Little Tokyo Los Angeles

Hongsun Kim has heard it all. When the number of Koreans began multiplying in Little Tokyo Towers a few years ago, complaints about them from Japanese residents quickly began to surface, the Los Angeles social worker said. "They smell of garlic." "They don't follow the rules." "They're going to take over.

Alice Uchi slowly pushed a near-empty shopping cart down the near-empty aisles flanked by near-empty shelves in what had been the first and largest modern Japanese supermarket in Little Tokyo.

If you build it, they will come. The L.A. City Council's approval Tuesday of a long-awaited gymnasium in Little Tokyo has stoked those widespread hopes that the project will bring the scattered Japanese American community back to its historic heart, which is being rapidly transformed by a multicultural wave of new residents and businesses.

When Little Tokyo Lofts opened in downtown a few years ago, they were billed as the antidote to suburban living. Press materials lured buyers to the former Westinghouse industrial building by promising luxury lofts in a "vibrant neighborhood" about to be gentrified -- which just happened to be located at the edge of skid row.

For nearly a century, Frances Hashimoto's family lovingly crafted traditional Japanese pastries in Little Tokyo. For funerals and weddings, tea ceremonies and New Year's festivities, the little shop helped mark major community moments with soft rice cakes filled with sweet bean paste, baked chestnut buns, delicate sweets colored and shaped like spring blossoms or fall maple leaves.

A small Buddhist congregation in Little Tokyo will be allowed to pursue a property lawsuit against an umbrella Buddhist organization, a state appeals panel has ruled.

Federal agents seized marijuana and cash Thursday night from a medical marijuana dispensary in the loft district near Little Tokyo, officials said.

Two landmarks of Los Angeles' Japanese American community were sold this month as downtown's economic boom swept through Little Tokyo, raising concerns about what the effect will be on the closely knit ethnic neighborhood.