube of 10 contemporary condominiums on a side street off Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

The 1,300- to 1,700-square-foot condos are built around a U-shaped central courtyard. Four units are on the first and second levels and two penthouses on the third level. Each has windows or doors on three sides with views of the sky; a courtyard water sculpture, below; and, because this is an urban setting, alleys and nearby buildings.

To capture as much sunlight as possible, O'Herlihy used light-filtering materials. Steel catwalks that connect front doors on the levels above the courtyard are perforated to allow streams of sunlight into the complex and into the homes.

Translucent walls of industrial Profilit Channel Glass encase the vertical stairwell at the front of the building.

At night, the lighted stairwell looks like a lantern. Next to it, a cedar entrance gate veils residents from passersby on the sidewalk, but inch gaps between the slats illuminate the courtyard.

The condos, which were developed by Richard Loring of Habitat Group Los Angeles, sold on average for $670,000 before construction was completed in December.

Future project: A 19-unit building adjacent to the Schindler House, now the MAK Center, on Kings Road in West Hollywood will have a courtyard, pedestrian-inviting setback with benches and light wells on the top of the three levels that open up to the sky and bring light into each unit.

— J.E.

via Curbed LA

2006-05-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

2006-04-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is breathtaking: Liza Minnelli in 1987, letting the press sit in on a rehearsal of "I Happen to Like New York" at Carnegie Hall. One of Liza's last great hurrahs before descending into irreparable freakitude. (I'm glad she got to do the Pet Shop Boys album before that happened.)

2006-04-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Dictionary.com word of the day, according to Gmail: rebarbative: repellent; irritating.

2006-04-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

By now you've all heard that theorist and civic activist Jane Jacobs has passed away at the age of 89. She was an amazing woman: brazen, outspoken, but with a pragmatism that belied her passion. This pragmatism came partially from her grounding in small-scale economics, from also her love of people and her going to bat for the different kinds of people that live in a city -- including night and weekend workers, younger people who don't own homes and aren't raising families, transient types who prefer or need to rent, those for whom property value is not the be-all-and-end-all of human existence, but who are typically capable of making their money talk just like anyone else. "THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN"-style arguments don't hold much water with me, because they never account for everyone who doesn't have a voice, and they don't particularly want to account for them. We need more thinkers like Jacobs.

I'm not a Reason fan and I think their views are too often as simplistic as they accuse the hippie idealists of being -- basically they're just overgrown babies going "waah rules are bad, why can't we do WHATEVER WE WANT." That said, this 2001 interview with Jane Jacobs makes more sense than anything I've read in Reason, and the interviewer actually acknowledges the practicality of Jacobs' ideas and helps make her case more attractive to the conservative readership. It would be easy for a libertarian to co-opt Jacobs' fervent anti-government principles, although I wonder if conservatives understand that the type of government that she was against is the same type they vote for in every election. Pure government (as a benevolent entity looking out for the public interest) is a very good thing and can be extremely effective on the local level; a "free market" government that lets the rich people call the shots is something else entirely.

(I still think Jacobs took an antiquated view of the planning profession -- it's more forward-thinking now than it used to be, and it's less about playing God than about analyzing what is already happening and will be happening if the data forecasts prove correct.) (I also think zoning -- which she hated -- can be useful in some cases, but it needs to be open to change and public debate. I personally believe that the future of cities is in mixed-use development, adaptive reuse rather than reckless bulldozing, and tax incentives for small businesses in residential areas.)

2006-04-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

I don't really spend as much time as I should trawling YouTube, but clips like the ones I found tonight make me want to change that. If you were in New York in the late '70s, you might remember a couple of our local TV stations, WOR (Channel 9) and WPIX (Channel 11, a/k/a "11 Alive!"), from before they got bought out by big superstation networks. Here's a bit of footage from those halcyon days. Keep your eye out for John Tesh in the CBS spot.

WOR-TV Channel 9 "Million Dollar Movie" opening credits 70s

WCBS Channel 2 News Promo--1970s

WPIX Giants vs. Steelers promo 1979

WPIX 8 O'Clock Movie close 1978

WPIX 11 New York Action News Opening 1979

2006-04-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to plan in New York? It means accounting for demographic and economic shifts of the past few decades, working with a metropolitan area with such a wide variety of backgrounds and political viewpoints that it's impossible to accommodate everyone, and coming to terms with the realization that the self-styled center of the universe may not be the best model of smart growth and community-conscious planning. Regional Plan Association director Robert Yaro discusses this in light of a population explosion that continues to test the limits of NYC's existing infrastructure and shortage of available land.

2006-04-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

Urban history/exploration/preservation site du jour: Curating the City: Wilshire Blvd., part of an ongoing (and similarly named) project by the Los Angeles Conservancy. The site is a photo essay, an annotated geography, an architectural tour, and an interactive Memory Book. And it tells you which buses stop at each intersection!

2006-04-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

This New York cover -- between the color scheme and typography and whimsical jetset cosmopolitanism -- is a perfect distillation of 1964 magazine/movie poster design. Pea green and ketchup red together forever.

2006-04-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm taking off tonight for Los Angeles -- there's a welcome event/scholarship reception thing tomorrow at the program I'm starting in the fall. I'm very much looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend visiting friends, record shopping, restaurant-hopping, taking pictures, and navigating L.A.'s complex bus system. And, since my hotel's not far from the beach, maybe I can get a little of that in as well.

I'll be flying into LAX on Song (Delta's low-cost carrier), which will be interesting. I've never flown with them before and they'll be discontinuing their service at the end of the month, when the current fleet will get a new coat of paint and get reabsorbed back into Delta proper, with all of the amenities but minus the lime green and orange color scheme and singing stewardesses. (I'll learn soon enough whether Song is a Chuck E. Cheese in the sky for yuppies, but my guess is that it's fine, and preferable to the soul-sucking Gulag-like atmosphere of other airlines.)

2006-03-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Losanjealous posted A Trader Joe's Primer For Manhattanites back in January, but now that the Union Square location has actually opened, this guide may prove useful to those crazy enough to brave the long lines. I've been past the new TJ's twice now and both times, there were people lined up halfway down the block to get in (past the Palladium/NYU dorms and that gross pizzeria). Is it really that busy inside the store or is this just one of those wacky '90s-style PR moves?

Anyway, while I haven't been to this new one yet, I'm a TJ's veteran (going back to when I moved to Oregon in 1999, and afterwards when I realized that there were locations on Long Island and in New Jersey). I recommend the sunflower seed butter, the chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, the roasted vegetable pizza, the frozen naan (garlic or plain), the frozen 3-minute jasmine rice, the fresh pappardelle, the artisanal cranberry rolls, the rice pudding, the Greek yogurt... there's lots of good stuff. Stay away from the frozen burritos though; they don't quite cook right and end up a consistency that's too chewy on the outside and booger-like on the inside.

2006-03-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Flickr find of the week: a set of 151 photos taken at the 1967 Montreal Expo. User ninecormorants explains:

These photos were found on the street in Cambridge, MA - October 2004. They were originally arranged on scrapbook sheets with labels. I've attempted to arrange them in a sensible order, but this is the best I could do.

If I ever found anything like that on the street, I think I'd explode with joy. Dude, thank you so much for recognizing the historical worth of this scrapbook and taking the time to scan and upload each picture.

2006-03-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Time to brag: This morning I got a nice thick envelope telling me I was admitted to USC's Master of Planning program! That makes three admissions so far out of seven applications! The rest will be gravy.

2006-02-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

Duly noted: Nerve's Sex Advice From Urban Planners. (Psst... there are twenty-seven principles.)

Valerie, 26

How can becoming an urban planner help me get laid?
Urban planning opens the door to the exciting male-dominated world of architects, builders and engineers. Merge those parcels. And for men, saying you're an urban planner is at least cooler than being an accountant.

How can I get an urban planner to go home with me?
Talk shit about Wal-Mart, brag about your frequent public-transport ridership and drop phrases like "spatial morphology."

How can I delay my orgasm, besides going slow and taking breaks?
Recite the twenty-one principles of New Urbanism in your head over and over again.

2006-02-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Thousands Of Law Applicants Get Mistaken Admissions Invite

BERKELEY, Calif. -- An Iowa father said his son was "ecstatic" when he got an e-mail invitation to a party for students accepted to U.C. Berkeley's law school.

Unfortunately, Adam Feeney was among thousands of applicants who hadn't been accepted to the prestigious California school and were sent invitations by accident. A little later they received apologies and retractions.

His father said Feeney "was obviously upset and disappointed."

Boalt Hall School of Law's admissions director says the e-mailed invite begins "I write to congratulate you once more on your recent admission to Boalt Law."

The admissions official said the invitation was intended for about 500 students who were accepted early.

Instead, he inadvertantly sent it to about 7,000 applicants.

2006-02-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

I just subscribed to BusinessWeek and I think it's a total riot. Here's a blurb (from the UpFront section) that doesn't seem to be in the online edition...

AS THE CALL CENTER TURNS

MAYBE IT SEEMS like you spend half your life on the phone with a call center in India. But in India itself, call centers actually are seeping into everyday life, appearing in a wave of popular sitcoms and books. India Calling, a hot Indian TV show on Rupert Murdoch's STAR channel, depicts a small-town girl who lands in Bombay in search of her absconding sister. She finds a job in a call center instead. Viewers follow the highs and lows of the work, which attracts thousands of young Indians. "Call center jobs are now part of India's social fabric, offering immense scope for romance, politics, hatred, all creating high drama," says Shristi Behl Arya, who is the show's producer.

Indeed, the customer service scene in India is anything but boring. Centers can be a hotbed of hormones; some average a marriage a month, often outside traditional bounds of caste and economic status. The Call Center, a show coming soon to channel NDTV, takes potshots at Americans venting their angst about losing their jobs to the Indians on the other end of the wire. A best-selling book, One Night @ The Call Center, touches on love, bad bosses, even God (appearing, naturally, in a phone call). Then there are the jokes making the rounds: When a man complains to a doctor about insomnia, the doctor suggests working at a call center as the remedy.

-Nandini Lakshman

2006-02-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

Aww... the Torino mascot pins are SO CUTE:

More on mascots Neve and Gliz here.

2006-02-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

French chefs in relinquishing their Michelin stars le shocker!

2006-02-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

In Sunday's L.A. Times, Ray Bradbury makes the case for the monorail:

L.A.'s future is up in the air
By Ray Bradbury, RAY BRADBURY is the author of "The Martian Chronicles," "Fahrenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes," among other books.

SOMETIME IN THE next five years, traffic all across L.A. will freeze.

The freeways that were once a fast-moving way to get from one part of the city to another will become part of a slow-moving glacier, edging down the hills to nowhere.

In recent years we've all experienced the beginnings of this. A trip from the Valley into Los Angeles that used to take half an hour — all of a sudden it takes an hour or two or three. Our warning system tells us something must be done before our freeways trap us in the outlying districts, unable to get to our jobs.

In recent months there has been talk of yet another subway, one that would run between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica. That would be a disaster.

A single transit line will not answer our problems; we must lay plans for a series of transportation systems that would allow us to move freely, once more, within our city.

The answer to all this is the monorail. Let me explain.

More than 40 years ago, in 1963, I attended a meeting of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors at which the Alweg Monorail company outlined a plan to construct one or more monorails crossing L.A. north, south, east and west. The company said that if it were allowed to build the system, it would give the monorails to us for free — absolutely gratis. The company would operate the system and collect the fare revenues.

It seemed a reasonable bargain to me. But at the end of a long day of discussion, the Board of Supervisors rejected Alweg Monorail.

I was stunned. I dimly saw, even at that time, the future of freeways, which would, in the end, go nowhere.

At the end of the afternoon, I asked for three minutes to testify. I took the microphone and said, "To paraphrase Winston Churchill, rarely have so many owed so little to so few." I was conducted out of the meeting.

In a panic at what I saw as a disaster, I offered my services to the Alweg Monorail people for the next year.

During the following 12 months I lectured in almost every major area of L.A., at open forums and libraries, to tell people about the promise of the monorail. But at the end of that year nothing was done.

Forty years have passed, and more than ever we need an open discussion of our future. If we examine the history of subways, we will find how tremendously expensive and destructive they are.

They are, first of all, meant for cold climates such as Toronto, New York, London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. But L.A. is a Mediterranean area; our weather is sublime, and people are accustomed to traveling in the open air and enjoying the sunshine, not in closed cars under the ground.

Subways take forever to build and, because the tunnels have to be excavated, are incredibly expensive. The cost of one subway line would build 10 monorail systems.

Along the way, subway construction destroys businesses by the scores. The history of the subway from East L.A. to the Valley is a history of ruined businesses and upended lives.

The monorail is extraordinary in that it can be built elsewhere and then carried in and installed in mid-street with little confusion and no destruction of businesses. In a matter of a few months, a line could be built from Long Beach all the way along Western Avenue to the mountains with little disturbance to citizens and no threat to local businesses.

Compared to the heavy elevateds of the past, the monorail is virtually soundless. Anyone who has ridden the Disneyland or Seattle monorails knows how quietly they move.

They also have been virtually accident-free. The history of the monorail shows few collisions or fatalities.If we constructed monorails running north and south on Vermont, Western, Crenshaw and Broadway, and similar lines running east and west on Washington, Pico, Wilshire, Santa Monica and Sunset, we would have provided a proper cross section of transportation, allowing people to move anywhere in our city at any time.

There you have it. As soon as possible, we must call in one of the world's monorail-building companies to see what could be done so that the first ones could be in position by the end of the year to help our huddled traffic masses yearning to travel freely.

The freeway is the past, the monorail is our future, above and beyond.

Let the debate begin.

2006-01-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, did you know there's a border dispute between New Jersey and Delaware? Here's how that's going...

DOVER, Del. -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted a request by Delaware to appoint a special master in a border dispute with New Jersey, dashing the Garden State's hopes for a quick resolution of the case.

The high court appointed attorney Ralph Lancaster Jr. of Portland, Maine, as special master, granting him broad authority to summon witnesses, issue subpoenas and gather any evidence he deems necessary.

The Supreme Court agreed in November to hear New Jersey's challenge to Delaware's claimed jurisdiction over a section of the Delaware River. Justices met last week to decide whether to schedule oral arguments or to appoint a special master to gather facts in the dispute, which involves New Jersey's effort to help energy giant BP build a liquefied natural gas plant on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River.

"Obviously, this means the case is going to go on longer than we would like, but we are prepared for whatever time it takes to see this case through," said BP spokesman Tom Mueller.

Delaware environmental officials last year rejected a permit application by Crown Landing LLC, a BP subsidiary, to build a 2,000-foot pier that would serve a liquefied natural gas facility proposed for Logan Township, N.J.

Delaware officials said the project represents an offshore bulk product transfer facility and heavy industry, both of which are prohibited under Delaware's coastal zone protection laws.

Under boundary determinations that date to the 17th century, Delaware controls the river up to the mean low-tide mark on the New Jersey shore.

New Jersey officials, who see the proposed LNG terminal as a boost to their state's economy, claim that a 1905 interstate compact gives New Jersey the right to control riparian access and structures on its side of the river, even if they extend across the border.

Collins J. Seitz Jr., a Wilmington attorney who is helping represent Delaware in the dispute, said he was pleased that the Supreme Court wanted to develop a complete record before resolving the case.

"I expect it will take some time to sort out all the historical information that will be presented to the special master," he said.

Peter Aseltine, spokesman for New Jersey's attorney general, said his state is confident in its position.

"Governor Corzine supports this project, which he believes is important for South Jersey's economic development," said Anthony Coley, spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. "He hopes this matter will be resolved expeditiously."

Lancaster, a Harvard-educated lawyer, said he has not followed the Delaware case, and he did not offer any timeline for how the case might unfold.

Lancaster has served as special master to the Supreme Court twice before. The first case involved a dispute between New Jersey and Nevada in the late 1980s over the disposal of hazardous waste.

The second involved a more recent fight between Virginia and Maryland over Virginia's attempt to place a water intake pipe in the Potomac River. The Supreme Court in 2003 upheld a determination by Lancaster that Virginia could withdraw water from the Potomac to supply fast-growing suburbs around Washington, D.C., without getting permission from Maryland.

Maryland owns the Potomac under a 1632 land grant from King Charles I, but a 1785 compact between the states gave Virginia certain water rights. Maryland argued that its historical control over the riverbed gave it oversight of Virginia's water plans, but a 7-2 majority of the court said the 1785 treaty allows Virginia to make various shoreline improvements and withdraw water.

The fact that Lancaster and the Supreme Court sided with Virginia was not lost on New Jersey Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, who has engaged in a war of words with his Delaware counterparts over the LNG project.

"While I would not want to prejudge this particular case, there are similarities, and the thrust of New Jersey's legal challenge is very similar to Virginia's case," he said.

Last week, a state House committee in Delaware released a bill authorizing the governor to establish boundary markers and to mobilize the National Guard "to defend against encroachments upon the territory of the State of Delaware."

The bill, which may come up for a House vote Tuesday, was dismissed as "pathetic saber rattling" by Burzichelli, who has joked that he might inquire into the seaworthiness of the retired battleship USS New Jersey, now a floating museum on the Camden waterfront.

2006-01-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

January: Favorites (no order)

1) all the friends who make me roffle and keep me sane
2) The versions of Debussy's "Beau Soir" and Schumann's "Mondnacht" on Classical Barbra (the album's not a masterpiece, but it's quite good when Babs scales back the little Broadway showstopping that's there and respects the material, and when the lieder she's singing aren't frothy/gothy middlebrow crowd-pleasers like Fauré or Orff)
3) Pete Seeger's "Walking Down Death Row" (on Dangerous Songs!?)
4) E! True Hollywood Story (recently watched: Angelina Jolie, Meg Ryan, Mel Gibson, Tawny Kitaen)
5) the jukebox at the Commonwealth (and also the cheap, cold Amstel Light)
6) Kidz Bop's enthusiastic and letter-perfect rendering of Crazy Frog's "Axel F" (a/k/a "The Frog Song") (and apparently Kidz Bop 9 has "Pon De Replay" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends"!)
7) The Sleuth Channel (cop shows galore, including Miami Vice)
8) Trader Joe's Tuna in Red Panang Curry Sauce with TJ's jasmine rice
9) learning that not only can I buy a Slurpee in the borough of Manhattan, but i can buy a sugar-free Slurpee!
10) my local likka sto and wino emporium

2006-01-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Javits Center is one of my favorite pieces of New York architecture -- like Manhattan itself, it's so imposing and utilitarian. But I think people see it as representing an older, grittier NYC, a vision of Midtown West as an HQ for no-nonsense worker-bees to buckle down and get straight to whatever they're there for. That's changing now that developers are trying to gentrify every potentially desirable parcel of land, and the city is promoting some bullshit about "repurposing" the waterfront away from its storied industrial history and into a freshly landscaped mini-mall. That said, I've been looking at some designs for the new Javits center, and it's actually sorta pretty, even if it doesn't look anything like the New York I know. Which is the problem with all of this "NYC 2.0" stuff. It's all well and good, but it's devoid of character and might as well be any other anonymous-looking wealthy city in the U.S. or Canada -- Boston, Toronto, Denver. Why are cities so ashamed of their recent past? Will we be ashamed of this era in 30-40 years?

2006-01-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

You know you watch too much TV when you recognize that the woman in the PediaSure baby formula commercial is the same actress from the K-Y Warming Liquid ad.