Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.
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For more than a decade, the large sign over Highland Park’s only movie theater was hard to see at night. A ceremony recently shed light on the neighborhood’s resurgence.
The Highland Theatre sign has risen a few stories above Figueroa Street since 1924. But nobody’s changed its lightbulbs in a long time. Local organizations, businesses and the National Park Service finally teamed up to raise money to restore its former glow.
Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes bought enough bulbs to light the very last “E” in “THEATRE.” "You’re going to see this illuminated and you’ll watch it from all over Highland Park. It’s a landmark. It’s kind of like the lighthouse effect."
Seconds before the clock struck 8, the countdown began. At 8, the sign lit up and the crowd cheered.
It’s a beacon to guide visitors toward, for instance, dinner at the nearby Italian restaurant, a $6 first-run movie and a warm drink afterwards at the Antigua Bread Café.