LA Observed is a website devoted to independent reporting, informed commentary and selective linkage on Los Angeles news, media, politics, business, books and other topics. The site went live in May ...

The boys on Larchmont in "False Alarms," with an LA Railway yellow car passing by. What is it about non-Angelenos becoming so obsessed with old filming locations that they spend years tracking down ...

Willie Nelson, beardless and braidless, at the Palomino in 1970. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images at LA Magazine's website Before everyone forgets that LA's music lore includes North Hollywood, Los ...

Downtown chronicler Ed Fuentes blogs at View from a Loft that the sign for Gorky's Russian cafe still hangs over the corner of 8th and San Julian streets. It's kind of like looking back in time at the ...

When Daryl Gates ran the LAPD from 1978 to 1992 he also ran a worldwide political spying operation. And he lavished time on it, sometimes several hours each day, including all the dossiers and reports ...

There was a time — several decades actually — when cruising Van Nuys Boulevard at night to see and be seen was a major youth culture tradition in Los Angeles, and especially for teenagers (the real ...

CBS LA's chief meteorologist, Josh Rubenstein, is exchanging the green screen for the thin blue line. He starts in September as the new public information director for the Los Angeles Police ...

Freelance videojournalist Abraham Riesman was sent in 2012 to do a story for Punch on Paul Mazursky's morning gathering of old Hollywood hands (and a few younger ones) at Farmers Market. The table ...

Los Angeles car culture never saw anyone like Big Willie Robinson — or needed anyone quite so much. In the mid 1960s, when baby boomers were racing hot rods and fighting each other and the cops all ...

The Natural History Museum unveils to the public the new and much-anticipated Becoming LA exhibit hall on Sunday. It's must-see for students of Los Angeles history, but it should be interesting for ...

Wednesday was the last day of work for many of the close to 80 newsroom staffers who are leaving the Los Angeles Times, with farewell gatherings and toasts in several departments. "Hysterical," is how ...

Now this is Hollywood, and a place where some people will do anything to promote anything. So it could be just that: a promo for something yet to be revealed. But it seems that on Page A7 of Monday's ...