Once an exciting, underground food scene driven by a punk rock aesthetic and an exploratory mentality is swiftly becoming a mainstream, bottom-line-obsessed maze of infighting and politics.
"It's such a trend that you can't just be a hot dog truck, you have to be an Indian hot dog truck to be unique." — LA Times

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided to spend $1 million in federal grants — money that had been avidly sought by residents of Skid Row — to instead help out San Francisco–based Gensler, a 2,800-employee giant that enjoyed $463 million in revenue last year. — laweekly.com

The Southern California Institute of Architecture pays $23 million for the century-old rail freight depot that is a quarter of a mile long and about 37 feet wide. The school has been a tenant in the building for 10 years. — latimes.com

How to explain, much less minimize, the relative obscurity of L.A.'s landscape architects? There's no easy answer but our open spaces and preservation efforts give the issue added urgency. — latimes.com

The 1941 Maxwell house by Richard Neutra, one of Southern California's most celebrated residential architects, is being moved in pieces from Brentwood to a vacant lot in Angelino Heights, the neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles best known for its restored Victorians. Photographer Brian Thomas Jones was on the scene as the first part of the 1,700-square-foot wooden structure made the journey down Sunset Boulevard to its new home. — LA Times

When Los Angeles MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch ordered the removal of artist Blu‘s mural, which he commissioned, from the wall of his museum, he was quickly accused of censorship by various folks in the art community. In response to his act, an anonymous street artist put up a wheatpasted mural near MOCA that depicted Deitch as the Ayatollah Khomeini, dressed in traditional garb, holding a dripping paint roller with outstretched arm – fresh from removing Blu’s mural from the museum’s wall. — Moca-Latte.org