La Cienega

Attention, Santa Monica Freeway commuters. We interrupt your honking and cheering with a word from Dorene Desenberg and her Westside neighborhood. While you are once again whipping in and out of traffic as if the dog days of the detour had never intruded upon your solo commute, it would be worthwhile to note that the freeway's "reopening" was a bit of an exaggeration in some parts of L.A.

With regard to the detours around the 10 Freeway, I am upset by seemingly pointless and often dangerous interference with traffic by police traffic officers. The worst is the intersection of National at Venice. I commute from Palms, along Palms Boulevard to National, National to La Brea, to the freeway east to work, and back the same way. On the return trip, with no officers messing up the flow, it takes five minutes to proceed from La Cienega to Washington, another five minutes to get up to Robertson and proceed west to Overland.

Do appearances count? California's unemployment figures still slouch toward double digits, the austerity thing is still chic, but up on La Cienega Boulevard, the Bentleys are stacked up again, the Benzes triple-parked almost to the double yellow line, because the old L'Ermitage space is back in business as a restaurant called Drai's. It's a hot new place to wear Chanel, and the points-on-the-gross crowd is happy. Baby artichokes reign once again on this edge of Restaurant Row.

County officials said Wednesday that low-lying streets near La Cienega Boulevard--whose name means the swamp in Spanish--may face more flooding if there is a repeat of the deluge of two weeks ago. "What happened a few weeks ago was an overwhelming storm that took everyone by surprise," said Donna Guyovich, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

"It's scary, man." Warren Montelibano turned silent as he watched the handwriting on the wall--or, more precisely, as he stared at the numbers flashing on the big electronic tote board. Newly situated above one of Los Angeles' busiest street corners, the $75,000, computerized sign burned with two graphic reminders of a troubled world: "ACRES OF RAINFOREST NOW . . . 1,996,362,331. WORLD POPULATION NOW . . . 5,401,201,514."

One of my favorite tricks when I'm showing first-time visitors around Los Angeles is to bring them from the airport to the Westside along either La Cienega Boulevard or La Brea Avenue. After you wind through the surreal landscape of the Baldwin Hills oil fields, the barren hills start to open up, the road curves and there is western Los Angeles, spread out for you from downtown to the ocean.

For a mural depicting the history of La Cienega Boulevard, I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has photographs of any buildings on the street prior to 1980. I am especially interested in locating pictures of the old nightclubs, the Coronet Theater and scenes showing the Monday (and later Tuesday) night art walks. MARCIA KRITZLER, P.O. Box 5973-54, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

For many years I have passed the handsome building on La Cienega Boulevard just north of Olympic and assumed that it was either a church or a convent. However, in Beverly Hills nothing is what it seems.

Part of your story, "Dusting Off Old Fairfax," (Times, Nov. 4) is at odds with what I remember. I was there starting in 1920 at age 7, and except for the war years have been there ever since. The maps from the time may show Sherman, as the area was then known, to have been largely empty, but it was not. It was a town, alive and well. It grew up around the old car barns for what came to be the Pacific Electric Railway, in an area now occupied by the Pacific Design Center. The railway was the area's main employer.

Bellini's Trattoria, 12021 W. Pico Blvd. (213) 477-4057. Style: Neighborhood trattoria. Setting: Bleak. Recommended: Eggplant and goat cheese calzone; bow-tie pasta with artichoke hearts and walnuts; saffron linguine with fresh tomato coulis . Cost per person: $15-$30. Delmonico's Seafood Grille, 9320 W. Pico Blvd. (213) 550-7737. Style: California eclectic with a fish lure. Setting: Old-fashioned with cozy booths.