Oh, you've got to love rumors, especially those that both anger and please people, depending on who you're speaking with. This rumor comes via a report during the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council* meeting last Monday night. During a Land Use Committee report, someone asked what the status was on the old Ventura Club building at Colbath and Ventura (just East of Hazeltine). Originally it was slated as a Walgreens, but after that got scrapped, the......

Looks like some folks in the San Fernando Valley didn't get the memo about the city's 40 hour moratorium on violence. According to the Daily News, "a man was shot outside of a pizza parlor in an apparent drive-by shooting late Friday." The incident took place after ten o'clock last night in Sherman Oaks near Ventura and Van Nuys Boulevards, an area particularly dense with foot traffic and restaurants. A motive for the shooting is......

Meet the future location of Studio Oaks Park where a grassroots effort is the only way this strip of unusable, rat-infested land will become a park. In Los Angeles, if you really want to get something done, you've got to take it upon yourself. In the southeast Valley, residents are doing just that.......

Taken from the 8th Floor of the City National Bank Building | Photo by Mitch Oberstein with an iPhone *Update, 6:42 p.m.: A maintenance man familiar with the building has said they found an apparent suicide note.A witness is reporting to LAist that it appears a person has fallen from a building at 14724 Ventura Blvd. in The Village area of Sherman Oaks. "There's streaks of blood and just a sheet covering him," said......

Lots of old school films happening around town tonight. / Photo by get directly down via flickr. THEATRE You have a hand at commenting on the Theatre of NOTE’s play selection this week and next. NOTEwood is their comprehensive series of public readings featuring new, original works. The 2009 season will be chosen from the 30 scripts selected to be read aloud at the year’s NOTEwood reading – but there’s a talk back session......

View Larger Map The call went out at 3:52 p.m., 55 firefighters arrived on the scene and the fire was out by 4:06 p.m. at the California Roll Factory, a sushi restaurant at 11629 Santa Monica Blvd. across from one of our favorite bistros in Los Angeles -- Nook. In other sushi restaurant destruction news, a SUV accelerated into TokyoIce on Ventura Blvd. in Encino, leaving a path of destruction and hurting one on Saturday.......

Pickle just about anything at the Machine Project tonight. / Photo by ccarlstead via flickr. Sure there are a lot of places closed for President’s Day, but nightlife does exist in LA...even tonight: FILM Roman Polanski’s Chinatown focuses on an intricate water scandal and an even more twisted family backstory. Starring John Huston, Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson as Detective Jake Gittes – the city of Angels plays a major part of this nourish......

Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist *Update 5:00 p.m.* A beige Lexus SUV attempting to enter into the neighboring commercial building couldn't complete the turn, and mistakenly hit the accelerator rather than the brake. The motion sent the driver on a diagonal path through the awning of Barry's Tickets, then through the patio and front of Tokyo Ice, a sushi restaurant at 16161 Ventura Blvd. The business was preparing for its 5 o'clock opening and was......

So I'm a fairly new resident of Studio City, and am still discovering little surprises on this side of town. Driving down Ventura, I have twice noticed a small, nondescript building bearing a sign with the letters ICA at Colfax Ave., which, upon closer examination while sitting at a red light, rest above the casually printed name "Intercontinental Absurdities." Clearly, this was something that called for investigation. It sounded a bit like something out......

Cellos take center stage at the Colburn School tonight | Photo by Lachlan via flickr. FILM Before Alan Alda brought the character Hawkeye Pierce to homes everywhere in the M*A*S*H television series, Donald Sutherland (Keifer’s dad) played the role on the big screen in the Robert Altman-directed film (MASH). In both, though, the plot remains the same: the men who lived in “The Swamp” didn’t care much for military decorum during the Korean war.......

Barney's Beanery gets rocks the vote. Kind of. RED, WHITE AND BEER If you didn't get enough beer yesterday, Barney's Beanery in Santa Monica is hosting a "Super Tuesday Countdown Beer Vote" today and tomorrow. Alcoholics Drinkers vote for their favorite candidates by choosing which tap to draw their $3 beer from. They'll be serving up plenty of Hillarys and Obamas for sure. A running total will be announced as the votes are tallied.......

Get your green drink on tonight. WORDS Author and USC professor Gina Nahai and actress Bahar Soomekh (Crash) read from Nahai’s latest book Caspian Rain – about a family falling apart just before the Islamic revolution in Iran. Immediately following, there’s a discussion of the changing lives of women of the Middle East, and relationships between Iran’s Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as how these communities interact in Los Angeles, “home to the largest......

It’s kinda quiet on the event front, a perfect day to reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. But if you're into going out tonight: CLASSICAL Southwest Chamber Music continues its Musical Imagination and Color series with a concert featuring 20th century composers, including Stravinsky, Milhaud, Berg, and Bartók. Violinist Lorenz Gamma, clarinetist Jim Foschia and pianist Ming Tsu are on the bill tonight. 8 // Colburn School Of Performing Arts: Across The Street......

We've already told you where the Patriots and Chargers fans will be taking in tomorrow's conference championship games, now we'll let you know where the Cheeseheads and Big Blue will gather to watch their teams fight for a trip to Super Bowl XLII. LA-based Packers fans have had a safe haven in Pickwicks Pub, Woodland Hills (21010 Ventura Blvd.) since 2005 when the bar re-opened after a fire burned down the original bar. Transplant Giants......

I wasn’t much of a Tom Petty fan in my pre-L.A. years, but like most people, I knew him from the basics…I had caterwauled the lyrics to "Free Fallin’" alongside other angsty Massachusetts teens at a dance or two, and I had been baffled by, but pretended I knew what the hell was going on in, the "Mary Jane's Last Dance" video. But beginning with my drive cross country, I began to develop a taste......

Update on why Ventura Blvd. in Studio City was shut down this afternoon by the LAPD: according to the North Hollywood Police Division, the shooting took place at De Soto Ave and Gresham St. in Chatsworth. Later, the suspect's car was found at the Studio City 7-11, prompting the LAPD shut down the area to search (hence all the helicopters). The suspect was later found in the city of Fontana and was arrested without......

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A previous owner of Pane Dolce (Italian for "sweet bread") in Sherman Oaks, went up and down the immediate neighborhood on Ventura Blvd., taking notes on the neighboring restaurants' soup selections. What he found was little selection for vegetarian and dairy free soups. So he went to work on his cafe's soup menu, which is now the most popular item ordered. Made daily with fresh ingredients, the neighborhood cafe offers two or three soups......

KITSCH: The Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee returns to REDCAT for the next four evenings. LA kitsch expert Charles Phoenix brings together an evening of live comedy, including the Bob Baker Marionettes, roller rink organist Dominic Cangelosi and a few other surprises. The entertainment's all in combination with his "Retro Holiday Slide Show," comprised of slides he found at area thrift shops and flea markets. 8 pm // REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall //......

File this under "oops." After a Saturday morning solo car crash involving a son and mother in Tarzana on Ventura Blvd., fire and police officials failed to notice a woman in the passenger seat under the air bag after removing her son from the driver's seat.The woman, whose identity was not released, had apparently been left in the car at the accident scene in Tarzana even as her son was taken to a hospital, police......

It always seems that Coldwater Canyon Blvd. is flooded. Early this morning, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported an 8 inch broken main causing "severe" flooding between Ventura Blvd. and Mulholland Dr., shutting down the canyon traffic corridor. Muholland Dr. is also closed down between Coldwater Cyn. and Benedict Cyn. due to mud and debris. Then at 6:45 a.m., the most unusual and seemingly non sequitar update from the fire department came in:The flooding......

A new blog has appeared on the blogLAsphere called ditch the car, take the metro and blogger, John, has created, revised and tweaked his idea on LA's future subway transit. "My LA subway plan is based upon latent but unrealized relationships that organize Los Angeles," he explains in an early post. "The core of the system is built upon two parallel corridors (the Red and the Purple Lines) connecting three central business districts (Downtown,......

Last December, I embarked on a mission to find a solution to a problem in my immediate neighborhood. Trying to cross Moorpark St. on foot (or left turns in a car) during rush hour is a nightmare. There is just too much constant flow and you really have to have a brave moment to cross at the unmarked crosswalk because as we all know, there is about .001% of drivers in the city who......

Late this morning, a fire struck the delicious and affordable Taste of India restaurant in Sherman Oaks, a few blocks West of Woodman on Ventura Blvd. It took 40 firefighters 31 minutes to contain the fire in ventilation duct work. There were no injuries. Traffic on Ventura Blvd. was shut down in both directions for two blocks forcing motorists to clog the allies north and south of Ventura Blvd. It is unknown at this......

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend, who lives in the NoHo Arts District, about bars in proximity to the Red Line and she mentioned a dream that many share: "You know it was also be sweet if the subway was extended to 1 a.m. or later. We could bar hop into Hollywood and back!" Little known to many, the red line actually has one train that travels beyond 1 a.m. I explained this......

For 36 years, The Wiener Factory has been serving hot dogs out of their Sherman Oaks stand to loyal and new customers alike. Good for hot dog lovers, bad for residents craving Pinkberry:Officials with Pinkberry, a nonfat frozen-yogurt chain, were expected to tell a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council panel Monday night that they wanted to raze the small hot-dog restaurant and build another Pinkberry store. "Historically, many things come and go. But we have......

Sorry for the lateness of this column...computer problems just bite. Anyway, this week's theater picks are filled with abuse, angst and comedy -- but not necessarily in the same show: Lost Angeles Ten Gen Xers – including a scientist who’s gotten himself a date with a beautiful woman whom he had been stalking and a woman who’s scored a MySpace date with “the world’s hottest lesbian” – are trying to find their way in the......

View Larger Map Ventura Blvd. is well served by three bus lines, the 750, 150 and 240. During the day on a weekday, you can pretty much walk to a stop and find a bus coming. To the north of the Valley's famous boulevard is the Orange Line, which during the same times of day seems to run every few seconds (it's only at 12 a.m. am I waiting longer than 10 minutes). Sandwiched between......

Tucked behind a small building with a mostly unnoticed facade on Ventura Blvd. is a little homestyle cafe called Vivian's. The quaint and calm outdoor patio is only the beginning of what is a community of regulars, friendly and cute waitresses and weekday freelancers starting their days late. Within the menu of the usual breakfast items, everyone raves about the banana pancakes and the house omelet, which has avocado and grilled chicken breast. The portions......

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