Lincoln Heights

A woman was shot dead Monday night as she sat in her car in a Lincoln Heights alley, police said. Authorities were called to the scene about 7 p.m. by residents who said they heard gunshots, said Officer Karen Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department. Smith said the woman was shot several times. No further information was available.

The giant black metal gate slams shut, click, locked, leaving the scrubbed faces of the Sacred Heart High basketball players alone with the weathered streets of Lincoln Heights. The girls collectively sigh. They shake away the worry that stretches from the bob in their ponytails to the dirt on their sneakers. They begin their daily journey. For the next 15 minutes or so, covering a mile that feels like a marathon, the 10 players will walk or jog through a neighborhood that will stare and scowl.

A contact football program for 8- to 13-year-old boys and girls will be offered this summer by the Lincoln Heights Youth Assn. The first parents' meeting is scheduled July 19. Practice begins Aug. 7, and the eight-game season starts Sept. 16. A registration fee of $50 for players and $20 for cheerleaders is required. Information: (213) 222-1228.

The expansive parking lot at 210 N. Avenue 21 in Lincoln Heights was nearly full Monday afternoon, with yet more cars wedged into tight spots out on the sun-blasted street. Bargain hunters scaled the stairs like salmon going upstream, working against the satisfied shoppers on their way out with full carts. Where was all this booming business? At the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. In case you needed more evidence of the gut-kick California's economy has taken, consider this: Sales records have been shattered at thrifts in Oxnard, Long Beach and the Lincoln Heights store, said David Fields, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

The Los Angeles Conservancy and the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood and Preservation Assn. will present a 70-year retrospective Wednesday about historical murals in the local community. According to the conservancy, the history of murals in Lincoln Heights dates to the 1930s, starting with projects at Lincoln High School by noted Work Projects Administration artist Manuel de las Torres and at County-USC Medical Center by Hugo Ballin.

The Community Redevelopment Agency has approved $148,116 for street cleanup and graffiti removal in Lincoln Heights. The funds, approved by the agency April 15, will cover salaries and administrative costs to hire a crew of four to pick up trash along streets, sidewalks and alleys and to remove graffiti from walls and public facilities, such as bus stop benches. The crew will use a street cleaner to scour heavy grime from sidewalks.

A mural depicting historical sites near Albion Street Elementary School will be dedicated at 9:30 a.m. Thursday with a ceremony at the school at 322 S. Ave. 18. The mural, by artist Jerry Rodriguez, locates historical places within one mile of the school: Olvera Street, Rancho San Rafael and the railroads that brought the Italian immigrants who later settled in Lincoln Heights. The mural graces the facade of the school auditorium.

A $2.1-million renovation began last week on the 1916 building that housed the Lincoln Heights branch of the public library. The building at 2530 Workman St. will undergo earthquake reinforcement, renovation and a 50% expansion with money from the sale of bonds approved by city voters in 1988, said Robert Reagan, public information director for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Frustrated by the negative image of their community, business owners along North Broadway and other parts of Lincoln Heights are developing a plan to restore their aging retail district and lure shoppers. "We sure get a lot of publicity when there's a gang shooting," said Steve Kasten, who has run a real estate firm on the street since 1968. "People think [Lincoln Heights] is filled with gangs and graffiti."

At 73, Fred Partida has seen his share of urban blight, especially since he began volunteering to paint out graffiti in Lincoln Heights. "I've been cleaning up graffiti since 1945," he said. "Back then, they didn't call it graffiti. They called it vandalism." Partida, a retired painter and lifelong Montecito Heights resident, heads a crew that will continue graffiti abatement and also pick up trash and steam-clean sidewalks as part of the new Lincoln Heights Beautification Project.

In the latest investigation involving a Los Angeles city agency, officials have launched a probe into the disappearance of nearly 40 dogs, cats and other animals from a Lincoln Heights shelter. Brenda Barnette, general manager of the Animal Services Department, said 64 animals have disappeared from six shelters in roughly a year. Of that total, 39 were housed at the city's North Central shelter on Lacy Street — a missing rate considered unusually high. Although some animals could have been incorrectly listed as missing because of clerical errors, at least some have "wrongly disappeared," Barnette said.

Ross Hagen Actor was a regular on TV's 'Daktari' Ross Hagen, 72, a handsomely rugged actor who was a regular on the 1960s TV series "Daktari" and starred in the low-budget biker movies "The Hellcats" and "The Sidehackers," died of prostate cancer May 7 at home in Brentwood, said Lee Srednick, his partner of seven years. Launching his career in the 1960s with guest shots on TV series such as "The Big Valley" and "The Virginian," Hagen also appeared in the Elvis Presley movie "Speedway" and the motorcycle movie "The Mini-Skirt Mob. " In 1968, he joined the cast of "Daktari," the CBS adventure series starring Marshall Thompson as an American veterinarian running an animal study center in Africa.

"Anything is doable," Ilse Ackerman declared recently from her Lincoln Heights backyard. Ackerman was holding a homemade "rammer" -- a huge yogurt cup filled with earth cement and water -- and demonstrating how she built an organic, curved seating area and fire pit with earth bags, dirt-filled polypropylene tube rolls she bought from the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture in Hesperia. True to her can-do spirit, Ackerman, whose urban farm Skyfarm was featured in a 2008 Home profile, built the outdoor lounge herself over three months using books, the Internet, YouTube and her own thriftiness.

In the lawsuit, the city says it has been defrauded by developer Advanced Development and Investment on 15 apartment buildings constructed around L.A. using city funds: • Menlo Park , 831 W. 70th St., LA 90044 (South Los Angeles) • Harvard Circle , 952 N. Harvard, LA 90029 (Hollywood) • The Mediterranean , 1800 W. Temple St., LA 90026 (Historic Filipinotown) • Manitou Vistas I , 3420 Manitou Avenue, LA 90031 (Lincoln Heights) • Manitou Vistas II , 3414 Manitou Avenue, LA 90031 (Lincoln Heights)

The Chavira family arrived in Los Angeles in style, riding all the way from El Paso in the passenger cars of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Guadalupe Chavira came with her five kids, including three girls who were dressed up for the occasion in outfits she had made herself, with scissors and a whirring Singer sewing machine. "We thought we were rich," her daughter Irene Ayala said with an ironic smile, because of course they were not. Ayala, now 74, was 8 then. It was 1945, America was at war, and L.A. was booming.

Generally, the type of people who get mobbed by fans around Chavez Ravine wear baseball uniforms. But the heroes at an event Saturday afternoon weren't wearing Dodger blue; their uniforms were sanitation green. At an open house hosted by the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation at its yard in Lincoln Heights, trash truck-driving workers were celebrated by the public, many of whom expressed remarkable devotion to the city employees. Jill Kasofsky, 46, of Mount Washington attended with her wife and son. They all wore shirts emblazoned with "Kenny Fox Rocks."

Five months after her daughter was severely injured by a drunk driver in a crosswalk, Beatrice Gonzales has suspended her push for a traffic light at the intersection and instead is focusing her energy on establishing a neighborhood youth group.

A 20-year-old man shot and killed his teenage girlfriend during a domestic dispute before turning the gun on himself, police said Saturday. The shooting was reported about 8:30 p.m. Friday at an apartment complex in the 2400 block of Daly Street. Police found the girl dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head, said Officer Gregory Baek of the Los Angeles Police Department. She was identified as Maria Valderrama, 16. A short time later, the 20-year-old man, identified by police as Juan Carlos Mendez, was found in a nearby alley with a gunshot wound to the chest area, Baek said.

At Low End Theory, a weekly club night for experimental hip-hop and electronica artists at the Airliner in Lincoln Heights, there is one square foot of standing room where the music sounds perfect. To get there, patrons must climb a stairwell that opens onto a bleak stretch of Broadway Avenue, be frisked by a bouncer, proceed to the middle of the dance floor, which is almost always humid with body heat, then walk exactly 12 feet back from the stage and wait for the bass. "We wired the P.A. setup so that's the spot where the 20hz frequency is strongest," said Kevin Marques Moo, a record label owner and DJ who co-founded Low End Theory three years ago. He pointed to the dance floor and grinned.