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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In December, one of L.A.’s biggest arson fires gutted the huge DaVinci apartment complex. Mayor Garcetti said the fire caused up to $90m damage, and another official said, it "could have been a lot worse. Wind change, different atmospheric conditions, it could have been a $200m fire."
Tuesday, after a 6-month investigation, they arrested a suspect, who has pleaded not guilty.
The torching of the DaVinci was the biggest unsolved arson downtown since the LA Public Library burned on April 29, 1986. That’s a day Off-Ramp contributor Patt Morrison remembers well, and I spoke with her about it on the west steps of the library.
(The library burns. Credit: LAPL/ Security Pacific National Bank Collection)