Overheard At Jax...

Ah, barflies:

"I would never want to live in The Americana - think about it, you're in a building with a thousand cars rumbling around, breathing all of that smoke from the cars all the time -- and then you've got three thousand people walking around FARTING -- all those farts go up into the building -- I couldn't possibly live there."

Burbank Time Capsule Photos Published

The Burbank Times has published 47 high resolution photographs of Burbank in 1959 recovered from the time capsule recently removed from the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge. Check them out - it's amazing how recognizable modern Burbank is in the 1959 photos.

(via Burbank Library Blog)

Wednesday Night Police Chase and Gunfire

There was a police chase and gunfire in the neighborhood on Wednesday night. The violent incident began when a man broke into his wife's apartment, violating a restraining order she had against him. From the News-Press:

When police knocked on the apartment’s front door, Asatryan jumped out of a kitchen window, Lorenz said. But an officer saw him and began chasing him east on Lomita to Central Avenue, he said.

The officer tried to catch Asatryan and cut a corner, but ran into a chain that was used to close off a parking lot, Lorenz said.

The officer was hurt, but kept running after Asatryan, who had already gotten into a car, he said.

“The suspect attempted to run down the officer and, in doing so, he collided with another vehicle,” Lorenz said.

The officer feared for his life and safety, so he pulled out his gun and fired numerous shots at Asatryan’s car, he said. Asatryan was not struck by bullets, Lorenz said.

Gunfire hit the car, but Asatryan kept driving on Central and turned east onto Colorado Street, he said.

Asatryan lost control of his car and crashed at Colorado and Central, where he got out of the car and continued to run from police, Lorenz said.

Another officer caught up to Asatryan, tackled him to the ground and arrested him at Orange and Colorado streets, he said.

Glendale On Film: Pineapple Express

An unexpected Glendale location jumped out at me while watching Pineapple Express this week - the villain's lair is the Rodriguez house, designed by architect RM Schindler and located right here in Glendale at 1845 Niodrara Drive.

Glendale News-Press Open House, Thursday 02/15/09

Departing Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader Editor Danette Goulet's farewell letter contains an invitation to the newsroom:

And so I am asking you all for one more thing as we embark on the process of finding my replacement: Tell us what you think we should be looking for. I invite, and encourage, input. This is your community paper. You’ve never been shy in giving me your opinion before, so let it fly.

E-mail your thoughts to me, or better yet, come on down and tell me. We’re holding an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Glendale News-Press’ office, 221 N. Brand Blvd., where you will have the opportunity to mix and mingle with the entire staff, say good riddance to me and tell John O’Loughlin and me in person what you think we should look for in a new newsroom leader.

I pass the building every day and am curious to see the newsroom.

Sunroom Desk has an interesting response to Franklin Avenue's critique of the News-Press last week, which I wrote about previously.

Missing: One of My License Plates

My personalized front license plate has either been stolen or maybe just fell off. If you see or have seen an IAMSTIG front license plate lying around Glendale somewhere, shoot me an e-mail. It either fell off during a short, slow drive to downtown Glendale on Saturday 02/08 or was stolen on that same day between 2:30-4:30pm in the city lot in the 100 block of North Maryland.

Improving The News-Press

Mike at Franklin Avenue has written a detailed post on the shortcomings of the Glendale News-Press, and makes a number of positive suggestions to make the paper more relevant. He ties the post to his astonishment that the deeply unhip News-Press made no mention of Lux Interior's death in Glendale last week.

Not only did Lux die here in Glendale, but he and wife/fellow Cramps member Poison Ivy lived right here in Adams Hill. The GNP is such a small-town newspaper that it runs photos of people holding up the newspaper on vacation, yet it can't be bothered with the death of a local icon. Blogs and newspapers all over the country mentioned his death in Glendale. But the hometown newspaper? Nothing.

So on to the GNP. Yes, it's a small-town newspaper... but Glendale isn't exactly a small town. It's a city with a population of 207,000. Take Glendale away from the L.A. region and it would be big enough to support a full newspaper, as well as TV and radio stations. (At least before the economic collapse; but I'm comparing it to smaller cities like Rockford or Duluth, both of which support a slew of media outlets.)

Criticizing a newspaper in this dismal media climate feels like kicking a disabled baby, but literally and figuratively, the News-Press is square and thin. I read it every day, particularly Jason Wells' and Veronica Rocha's coverage of City Hall and public safety, but I want more.

If you don't think Glendale is underserved by the media, search Google News for "Glendale" and note that the overwhelming majority of Glendale news stories relate to...Glendale, Arizona (population 247,000). Our Glendale (population 210,000) is barely mentioned.

Safe and Healthy Streets Website Launches

The LA County Bicycle Coalition and the City of Glendale have launched a website devoted to the Safe and Healthy Streets project that was recently presented to the City Council. (previously).

A community bike ride in the City of Glendale is in the works as well as promotions at the Glendale Downtown Dash (March 8th) and Bike to Work Day (May 14th). Stay tuned!

Colin Bogart, the Bicycle Coalition's liason to the city of Glendale, is forming a stakeholder group of Glendale community members. If interested, please contact him directly.

The Weather On Mount Wilson

(stunt photo by Danielle)
Thought this weekend was cold in Glendale? Here is a glimpse of the weather today at the peak of Mt. Wilson, which is less than 7 miles away. The hike was part of the Sierra Club's Wilderness Travel Course. At various elevations our group experienced fog, mist, rain, hail, and snow.

Jewel City Photo: Scale

Jewel City Photo: BMW Motorcycle With Sidecar

Spotted on Magnolia in Burbank. Magnolia always has a wonderful density of interesting cars and motorcyles.

Lux Interior, Dead At 62

Glendale resident and The Cramps frontman Lux Interior died at Glendale Memorial today of a heart condition. The official statement:

February 4, 2009

Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy’s contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music.

The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded us all just how exciting, dangerous, vital and sexy rock and roll should be and has spawned entire subcultures. Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.

The family requests that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.

Glendale just got less interesting.

Jewel City Photo: Griffith Observatory In Fog

Brand Park Rescue Operation

While volunteering as a docent at the Doctor's House Museum in Brand Park this past Sunday, I had front row seats to a massive operation to rescue an injured hiker in Brand Park.

Glendale FD must have decided to make this a training opportunity, because the resources thrown at this hiker with a hurt ankle were unbelievable. I saw At least three full size fire trucks, three FD pickups or SUVs, a ranger SUV, two hook and ladders, Urban Rescue, an ambulance, Pasadena PD's Bell 206 helicopter, and finally, a massive H-3 Sea King from the LA County Sheriff's Department, which plucked the unlucky hiker from the Verdugos and landed him safely onto the baseball field at Brand Park. Glendale FD paramedics treated the hiker in the parking lot and released him.

ATMs Magically Appear On Brand

Would you use these ATM's that just showed up on Brand? They are probably legitimate, but given Glendale's well deserved reputation as a center of identity theft, I would be hesitant to put my debit card into an ATM that suddenly appears on the street.
(as a side note, Bacara's lunch specials are pretty good)


I'm partial to the credit union ATM in the lobby of the Glendale Police Department. And I still look over my shoulder there before entering my PIN.

The Exchange Claims Another Victim: Mashti Malone's

This week I noticed that the front of Mashti Malone's was covered in paper, so I took a look inside.


Everything has been ripped out. The depopulation of The Exchange continues. In related news, Dolci Mango has a sign up saying they are "Temporary Closed for Renovation - Remodeling". Hmm. There is no sign of life at Twinkles.

Workers are tearing up the inside of the Famima space, although For Lease signs were still up in the windows. None of the workers could tell me if anything specific was going in. It looks like they were just tearing out everything Famima related.

Also: what's going to happen to the life-size great white shark above the bar at Chuy's? I'm thinking it would make a bold statement in my one bedroom apartment...

Traffic Safety Letter of the Week

In response to the smoke and noise devoted to traffic safety this week in the wake of several high profile crashes on Glenoaks and the recent report by Allstate Insurance ranking Glendale drivers as having the second to worst safety habits in the U.S., Steve Foster jumps above the fray with a concise letter in the News-Press:

City should go out on a limb

Regarding “Najarian introduces traffic plan,” Wednesday:

If the Glendale City Council, by raising penalties, can protect certain tree species from tree-butchers, the Glendale City Council, by raising penalties, can protect citizens from motorized people-butchers.

STEVE FOSTER

Glendale

Good letter, Steve!  In addition to more severe penalties for dangerous driving, implementing leading pedestrian intervals along Brand Boulevard north of Colorado would go a long way towards making pedestrians safer downtown.

 On Friday, I was nearly run over twice.  The first encounter was with a woman inattentively driving down Maryland at a high rate of speed.  Maryland has two pedestrian crosswalks, but they are poorly marked (by elevated signs in the median and two shades of earth-tone bricks[!]) and drivers frequently don't notice them.  In this case, I was in the pedestrian crossing, saw a RAV4 squeal around the corner of Wilson/Maryland and accelerate towards me, and I literally had to wave my hands wildly (while preparing to dive out of the way) to get this idiotic woman to stop.

The second encounter on Friday was a few minutes later at Wilson and Brand, when a very young driver making a right onto Brand from Wilson decided to stomp on the gas as soon as the light turned green, and nearly ran over 5 pedestrians (including me) who had the right of way to cross Brand.  The second situation is exactly the type of dangerous conflict that leading pedestrian intervals are designed to eliminate.

Porto's and Sarkis Make LA Magazine's Top Bakery List

Last month, Los Angeles Magazine named Glendale's Palate the best new restaurant in greater Los Angeles. This month, they've named L.A.'s top 20 bakeries, and two Glendale favorites are on the list:

Sarkis Pastry

Glendale's first Armenian pastry shop, which opened in 1983, sells baklava in every guise: bourma with glistening whole pistachios, shredded kataifi filled with walnuts, finger baklava rolled around ground cashews. The display cases span the Middle East with zulubia (squiggles of deep-fried dough) and yards of cookies; walnut-stuffed nazuk, macaroons, tahini. Less-mainstream specialties include a transporting ashet-sarayan, a layered bread pudding lined with the rosewater-scented pastry cream called ashta and smothered with crushed pistachios, and halawet el jibn, pinwheels of sweet cheese and ashta drizzled with syrup.

1111. S Glendale Ave, Glendale, 818-956-6636

Porto's Bakery

Guava has yet to make inroads in American cuisine (although the trees grow well in L.A.), but its jam is elemental in Latin American pastries. Porto's, the 38-year old family owned Cuban restaurant and bakery, showcases the fruit in crescent-shaped empanadas, sugar sprinkled turnovers, and high touted pies. The postres deserve all the message board praise they receive, but they aren't the only sirens here. We're suckers for the elephant ears, their myriad layers pressed into a sweet, crunchy substantiveness, and for the luminous coquitos en almibar - Ping-Pong balls of coconut paste encased in a golden candied shell. The shortbread kisses, filled with dulce de leche, melt on impact.

315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 818-956-5996

My new favorite item at Porto's is the apple strudel. It concentrates all that is good and pure about every slice of homemade apple pie you've ever eaten into four transcendent, buttery bites.

The LA Times Has No Idea Where Glendale Is

Two articles in Sunday's LA Times Business section misidentified locations as being in Glendale.  The first error is in "Man, What A Bargain", about finding quality men's clothes in thrift stores:

But I recently scored that herringbone Brooks Brothers suit for $12.95 at the Goodwill on Fairfax, and a J. Press chalk pinstripe for $29.95 at Out of the Closet in Glendale. If I didn't admit these facts in print, none would be the wiser.

Of course, Glendale doesn't have an Out of the Closet location - the author is presumably referring to the Glendale BOULEVARD Out of the Closet in Atwater Village, which is in Los Angeles.

The second error is in David Lazarus's column about having his credit cards and identity fraudulently used after his wallet was stolen from his gym locker.

The thief then jumped into his car and high-tailed it to Glendale, where, shortly after 2:30 p.m., he used my American Express card for a $1,350.80 purchase at Best Buy.

Tim Fisher, Best Buy's director of loss prevention, said the thief bought an Apple laptop. He said security tapes showed a tall, white man who was "large in frame, athletic in nature."

The thief next drove to a Toys R Us in Glendale, where this time he used my Bank of America debit card to buy $497.98 worth of stuff. Then, with considerable moxie, he returned to the same Best Buy where he'd been a half-hour earlier and used my Chase card to buy a Canon digital camera for $1,298.97.

There isn't a Best Buy or Toys R Us within Glendale city limits.  Again, The Times is referring to Atwater Village, which is clearly in Los Angeles.  As much as I'd love for Glendale to annex Atwater Village, it hasn't happened yet!

The Times is currently working on a project to quantify the boundaries of every single neighborhood in the region - maybe they'll take a look at a map of Glendale next.

Motorcycle Fundraiser For Surviving Victims of Christmas Eve Tragedy On January 24th

The North LA County Chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association is sponsoring a charity motorcycle ride on January 24th to benefit the surviving victims of the Covina Christmas Eve tragedy. The ride departs from Glendale Harley Davidson at 11:30. Here is the flyer with more information (click to view larger).

Jewel City Photo: Doomed Circuit City

Letters To The Glendale News-Press Getting Dumber

Ugh.

An easy meter is worth the dime

What an idiotic, stupid idea, the new parking meters on Brand Boulevard (“Frenzied feeding of meters,” Dec. 6). I asked a young man to help me.

He could not figure it out, then said, “Do your shopping in Burbank, like I do. They have the coin-operated meters.”

Why weren’t the regular coin meters installed? Everyone knows how to drop a coin.

MAURINE BLAKELY

Glendale

I could rant about the letters published in Glendale News-Press for a long time, but let's just take a look at this one. The premise of this letter is that someone is apparently competent to drive a 4,000 pound automobile from Glendale to Burbank but is completely baffled by the parking meters on Brand Boulevard. Really?

Free Lunchtime Concert This Wednesday, January 21st

Another free Glendale Noon Concert is coming up this Wednesday. Highly recommended:

Wednesday January 21, 2009 12:10-12:40 pm

Ruth Kasckow and Mark Frankel , flute duo

perform Telemann, Kuhlau and "Lovebirds" by Gary Schocker

Light lunch created by Angela's Bistro

available for $6 after the concert.

First Baptist Church of Glendale

209 N. Louise St. (at Wilson)

Glendale 91206

323 242 2113

www.fbcglendale.net

What's Going On With Dolci Mango and Twinkles?

Are the major combatants in the mid-Brand froyo wars dead? Dolci Mango and Twinkles both "took a break for the holidays", but are still closed well after their supposed reopening dates. Here are the signs in their windows as of January 19th.

Between the two, I'm partial to Dolci Mango - better fruit. Twinkles is (was?) more candy bar oriented.

Poorly Timed FourOneSix Condo Project To Become Apartments

The giant FourOneSix development on Broadway has been sold to a new company and will now be apartments instead of condos. It's also now called "416 On Broadway". The leasing office on Brand has been closed for months and has this sign in the window.

From the News-Press:

Intracorp pushed back its planned October opening of the project at 416 E. Broadway to January, beset by a distressed economy and a soaring number of city inspections.

The sprawling mixed-use complex between Jackson and Kenwood streets in downtown Glendale includes 9,463 square feet of retail space and more than 100,000 square feet allotted for residential units. It was slated to be finished by the middle of 2008, but due to an increasing number of inspections and slower-than-expected condominium sales, the project was delayed.

Before Intracorp transferred ownership to Alliance on Jan. 6, the Long Beach company sold less than 15% of its units. Alliance officials said they plan to open units to residents by March 4, while deposits for those who purchased condos were returned.

Volunteers Begin Work on Community Garden Site

Work proceeds on the Monterey Road Community Garden. From the Coalition For A Green Glendale site:

Equipped with metal rakes and shovels, volunteers diligently began leveling the grounds in preparation of the mulch to be delivered this week. The fine grading process is in fact quite arduous. It involves removing large rocks, hauling soil, and cleaning up debris. What’s more, on Sunday we discovered a labyrinth of stubborn roots underground. Yet persistence paid off and we successfully removed them all.

And in the News-Press:

Tree People of Los Angeles is scheduled to drop off 65 fruit trees Jan. 25 in what will be the first major “greening” of the lot since the City Council voted 4 to 1 in December to approve the land deal that allowed the garden to move forward.

....

Organizers said they intend to plant only 30 of the 65-tree donation, and so will give away the remainder to the public next weekend.

After the trees will come the city-installed irrigation infrastructure, soil tilling and compost, a tool shed, benches, bike rack and other accessories, and then the fence. When all is said and done, the site will be able to accommodate 20 planting plots, for which 25 people have already been approved to garden, coalition co-founder Alek Bartrosouf said.

Very exciting. The initial batch of 25 participants were chosen based on their proximity to the garden to avoid generating car trips.

Downtown Glendale Circuit City To Close

Circuit City is likely to shut down and liquidate all of its remaining stores by this March, which would of course include the location at Maryland and Broadway.

From CNN Money:

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Circuit City - the No. 2 electronics retailer after Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) - said it had reached an agreement with four companies to start the liquidation process.

The company said the sale would begin Saturday and run until March 31, pending court approval.

The retailer's Web site and call center will cease to operate after Jan. 18.

Circuit City said employees will receive 60 days notice of the termination.

Employees who are laid off earlier will get pay and benefits for the 60-day period beginning Friday, the retailer said.

Those who remain with the company to assist with the liquidation, will receive pay and benefits.

Circuit City also operates about 765 retail stores and dealer outlets in Canada. The company said its Canadian operations, which employ 3,000 workers, will continue to operate.

The company said it will redeem its gift cards through the liquidation sale, but the cards will have no value once the stores are closed.

Downtown Glendale has been exceptionally hard hit by retail chains going out of business: Tower Records, then CompUSA, Linens & Things, and Mervyn's.

A Peek Into The Fevered Minds Of My Accidental Readership...

Here is a small selection of the search keywords that have led visitors to this blog recently:

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is chevy chase blvd named for actor
is the americana in glendale closing down?
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shia leboeuf live in glendale
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rick caruso - italian or armenian

Fellow bloggers- what are the most interesting items you've found in your search logs recently? Please share.

Where's Liz?*

Where in Glendale is Elizabeth Taylor (and her crazy sweater)? Submit your answers in the comments.

*An anonymous commenter posted the correct answer: La Cabanita! La Cabanita has many photos of celebrities with their mouths full, as well as some impressively affectionate photos of Rene Russo with the staff. (And the food is good, too!)

Hollywood Collectibles Sale This Saturday, January 10th

Local prop house History For Hire is hosting a Hollywood memorabilia and collectibles sale in their North Hollywood parking lot. Here's the flyer I received regarding the sale.

Saturday, January 10th
9am-1pm
7149 Fair Avenue, North Hollywood 91605

Quite an interesting selection of items -coffins, mason jars, light saber handles, plants, Aloha shirts...