Photo by _ROXANNE_ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The former manager of a WeHo marijuana dispensary was sentenced today to 5 years probation for "maintaining drug-related premises" on North La Brea known as the Yellow House. Tonya Mae Schaefer of Alhambra also received her sentence today; the 43-year-old will now serve 25 to life for the murder and abandonment of her newborn baby in 2006. It's a not guilty plea for......

New York Bagel Co.'s name is appropriate, but also a little misleading. New York? More like California with plenty of fresh, healthy fare (they'll substitute egg whites for no extra charge) and the occasional celebrity sighting (we spotted Lindsay Lohan early one morning, presumably still up from the night before). Bagel? Sure, they've got 15 varieties of hole-in-the-center goodness (plus a popular flat version), but it's possible to eat a dozen breakfasts without touching a......

The Grove's new neighbor is considerably less trendy than an outpost of Abercrombie & Fitch, but also far more important. A symbolic ground-breaking ceremony was held yesterday in Pan Pacific Park (pictured) for the new permanent facilities of Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. The Museum is a development of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, and will be the only museum in the city to focus exclusively on the Holocaust. Yesterday's ceremony also marked......

Eli Broad and Antonio Villaraigosa at the Grand Avenue announcement Almost two years ago, Frank Gehry, Eli Broad and the big developer folks from Related Companies announced the Grand Avenue Project. A blocklong development of housing, a hotel, retail & greenspace -- all designed by Gehry -- would complement Disney Hall. Getting the development together was tremendously complicated, and it probably wouldn't have happened without Broad's power and support. Since the exciting, fancy unveiling......

You probably relate David Hockney's name with his famous California photograph called "Pearblossom Highway #2." But one of the contemporary artist's early loves was opera and he's back, for the third time ever with Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" with the LA Opera, a "great ode to sexual ecstasy," the production company writes in the tag line of the title. It's a five-hour piece, but you can guarantee people will come out in droves for......

For the third year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is producing a series that explores a single topic, usually one that reaches from the hardcore to the non-traditional classical going audiences. In 2006, it was Minimalist Fest. featuring famed compositions of the minimalism movement and an all night concert til 4 a.m. with The Orb and other trance artists. This past year was From Shadow to Stalin, an exploration of Eastern Europe, classical musics to......

Could you imagine Los Angeles without the Getty Museum? If that serene white chunk of Italian marble nestled above the 405 suddenly removed its bulk to some other parts, would you notice? Would you care? An article in yesterday morning's LA Times reconsiders the Richard Meier-designed edifice in the light of its 10th anniversary, and in doing so, asks some important questions about the nature and integrity of architecture in Los Angeles. "there is......

"It's so nice and quiet and beautiful in here... from here the lighting kinda looks like a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica." -- Neko Case, melting the heart of every geek in the house while taking in the mysterious angles and lighting inside the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall. Neko Case closed out the first half of Walt Disney Concert Hall's 2007-08 Songbook Series last Friday to a rapt, grateful, near-sellout audience of about 2,000. The......

Morning rush hour is from 5 a.m. to noon. Evening rush hour is from noon to 7 p.m. Friday's rush hour starts Thursday morning. That and more unwritten LA rules of the road as told by Sue Doyle at the Daily News. Locally based and world-renown Architect Frank Gehry receives some moldy and cracked press today on NPR. Who doesn't like cartoons? "Most animated shows are covered by a different union from the Writers......

Out of taverns and streetcorners in poor sections of Lisbon, the mournful music, that tells emotional tales of longing and loss, was born. Since then, fado has become Portugal's most famous music. With a Mozambican background and a love for the Portuguese fado singing, Mariza has become one of the world's most famous singers. Her first album went quadruple platinum. After a 2002 visit to Lisbon, famed architect and creator of the Walt Disney Concert......

The new models for Frank Gehry's massive $900 million Grand Avenue project downtown have been unveiled. We're not sure that we dig them completely, but we're not sure that we don't. What do you think? Certainly more interesting than the bland FBI-ish towers he presented in the first round of design. While the project is progressing rather quickly since that announcement made two years ago by city officials, Gehry, and architect wanna-be Brad Pitt, there......

What had once been a decaying, dingy, low-rent gas station and more recently a white-tented behemoth was today unsheathed to reveal a slick, brand new, stunningly designed… gas station. But not just any gas station. With its slick metallic surfaces and geometric angles, this is the gas station of the future. A Frank Gehry-inspired silver ogre dominating the corner of Olympic & Robertson. A little better? Hell yeah. A lot better? Not really. All......

I call it Performance Row. That stretch downtown along Grand Avenue between Temple St. and the California Plaza. You can easily walk between 9 performance spaces in 5 minutes. Starting at the Music Center Plaza at Temple and heading South, you first are at the Ahmanson, Center Theatre Group's (CTG) proscenium stage that is used for dance, musicals and other traditional performances. Next is the Mark Taper Forum, a theatre used for newer theatrical......

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up. -Chicagoist had fall on their mind as they made squash and fudge, read "House of Leaves" and ">tried to figure out what's next for the Cubs. Not fall related, but still of utmost concern, the whole skinny black pants thing. -Torontoist fought off an evil scourge of raccoons and went to go see who......

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery. Phillyist rejoices in the Phillies' wild card chances, mourns the injuries sustained by Eagles defensive end Jevon Kearse, and goes pirate on our asses. SFist notes that Guns and Roses were in town, that San Franciscans are taking over reality TV, and that the San Francisco Chronicle's skills of original nomenclature could use......

the dwarfs are a hit! - West Magazine's cover story is on bullfighting Little People in Mexico (with online video, cha cha). What with Little People, Big World and the paper's own massively popular story of the battle between Little People Kiss cover bands — which made it all the way to the Daily Show — we see a trend. Little People are hot! fire starter - Speaking of hot ... authorities have announced......

Houstonist reports on cross-dressing thieves and undressing educators this week. A Peeping Tom defends himself with a papaya and an outraged onlooker asks Ken Lay, "TATER TOTS OR FRIES?" Also, FEMA wants it's money back. LAist are a big bunch of geeks. We're Star Trek geeks, David Duchovny geeks and Frank Gehry geeks. During their Coachella preview our readers reveal themselves to be Depeche Mode geeks. Seattlest saw their basketball team preparing to leave for......

Did this classic-but-down-on-its-luck apartment building inspire Disney Hall? We can't be sure, but we are reasonably certain that it was Frank Gehry's first home in Los Angeles. At Monday's press conference, he said the first place he lived in LA was at 9th and Burlington; he took the red car from there to his job as a truck driver in the Valley. When he mentioned that the building still stood, we had to check......

Eli Broad (with glasses) and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stand in front of one of the models of the new Grand Avenue at today's press conference. We admit, we are entranced by shiny, pretty things, and in this case that goes for things encased in translucent glass, too. We're talking about debut of the design of Grand Avenue, phase 1, by a team of architects led by superstar Frank Gehry. The design includes two towers, a......

a grand idea The LA Times gets a preview of the Frank Gehry design for the Grand Avenue development downtown, which will be unveiled at a press conference this morning. That's Gehry and partner Chris Webb in the photo above, with their model. remembering atrocities Today is Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day; from 1915-1917, about a million Armenians were killed in Turkey. A lecture about Germany's involvement in the mechanics of the genocide drew a......

We really hope you don't come to Disney Hall to sleep, but we're sure Frank Gehry made room for some comfortable spots. Kicking off the three-week music festival that is the Minimalist Jukebox, The Orb headlines tomorrow with John Tejada, Boom Bip, Dntel and dublab soundsystem in a sold out concert beginning at 11:59 p.m. and ending at 6:00 a.m. How many concert goers will leave the concert to run the L.A. Marathon? Probably......

Pritzker Prizewinner Frank Gehry is LA's most famous architect; Disney Hall is his most famous hometown work. It could be argued that its architectural significance has helped revitalize downtown. We know, he overworks and underpays his staff. But we can't help it; we still like his buildings. Happy 77th birthday, Frank Gehry. Tony Award-winning actor Robert Sean Leonard, who's now working in Hollywood as a regular cast member of House, turns 37. So does......

Frank Gehry has been given the opportunity to intensify his (sort of) Hometown Hero status in Downtown Los Angeles instead of recent Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne of Morphosis. Related Companies, the developer chosen by committee to handle the Grand Avenue Project, has selected Gehry to be the lead architect of a high rise and initially oversee design for several other buildings -- all part of the $1.8 billion complex adjacent to his insta-landmark Disney......

Amazon.com reports these best-sellers for Los Angeles, California For the week of Jan 16-22 1. City Baby L.A. by Lisa Rocchio 2. Symphony by Frank Gehry 3. Norman Klein by Rosemary Comella 4. An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles 5. Sacred Spaces by Robert Berger 6. Dancing at Ciro's by Sheila Weller 7. When Hollywood Had a King by CONNIE BRUCK 8. Dynamite Road (KLAVAN, ANDREW) Since the list is mainly composed of non-fiction,......

For those of us conflicted environmentalists who happen to have a weakness for the Fast and the Furious and totally love that just about every late model car can be seen on the streets of Los Angeles, the LA Auto Show is a sight to behold. Thus, a visit to some horrendous urban planning and design, i.e. the Convention Center, can be a hell of a good time for a naïve interloper/secret car enthusiast.......

Once described as an LA hipster's wet dream, The Adored's post-punk, mod-influenced sound stays true to their indie sensibilities and can be heard throughout the small club circuit east of the plastic glam of Hollywood. Drew, Max, Nat and Ryan have stayed under the radar from larger crowds in Los Angeles but that is likely to change in 2005 with their V2 Records EP release set for January and a great kick-off to the......

At Arena 1 in the Santa Monica Airport, tonight is the artist's reception for the exhibit Santa Monica Originals, featuring the work of artists with either a historical or contemporary connection to Santa Monica. Among the artists featured are John Baldessari, Frank Gehry, Sam Francis, Lee Mullican, Lucita Hortado, Larry Albright, William Tunberg, Charles Gains, Astrid Preston and Lita Albuquerque. The reception runs from 5–8:00 PM. For more information, call (310) 397-7493. Doors at......

LAObserved.com reminds us that the December 12, 2004 issue of The Los Angeles Times Magazine profiles KCRW's Frances Anderton. Ms. Anderton hosts the weekly radio program, "DnA: Design and Architecture," which focuses on LA designers and architects. The article also lists some LA landmarks that Anderton claims enrich her soul. Her list includes these gems: Theme Building, Los Angeles International Airport, Pereira & Luckman, Welton Becket & Associates, Paul Williams, 1961. My first love.......