Central Los Angeles

Get your dogs and cats immunized for free and receive vouchers for low-cost neutering and spaying at today's"Pet Vaccination Day" at Trinity Park, at 2415 S. Trinity Street in South-Central Los Angeles. Pet owners can also get licenses on site for their animals at the clinic. Vaccinations will be available from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For information, call (213) 485-3351 or (213) 896-8110.

I took an excursion into Historic South-Central Los Angeles last week, using an old tour book that in its day was an essential tool for black visitors to L.A. and many other cities. "The Green Book" is an artifact. First published in 1936, it was meant to aid African American travelers in their journeys across the segregated U.S., by listing places where black people were welcome. "It has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable," the 1949 edition proclaimed in its introduction.

Would-be homeowners who have gotten the cold shoulder from bank loan officers should feel more at home in a new Crenshaw-district office of First Interstate Bank. Seeking to carry out a 1993 pledge to lend $30 million in central Los Angeles, the bank has opened the Community Home Loan Center with the hope of persuading first-time buyers that purchasing a house is within their reach.

The rocky voyage of the city's flagship arts campus took a new turn Monday with the removal of the downtown high school's first and only principal. Suzanne Blake learned that she would be transferred from the still-unnamed Central Los Angeles High School #9 in a brief morning meeting with the new regional school-district administrator. The new leader of the year-old, $232-million school is Luis Lopez, a principal for the last five years at Franklin High in Highland Park. The decision to replace Blake, a former middle school principal, was made by Dale Vigil, the top administrator in that area.

The first musical at the $232-million arts high school downtown featured two very different Peter Pans, a veteran performer and a newcomer, who together exemplify the school's goal of both showcasing and developing talent. Their performances at Central Los Angeles High School No. School of Visual and Performing Arts concluded an occasionally rocky but overall successful inaugural year for the school district's new performing arts campus. Financial uncertainties persist and a top administrator is departing; the accreditation review took two attempts.

At the new arts high school downtown, it has become nearly impossible to separate the substance of the architecture, by Wolf D. Prix and the Austrian firm Coop Himmelblau, from debates over cost overruns or questions about who will attend the campus when it opens in September. But maybe that's the wrong goal.

It scares her to ride her bicycle to work. A vague prickle of apprehension follows her along Sunset Boulevard and down Spring Street on her way into the teeming core of the city. But she rides anyway. Her faith in the future of the bicycle overpowers her dread of the cars that rule these impatient streets. Indeed, it's Monica Howe's job to argue the case for the bicycle as everyday transportation in Los Angeles. The bicycle is central to her social life in the city, her romantic life too.

It is my mother's memory, not mine. Consequently, it is a recollection that doesn't feel observed so much as absorbed. But I was there, and so, too, my father: the three of us launching ourselves into a day of optimistic house-hunting. It is 1964; I am nearly 2; "New Baby" is on the way.

AMERICANS TEND to learn geography by combat. Who knew from Fallouja? The Mekong Delta? Kosovo? No one, until our guys went in there bearing arms. So it's no surprise that even locals don't know where the once mighty Los Angeles River is. In the war Los Angeles waged against nature, the river was taken prisoner a long, long time ago. Still, it is a very real river, and one of these days it may be freed from its POW status.

The Times misstates reality in "Speak Up for Kids' Sake" (editorial, July 26), endorsing a sweeping bill that would bar immigrant parents from permitting their own children to serve as interpreters for them. The Times claims that interpreters are "inexpensive and readily available." That is just not true. If it were, physicians would have no difficulty with this mandate. Rather, the cost of providing interpreters for all patients is prohibitive for most physicians. More than 100 languages are spoken in California.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley called Saturday for changing the way crimes are prosecuted in central Los Angeles by creating teams of deputy district attorneys to handle cases from areas south, east and west of downtown. Cooley backed his office's long-discussed proposal to reconfigure its Central Operations Bureau.

As therapists from the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic sit in classrooms, they watch students deal with their studies, with one another, with their teachers. They are looking for signs that one or more of the children may need help. It's a difficult job, said Executive Director Elizabeth Pfromm. It's not always easy to distinguish between an aggressive child who will mellow with maturity and one signaling for help. "We're something of a detective in getting this information," she said.