Biennial maintenance on Angels Flight has been going well, and with all the track work completed last week, and the bulk of the interior car work completed Thursday, the world's shortest railway is gearing up to resume some service. more ›

Today the Occupy Los Angeles movement—with its renewed focus on foreclosures—is rallying downtown to protest the actions of the Bank of New York Mellon and Auction.com. more ›

The best fun you can have for 25 cents in Los Angeles for one minute could soon be twice as expensive, when Angels Flight reopens after undergoing repairs, and the fare is doubled. more ›

Break out the quarters! If that haul up Bunker Hill from Hill Street to California Plaza was getting to be too much (and we feel you, especially in this summer heat), there is reason to be relieved today: Angels Flight has reopened after a brief shutdown over safety concerns. more ›

The little birdies of Angels Flight have been tweeting about the financial future of LA's 109-year-old Bunker Hill funicular. The 25-cent question is whether 25-cents is too little a fee for ferrying passengers. more ›

The quirky, and sometimes questionable, funicular transport known as the world's shortest railway, Downtown's Angel's Flight, has been poised to re-open for what seems like ages. It was just this past Thursday when its operating foundation said they had passed the necessary safety inspection and had the green light to resume moving people up and down Bunker Hill, though would not give a date. more ›

Shut down in 2001 after a fatal accident, Angel's Flight in downtown has sat unused for some time now. News came yesterday that the short funicular railway is coming back, possibly as early as next month, thanks to a passing grade... more ›

Plans for a streetcar in downtown Los Angeles are moving along. The nonprofit charged with the project earlier this month applied for $25 million from a federal "urban circulator" grant. That course of action prompted the Metro board yesterday to take charge and become the lead agency for the environmental review, a document needed in order to proceed with the project. more ›

Rich Alossi of the downtown blog angelenic witnessed Angels Flight in operation on Friday (that's his video above). "According to one engineer on-site, 'the world’s shortest railway' may reopen in about a month if testing continues as planned." more ›

In Los Angeles, there are some important streets named for some important people. Beaudry, Wilcox, Van Nuys, Lankershim, Wilshire, Micheltorena, and hundreds of others named for leaders, developers, owners, and others. But, in Los Angeles, there are streets that have been changed in honor of an individual. Santa Barbara Avenue in South Los Angeles was changed to honor civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1982 and Brooklyn Avenue & Macy Street were changed in 1993 to honor civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. Tom Bradley had a section of First Street named concurrently in his honor in 2001. These are the most recent street name changes of major lengths. (Yes, Chick Hearn Court was also changed from Eleventh Street, and Johnnie Cochran Vista was named just last year from Seventeenth Street; but neither are of major street length). There is one other street, though, that needs mention here: James M. Wood Boulevard. more ›

Despite SXSW starting up this week with 100+ Los Angeles based bands heading over there, residencies are growing stronger and more venue-diverse across the line, especially on Monday nights where the volume makes it hard to choose from. Here's to a great month of residencies, rock on. more ›

by Debbie Long more ›

Bunnies, schmunnies. The unholy folks behind the 1947 Project are revving up their crime bus for a half-day excursion on Easter Sunday, April 16th, from noon to 5pm. This time they're calling it the Nightmares of Bunker Hill; it will tour downtown LA and tell tales, we're guessing, of nefarious activities on and around the Bunker Hill of yesteryear. Most of Bunker Hill was covered by grand old houses that got chopped up into increasingly seedy apartments; a cinematic version of their seedy state is in the recent Ask the Dust. The buildings — and much of Bunker Hill itself — were eventually razed for downtown improvement projects. At $47 each, seats on the crime bus aren't cheap, but the cost to you is less than $10 per hour — proving, once again, that crime doesn't pay. more ›

Editor's note: This is the second part of the LAist Interview with the editors of the 1947 Project, a blog that posts news stories and photographs of Los Angeles in 1947. This LAist Interview is with a typical resident living in Los Angeles in 1947. more ›

At outdoor events in downtown Los Angeles, such as the Grand Performances series that included Friday night's Ozomatli concert, or the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival's summer performances, part of the fun is people-watching, and much of what you see people doing is turning their heads side to side and murmuring, "This is so cool. I've never seen downtown like this." more ›

The funny thing about reading The “Grand Avenue Plan,” preliminarily approved last week, is pondering how often in the last century developers have felt the need to shift the functions of various districts, as though downtown LA were one of those party-favor puzzles in which you slide the little tiles around the board until a picture comes into focus. Certainly something needs to be done with the area — what ought to be a pleasantly walkable few blocks between the Music Center and City Hall has been an exhaust-filled concrete canyon for the last 50 years — but the classic Angeleno urge to keep building brings a sense of déjà vu. more ›

The legal world in Los Angeles conjures up images of shiny glass Bunker Hill skyscrapers populated by Arnie Becker-type sharks shuffling around in perfectly tailored Hugo Boss suits and Gucci loafers, all the while servicing their big-money, high-profile clients. Some might also think of the sleazy Larry H. Parkers of the world who guilelessly peddle their personal injury services on daytime television. more ›

The Committee chose New York-based Related Cos. to develop the four parcels, for which design proposals are still pending. Local patron of the arts and real estate magnate Eli Broad and representatives from the City and County of Los Angeles are directing the effort. The parcels are owned by both public entities, and Los Angeles City Council and the County Board of Supervisors will have final project approval. more ›