Sunset Boulevard

Re "Let me out of the ballgame, let me be free of crowds," April 11 So Dodger ownership has actually succeeded in making traffic at Dodger Stadium worse -- very impressive. But the parking problem that has plagued Dodger Stadium since day one won't go away until some of the cars go away. But for all practical purposes, you can't get to Dodger Stadium without driving. It's one of the few major destinations in L.A. that's almost entirely inaccessible by public transit -- the nearest bus stop, at Sunset Boulevard and Elysian Park, still leaves an uphill hike to your seats.

Construction is underway on a potential Hollywood landmark, a high-rise college on Sunset Boulevard where students will live and study the arts. Boston-based Emerson College, which has trained many in the entertainment field, is erecting a striking see-through building that will be its new West Coast campus. The $85-million tower, designed by Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne, is intended to make a statement to the community and the entertainment industry, President Lee Pelton said.

Another one bites the dust. The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, just down the street from the shuttered Tower Records, will close when its lease is up in January. The rent is simply too high, Simon Wright, chief executive of Virgin Megastores North America, said Wednesday. "We're trying to reposition the business," Wright said, "and a lot of our stores are too big for the future, primarily due to the drop in music sales." The chain -- which Related Cos.

An arson suspect was arrested in Hollywood after allegedly setting three fires that caused significant property damage early Thursday morning. Authorities say Samuel Arrington, 22, of Sunland torched a vehicle and set trash ablaze along a five-block stretch of Sunset Boulevard. It is estimated the fires caused more than $100,000 in damage, said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Jaime Moore. The first blaze, in a dumpster at Poinsettia Place and Sunset Boulevard, broke out at 1:12 a.m. Around the same time, firefighters received a call about a car ablaze in the carport of an apartment building at 1434 N. Fuller Ave. Firefighters rescued the 20 occupants of the 10-unit complex.

When I first met Marcel Montecino he was playing the piano at a place on Sunset Boulevard called the Cafe Brasserie. He was a quiet, moody kind of guy and his music reflected the slow and bluesy attitude one associates with lazy summer nights in a city of dreams. You get lost in music like that, remembering places you've never been and seeing faces you've never seen, like misty segments of a romantic fantasy.

The Sunset Boulevard bridge is ready for its close-up. After weeks of preparation, construction crews Friday night will shut down portions of busy Sunset Boulevard and the 405 Freeway on the Westside to begin jackhammering and demolishing the southern half of the bridge. Workers will then spend 10 months rebuilding it before going through the same drill on the bridge's northern half. Transportation officials have met regularly with neighbors and businesses, sent e-mail blasts and communicated via Twitter and Facebook to keep them apprised of closures and detours.

Construction workers have begun preparing for the demolition of the Sunset Boulevard bridge over the 405 Freeway, a new phase in a larger effort to widen the roadway on the Westside and into the San Fernando Valley. The demolition will begin later this month or in early June and will take part in two stages, according to Marc Lippman, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Crews will begin by tearing down the southern part of the bridge with a hoe ram — a crane with a massive jackhammer attached — and will spend 10 months reconstructing it. Then they will demolish the northern stretch of the bridge, followed by 10 more months of rebuilding.

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a $716,000 project to widen Sunset Boulevard at Will Rogers State Park Road in Pacific Palisades, but it may be two years before motorists see an improvement of the intersection. City engineer Mike Stafford said work to widen the roadway by up to 16 feet, create a left-turn lane and install a traffic signal and other improvements is not scheduled to begin until April, 1991.

Work began Monday on a nine-month project to improve a treacherous strip of Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades near the Will Rogers State Historic Park. There have been many accidents on that stretch of road, said Claire Rogger, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, who is seeking funding for the project. The road project will include the widening and re-striping of existing traffic lanes and adding left-turn lanes for drivers trying to cut across Sunset Boulevard.

Los Angeles city traffic officials have abruptly dropped a plan to widen congested Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood after the proposal generated widespread community outcry. The controversy underscores the challenges traffic planners face in attempting to improve traffic flow -- even in notoriously clogged areas such as the Westside. City officials say this stretch of Sunset is one of the most congested in the region.

On a cold and dreary November afternoon, the cozy lobby of the Chateau Marmont calls to mind Dublin's once historic Morrison's Hotel, where Albert Nobbs, the title character in the new gender-bending drama starring Glenn Close, works as a waiter. Clad in black, Close and her costar Janet McTeer sit side by side in armchairs, digging into identical tuna salads and pots of English Breakfast tea — both equally exhilarated, if exhausted. For Close, the film's Friday opening, a one-week theatrical run that precedes a wider January release, represents the culmination of a 30-year artistic odyssey, one that last week netted both actresses nominations for Golden Globe and SAG awards.

A music executive critically wounded by a gunman who opened fire Friday in Hollywood died Monday, Los Angeles police said. John C. Atterberry, 40, of Hollywood Hills was driving near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street when he was shot three times in the face and neck by the gunman, later identified by authorities as Tyler Brehm, 26, of Los Angeles. Brehm repeatedly fired a .40-caliber handgun at motorists, police said. Atterberry's silver Mercedes-Benz coupe was one of several cars Brehm shot at from close range.

A historic Sunset Boulevard property approved for high-rise construction has been purchased by Hollywood's largest commercial landlord — the latest sign of the neighborhood's economic comeback. CIM Group bought the former Old Spaghetti Factory building, recognizable by its row of Greek columns, on 1.7 acres at Sunset and Gordon Street. The company said it plans to build the retail, office and residential project approved by the city for previous owners. CIM Group didn't reveal how much it paid Washington Real Estate Holdings for the property at 5939 W. Sunset Blvd., but real estate experts who track Hollywood valued the transaction at more than $20 million.

The Kronish House, one of a handful of Beverly Hills residences designed by Modernist architect Richard Neutra, appears headed for demolition. Soda Partners, the limited partnership that owns the nearly 7,000-square-foot residence north of Sunset Boulevard, has secured a permit to cap the sewer line, a step that often precedes a request for a demolition permit, said Jonathan Lait, Beverly Hills' assistant director of community development....

It's a Wednesday in Echo Park's Lot 1 Café and a crowd squeezes into the vintage bric-a-brac-lined walls of the cafe's backroom on Sunset Boulevard, dancing and sweating to the bluesy rock of local band Rumspringa. Passersby stop and stare through a picture window at the band's backsides. The small cafe has become an important venue for the burgeoning Echo Park scene. Over the last few years, indie music fans have flocked to this stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, from the larger, more professional Echo on its Western edge to the do-it-yourself Echo Curio art-and-music space a few blocks east.

Orrin Tucker, a bandleader whose orchestra achieved national prominence with a 1939 recording of "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!" and who decades later owned a big-band venue on Sunset Boulevard, has died. He was 100. Tucker, who was a longtime resident of South Pasadena, died April 9 in the San Gabriel Valley, said his daughter, Nora Compere. After forming the band in 1933, Tucker was its primary vocalist until jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong suggested that a petite singer named Evelyn Nelson would be a good fit for the group, according to biographical references.

One of Hollywood's minor pleasures is imagining how great films might have gone wrong. This Saturday, Glendale's Alex Film Society will screen "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), Billy Wilder's immortal metamovie about fame, ambition and the dark side of Hollywood. Did you know that Mae West was originally sought for the Gloria Swanson part and Montgomery Clift was penciled in to play Joe Gillis, the role so persuasively performed by William Holden?

Downey's California: --Holiday thought: Better to have Jack Frost nipping at your nose than Dennis Hopper sniffing at your shoes. --Were I Robert Duvall, I would have told my agent: "No way. Wrestling Mariel Hemingway, maybe." --Two Wisconsin people in town for the Rose Bowl heard that Glenn Close was doing "Sunset Boulevard." They walked the street for three days and never saw her once. --New script I'm writing based on Mario Lemieux's underwear: "The Penguin Brief."

With the barrage of notices about new restaurants coming from all sides, sometimes a worthy older one slips through the cracks without a full review. When it opened 3 years ago, I did my due diligence and went to Amarone, the tiny 40-seat Italian on Sunset Boulevard just up from the Viper Room. Maybe it was too early: I remember thinking it was nothing special. Wrongly, as it turns out. When I went back recently I found a restaurant that, despite being on a gritty block, really does feel like a little neighborhood place in Italy.

In the land where publicity stunts are daily fare, it's hard to grab the attention of Los Angeles residents, but messing with traffic (as President Obama recently learned when he was in town) is a start. Add a local music band that decided to park its truck diagonally across three lanes of southbound traffic on the 101 Freeway, hop out and hold an impromptu (free!) concert, and you've got a stunt that, well, stopped traffic. Three audacious ? and now arrested ? musicians scrambled atop their truck, plugged in their guitars and launched into a rendition of a song called ?