Steven Mikulan

Bruce Lisker: Rip Van Winkle in a Target Store

Steven Mikulan
Check out Iris Schneider's shop-along piece in L.A. Observed. Schneider went with Bruce Lisker to a Valley Target store for some buy time. Lisker, of course, was recently released from prison after serving 26 years for killing his mother -- a crime he has denied committing. (A judge declared Lisker's......

I'll Be Working on the Railroad: California's Bullet Train Gets on Track

Steven Mikulan
The on-again, off-again bullet train connecting San Diego to Sacramento and San Francisco is on again -- for now. Today the state of California formally applied for $4.7 billion in federal stimulus money to construct the line in several segments. (The two-pronged route roughly resembles the constellation Scorpius.) The main......

DWP: Nahai Out, Freeman In

Steven Mikulan
Radio station KNX 1070 summed it up this morning with its teasers to an upcoming report about the DWP's changing leadership: "Is the new boss the same as the old boss?" announcers asked, playing off a famous line by the Who. True enough, the Department of Water and Power's general......

San Pedro to Get Its Harbor Makeover

Steven Mikulan
San Pedro's rotting tourist waterfront is now poised for a $1.2 billion makeover that, according to the L.A. Business Journal, includes "construction of an eight-mile promenade to downtown San Pedro, bike paths, parks, a pier and extension of the port's popular streetcar service." The L.A. Board of Harbor Commissioners voted......
Credit: Margy Rochlin

Scenes from the D-List: Kathy Griffin Book-Signing Mobbed

Steven Mikulan
By all reports, Kathy Griffin's Wednesday night appearance at Vroman's Books provided Pasadena with the kind of crowd crush it usually only sees during Rose Parades. Griffin was promoting Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin. According to attendees, Griffin signed books for three hours (stretching one......

Movie Theater Bites the Dust

Steven Mikulan
BlogDowntown's Ed Fuentes confirms that the Laemmle Grande 4-Plex will close October 25, mostly due to the expected competition from a new Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 located near Staples Center. The Laemmle Grande was a diamond in the rough for local filmgoers because its bills, while favoring multiplex action-fare, would......

Castles in the Sky Poll

Steven Mikulan
Curbed L.A. today features a bit of architectural whimsy -- not in the form of Buck Rogers-like blueprints imagined during the 1930s, but a list of city projects that never saw the light of day and which would make cool destinations on a iPhone GPS application. Some are dead and......

Polanski Case: Prosecutor's Dishonesty Challenged

Steven Mikulan
It's come to the point in Los Angeles where you can't even trust people to tell lies anymore. That's one of the bizarre situations spawned by the recent Swiss arrest of film director Roman Polanski. Last year an HBO-aired documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, alleged that Polanski bolted the......
law logo2x b

Reform School for Sale

Steven Mikulan
This morning the first bids were taken on the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Institution -- 74 green acres in Whittier that were home to county bad boys until it closed in 2004. The bidding is part of the state's fire sale of "surplus property." A California Department of Corrections......