Marina Del Rey

A loft boom of another sort is taking shape 18 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. In an industrial pocket on the edge of Marina del Rey, body shops, tow yards and surfboard makers are waging a turf battle with developers of residential lofts and condos. The developers are winning in a big way. With 800 upscale residential units rising on half a dozen parcels, the gritty little area has become one of the busiest construction zones on Los Angeles' Westside.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of an empty slip. Or in the case of Marina del Rey, more than 200 of them. In good times, there was a two-year waiting list for spaces and small boaters complained that they were being pushed out by bigger boats. But as of February, Los Angeles County officials said, the number of boat slip vacancies at Marina del Rey had nearly doubled to 259, compared with 133 a year earlier.

When Diane and Noel Diotte began dreaming of leaving their San Gabriel Valley condominium to live full time on their 34-foot sloop, one question nagged at them. What would they do with all their stuff? "A year later, my husband asked what we had in storage and I couldn't even remember," said Diane Diotte, an executive for an El Segundo-based software company. "That's how quickly you realize just how little possessions matter."

Douglas R. Ring, an influential Los Angeles philanthropist and developer with extensive holdings in Marina del Rey, whose civic engagements included rebuilding the Los Angeles Central Library after two devastating arson fires, was found dead Thursday in his Brentwood home. He was 65. Paramedics summoned to his home by a housekeeper pronounced him dead at 12:40 p.m., said Ed Winter, assistant chief of investigations for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. An official cause of death will be determined after an autopsy and toxicology tests, but Winter said possible causes include a drug overdose.

The loft-and-latte crowd is setting up house in the trendy Del Rey Arts District -- also known as the Marina Arts District. The tiny but flourishing neighborhood in Marina del Rey's old commercial hub is a hot spot for those with an artistic bent and is within walking distance of the beach and close to Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

All along, Carla Andrus' life seemed landlocked, literally and figuratively: She was born in Utah, raised in Watts and was scraping by in a tiny apartment near downtown L.A. when, one night, her husband came across a magazine ad for classic wooden boats being built in Marina del Rey. That, he told her -- teak decks, billowed sails -- looked more like the life he'd once fancied for himself. "Well," she said, "load up the truck," and the words would amount to her salvation.

Renee Mandel has lived on a boat in Marina del Rey for four years and has never once moved it away from the dock. In fact, she couldn't if she tried. Her 25-foot houseboat, christened the "African Queen," doesn't have an engine. And hers isn't the only one. So many unseaworthy vessels are moored in the nation's largest small-craft recreational harbor that critics say it has come to resemble a Third World port of call.

When 10-year-old Jaime Gonzalez walked into the Marina del Rey tackle shop owned by Mark Aguilera one weekday morning, the owner saw a little of himself. He saw a young boy planning to fish when he should have been in school, the kind of boy the anglers refer to as "pinheads," a term used to describe anchovies that hang around bait barges and children who hang around the docks. Aguilera asked questions. Why wasn't Jaime in school?

After its first year of deregulation, Marina del Rey has become the second-most-expensive marina in Southern California. In some instances, slip fees for small boats have risen as much as 40% this year, making Marina del Rey second only to Newport Beach in cost, according to a report by the Southern California Lease Exchange Committee. Some boat owners have reacted by leaving, taking their boats to cheaper, city-controlled marinas.

Christopher Knight's criticism of the final proposals for the World Trade Center memorial were right on the money ("So Much to Say, So Little Time," Nov. 21). It takes a brave soul to be honest about shortcomings of an effort to commemorate such a tragedy. Two years is too soon to do the memorial justice. As bad as 9/11 was, I'm sure we're going to see worse things in the future, and we don't want to build a cult of the dead in the middle of our cities. Think what Israel would look like if they built monuments to the victims of every terrorist attack they've endured.

Douglas R. Ring, an influential Los Angeles philanthropist and developer with extensive holdings in Marina del Rey, whose civic engagements included rebuilding the Los Angeles Central Library after two devastating arson fires, was found dead Thursday in his Brentwood home. He was 65. Paramedics summoned to his home by a housekeeper pronounced him dead at 12:40 p.m., said Ed Winter, assistant chief of investigations for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. An official cause of death will be determined after an autopsy and toxicology tests, but Winter said possible causes include a drug overdose.

Frank McCourt? Jamie McCourt? I think we know who owns the Dodgers -- the Philadelphia Phillies. Matt Karis Los Angeles :: One Frank McCourt wrote "Angela's Ashes," while the other will leave us with Los Angeles' ashes. Danny Lee Studio City :: Easy divorce settlement: Jamie owns the Dodgers. Frank owns the parking lot. Bart Miller Marina del Rey :: Jamie might still have a job if she could throw nine shutout innings. Mike McNiff Costa Mesa

Re "Stolen Chinese babies supply adoption demand," Sept. 20 My wife and I adopted two wonderful foster children six years ago. We chose that route because we were uncomfortable with the financial undertones of international and private adoptions. It is tragic that demand for these babies apparently created financial incentives for officials to act so horribly. What is even worse is that there are thousands of children in U.S. foster care who are desperate for a good home.

Travelin' Local welcomes tourists to the Southland and gives a guided tour complete with good-quality photos, walking maps and budget-conscious attractions for families as well as independent travelers. What's hot: Hyperlocal blogs are all the rage, so I've had my eye on Travelin' Local for a while now. It's written by Lisa Newton, a relatively recent East Coast transplant to Los Angeles, and she shows off her new city as if she's been here longer than just a few years. Tourists will find the "Where to Go" and "Metro" sections most helpful for getting to know the different neighborhoods and how to get around.

Pity the poor desk clerk at one Marina del Rey hotel. Sixty guests, all named Gerstenberger, are spending the week there after converging on Los Angeles as part of an unusual attempt to trace their ancestry back 800 years. It's the fourth time that the Gerstenbergers' "World Family Reunion" has united Gerstenbergers from Europe and North America. About 90 Gerstenbergers attended the first one, which was staged in the tiny hamlet that started it all: Gerstenberg, Germany.

Re "State gets two years to cut 43,000 from prisons," Aug. 5 Regarding the front-page photo showing large rows of bunk beds at San Quentin State Prison, this sleeping arrangement is not much different from our barracks when I was in the Army in the 1950s. Although the room shown in the photo appeared much larger than our barracks, the spaces between the bunks was similar. The panel of federal judges declared this to be "cruel and unusual punishment," so 43,000 prisoners must be released.

Re "LAPD's public map omits nearly 40% of '09 crimes," July 9 Reading that The Times had "found that nearly 40% of the crimes reported ... did not appear on the public map" gives one pause. With the demise of so many newspapers, who will do the investigative work to double-check any department within our system? How will the non-reading public know the truth? I feel that one of the few checks and balances the public has is the diligence of these reporters. People who don't read newspapers do not know what they're missing.

Enough already, Plaschke [June 28]. We get your point. Did Manny Ramirez cheat? Yes. Are he and baseball remorseful enough? No. Are the fans too forgiving? Yes. Are the rehab rules for suspended players too lax? Probably. Am I going to stop reading your columns? Definitely. Walt Weiskopf Pacific Palisades :: No boos for Manny? Boo-hoo. When is Bill Plaschke going to find something else to write about? I am no fan of Manny Ramirez, and I don't even like the Dodgers. But the more you express your outrage, especially in such a pedantic way, the more people are going to tune you out. With steroids, the initial sinners weren't the users -- it was club ownership, the union, the commissioner's office and the press -- all of whom knew about the problem and did nothing about it. Or should have known about it, and didn't look into it -- because all of you were too lazy, or too self-interested to do your jobs.

A 20-foot gray whale that had been frolicking in the Marina del Rey channel for about three weeks left the area recently and appeared to be heading north to Alaskan waters, according to rescuers. The whale was last seen Friday, swimming north from Marina del Rey past the Santa Monica Pier, and along the coast about 400 yards offshore before heading for deeper waters, said Peter Wallerstein, founder of Marine Animal Rescue in Los Angeles, who tracked the whale with binoculars. The mammal probably stopped in Marina del Rey on its way to Alaska from Baja California, Wallerstein said.

Thank you for the fascinating glimpse at LAUSD's new arts high school ("Pass/Fail" by Christopher Hawthorne, May 31). With its three curvilinear elements studded with references to the designs of Le Corbusier, its stunning, cone-shaped library, its soaring lobby, its community college-sized football field, its 950-seat theater, and my favorite elements, its controversial 140-foot tower (nonfunctional, naturally) and dramatically wide front entrance staircase (unusable because of a security gate)