Bill Simon looks the camera square in the eye and walks right toward you. He‘s wearing a beautiful shirt the color of the Ionian Sea. He’s trying to smile. He says: ”Do you know me?“ Then he explains who he is: an honest, humble Republican candidate for governor, defamed and marginalized by the huge-spending Gray […]
Month: July 2018
Take Heed, Chief
LAPD Chief-Apparent Bill Bratton talked a lot and talked tough last week, and he seemed to be saying what everyone wanted to hear. He said his new department was slack and inefficient. He told LAPD consent-decree dissidents, who not long ago were extremely vocal, to get out. He said he could reduce violence and cut […]
Fire ravages builder Geoff Palmer’s newest downtown Italian-aint apartment house
There’s no question, says Off-Ramp commentator Marc Haefele, that developer Geoff Palmer hit the sweet spot with his apartment blocks. Long before downtown LA became hip, he started building the Italian-looking apartment buildings with the Italian-sounding names: the Orsini, the Piero, the Visconti, and the Medici. And he did it on land that wasn’t considered […]
5 Leonard Bernstein videos you need to watch
“I first saw Lennie Bernstein in 1954,” he writes, “on a somber Sunday TV show called Omnibus. Though he was in his 30s and I was 12, I instantly identified with him. He was another kid like me who loved Classical Music. He brought the musical skies down to Earth with what you might call […]
Geoff Palmer’s Faux-Italian Renaissance Goes Up in Flames
The downtown construction site of developer Geoff Palmer’s Da Vinci apartment complex—and two nearby buildings—caught on fire early Monday morning. Much of the Da Vinci structure on Fremont Avenue was destroyed, according to an early report, and arson investigators were called to the scene, although an official cause of the blaze has not yet been […]
What the Da Vinci Complex Loss Means to Construction Across the Country
There are still unanswered questions in the December 8 fire that devastated a large part of developer Geoff Palmer’s half-built downtown Da Vinci apartment complex, but some new information is trickling in. Federal and local officials declared the fire was an act of arson on Dec. 18, but it’s still unknown who set the fire and […]
Marcie Edwards Leads the DWP in a Future of Massive Challenges
I began working in the public affairs division of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in 1987, writing press releases and answering media questions. Then as now, much of the public outright disliked the nation’s largest municipal utility. Even if its power was the cheapest in California, the DWP often seemed to be a […]
A Stretch for Garcetti
FOR A WHILE LAST YEAR, I SEEMED TO RUN into former District Attorney Gil Garcetti every week. He was hyperactive in his son Eric’s successful campaign for the City Council, and wherever Eric, a dogged campaigner, turned up, so did Gil, his top adviser. On one of those occasions, I asked the elder Garcetti what […]
A Stormy Port
President George W. Bush’s court order opening the shuttered West Coast ports was either a good or bad thing, depending on whether you talked to the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) or the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The order ended the management lockout of 10,500 dockworkers in 29 Pacific ports, but disappointed some local […]
Los Angeles Magazine
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