Avril Levigne, boyfriend assaulted by five assailants

Attacked at the Roosevelt 

(Really?)

Canadian crooner, Avril Levigne and her boyfriend, The Hills star, Brody Jenner, told LAPD they were attacked outside the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood last weekend.  Both are recovering from what appear to be relatively minor injuries. Levigne has a black eye.  It's unclear what the motive for the attack was, and no mention of robbery was initially made as far as RoLA has been able to ascertain.Having lived five blocks from the Roosevelt until four months ago, this reporter knows the area as being highly energized on weekends, with partiers, club-goers, movie and late-night television production audiences and youthful tourists packing Hollywood Blvd.'s traffic lanes and broad sidewalks in the tens of thousands, anything can happen.

     However, landmark properties such as the El Capitan Theatre, where Jimmy Kimmel Live is shot, the Hollywood & Highland mega-plex shopping, dining and entertainment center (which contains the Kodak Theater, home of the Oscar Awards ceremony and TV show) are all within feet of the well-lit, highly patrolled (by Los Angeles Police Dept. officers, Hollywood Safety officers, California Highway Patrol officers (rarely, but they have jurisdictions at some of the boulevard's major cross streets, such as Cahuenga Blvd.), and private security. Add to that the small army of service personnel, such as valets, doormen, etc... and something seems odd about the circumstances of this crime against celebrities.  

Architecture in L.A.

Wrong Regarding 'Wrights'

This multifamily residential building may 

not appear to the average passerby to 

be a particularly special example of mid- 

century modern architecture; but, it did  

appear so to Republic of L.A.  

Perhaps it's likely most other lay-persons 

sharing RoLA's passion for L.A.'s hodge-podge 

of adventurous, often highly stylized residential 

design and frequently offputting urban-planning 

paradigm, would - as we erroneously did - 

recognize this collection of apartments at 

2036-2046 Griffith Park Blvd. as a fine, 

however modest, example of architecture 

by Eric Lloyd Wright, founder of Eric Lloyd Wright 

Architecture and Planning grandson and former 

apprentice of master 20th Century architect, 

Frank Lloyd Wright. However, It turns out, the 

main cue that led RoLA to think we were looking 

at an Eric Lloyd Wright design - the sculpted 

flourishes atop the painted (cinderblock?) walls separating garages at the site, were etched out by sculptor gordon Newell.  The buildings (there are two) were designed by legendary Los Angeles architect, R.M. Schindler as a home with rental-intcome units for Anastasia Bubeshko and her daughter Luby, whom - according to the Los Angeles Conservancy - lived in the Schindler-designed home that her mother left her, was first completed in the late 1930s.

The Bubeshko Apartments won a preservation award from the L.A. Conservancy in 2010 (Preservation Architect: DSH / Eric Haas & Chava Danielson)

One million sq. ft. Renovation of Kaiser-Permanente's 50-year-old Los Angeles Med. Center Continues

Demolition at Kaiser on Sunset, seen through a 

display of mobile sculpture inside an already 

completed portion of the hospital.  

(Photo by Republic Of L.A.)

(Facility Billed as Innovative Enough to Serve Patients for Next Half Century)

According to builder Rudolph and Sletten, which is headquartered in Redwood City, once it's finished the hospital will be the first to have a built-in, electronic medical records system.  

In addition, the new Kaiser will feature nurses' stations and procedure rooms with so-called "picture archiving system," which will "effortlessly" route images to flat-panel screens, thus eliminating the need for more expensive, bulky and less envinronmentally friendly X-ray screens.  Another benefit of the "X-ray screen-free system is that mages will be instantly available to surgeons in operating rooms.  


When necessary, patients will be eased into bed by special portable chairs that will hang from the ceiling and move the length of the room on tracks, the company said in a statement to reporters.   Furthermore, the specialty construction company said, beds will be adjustable to a nearly vertical position for easy access from a standing or sitting position. 

Among other benefits of such beds, will be the fact that patients needing dialysis will not have to be moved from testing areas elswhere for treatment.  All services can be provided from one place.  

The new emergency department will be equipped with the many of the patient comfort amenities found in other parts of the hospital. Because the potential for many of the same dangers that vex us now will probably continue to exist, disaster readiness measures will include decontamination showers and a dedicated air conditioning and ventilation system. The new medical center will have 456 patient rooms, 11 labor and delivery rooms, and six cardiac surgery suites.

The hospital will feature numerous green spaces including a garden with a play area for pediatric patients, a garden courtyard on the 4th floor serving the labor and delivery unit, an outside dining patio facing the park, and a tree-lined green-belt at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Edgemont Street. Palm trees will line the north side of the boulevard for a three-block stretch.