Hillel Aron

L.A. Sales Tax Hike: Will $211 Million Increase Fix City's Problems?

When Herb Wesson was anointed by his colleagues as L.A. City Council president, he was known as the goofy former California Speaker of the Assembly behind "pet adoption Fridays," a sort of cross between open-mic night and a QVC sales pitch, where the pint-sized Wesson would crack jokes and implore......
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Possible Dream Team buyer Austin Beutner: "There is no voice to rival the L.A. Times."; Credit: PHOTO BY TED SOQUI

Who Will Buy the Los Angeles Times?

It was late 2006, and Los Angeles Times managing editor Leo Wolinsky had been summoned to the home of entertainment mogul David Geffen. A billionaire five times over, Geffen was interested in buying the newspaper Wolinsky edited. Very interested. His opening bid, as the Times itself would later report: $2......
Credit: Boss Tweed Circa 2006

Echo Park: Greatest Neighborhood in Los Angeles, Which Has 87 of Them

Echo Park is, depending on your point of view: the poor man's Silver Lake, the rich man's Highland Park, the Williamsburg of the West Coast, a 40,455-person working-class burg full of diversity and a wee bit of gang violence. Or, it's that strange little neighborhood you drive through getting to......

Slate Mailer Sleaze in L.A.

Political advertising is not exactly built on a foundation of honesty. Campaign literature tends to fall somewhere between glib hyperbole and outright deceit. Perhaps in no other area is this more evident than in the seedy world of "slate mailers." "The only thing worse than the mailers themselves are the......
Wilshire Grand

Wilshire Grand Los Angeles, Tallest Skyscraper on West Coast at 1,100 Feet, Will Have a Wicked Sky Lobby for Views Across the City

Wilshire GrandWilshire Grand, L.A.'s tallest skyscraper, circa 2017. Secret designs were just released of the Wilshire Grand, a 73-story, 1,100-foot-tall hotel/office tower/retail/phallic image that will be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast and in Los Angeles, pushing out Library Tower (officially, U.S. Bank Tower) as the 10th-tallest building in......