The city seems to have gone completely mad. From a 16 year-old shot in Northridge to a 70 year-old stabbed to death in Hollywood, Sunday was just another day in what is starting to feel like an out-of-control crime wave. In just the last few months, a man stabbed people in a movie theater while they watched a horror movie, a woman stabbed her own mother, and a man dressed as a skeleton terrorized......

A puppet show without Kermit: Concrete Folk Variations at The Manual Archives / Photo by Susan Simpson MEET THE PO-PO The public’s invited to meet the police and talk about safety issues at a neighborhood meeting between the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council, the Glassell Park Safety Committee and LAPD. Senior Lead Officer for Atwater Village Gina Chovan, gang detectives and City Attorney Donna Wong will be in attendance. 4 pm // Glassell Park Community......

There's something scary about this scene that took place a few weeks ago in Glassell Park, which ended with LAPD Officers shooting two alleged gang members, injuring one and killing another: The Nissan suddenly stopped and Daniel Leon, 22, and Jose Angel Gomez, 18, jumped out and began shooting at officers, Leon with an AK-47 rifle and Gomez with a handgun. Now, this past week, we hear of three more officer involved shootings. Are criminals......

UPDATE, 8:50 A.M.: One suspect has now been arrested and the LAPD says the man who was shot and killed last night by officers was apparently holding a camera tripod according to the LA Times. This is all sounding eerily similar to last week's Glassell Park shooting. Last night before 7:00 p.m., a Van Nuys LAPD division unit stopped a car. Then things went wrong says the Daily News: Two officers from the violent crime......

Good news regarding last week's LAPD shootout in Glassell Park. The fourth and last suspect, a Northridge resident who was the driver of the suspected car, was arrested Monday in Granada Hills. It wasn't that hard either: "he was in the same vehicle police believe was used in the driveby," according to a report by the Daily News. Last Thursday, a drive-by shooting occurred in the late morning, resulting in the death of a man......

Photo © Copyright 2008 by Jonathan Alcorn (Sundogg) via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr One of the gunmen involved in yesterday's Glassell Park shootout has been identified as a member of the Avenues gang. Daniel Ivan Leon was killed by police following his participation in a fatal drive-by shooting that claimed one life. Ok, so there wasn't anyone jumping onto the 110 Freeway today, but there was a police pursuit on the......

Photo by WishByNight via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The neighborhood lock-down in Glassell Park is over after an earlier shoot-out involving police left one dead and other suspects unaccounted for throughout the afternoon. Skateland in Northridge is turning 50! Time to call up the extended family and ask them if they have any good memories of this classic Valley fun zone. (Because my family is FROM here. Babies.) What's with all......

View Larger Map There was an officer-involved shooting down the street from Washington Irving Middle School and near Forest Lawn Memorial Park-Glendale at the intersection of Drew St. and Estara Ave. in Glassell Park. One man died and another was sought by police according to Officer Kate Lopez at the LAPD. The Southbound 2 San Fernando Rd. off-ramp was shut down due to police activity, according to Officer Jimenez of the California Highway Patrol. Other......

An opinion piece in today's LA Times raises the issue of what seems to be the rampant Pinkberry-fication of many of our local neighborhoods, using recent food and retail closings and openings in the popular Larchmont Village as an example of how major-chain development affects the unique vibe of a given area. Larchmont Village, which is the bustling strip of shops located on Larchmont Boulevard between Beverly Boulevard and 1st Street, is starting to......

Dedicated bike paths, more bike lanes, and bike rental programs, oh my! KCBS2 is reporting today that City Councilman Ed Reyes put forth a motion during the City Council meeting to make his council district more bike friendly. He has asked city officials "to create a plan that includes bike-only roadways, more bike lanes on wide streets and sidewalks, and a public bicycle prgram that would allow Angelenos to rent bikes online or at Metro......

This week five fresh&easy grocery stores er, "neighborhood markets," opened in metro Los Angeles. We visited the Glassell Park store located in a gutted Albertson's on Eagle Rock Blvd (map) for our first impression of UK-based Tesco's (the world's third-largest grocer) attempt to hook finicky West Coast consumers. The array of fresh&easy branded products is impressive. The packaging is minimalist, reminiscent of a Safeway or Walgreen's branded generic. But as you'll see in the slideshow......

I spent last Halloween on a sort of ad hoc art crawl. Our first stop was John Matkowsky's dkrm Gallery, located in the Capitol Studios Building in Glassell Park. This cool old building is also home to Another year in LA and Shotgun Space so you can hit more than one opening at a time. We mostly hung out in the gallery, chatting with other people there. It was a nice place, and could......

Clutch, Year Long Disaster, Backyard Tire Fire, Bernard's Millions @ Roxy Erykah Badu @ Grove of Anaheim Macy Gray @ Key Club The Fuxedos, Bang Sugar Bang @ Alex's Bar The Clientele, Beach House, Pipas, Fish Circus, The Murdocks @ The Knitting Factory Push Pull, Ex Oblivione, The Health Club @ Mr. T's Bowl Go Betty Go, Glassell Park 3, Nothington, Broke Til Thursday @ The Scene Idle Minds, Little Brothers Disease, Hellaphant, Little......

Voluntary Trans Fats Bans Announced Today & Other Body News "Harvard University researchers link trans fats and the coronary damage they cause to as many as 100,000 premature deaths a year. Los Angeles County was contemplating a law banning trans fats, but recently found that it doesn't have the legal authority to do so. Instead, both the county and the city are announcing new, voluntary initiatives Tuesday." (The California Report [MP3 Warning]) From Paramount......

Council President Eric Garcetti represents the Thirteenth Council District which includes all or part of the communities of Glassell Park, Atwater Village, Elysian Valley, Echo Park, Historic Filipinotown, Silver Lake, East Hollywood and Hollywood. Otherwise known as LAist's 'Hood. Because we're represented brilliantly, when we sent our councilmember a request to take part in this collection of Best Of lists not only did he respond quickly and wonderfully, but he reached behind our ear and......

LACityNerd comments on LA Curbed's commentary on Daily Bruin's article about DOT's proactive enforcement of cars in driveway aprons at sidewalks. We've had our own parking problems in Westwood, but as to parking in aprons, you deserve a ticket -- it gets in the way of our bikes. As one commenter on Curbed said, "Living in the City 101: YOU CANNOT PARK ON THE SIDEWALK." NPR reports that in Los Angeles, 67.8 percent of......

"Lopez and producing partner Simon Fields have teamed with the [FX] cable network on the half-hour project 'Echo Park,' a comedic look at the world of yuppie, Latino and hipster cultures within Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood." ~ Variety After Automobile Club of Southern California & USAA dropped zip code-based auto insurance rates, State Farm, the largest auto insurance carrier in California, will cut premiums too. Lots of Police-Related News: LAPD's Crime Offensive on......

Born in Japan as the only child of a Japanese mother and Anglo American father, novelist Nina Revoyr now makes her home in Los Angeles. Nina mines childhood experiences living in South Central to craft exquisite novels about the historical interrelationships between Angelenos of Asian American and African American descent. Indeed, her second novel, Southland, literally explores the historical connection between the two communities as the book's protagonist tries to solve a family mystery involving......