Demolition

City officials moved ahead this week with plans to demolish a former residence on 4th Street for future redevelopment projects. In 1992, the city purchased the house at 7371 4th St. to make way for a commercial development that would have covered 25 acres at Manchester and Artesia boulevards, said May Hui, assistant director of developer services. That project was never built, however. The city has already demolished a half dozen properties that it acquired at the same time on the street.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday refused to block demolition of the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, setting up a high-stakes battle over the fate of Orange County's premier outdoor concert venue.

Four months after 82-year-old Viola McClain was killed in the aftermath of a gang rape of a girl in a vacant house in Watts, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to buy the house, raze it and replace it with a prefabricated home to be sold to a low-income family. The move is part of a new program in which the city will acquire and rehabilitate nuisance properties throughout the city.

A plan to demolish one of the county's last orange packinghouses and replace it with a housing development won approval this week from the county Planning Commission and goes before the Board of Supervisors for a final vote next month. The Olive Heights Citrus Assn. packinghouse, located off Lincoln Avenue in the community of Olive, north of Orange, closed in 1984 and has been deteriorating rapidly after a series of arson fires.

It has been described as one of Orange County's longest and most contentious marriages. Small wonder that a wrecking ball may figure in the breakup. For the better part of three decades, Harry Shuster, the South African-reared businessman and founder of the defunct Lion Country Safari wild animal park, has feuded with his landlord, Irvine Co., over Shuster's attempts to turn a profit on 300 acres of prime land near the intersection of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways.

Authorities began destroying the notoriously violent Modelo prison Tuesday, ending what President Ernesto Perez Balladares called "a huge shame." The president pushed a button that activated 165 pounds of dynamite at the 71-year-old structure, which once held 24 times the number of inmates it was supposed to. As the walls crumbled, a high school band played patriotic music. In July, a TV cameraman atop an adjoining building filmed prison guards clubbing naked inmates at the Modelo.

A monument to yesterday's America came tumbling down Thursday as skip-loaders and trucks began demolishing the Winnetka 6, the last operating drive-in theater in the San Fernando Valley. Demolition of the drive-in, of the type that came to symbolize the 1940s and 1950s, marked the start of a building boom aimed at adding as many as 50 new movie screens in two giant complexes to the northwest Valley. The last picture show at the drive-in at Winnetka and Prairie avenues was Sunday.

Demolition is set to begin Monday for a retail and entertainment center project in downtown Glendale featuring a major electronics store and a multiplex, officials said Tuesday. The $30-million project, known as Glendale Marketplace, is considered a major step in the city's efforts to spark the rebirth of downtown Glendale. It is the city's largest retail development since the Glendale Galleria opened 20 years ago and includes an unusually high investment of public funds.

Demolition is set to begin Monday for a much-anticipated retail and entertainment center project downtown featuring a major electronics store and a multiplex theater, officials said Tuesday. The $30-million project, known as the Glendale Marketplace, is considered a major step in the city's ongoing efforts to spark the rebirth of the downtown area.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday stripped St. Vibiana's Cathedral of its landmark status, but a judge later blocked efforts by church officials to immediately demolish the 120-year-old building. The council's 14-1 vote to remove St. Vibiana's from the city list of historic-cultural landmarks touched off another series of fast-moving events involving the downtown cathedral.