Results tagged “Pasadena”

Our favorite recent piece of guerilla public art--that giant fork placed, well, at a fork in the road--will be the site of a food drive this weekend, says the LA Times. Benefitting the Union Station Homeless Services, volunteers will collect nonperishable food at the fork, located at Pasadena and St. John avenues, both days this weekend, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The sculpture was a birthday present/prank for Bob Stane, founder of the Ice House comedy club and current owner of the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena. Stane always thought it would be funny if someone did that and his wish was granted by his friends. Now people want to see the piece be a permanent part of the city's public art collection.

As with every weekend (and weekday), police are out to catch drunk drivers. Tonight, we know of two sobriety check points: one in Del Rey and another in Pasadena. From 8 p.m. to 3 a.m., the LAPD will hold a Sobriety & Drivers License Checkpoint at Lincoln Blvd and Maxella Ave at the border of the L.A. city neighborhood Del Rey and unincorporated Marina Del Rey. The LAPD's Pacific Area has experienced 108 DUI-related crashes and 963 hit and runs so far this year.

He's been called a hero, even a stud, and now he's the Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade. Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger was the man at the helm when his US Airways jet with 155 people aboard landed in New York City's Hudson River earlier this year. He has nearly 600,000 fans on Facebook and gave Hugh Jackman a good run for his money in a TMZ "Who'd you rather do" contest. And despite his fame out East, he's actually from California.

lad in Caltrans uniforms a few nights ago, a group of people installed a 12-foot wooden carved fork where Pasadena Avenueu splits at, well, a fork in the road, with St. John Avenue (see a map here). Who did this awesome piece of art and why? "It turns out the fork is an elaborate - and expensive - birthday prank in honor of the 75th birthday of Bob Stane, founder of the Ice House comedy club, who now owns the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena," reports the Pasadena Star News. And the group would like to see it stay there permanently, but that will be up to the Caltrans, which owns the small parcel of land and the city.

The world wide web hasn’t had a series aiming to help men dress like grown-ups. That is, until tomorrow, when Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor premier Put This On in Pasadena. The new web series hits their website on Monday. Typically when seen together, it’s been as the Monsters of Podcasting -- the Voltronesque live effort featuring both of their significantly downloaded podcasts. Lisagor’s You Look Nice Today is “a brilliant and highly acclaimed comedy podcast,” said Thorn.

Tomorrow, politicians and the media will test out the new 6-mile Gold Line Eastside Extension, but not before Metro's in-house media, former LA Times reporter Steve Hymon and transit blogger Fred Dennstedt, took a ride. In a post, they shared notes with the public.

It was February 19th when 38-year-old Pasadena resident Leroy Barnes was sitting in the passenger seat of a car that was pulled over. As officers approached the car, Barnes put his hands into his backpack, which led to a series of events ending in his death, after 11 bullets, seven in his back, reports the Pasadena Star News.

The November issue of Pasadena Magazine has a cover star who, until recently, was more of a behind the scenes kind of guy, despite the often cocky swagger and 'tude. It's Chef Michael Voltaggio, who took over Chef de Cuisine duties this summer for The Dining Room, the swanky old-school restaurant at the Langham that's been turned upside down by Voltaggio's cheeky and innovative style of cuisine. LAist was lucky enough to be invited to sample Voltaggio's fare just days before the current season of Top Chef debuted on Bravo; on the show you'll see Voltaggio battling it out for honors with none other than his big brother Bryan.

Swept up in the good time-y vibes surely prevalent during last night's heavily-touted U2 concert at the Rose Bowl, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took a couple of opportunities to share his exuberance over the occasion via Twitter. Villaraigosa and his girlfriend, KTLA reporter Lu Parker, were among the approximately 96,000 fans who packed the Pasadena stadium to see one of the last engagements in the rock band's "360 Tour" with support from the Black Eyed Peas.

Thanks to a U2 concert at the Rose Bowl this Sunday evening, train service will be extended into the wee hours of Monday morning. 100,000 people are expected to descend upon the stadium and officials with the Rose Bowl and Live Nation--both which paid for the extended service--are encouraging fans to take public transit.

If Metro's regional connector project is built, passengers will be able to commute between Pasadena and Long Beach without transferring from the Gold Line to the Red Line, then the Blue Line. Likewise, those traveling between East LA and Culver City (and maybe someday Santa Monica) will be able to skip a similar transfer process. That means faster travel times and more accessibility car-free.

       

Chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD believes the art of cooking needs daily cultivation. Even if he has 10 restaurants, he will always be exactly where he wants to be - in the kitchen. As an LA native he has “a personal vendetta” to elevate LA into the echelon of the best restaurant cities in the world. With the development of a new Grace like fine dining restaurant downtown that will grow at least a third of the produce on site, and a new BLD slated to open in Pasadena early next year, Chef Fraser shows no signs of leaving the kitchen. LAist caught up with the busy chef at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market (as he bought green beans for his daughter) to provide details about moving Grace to downtown, the struggle of when to pull a dish from the menu and how he is inspired by Wonderbread.

Celebrated novelist and poet Margaret Atwood reads from her new novel, Year of the Flood tonight at 8 pm at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Local actors and the L.A.-based vocal ensemble Sonos will join Atwood in recreating select scenes. The author is known for her best-selling novels The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin. Tickets: $24-$48.

     

Our first taste of DineLA week(s) was really a matter of practicality. It was lunchtime in Pasadena. What was convenient? The menu at Cafe Bizou was varied, appealing and reasonable. We arrived just as they were opening and the first impression was not good. It was an empty FrancoDenny's with a disorganized staff.

With movie tickets going for $10-$14 a shot depending on the show time and cinema, is it that much of a stretch to the concept or budget to double that to see a film in a comfortable, intimate, "restaurant-like" setting? Gold Class Cinemas is banking on it, actually. The Aussie company is working on the renovation of the former Laemmle Theatres (which were AMC Theatres back in the day) at One Colorado in Old Pasadena, and is scheduled to open their 6-screen high-end movie venue "in time for the holiday season," according to the Star-News.

Not only were we looking at the "year of the bear," as predicted by one California Fish and Game spokesperson said earlier this year, the Station Fire has left some 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest charred, which means less chances of food and water. But hello, Pasadena with your swimming pools and trash cans full of yummy scraps.

       

21 Choices is like hybrid of Cold Stones' mix-in concept and the delectable tastes of the current frozen yogurt craze. However, it's not a rip-off--the first of its four storefronts opened in 1989.

              

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary year with the exhibition Installations Inside/Out. It began with skywriting art last week, followed up by eight public art installations around the city, an hour-and-a-half theatre show performed in a busy intersection during 15-second crosswalk-intervals and a large gallery show featuring and supporting Southern California artists.

Last Saturday, artist Bruce Nauman took the skies above Pasadena to make an environmental statement, of sorts. "Leave the Land Alone," a skywriting plane wrote. The piece, viewed from the city and surrounding San Gabriel Valley neighborhoods, launched the Armory Center for the Arts into their 20th Anniversary celebration.

It was supposed to be produced in 1969 at an exhibition about Earth Art, but it never happened, “perhaps for lack of funds or because it was not taken seriously," artist Bruce Nauman once wrote. But tomorrow, 40 years later, Nauman will have his chance to correct that when Untitled, 1969/2009 will be seen by thousands in the Pasadena area. The skywriting, which will mischievously say “Leave the Land Alone," will commence sometime between 11:30 and 12:30 and may last only for a few minutes, depending on the wind. The event launches the Armory Center for the Arts' 20th anniversary exhibition, which opens next week Saturday. The nonprofit community arts center recommends three prime viewing locations in the Arroyo Seco area of Pasadena: La Loma Bridge, Colorado Street Bridge, and Brookside Park. Each area will be hosted by a different arts nonprofit that will host and meet and greet and provide more information.

As the Station Fire raged over the weekend, causing air quality to pummel, officials were unsure if a game between UCLA and San Diego State could safely be played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. After consulting university medical staff along with Pasadena officials and air-quality experts, Athletic director Dan Guerrero said the game is on! So now the question is, will the Bruins show up and kick ass?

Officials with the U.S. Forest Service are "convinced" the Station Fire was human-caused, but are not precisely sure how, reports KNX1070 on air. Basically, they know it was not caused by lightning--it could have been arson, a spark from equipment, a cigarette butt or any other possibility on a long list that investigators will narrow down. The fire began around mile marker 29 on the Angeles Crest Highway, where a car turnout is located. The blaze has burned through 140,150 acres, or 219 square miles, with 22 percent containment as of 10 a.m. Over 4,000 fire personnel have responded and 62 homes have been destroyed. A lot of progress has been made in handling the fire, but the southeastern flank above Altadena and Pasadena remains a concern for officials, who are considering more evacuations for the area. [Update: Official retract this, more here]

Maybe some of the popular designer trucks like Kogi BBQ will stop by this event tomorrow that's expected to attract tons gamers. Microsoft has gone all out and modified a 27-foot M820A2 military truck outfitted with eight Xbox 360 consoles in anticipation of Halo 3: ODST, which will be released on September 22nd.

            

There might be models of ships ensconced in the walls of the Langham's Dining Room restaurant that reflect a bygone era, but there's a young tattooed man on the cutting edge of cuisine in the kitchen. His name is Michael Voltaggio, and he arrived at the beautiful historic hotel in Pasadena just this July, following a year working as Executive Chef of The Bazaar by Jose Andres in Beverly Hills. Tonight, he'll be in your living room (or bedroom, perhaps)--no, he's not making house calls, he happens to be (along with his older brother, Bryan) a contestant on Bravo's 6th season of Top Chef.

A $25,000 donation to the Altadena Foothills Conservancy will enable the non-profit to study a trail from Eaton Canyon to the Rio Hondo River in Rosemead, ultimately enabling a large trail system in the San Gabriel Valley. "The system would connect Arcadia to Whittier, through Temple City and Rosemead, and loop around the other side of Whittier Narrows park up through Industry and Baldwin Park to reach Irwindale," according to the Daily News. The trail would run along the mostly-concreted Eaton Wash that's currently off limits to the public. Last month, a 20-acre site was secured as open space by residents and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Last weekend, the noted Bruce Norris play, "The Pain and the Itch" opened at the Boston Court in Pasadena, earning the Critic's Pick nod from Back Stage. "This astutely designed and intelligently rendered production is a shared feather in the cap for two of L.A.'s most adventurous theater companies," wrote Les Spindle of the Furious Theatre Company's production.

Here's a cozy north Pasadena story. Early this morning around 1 a.m., a group of 10 people were gathered on a street in Pasadena when about three shots were heard. The group dispersed and four houses down, a bullet that made its way through a window was found between the legs of a 1-year-old in his crib, according to the Pasadena Star News.

If they can send men to the moon, then they can surely help bitch-thirsy Los Angeles save some water in drought times and beyond. A three-year agreement between the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena and the Los Angeles Department of Power & Water will bring automatic sensors to various projects. One example, explains the Pasadena Star News: "DWP maintains a network of sprinklers to keep the dust under control when winds pick up. To help reduce dust, the DWP and its team of contractors are installing a computer-controlled network of sprinklers currently covering more than 14 square miles of the lake bed. But the system consumes significant amounts of water." Other sensor projects include snow pack monitoring in the Sierras and solar power on roofs within the city.

Where there's a will, there's a way. For years, the owner of Annandale Canyon in Pasadena wanted to develop his property into 24 luxury homes. But neighbors fought it, even imposing a tax on themselves to raise over a million dollars in order to assist the city in purchasing the land. In total, it was sold for $6.2 million with funds coming from the tax, a Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy grant (even though the land is not in the SaMos, it's in the the San Rafael Hills.) and other sources. Now the 20.6-acre site and an additional 31,000 square foot neighboring property will be used by advocates as a template for other acquisitions in Pasadena, according to the Pasadena Star News.

How's this for punishment? Police checkpoints will be set up on Saturday around hillside areas not to make sure you're driving sober, but to see if you have fireworks. If you get busted, they could confiscate your car, throw you in jail or fine you $50,000, according to the Pasadena Star News. Remember, for the most part, fireworks are illegal and only some cities allow "safe and sane" ones. And of course, they'll be on the hunt for illegally parked cars.