Results tagged “Los Angeles” from Daily Link

Last week, Chicago learned that its iconic Sears Tower -- the tallest building in the United States, is losing its name. Blair Kamin, at ChicagoTribune.com, said "The Sears name isn't just a tack-on. It stands for something.... The building's architecture reflects that past: It is strong, solid, democratic."

London-based insurer the Willis Group moved into the tower, and the investment firm that owns the skyscraper threw in a name change at no extra charge. It shall now be known as Willis Tower. Plus, Sears left the tower as its headquarters back in 1992.

The name change shows how skyscrapers stoke the imaginations and passions of both detractors and admirers. If you fall into the admirers camp, SkyscraperPage.com is for you. The site features an extensive database of building statistics and very well-drawn diagrams.

Locally, El Segundo has five buildings represented in the database. Several more near LAX are categorized within Los Angeles, which boasts 559 high-rises.

Register for the page and you can join in discussions on architecture and urbanism on the active forums.

It was only a matter of time before people could use the Internet to visit a museum. If you're looking for cultured fun on the cheap, visit Rembrandt in Southern California. This virtual exhibition shows and explains 14 paintings by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn that are also on view in five Southern California museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum. Our region happens to boast the third-largest collection of Rembrandt paintings in the nation, surpassed only by New York City and Washington, D.C.

Rembrandt in Southern California is a great guide for those who aren't so familiar with analyzing artwork. Study up on the paintings before seeing the real works of art, or tour the pieces at your own pace. You can even print out an exhibition guide for packing along if you decide to visit the paintings. The site offers a unique guide to exploring these significant works, pointing out the minutiae in Rembrandt's brush strokes and texture work. An audio tour rounds out the whole museum experience, providing a personal docent in the form of directors and curators. Admission to the Rembrandt in Southern California exhibit is free and its doors are open 24 hours, seven days a week.

Dining out has been made easier and more fun thanks to the web. Not only can databases make it easier to find restaurants, but interactivity allows us to share our experiences -- good and bad -- with fellow diners.

Listing/review sites are abundant, so the novelty has worn off and the quality of reviews by average Joes and Janes can be decidedly hit-and-miss.

For foodies, Eater LA strives to be the highly regarded sit-down restaurant in a world dominated by noisy fast-food dining sites.

Eater LA has its own community of reviewers, but it's a blog that writes and aggregates news about restaurants, chefs, critics and industry developments. The site is nicely polished, modeled on the template of sister sites Curbed LA for urban planning and Racked LA for shopping.

Our little corner of the world is modestly represented in the subcategories. So far, Eater has listings for the Del Reys, LAX, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and San Pedro. It will only be a matter of time before Eater readers and the internet as a whole discover Lawndale's restaurant scene.

Gas prices may have made Sunday drivers fewer and farther between, but there's still a great way to get out and enjoy some weekend cruising -- pedal power! Not only is riding a bike better for the environment, it's better for you. But where to ride? If you're tired or wary of clueless motorists making you fear for life and limb, give labikepaths.com a try. Choose anywhere from Los Angeles to northern Orange County, even out to Angeles National Forest, from a drop-down menu, and the site will show you your best options nearby. It even offers local weather, trail descriptions, cyclists' warnings and links to bike paths on Google maps. For even more information, check out the site's extensive list of cycling resources from community services to clubs -- even phone numbers for city bike assistance! Also available are recommended cycling books and a calendar of cycling events (if your group has something coming up, feel free to submit it). It's too expensive to drive around, but don't let that keep you inside.

Roosters, and their owners, can live in Los Angeles for another day without fear of being hassled by The Man.

Los Angeles councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents San Pedro and the Harbor areas, had planned on introducing a city ordinance to limit households to one rooster each. Real estate and land use blog Curbed LA wrote that Hahn had also wanted residents to embed their rooster with microchips. Warning: The Curbed items contain cheeky uses of the word "cock," but are otherwise safe for work.

The law was supposed to give homeowners recourse from incessant cock-a-doodle-dooing, prevented bird flu, and probably bust up any cockfighting rings within the city.

Rooster boosters can breathe a sigh of relief. The motion has been withdrawn, because the city's budget crunch doesn't allow animal control to effectively enforce the measure.

Homeowners seeking peace and quiet from the feathered fiends will once again feel Los Angeles has laid an egg, but urban bird owners have something to crow about.

Everybody is doing the locomotion. May 10 is National Train Day.

Southern Californians can partake in the festival for ferroequinology at Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St., in downtown Los Angeles.

Los Angeles boasts an entire day of history, music, speeches and merchandise about trains. May 10 is a better day than any to celebrate trains, as it was on this day in 1869 when the last spike was wedged into the ground in Promontory, Utah, symbolizing the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

South Bay residents cannot take a train directly to Union Station, but it is a straight shot up the Harbor (110) Freeway with a short drive on the 101 freeway in downtown Los Angeles. Most of Metro's buses using the Harbor Transitway (PDF) also serve Union Station, as does Torrance Transit Line 2 (PDF).

A Know section article today explored the huge impact of Dust Bowl-era immigrants on California.

By 1937, officials from counties all over the state met in Sacramento to try to figure out what to do about the flood of needy immigrants. “Los Angeles is the most seriously hit of all the counties of the state,” declared a July 11, 1937, San Francisco Chronicle article on the upcoming summit. Officials said nearly 20 percent of Los Angeles County’s estimated 2.3 million population was on relief, a forerunner of welfare. Between April 1936 and April 1937, more than 2.9 million people had entered California by auto; of those, 74 percent said they planned to settle in Southern California.

If you want to learn more about the era, check out these links:

See Dorothea Lange’s haunting photos of Dust Bowl refugees

More tales of Dust Bowl immigrants

PBS coverage

Learn more about the blues music that chronicled the era

LA Observed, a fine blog covering the Los Angeles area, has partnered with Eric Estrin, a TV writer and much more, for a community script-writing experiment. Here's the idea, as described on LA Observed:

Eric has written the opening pages of a screenplay set in and about Los Angeles. It has a name, Right of Way, and a mayor who may or may not be shady as the main character. You can write the rest by submitting a few pages of scene and dialogue. Each week he'll select the best pages and post them.

From staff writer Rick Orlov:

A bobblehead-doll version of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is being sold by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project as part of a fundraising effort.

The SVREP has been instrumental in registering new voters, particularly Latinos, around the western United States and has been seen as a critical factor in the emergence of Latino politicians.

The dolls are being sold for $25, plus $5 for shipping. For information, go to www.svrep.org.