UPDATE!!! The event has moved to in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Check Facebook for updated details.Coming on the heels of the announcement for Los Angeles' participation in World Pillow Fight Day scheduled for Saturday March 22 downtown, there's yet another spectacle of an event planned for the night before at Hollywood and Highland, sans bouncers and lines to wait in (h/t again to Bored-LA). According to the Facebook page, at 10:00 p.m. on Friday......

A clear, crisp early spring morning greeted the participants in this year's LA Marathon, and the runners are filling our city's streets. Local NBC affiliate KNBC has full coverage of today's big event, which is comprised of two wheelchair divisions, a bike race, a 5k run, and the full 26 mile marathon. With an 8:15 start, the "elite" groups of men and women lead the way in small sets, and they are hoping to finish......

Much to LA City Beat's dismay, the Metro board voted and passed a motion to "install barrier gates on the Metro Red Line, Metro Purple Line and selected light rail stations in efforts to prevent fare evasion, provide for seamless travel and improve transit station security," says a press release from the agency this afternoon. Expect to see the 379 fare gates within 18 to 24 months from now. The gates will integrate with those......

This apartment complex next to the NoHo Metro Red Line was rumored to have many gang-related police calls when it opened | Photo by lavocado@sbcglobal.net via Flickr So that's why cops were all over the Valley this morning. The Daily News is reporting that around 200 cops raided 15 homes, arresting 16, in an early morning operation called "Wild Card" which is "the police department's effort to challenge a particularly active and violent clique......

Everest at The Echo | Photo by Shayna Peveler via their MySpace page Last night we checked out What Made Milwaukee Famous playing to a small crowd at Spaceland. Simply put, amazing. We're shocked that more people were not there. Lucky for us, luck for you, they have four more shows within the next nine days here in LA starting Thursday at the Silverlake Lounge. "Sultan" - What Made Milwaukee Famous &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://aprodxn.com/laist/zfiles/sultan.mp3"> "Resistance" -......

Now here's the quote of the day via the Daily News: ""I think if there were laws that required mayors to take transit, you'd see transit systems improve remarkably." That's Ted Balaker, a policy analyst for the Reason Foundation who spoke to transit beat writer Sue Doyle, who wrote a piece on Mayors across the country and their public transit use. Locally, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vowed to take public transit once a week last month......

'Santa Monica Subway: Alternative 4' is one of the 17 routes presented by Metro Last night, a packed room of community members at LACMA listened attentively to Metro present nineteen options to serve the Westside. This first in a series of three public input meetings (two more meetings next week) was exciting -- wheels are in motion to get Los Angeles moving, even if that reality be around ten years from now. One of......

A Starbucks in Sherman Oaks as victim of a hit-and-run. You can't deny a blogs influence on local politics and city services these days. Who knew? Kangaroo skin is illegal to sell in California. Sorry Adidas. Celebrity stylist Stacy Young cannot add new allegations against Jamie Foxx in breach of contract case. The Feds have finally arrived to inspect 'Killer King,' or Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. At it again with UCLA and Monkeys......

If the red line seems slow today, now you know why. The Los Angeles Fire Department is reporting that a man either fell or jumped inito the path of the North Hollywood bound Metro Red Line train at the Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station shortly before 8:40 a.m.The subway train was unable to stop before striking the man, who was found trapped beneath the trainset. Despite the prompt response of Los Angeles Fire Department personnel, the......

- Wilshire Monorail? [LA Visions] - Growth spurt for prepubescent Purple Line? [MetroRiderLA] - Pro-rail advocacy is not a racist tactic [Green LA Girl] - Fighting transit racism: Building the environmental movement on the buses of L.A. [Grist] - We need a new plan [Bottleneck Blog] - Purple not Pants [Asymptotia] - A Major Subway Hater Sees the "Light" [L.A. Straphanger] - If I Had A Million Dollars... [Los Angeles Transit Riders] - NYC......

Beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the May Day immigration march will begin at Olympic and Broadway, heading towards City Hall on Spring St. According to Metro, "Rail service will be increased on the Metro Blue and Metro Red lines to handle the extra patrons expected to participate in the march. The Metro Green and Metro Gold lines will have extra trains ready for deployment should the need arise. The Metro Red Line......

One of our favorite Thai dishes is Pad Kee Mow (most commonly known as Spicy Noodles). So on April Fool's Day (the first), it better be there at the Thai New Year's Festival in Thai Town. Our plan: take the Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Western and eat, watch the parade, eat, listen to music and eat. Did we mention the festival goes on for 12 hours? We'll see you starting at 8 a.m. on April......

After a grueling installment of the popular local show "Public Transit in LA Sucks--We Know This Because We've Used It" last night, we've decided that there is no subway stop at Wilshire and Vermont. It just doesn't exist. It's an urban legend, a myth of social construct, a shared ideal that has only materialized in the minds of the mentally unstable. Why do we say this? What has our dander all dander-fied about the Red......

...the Beer Garden, that is. Back in June we applauded the impending summer opening of the New Otani Hotel's rooftop Beer Garden, and now that we've enjoyed some mugs of Kirin and some hibachi grilling, we're ready to laud this seasonal downtown hangout yet again. A few floors above the lobby level (not quite the roof, but a roof) is the hotel's lovely Japanese gardens, complete with waterfalls and streams, paper lanterns in bright......

At any given time there are hundreds of things going on in LA that may be worth checking out. Now that spring has our fair city under its sunny-skied spell, the weekends are blooming as wildly as the flowers with outdoor events. This weekend, May 14th-15th, there are a couple of arts-themed events going on that we think are worth mentioning. The NoHo Theatre & Arts Festival is the largest and longest running festival......

We've been waiting, watching, and wondering in our NoHo Arts District neighborhood about plans to redevelop sad parcels of land into mixed-use metropolitan sites. The opening of the Metro Red Line in 2001 held the promise of continuing development, but there were stalls and delays, and little progress was seen initially. Recently we've noticed a flurry of construction on nearby streets (high-rise buildings) and now there are signs declaring the impending arrival of the......

Egads, the weather has been lovely lately, hasn't it? Makes us almost ready to forgive Mother Nature for the torrential rains, winds, and mud. Last weekend was so nice that we thought we ought to get out of the house and into the heart of the city, so we did a little "resident tourist" number and plotted out a hearty walk and photo-taking tour of some spots in downtown LA. We started off the......