Preservation

Been to a concert at the Wiltern? Toured downtown's movie palaces? Love the Central Library? You can thank the Los Angeles Conservancy that they're still here. And for 20 of the conservancy's 34 years, Linda Dishman has been its executive director, fighting the wrecking ball and trying to keep historic buildings from being threatened in the first place. The organization's nearly 7,000 members make it the biggest local preservation group in the country, and proof that Angelenos see plenty worth preserving in what people too often think of as a tear-down city.

With dark blue, astringent skins, and dry, sour flesh, the ancient plums called damsons aren't good for eating fresh. When submitted to a process akin to alchemy, however, their tartness and spiciness are ideal for making preserves. Cooked down, the damson's astringency disappears, and its tannic skin imparts a gorgeous magenta color and rich, spicy flavor, while its abundant pectin confers a lusciously thick and smooth consistency. Originating in western Asia (supposedly near Damascus, whence its name)

Glen Creason is used to waiting at the downtown Central Library. At the reference desk in a large space four floors below 5th Street, he knows the questions will come. They always do. "There was a baseball field somewhere in L.A. in 1888 that only lasted one year. Where was it exactly?" "How do I find the gravel pit where the Sleepy Lagoon murder took place?" Creason has heard it all. "One I get constantly is, 'Do you have maps of the secret tunnels dug under L.A.?' .... They are secret tunnels and they do not appear on maps," he says.

The fighting that killed or wounded 21,000 Americans in the rolling hills of western Maryland was over in about 12 grisly hours. But a century and a half after the bloodiest day in American military history, the struggle to preserve the ground where Union and Confederate soldiers fought the Battle of Antietam only now appears close to a declaration of victory. As Americans gather to honor the sacrifice of those who fell Sept. 17, 1862 - as they are doing this weekend and Monday on the 150th anniversary - they will do so at one of the nation's best-preserved Civil War sites.

Stepping into the vast vaults of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood on a hot summer day can be a shock to the system. About 77,000 titles are stored at the site located at 1313 N. Vine St. Motion picture materials don't do well in the heat, so the film vaults are kept nicely chilled at temperatures varying between 40 and 60 degrees. The Pickford Center is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and for the occasion the academy is giving movie fans a special behind-the-scenes look at the facility.

Twenty years ago, Charles Ray Walker saw green bamboo shoots sprouting along an industrial mosaic of steel, concrete and dirt by the Los Angeles River in Boyle Heights. When the property owner told the homeless Texan he could stay if he kept the wedge of land clean, Walker's mind exploded with possibilities. "It was like, 'What do you want to do? What do you want to change?' " he said. "To have the ability to have this property to do whatever I want, but to do it in a good way, it was like, 'Whoa!

So much for Southern California hospitality. Just in time for Norm Chow's return to the Coliseum as Hawaii's head coach, USC Coach Lane Kiffin confirmed Thursday that USC would no longer make the stadium available to visiting teams for walk-throughs the day before games. "It shouldn't be a big deal," Kiffin said. "We don't go to other people's stadiums. " Schools customarily make their stadiums available to visiting teams for walk-throughs. Alabama, the defending national champion, allows walk-throughs, a school spokesman confirmed.

The beloved Brentwood bookstore, Dutton's, is long gone, but the building that housed it remains standing. If the owner, Charles Munger, had his way, the building would be long gone too, demolished to make room for his proposed commercial development on the prized swatch of real estate along San Vicente Boulevard. Instead, it is the subject of a battle between Munger and almost everyone else: preservation advocates, the city's Cultural Heritage Commission, neighborhood residents and the local councilman, who all argue that it is a cultural landmark to be saved.

This is an unexpectedly verdant walk surrounded by urban sprawl, where the Los Angeles River, gradually being allowed to return to its natural state, is home to an amazing array of native fish, fowl, joggers and cyclists. 1 Begin your walk from the parking lot at the Griffith Riverside tennis facility, across the street from the famous monument honoring William Mulholland, who brought water to the desert. 2 Cross the mighty Golden State Freeway on the footbridge hidden behind the tennis courts and the soccer field.

With a mother who's 5 feet 5 and a 6-0 father, 6-5, 275-pound Nico Falah of Bellflower St. John Bosco is a little confused. "I don't know where I got the height from," he said. "I think God blessed me. " Falah's genes have given him a degree of athleticism, for an offensive lineman, that college recruiters keep gushing over. "His athletics are off the charts," Coach Jason Negro said. "He has great feet. For a guy his size to be able to move that well is very unique for the position.