Streets

It is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Along streets of grimy stucco bungalows with bougainvillea, American flags and "Beware of Dog" signs on chain-link fences, a couple of residents are hosing down lawns. It ought to be quiet, but it's not. Behind the garden walls of Astor Avenue, there's a chugging and a hissing and a clanking and a squeaking. Two yellow locomotives, hooked to cars piled high with metal containers, idle on the track of the Union Pacific. Their stacks spew gray plumes of smoke.

For 60 years, Al Langer was an iconic presence at the corner of 7th and Alvarado streets. Since 1947, his Langer's Delicatessen-Restaurant has been known as one of the city's best delis -- and an enduring symbol of stubborn stability amid a constantly changing neighborhood and city. On Thursday, the city officially renamed the intersection outside the deli Langer's Square, in honor of the deceased restaurateur.

Maria Freyre could not believe her eyes last week when she pulled onto the Lincoln Heights street where she has lived for 45 years. A neighbor had erected a steel gate across Forest Park Drive, blocking 18 residents' access to their homes. A simmering neighborhood dispute had prompted Gardner Compton's barricade. Forest Park Drive crosses private property, Compton said -- his. He was willing to let his neighbors walk on foot along the narrow dirt road, but cars were no longer allowed.

Harmony is what's eluding Hollywood's Elusive Drive. An escalating squabble between a celebrity photographer and an actor who live across from each other on the narrow hillside street has led to a flurry of city investigations, lawsuits and finger-pointing. On one side is Jim Steinfeldt, who is known for his album cover and magazine fashion and entertainment industry advertising photos. On the other is Michael Massee, a well-known character actor who portrays villains and heavies.

CITY planners shun them. New urbanists hate them. Boulder, Colo., all but banned them. Cul-de-sacs -- those once-beloved icons of the suburban good life -- have become something of a demonized concept. The growing consensus among urban planners is that these lollipop-shaped streets hurt communities by chopping up neighborhoods, isolating children, intensifying traffic woes and discouraging walking. Then why are so many still being built here?

Berlin has named a street in honor of the late American rocker Frank Zappa. Frank-Zappa-Strasse, or Frank Zappa Street -- formerly Street 13 -- lies on the eastern outskirts of Berlin amid empty industrial buildings in what was communist East Germany. The street is home to Orwo Haus, a former Communist-era film factory that now provides practice studios for more than 160 bands. Musicians at Orwo Haus campaigned for two years to have the street's name changed.

Out-of-towners Diego Jimenez and Cynthia Sanchez were lost. And not just because they were asked if they knew how to get to Tom Bradley Boulevard. They were standing next to the downtown Los Angeles street that major Internet map services call Tom Bradley Boulevard. Problem is, the street sign over their heads identified the busy roadway as 1st Street. Jimenez, 20, and Sanchez, 18, both of Porterville, had no idea where the street named after Los Angeles' first black mayor was.

Ken Fritz has lived along the Venice canals in Los Angeles for seven years. To hear him tell it, life has been pretty good there except for one small problem: the chance of a visitor finding his home has long been a shot in the dark because of a confusing series of street names and signs. "I came home once and found a report on my house that said there were isolated problems with termites," Fritz recalled Saturday.

Even as Los Angeles officials announced Wednesday that they were settling a lawsuit with advocates for the homeless over a city law that prohibits people from sleeping on sidewalks, downtown Councilwoman Jan Perry vowed to pursue a law that would forbid such camping. The legal settlement involves a 2003 lawsuit brought by skid row residents who complained they were being arrested for sleeping on sidewalks, despite having nowhere else to go.

When J. Michael Walker first visited Santa Clara Street, he felt a twinge of disappointment. "There's nothing here," he thought as he scanned the two-block street in southeast Los Angeles, hemmed in by red-brick walls, barbed wire and railroad tracks. Where could he find St. Clare? Then he understood. Santa Clara Street lay at the heart of a threadbare industrial zone. Its windowless warehouses and boarded-up factories were coated with truck dust, its streets empty of people. Similarly, St.