Streetcar

Re "L.A.'s retro line," Dec. 5 The rebuilding of a streetcar line in downtown Los Angeles is the type of old-school solution that will help remake the area into a modern city. While some of the streetcar critics' arguments have merit, there is no chance people will park their cars and choose public transportation if there is not a convenient alternative. The streetcar line would provide that option. Matthew Chebatoris Los Angeles This is a terrible idea.

Once there was a little boy who rode Henry Huntington's trolleys. He was 4 when he first took a Yellow Car all by himself, along Vermont Avenue to nursery school. His mother handed him off to the motorman and said he was going to the end of the line. Now that little boy is 88, his mother and the trolleys long gone. PHOTOS: Los Angeles' Pacific Electric Red Cars So is his grandfather's Rialto orange grove, where he was sent to help weed come summer. So are the horse-drawn wagons that used to deliver his morning milk.

I'm fit to be tied over Ray Loynd's Sept. 17 review of the LAAT's "almost flawless" production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." The flaw as Loynd squints to see it is the "beautifully played" performances by Neva Ruschell and Lance Nichols as the upstairs neighbors, which (to him) represent "tinkering" with the untinkerable author because "blacks wouldn't be running in and out of the Kowalskis' flat in 1947 New Orleans." This is outright racist hogwash. Williams says nothing about the racial composition of Stanley's friends and neighbors who live "at the end of the trolley line."

Re "L.A.'s retro line," Dec. 5 The rebuilding of a streetcar line in downtown Los Angeles is the type of old-school solution that will help remake the area into a modern city. While some of the streetcar critics' arguments have merit, there is no chance people will park their cars and choose public transportation if there is not a convenient alternative. The streetcar line would provide that option. Matthew Chebatoris Los Angeles This is a terrible idea.

The new Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams'"A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Broadhurst Theatre has one thing that distinguishes it from its predecessor productions -- it's performed by a cast of mostly African American actors. Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker portray Stanley (first name only) and Blanche Du Bois in Williams' hot-house drama set in the French Quarter of New Orleans.Daphne Rubin-Vega plays the long-suffering Stella and Wood Harris plays Mitch. Emily Mann, who is the artistic director the McCarter Theatre Company in New Jersey, directed the production.

In a city that is often derided for its lack for public transportation, downtown L.A. is the one exception. The city center has light-rail lines, a subway, a maze of bus routes and shuttles, links to commuter rail and even a tiny funicular that trudges up and down Bunker Hill. But many residents and developers say that it can still be difficult to get around the far-flung city center without a car. So urban planners and downtown boosters have spent considerable time on what may have once been considered impossible: creating a truly car-optional neighborhood in the center of a region defined by its car culture.

Oct. 5, 1908: A "tall, well-built woman of stylish mode, wearing rimless spectacles and carrying a sunshade" attacked a conductor after the Pico Heights streetcar on which she was riding went past her stop, The Times reported. She claimed that the conductor hadn't called the street, even though he had, The Times said. She kept complaining, blocking the aisle, until he tried to push her aside so passengers could get off at Pico Boulevard and Westlake Avenue.

NEW YORK - New Yorker drama critic John Lahr set off a social media firestorm in December with a blog comment that called for a moratorium on those "infernal all-black productions of Tennessee Williams plays unless we can have their equal in folly: all-white productions of August Wilson. " The theater community, as viewed from my portal on Facebook, found the comparison not just inept but inflammatory. Emily Mann, who happens to be directing the multiracial Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker that opens later this month at the Broadhurst Theatre, however, refused to take the bait when we spoke during a rehearsal break in March.

Voting will conclude Monday in a special election on a streetcar proposal in downtown Los Angeles. The proposal before downtown residents calls for an assessment district to be created to help finance the $125-million project. If it receives the two-thirds majority required to pass, planning would move forward, with completion scheduled in 2015. Supporters of the streetcar say it would bring a fresh wave of economic development to downtown. Its proposed route covers 10 blocks of Broadway - where the city is working to revive old movie palaces and vacant office buildings - before veering over toward L.A. Live and then up through the financial district.

There aren't many more poignant and telling exit lines in the modern theater than Blanche DuBois' in "A Streetcar Named Desire." After the brutal Stanley finally tears her down, she's taken away by asylum attendants. Her last words are to them: "Whoever you are--I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." The irony penetrates. It's Tennessee Williams summing up, his coda for this luminous masterpiece. Depending on the kindness of strangers can get you into big trouble, especially if you're weak, especially when the stranger is someone like Stanley Kowalski.

In a city that is often derided for its lack for public transportation, downtown L.A. is the one exception. The city center has light-rail lines, a subway, a maze of bus routes and shuttles, links to commuter rail and even a tiny funicular that trudges up and down Bunker Hill. But many residents and developers say that it can still be difficult to get around the far-flung city center without a car. So urban planners and downtown boosters have spent considerable time on what may have once been considered impossible: creating a truly car-optional neighborhood in the center of a region defined by its car culture.

Voting will conclude Monday in a special election on a streetcar proposal in downtown Los Angeles. The proposal before downtown residents calls for an assessment district to be created to help finance the $125-million project. If it receives the two-thirds majority required to pass, planning would move forward, with completion scheduled in 2015. Supporters of the streetcar say it would bring a fresh wave of economic development to downtown. Its proposed route covers 10 blocks of Broadway - where the city is working to revive old movie palaces and vacant office buildings - before veering over toward L.A. Live and then up through the financial district.

As voters mark their ballots Tuesday on three statewide tax measures, it's worth noting that there are many times and many ways to vote on taxes, and we're about to see a bunch of them. In addition to Propositions 30 , 38 and 39 , and  Measure J for Los Angeles County voters, some residents in or near the Santa Monica Mountains are finding that they live in a special district and could be subject to new parcel taxes to pay for parkland maintenance and acquisition. But at least that one will be found at the polling place and on election day, where and when voters would expect to find such a measure.

It's a city where tourists can spot a monorail slithering overhead, where construction is underway on an expansive transit hub envisioned as a cathedral for transportation, and where hopes run high that hordes of passengers will one day blast into town on a high-speed rail. But the latest transportation project in Anaheim sounds decidedly old-school in comparison: streetcars. Orange County's largest city is now moving ahead with plans for a 3.2-mile trolley car system that would connect the city's resort district with its sports stadiums, convention center and regional transit center - an airy, arched structure made of steel - that is taking shape.

The last time a streetcar rattled along the rails in Milwaukee, in 1958, the Braves played at County Stadium and Pabst, Schlitz and Miller were the brewers that made the city famous. Today the Brewers play at Miller Park and the Braves are long gone, but streetcars may be making a comeback. Mayor Tom Barrett is the prime mover behind Milwaukee's plan to build a brand-new streetcar system. Bright, modern vehicles would traverse a two-mile route through the city's east side, downtown and historic Third Ward, a former warehouse area now popular for its shops and restaurants.

The new Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams'"A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Broadhurst Theatre has one thing that distinguishes it from its predecessor productions -- it's performed by a cast of mostly African American actors. Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker portray Stanley (first name only) and Blanche Du Bois in Williams' hot-house drama set in the French Quarter of New Orleans.Daphne Rubin-Vega plays the long-suffering Stella and Wood Harris plays Mitch. Emily Mann, who is the artistic director the McCarter Theatre Company in New Jersey, directed the production.

"Are you out measuring the city? Is the elevation still as it was yesterday?" asked Josefine Thunig, 62, as she encountered her friend, geology professor Clyde Wahrhaftig, 67, on a streetcar. Wahrhaftig, silver-haired with flowing silver beard, smiled shyly and returned his friend's greeting. "We have been bumping into each other on this streetcar for 15 years," said Thunig, a financial analyst whose husband, Herman, is a watchmaker. "I thought that he was a zoologist," Thunig said.

The most noteworthy stage event in the county this week may be the world premiere Friday of Robert Daseler's "The Dragon Lady" at South Coast Repertory, but that's hardly all the area's theaters have to offer: On college campuses, the openings range from Tennessee Williams' brittle, soulful "Streetcar Named Desire" to "Tracers," in which a squad of faceless GI's barely survive the Vietnam War. There seems to be something of a Williams boom around...

NEW YORK - New Yorker drama critic John Lahr set off a social media firestorm in December with a blog comment that called for a moratorium on those "infernal all-black productions of Tennessee Williams plays unless we can have their equal in folly: all-white productions of August Wilson. " The theater community, as viewed from my portal on Facebook, found the comparison not just inept but inflammatory. Emily Mann, who happens to be directing the multiracial Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker that opens later this month at the Broadhurst Theatre, however, refused to take the bait when we spoke during a rehearsal break in March.

For the first time in more than six decades, this traffic-choked Southern city expects to see streetcars rumbling once more along its downtown streets. For some Atlantans, the city's $72-million streetcar project ? funded largely with a Department of Transportation grant awarded last month ? is reason to celebrate and a welcome throwback to a time when, much like the old days in L.A., a trip across town meant riding the rails. FOR THE RECORD: Atlanta streetcars: An article in the Nov. 28 Section A about a plan to build a streetcar line in central Atlanta said that a downtown improvement district would pay $10 million to help fund the project.