Landmarks

The pink lady of Hollywood Boulevard will soon be ready for close-ups again. Built in 1917 for actors because landlords routinely posted signs saying "No Actors, No Dogs," the Hillview Apartments is about to be reborn with the help of a $10.7-million project that is restoring the pink Mediterranean Revival structure to its former glory.

After months of controversy, the owner of St. John's Health Center said it plans to sell the landmark Santa Monica hospital to Catholic chain Providence Health & Services. The hospital has been at the center of an intense competition that featured bids from UCLA Health System, other Catholic hospital chains and Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. After weighing the offers, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System in Denver said Friday that it was entering exclusive negotiations with Providence, which owns St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and four other Southern California hospitals.

A chunk of Howard Hughes' Los Angeles is on the block: the cavernous hangar where the aviation mogul built his infamous Spruce Goose aircraft that flew only once -- for about one minute -- in 1947. It was wartime when Hughes Aircraft Co. got a government contract to build three flying boats intended to transport troops and equipment across oceans. Hughes set out to build a seaplane capable of carrying 750 fully armed soldiers nonstop from Honolulu to Tokyo.

After its two-year, $45-million makeover, Echo Park Lake will soon shed the green tarp-covered fence that lines its circumference, revealing to the public a similar-but-spruced-up version of the neighborhood's landmark. "Welcome to 29 acres of paradise," L.A. City Engineer Gary Moore said at a news conference Friday, where officials announced the lake would reopen June 15. Before it was refilled and restocked with plants, the lake was completely drained and cleaned. During the cleanup, Moore said, workers found two guns, one toilet, 20 Frisbees and a pay telephone.

WASHINGTON - An Alabama bridge that was the site of the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march, an Oklahoma battlefield where "Native Americans fought as members of both Union and Confederate armies," and a Kentucky distillery that operated before, during and after Prohibition are among the latest national historic landmarks. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday announced the addition of 13 sites to a list of 2,540 landmarks, declaring that the largely honorary designations will "help tell the story of America.

Few people outside of the San Fernando Valley came to Northridge Fashion Center to shop. Few outside of South Central prayed at Southern Missionary Baptist Church and unless you lived on the Westside, you probably hardly took notice of Saint John's Hospital. But these structures--along with dozens of others severely damaged in the earthquake and aftershocks--were vital parts of their neighborhoods.

The lights went out overnight at some of Japan's best-known landmarks in an effort to save electricity and acknowledge the dead following the country's worst earthquake to date. The Tokyo Tower and Yokohama's Bay Bridge were among the sites that chose to shut off power after Friday's massive earthquake and the ensuing tsunami, according to Kyodo News Agency. The operators of the Tokyo Tower told the news agency that the shutdown was also an effort to express condolences to relatives of those who died in the disaster.

Pinocchio danced on the table and wise-cracking Fred Mingo sat on it Thursday as they helped convince Los Angeles officials to consider making a marionette theater near downtown an official city cultural site. Fans of longtime puppeteer Bob Baker pleaded for his puppet stage and workshop at 1345 W. 1st St. to be protected with the landmark designation as they struggle to keep the Bob Baker Marionette Theater afloat.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine was formally declared a New York City landmark. The action culminates a 37-year effort by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to preserve the neo-Gothic edifice in Manhattan. Commission Chairman Robert Tierney called the cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, "a building with a unique place in the architectural, social and cultural history of the city."

Here's the status of some of New Orleans' landmarks six months after Hurricane Katrina's Aug. 29 landfall: Louisiana Superdome: Closed until September. The NFL's Saints plan to play the 2006 season in the city after playing home games in San Antonio and Baton Rouge, La., in 2005. Ernest N. Morial Convention Center: Repairs of damage from the hurricane and its use as an evacuation center are expected to be finished in April.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Millions of Pakistanis braved threats from militants and voted Saturday in national elections that marked the country's first democratic transfer of governance and appeared to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on track for a potential return to power. The elections change Pakistan's political landscape and probably will sideline the Pakistan People's Party, which has ruled the country for five years. But the results are not expected to lead to any major shift in U.S.-Pakistan relations because the country's powerful military still holds sway over crucial issues such as Pakistan's role in peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan and the country's relationship with its nuclear archrival, India.

In 2006, billionaire computer magnate Michael Dell, one of the world's richest men, agreed to pay $200 million for the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, a beachfront landmark in Santa Monica that long has been a retreat for Hollywood starlets and U.S. presidents. A few months later, Dell tore up the contract. He still wanted the hotel. But his attorneys had found a simple way to reshuffle the deal to avoid a legal change in ownership. The maneuver saved about $1 million a year in property taxes -- an option available only to businesses, not homeowners, under the arcane rules governing Proposition 13. The Miramar deal illustrates how businesses can easily -- and legally -- avoid property tax hikes under the California ballot initiative passed in 1978.

Through a series of landmark exhibitions in the 1960s and 1970s, Eudorah Moore blurred the boundaries between art, design and craft - and helped introduce the concept of California design to the wider world. In choosing to present fine wood furniture and pottery alongside such surprising pieces as a bus stop bench or jewelry that functioned as body sculpture, she championed a message of mixed-media inclusiveness. As she cast her eye outdoors, Moore helped cement the notion of design as lifestyle by highlighting the region's fascination with recreation by displaying such items as a canoe, skateboards or a portable cabana.

Richie Havens, the veteran folk singer whose frenetic guitar strumming and impassioned vocals made him one of the defining voices and faces of Woodstock and 1960s pop music, died Monday of a heart attack at his home in Jersey City, N.J. He was 72. His death was confirmed by his booking agent, Tim Drake. The Brooklyn native with the powerful ripsaw voice galvanized rock fans as the opening act at Woodstock, the festival billed as "Three Days of Peace and Music" in upstate New York in August 1969.

Specktor will appear at the Festival of Books on Sunday at noon on the panel "Fiction: Inside Hollywood" with Adam Braver, Alex Espinoza and Nina Revoyr. More information: latimes.com/festivalofbooks Matthew Specktor knows the offices of talent agency CAA - past and present - like his own backyard. That's because, as son of top agent Fred Specktor, they practically were. He ran around in the hallways; he worked in the mail room. And although that it set him down the not unexpected Hollywood producer path, what he really wanted to do was write.

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, an architect who changed the face of Mexico City by designing a number of landmark modernist structures, died on Tuesday, his 94th birthday. The cause was pneumonia, according to Mexico's National Council for Culture and the Arts. Ramirez Vazquez was known for stunningly original designs that blended a European modernist sensibility with pre-Columbia aesthetics. His most famous modernist buildings, all in Mexico City, include the Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the country's holiest shrines; the National Museum of Anthropology, distinguished by a vast, square concrete umbrella; and Azteca Stadium, open since the mid-1960s and home to Mexico's national soccer team.

Greece's culture minister has angered architects and conservationists by clearing the way for the demolition of a landmark Art Deco building to improve the view from the new Acropolis museum. George Voulgarakis revoked his ministry's protection of the 1930s building, saying that tearing it down would "allow an unimpeded view of the Acropolis" from the new museum. He also argued that excavating the site could "reveal antiquities whose existence is considered highly likely."

One of Australia's "12 Apostles" has disappeared. The 150-foot tower of limestone, one of nine stacks making up the landmark off Australia's southern coast, collapsed Sunday into the Indian Ocean -- apparently a victim of erosion. The formation off Victoria state is called the 12 Apostles even though there had been only nine outcroppings.

The lonely Zumwalt Prairie Preserve in the northeast corner of Oregon features thousands of acres of native grasslands. It's not easy to get to, and less than 500 people a year visit, but it's an important place because it represents one of the country's vanishing landscapes. The National Park Service on Tuesday announced the designation of the preserve as a national natural landmark, singling it out as the best example of bunchgrass prairie that still stands. "It's a great honor to be recognized as one of the best remaining examples of this type of landscape," says Jeff Fields, northeast Oregon project director for the Nature Conservancy.

Just in time for the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, The Times' books staff has created an interactive map of Literary Los Angeles , a work in progress. We've gathered passages from more than two dozen books set in and around L.A., as well as literary landmarks and local bookstores. This first draft of our map gives a sense of the wide scope, in time and space, of the Los Angeles literary scene. Wander over the map and you'll find scenes from books by assorted writers offering a glimpse of L.A. places and characters.