Los Angeles Central Library

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the architect of Los Angeles' Central Library, liked to think of himself as a team player. At work in the early 1920s on the pyramid-topped building that would become one of downtown's most treasured landmarks, he called himself a member of a "designing triumvirate." The architect's duty, he wrote in a letter to librarian Everett R.

Los Angeles' road to the 21st century has been rocky -- and kooky -- according to an unusual exhibition that opened Wednesday at the downtown Central Library. More than 100 maps reflecting changes and growth during the city's existence are being displayed in a colorful exhibit called "L.A. Unfolded." There's the mysterious "Mesmer City," shown in 1924 as prosperously thriving between Culver City and Mar Vista.

Myracle Hollinquest, 5, dressed in her Pocahontas best, giggles as the two performers act out "The Donkey Ride"--a Mexican folk tale about trying too hard to please others--by lumbering across the stage on the donkey, a decidedly low-tech wooden scooter. It's 2 p.m. on a Saturday, and another young audience has packed the KLOS Story Theater for the free weekly program in the Los Angeles Central Library.

A trio of top children's book artists will discuss how illustrators translate an author's voice into images in "Storytelling With the Paintbrush: Artists and the Children's Book," a free event at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Mark Taper Auditorium at the Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown L.A.

When Bill Overton casts an eye toward California and thinks of "the Big One," it's not an earthquake. It's a library--specifically, the Los Angeles Central Library. With its two million volumes--enough to fill a bookshelf stretching from Los Angeles to Mt. Baldy--and thousands of films, microfiche, audio tapes and compact discs, the Central Library presents a rare and lucrative opportunity in the moving world, one that has surfaced only twice in the past 20 years.

Mayor Tom Bradley announced that $10,000 has been added to the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the April 29 arson fire at the Los Angeles Central Library that heavily damaged the building and destroyed books, files and documents worth an estimated $14 million. The latest gift, by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, raises the total to $35,000.

. . . About 20,000 books damaged in a fire at Los Angeles Central Library were being dried at McDonnell Douglas' space simulation center in Huntington Beach. The books were quick-frozen to prevent mildew, then placed in a space simulator that changed moisture in the books to a gas. "Some of the books look like they came right off the shelf," a worker said. Source: Times archives

* ScotsFest '99--Musical Group MacUmba, Highland dancers and other performers, above, and a presentation on the Highland Games will be held Sunday at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Santa Monica. * Tide Pool Walk--A slide show and tide pool walk will be offered Sunday from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Point Fermin Marine Life Refuge in San Pedro. * Visual Artist--Betye Saar will discuss her work Saturday at 2 p.m. with a slide show at the Los Angeles Central Library in downtown Los Angeles.

The body-odor calls are the ones Security Officer William Morris dreads most. That's when he has to tell someone to leave the Los Angeles Central Library because they smell. He doesn't mind the rule: He thinks, if anything, the city isn't strict enough with its homeless. But the library-security veteran also knows how easy it is to humiliate the indigent, and he won't stand for that either. Bathe, and you can come back, he tells them. "An ounce of respect," he insists, "and they will comply."

ALAS, poor Madame SoSo. Laryngitis on opening night, an opera star's worst nightmare. To the rescue: Alma, the singing cat, supplying Madame's voice from the hidden confines of the grateful diva's towering wig. This week, Madame, Alma and Tess Weaver's children's book, "Opera Cat," will be given voice too.

Libraries are the last bastion of silence in an endlessly noisy world. Even museums now are noisy, with their guided tours, crowded weekends and unguarded conversations. But library-goers respect the quiet and preserve it. No cellphones. No interruptions. If you're searching for silence, head for the Los Angeles Central Library.

Elizabeth Eckford's starched white dress had a full skirt bordered in gingham. No teenager today would be caught dead in it, but in 1957 it might have been all the talisman a 15-year-old needed to banish jitters on the first day at a new school -- if the 15-year-old wasn't African American and the new school wasn't the all-white Central High in Little Rock, Ark.

It was a balmy night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hundreds of Angelenos were gathered on the roof deck of LACMA West after a debate about the changing role of art museums. Comedian Steve Martin was there, too: no arrow through his head, no dancing like King Tut, just one of the crowd. Now he was waiting, and waiting, to talk to his friend Adam Gopnik, an intense, erudite New Yorker writer who'd been one of the night's featured speakers.

At the Winnick Family Children's Zoo in Los Angeles, Maury Laham, 71, stood at the railing of the sea lion exhibit as two sleek animals frolicked in the rushing water below. His 8-year-old granddaughter shrieked in delight, but he did not look happy. "Some of my money probably went into building this place," he said, shaking his head. Laham is a stockholder in Global Crossing Ltd., the telecommunications company founded by Los Angeles multimillionaire Gary Winnick.

The Friends of the Thousand Oaks Library will sponsor two cultural bus tours this spring. A tour to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 27. A docent-led tour of the Los Angeles Music Center and a tour of the Los Angeles Central Library and gardens will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 1. Each tour costs $10 for organization members and $15 for nonmembers, with prepaid reservations required for both.

Ten years ago, Peter Persic had had enough of living in a tear-down crazed section of Beverly Hills. He wanted a neighborhood with "architectural integrity," and found his dream a couple of miles east in South Carthay, which he calls a "tranquil oasis in the middle of the big city." Just east of La Cienega Boulevard, South Carthay provides Persic with "a sense of the kind of theatricality and romance that was Los Angeles in the '30s."

The Friends of the Thousand Oaks Library will sponsor two cultural bus tours this spring. A tour to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 27. A docent-led tour of the Los Angeles Music Center and a tour of the Los Angeles Central Library and gardens will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 1. Each tour costs $10 for organization members and $15 for nonmembers, with prepaid reservations required for both.