Hollywood Boulevard

Re "MTA Hunts for Leak Buckling Hollywood Blvd.," Aug. 22: Just when you thought it wasn't possible for Hollywood Boulevard to sink any lower. V. JOSEPH PICA Los Angeles

The '80s were a turbulent time in the City of Angels. Gentrification and revitalization of downtown and Hollywood Boulevard were still years away, the punk subculture had yet to be co-opted by suburban shopping malls and relations between law enforcement and the region's racial minorities exploded from time to time. Evocative and provocative images of such themes are at the heart of "Faraway So Close: Photographs of Los Angeles in the '80s," a group show running through Saturday at the Morono Kiang Gallery in the Bradbury Building downtown.

Fits me like a pair of handcuffs, this street. Hollywood Boulevard. Sirens in the distance. Marlowe's playground. There is nothing like the counterintuitive gesture to tickle my interest, so here I am checking out a team boxing league, across from one of my favorite Hollywood joints, the Frolic Room, the kind of place cockroaches go to retire. Counterintuitive? Because the sport of boxing is down for the count. Remember the days when everyone knew the name of the heavyweight champion?

The parking lot behind Hollywood landmark restaurant Musso & Frank Grill was purchased by a Los Angeles developer who intends to build a mixed-use complex on the site. Champion Real Estate Co. bought the paved 1.1-acre site behind the Hollywood Boulevard restaurant and between Cherokee and Las Palmas avenues from Common Fund. The price was not disclosed, but Hollywood real estate experts familiar with the property valued it at nearly $10 million. Last year, Champion paid $20 million for a 2.76-acre property at the northeast corner of Highland and Selma avenues, which it also intends to develop.

I just finished reading Tony Mostrom's "Cartoon Tour of Hollywood Blvd." (Aug. 7) and was appalled by your apparent lack of investigation prior to printing this full-page, derogatory "cartoon." Through the efforts of Mayor Riordan, Council member Jackie Goldberg, the C.R.A., the Hollywood Beautification Team, the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and many more individuals and groups, the boulevard is no longer what Mr. Mostrom depicted. The streets are scrubbed at least once a day, graffiti is removed almost instantaneously, the sidewalks have been upgraded with benches and beautiful palm trees, the facades of most of the historical buildings have been upgraded and painted, and safety is ensured by private security patrolmen in addition to the LAPD on foot and on bicycles.

The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to install surveillance cameras on Hollywood Boulevard. The cameras will be monitored by the Police Department and will be the first to focus solely on city streets. The first five cameras, donated by the Hollywood Entertainment District, could be up by January. They will watch intersections on Hollywood Boulevard from Vine Street to Sycamore Avenue. City officials hope to install many more cameras in the coming months.

Tomorrow may be Christmas Day, but you wouldn't know it from looking at Hollywood Boulevard. For the first time in recent years, there are no Christmas decorations on the boulevard and some merchants and residents are not pleased. "I look outside and there's nothing to remind you of the season. It's a big letdown," said Zena Marks, who helps manage the Legends of Hollywood Deli. "And it doesn't help business, either."

In writing about a recent walk down Hollywood Boulevard, I noted that in the past the street had been "truly glamorous." Today, of course, it can be described as curious, bizarre and tacky--even scary--but not glamorous. Jack P. Gabriel of Carson doubts that it ever was. "I wonder if you can tell me when those days were," he asks. Gabriel says he came out by Greyhound in 1933, to join his parents, and the next day his mother took him to the Brown Derby for lunch.

The Community Redevelopment Agency on Thursday approved a $750,000 contract for a security company to provide uniformed officers along Hollywood Boulevard for 15 hours a day. If the contract is approved by the City Council, the security officers would patrol the street on foot and supply public information to tourists, shoppers and residents, CRA officials said.

A three-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard was expected to reopen early today to one lane of traffic in each direction, about two weeks after a giant sinkhole tore apart the famed thoroughfare above the city's multibillion-dollar subway project.

Kodak wants out of Tinseltown. Eastman Kodak Co., in a filing in its U.S. Bankruptcy Court case in New York this week, asked to be released from its 2000 naming rights deal with the Hollywood Boulevard theater that hosts the Oscars. Under the contract, the company had the naming rights "in exchange for a significant annual fee," according to the filing. The move by the Rochester, N.Y., company, a pioneer in film and camera production, comes after it filed for bankruptcy protection last month as it faces a failing business model born in the pre-digital age. It also comes as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has begun discussions to move the annual Academy Awards ceremony out of Hollywood to the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

As Kaskade, Ryan Raddon is at the forefront of an electronica wave that's sweeping pop music and upending underground dance culture. But after a year when he did almost everything right as a DJ and producer, he's still trying to shake the one concert that went wrong. The San Clemente-based artist was among the biggest stories in dance music this year, reportedly commanding up to six figures per gig and conquering the global circuit with a double album, "Fire & Ice," that redefined his near-decade-long career and landed in the Billboard Top 20 (with its iTunes release hitting No. 4 on those charts)

Fits me like a pair of handcuffs, this street. Hollywood Boulevard. Sirens in the distance. Marlowe's playground. There is nothing like the counterintuitive gesture to tickle my interest, so here I am checking out a team boxing league, across from one of my favorite Hollywood joints, the Frolic Room, the kind of place cockroaches go to retire. Counterintuitive? Because the sport of boxing is down for the count. Remember the days when everyone knew the name of the heavyweight champion?

Aaron Epstein, a Hollywood businessman, got an offer recently that a lot of people in his situation would have leapt at. Hey, said City Hall, would you like a handout, Mr. Epstein? If so, we'll give you money — as much as $200,000 — to spruce up your building, inside and out. It's all part of a Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency program to brighten up Hollywood Boulevard, and Epstein is one of dozens of business owners eligible for cash loans. And the deal gets better.

When a deejay sent a Twitter message Wednesday telling people to come to a concert in Hollywood celebrating the release of a movie about raves, he wrote: "Let's see if the magic of social networking will work today. " Well, it did — in ways he never imagined. His tweet brought hundreds to Hollywood Boulevard, creating a near riot that closed off a busy section of the thoroughfare in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre for hours. The Los Angeles Police Department arrested three people on suspicion of felony vandalism in connection with damage to three police cruisers.

FRIDAY The Secret Table 560 Rose Ave., Venice 7 p.m. $110 secretingredients.us SATURDAY Miranda July: Eleven Heavy Things MOCA Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave. 6-8 p.m. moca.org SATURDAY DJ Mathieu Schreyer Edison, 108 W. 2nd St. No. 101 9 p.m.-2 p.m. edisondowntown.com SUNDAY Los Feliz Village Street Fair Hollywood Boulevard between Vermont and Hillhurst ...

Celebrate the diverse character of the hilly, bohemian neighborhood at the Los Feliz Village Street Fair in the shade of the southern face of Griffith Park. Highlights include a fashion festival, arts and crafts, live music and a pavilion devoted to sustainable living. Los Feliz Village, Hollywood Boulevard between Vermont and Hillhurst avenues. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sun. Free. http://losfelizstreetfair.com.