South Central Los Angeles

A new liquor store complaint form was unveiled Thursday by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas to make it easier for 8th District residents to lodge grievances against problem stores in South-Central Los Angeles. Ridley-Thomas said the form--which allows residents to document problem activities such as drug sales or loitering--should strengthen the city's efforts to revoke the licenses of troublesome stores.

Think innovation, and the first thing that usually comes to mind is the technology industry. But, of course, you can be innovative in just about anything you do, which is just what the TED conference aims to celebrate.  Last week, Los Angeles artist Ron Finley  took the stage to talk about why he embraced urban farming and how he hopes it will transform South-Central Los Angeles' health and eating patterns. TED posted his talk this week .   QUIZ: How much do you know about Google?

One more damaged liquor store received the go-ahead to rebuild Thursday in South-Central Los Angeles but two others were held up while the city Planning Commission determines whether it can legally scale back the stores' hours of operation. Lee's Market at 4801 Avalon Blvd. became the first store to be unanimously approved by the commission and the 11th to receive approval since the spring riots damaged more than 100 liquor outlets across the city, officials said.

I took an excursion into Historic South-Central Los Angeles last week, using an old tour book that in its day was an essential tool for black visitors to L.A. and many other cities. "The Green Book" is an artifact. First published in 1936, it was meant to aid African American travelers in their journeys across the segregated U.S., by listing places where black people were welcome. "It has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable," the 1949 edition proclaimed in its introduction.

It is my mother's memory, not mine. Consequently, it is a recollection that doesn't feel observed so much as absorbed. But I was there, and so, too, my father: the three of us launching ourselves into a day of optimistic house-hunting. It is 1964; I am nearly 2; "New Baby" is on the way.

The plans are big, and surprisingly, the money is there to back it up. With an infusion of at least $3 million in federal money to operate services for the homeless in South-Central Los Angeles, government officials hope to create a network of services in the sprawling community. Each night, an estimated 14,000 homeless can be found in South-Central, a number too great for the small, underfunded agencies in the area to serve.

Police in South-Central Los Angeles have begun meeting regularly with Korean merchants and black residents to try to ease tensions caused by a string of violent confrontations in South-Central stores, an officer told a gathering of merchants Monday. "We are trying to keep everyone as comfortable as possible," Officer Bill Driver of the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street station told the 100 businessmen attending the conference. "We are trying to keep everyone working together."

The Small Business Administration has opened an information center to serve residents in South-Central Los Angeles. Located at 3600 Wilshire Blvd., the center will have counselors on hand to offer business advice. It also has a library containing videotapes and other materials providing information on starting businesses and applying for loans.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy has been arrested in connection with a series of slayings of prostitutes who sold sex for drugs in South-Central Los Angeles, a source close to the investigation said late Thursday. The deputy, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested while driving an official county vehicle about midnight Wednesday by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division, the source said.

In a telling sign of the desperation that drugs and gangs can bring to law-abiding citizens of the inner city, about 100 residents of South-Central Los Angeles came to the county Board of Supervisors on Wednesday with an extraordinary request: Build a jail in our neighborhood, they asked. Let us make sure criminals won't be set free simply because of a lack of cells.

Mary B. Henry, a civil rights activist who helped create the national Head Start program and fostered the rise of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center from the ashes of the 1965 Watts riots, died Friday. She was 82. She died of natural causes at a local hospital after a long illness, her son Craig Henry said Saturday. Henry's lifelong work to provide quality education and social services to the poor was honored by presidents, governors and mayors over more than four decades and left an indelible mark on the community and her name on facilities treating the needy.

A judge Friday ruled in favor of the city of Los Angeles on grounds that the nonprofit Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles failed to deliver on a contractual agreement to transform a vacant lot south of downtown into a state-of-the-art soccer field and youth center for low-income families. The judge also found that Concerned Citizens does not have a right to the proceeds of the property, which was seized by the Los Angeles Unified School District last year through eminent domain, said a spokesman for the city attorney's office.

Sassy-chic actress Zooey Deschanel has collaborated with Oliver Peoples for a signature pair of sunglasses available for pre-sale online from Wednesday until March 15, when they hit stores. The $415 "Zooey" has a vintage-inspired black frame and metal plaques with a 1960s-era Hollywood look (it even comes with a cocktail napkin cleaning cloth). And a portion of proceeds from the pre-sale go to the Jenesse Center, a domestic violence intervention program based in South-Central Los Angeles that offers legal and rehabilitation services at no cost to clients.

I found the story about South-Central Los Angeles especially interesting, because as a young, white grad student at USC in the early 1950s, I lived for about a year on East 66th Street, a couple of blocks east of Central Avenue ("What It Is. [And What It Was.]," by Lynell George, Oct. 8). My daughter was born while we lived there, and I remember my wife wheeling her in the buggy down to Florence Avenue to shop. At that time the area was mixed, and my wife intermingled easily with the neighbors, who were friendly and often made a fuss about the baby.

It is my mother's memory, not mine. Consequently, it is a recollection that doesn't feel observed so much as absorbed. But I was there, and so, too, my father: the three of us launching ourselves into a day of optimistic house-hunting. It is 1964; I am nearly 2; "New Baby" is on the way.

Like they have most every Saturday morning for the last 40 years and more, the Ruelas brothers are just getting down to work, bent over one primer-gray ghost of a car or another. The cluttered, grease-stained yard is filled with them--relics that are sensuous arrangements of curves, spheres and dovetailing angles; a scatter of grilles from Buicks and Bentleys and late-'30s and -'40s Chevys; carriages and front ends all rusted out in tones of aging sepia photographs.

Rep. Maxine Waters charged Thursday that delays in two reports investigating the flow of crack cocaine into South-Central Los Angeles have damaged the credibility of both investigations. The first portion of the CIA's report was expected to be released Thursday, but officials announced Wednesday that it would be delayed at the request of the Justice Department. That agency has completed its own study but has yet to release it.

First, a half-million dollars of its state funding turned up missing. Now, teachers at a South-Central Los Angeles preschool are working without pay and parents are selling tamales to pay utilities, all in an effort to keep the David Roberti Child Development Center open.