A narcotics officer was shot and injured today when a suspect he was serving with a warrant fired shots at him and his partner just after 3 p.m. today in Boyle Heights. He was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. A perimeter has been set up around the 2600 block of Malabar St. where two suspects are possibly barricaded in the house. According to the LAPD, per KNBC, one other person has been......

Photo by Callie Miller/LAist A fire starting in a one story commercial building around 5:45 p.m. this evening added to this afternoon's rush hour traffic, with both 6th and 7th Street bridges closed and traffic being diverted to side streets. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the building at 2285 E. Jesse St. that was engulfed in a "heavy" fire that caused one of the three arch truss roofs to fail. 90 firefighters......

A clear, crisp early spring morning greeted the participants in this year's LA Marathon, and the runners are filling our city's streets. Local NBC affiliate KNBC has full coverage of today's big event, which is comprised of two wheelchair divisions, a bike race, a 5k run, and the full 26 mile marathon. With an 8:15 start, the "elite" groups of men and women lead the way in small sets, and they are hoping to finish......

A lawsuit filed yesterday by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) against multiple contractors, including Kiewit, Washington Infrastructure Services, Inc., Parsons Corp., and more, who worked on the design and building of the Gold Line alleges that the work done was substandard and did not meet the obligations stipulated in their contracts. According to KNBC.com, the lawsuit asks for "at least $25 million in damages and a court order requiring the contractors to fix the......

It was a bloody weekend all across the Southland: after a body was found under the 118 overpass, two separate party shootings with fatal results and two more dead in separate incidents in the O.C., more violence broke out in South L.A. late last night. An adult man and a teenage girl, aged 14, were wounded in a seemingly random shooting attack last night outside of a housing project in South Los Angeles. The......

Before everyone was bitten by the "green" bug, there were those in LA (or who visited) who had a vision for sustainability. Paul Glover was one of them. After creating the local currency that is Ithaca Hours, Paul opined about a way to bring ultra-urban Los Angeles into a sustainability community - all based on closing some alleys. After closing alleys, Glover lays out six more steps for reducing the carbon footprint and building a......

Due to "human error" in tallying the votes, the crown that was placed on the head of Koreatown's Christina Silva, aka Miss Los Angeles, was placed on the head of Miss Barstow Raquel Beezley yesterday in Beverly Hills, and Breezley is now the winner in the all-important Miss California pageant. - AP Guess who's getting naked for Peta now? Film star Eva Mendez. And if her poster is any indication, she's really behind this......

No one likes the stigma of saying they live in Van Nuys, so they chip away making their own new neighborhoods. To that, Councilman Tony Cardenas, who we admittedly give a hard time to on this site, said something that is right on target about this so called community pride: "If I had that many people show up to a community cleanup or an anti-prostitution night out it would do much more than changing......

Last night I was casually checking out what various travel websites had to say about the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Most of the summaries in Frommers sounded like this: Silver Lake, a residential neighborhood just north of Downtown and adjacent to Los Feliz (home to the Los Angeles Zoo and Griffith Park), just to the west, has arty areas with unique cafes, theaters, graffiti, and art galleries -- all in equally plentiful proportions. The......

There is no question that El Tepeyac Cafe, a fifty-plus-year-old Mexican establishment in Boyle Heights, is legendary. Stories swirl amongst foodies, local and otherwise, about the monumentally oversized burritos and equally over-the-top owner, Manuel. My parents tell tales about the "poor old days" when they would hungrily dig into one of the "Manuel's Special" burritos, whose four pounds of meat, rice, and beans was enough to feed two skinny kids for days on end.......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

There is arguably no other neighborhood that encapsulates LA’s history, its tectonic demographic changes, its reinvention, its promise and potential as does Boyle Heights. Juan Devis wants to document its continued change through “Departures,” a Web digital mural that takes advantage of the neighborhood's subtle beauty to take visitors on an online tour of the people and places in this community. With the upcoming Gold Line extension and the changes occurring in many of......

Guest Day Editor LA City Nerd will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read the introductory interview here and check out the nerd's blog. Everyone knows Los Angeles is the second largest City in the US, but here are some LA City Nerd facts you might not have known... 1. LA City has the largest urban forest of any City in the US. 2. LA City has the largest municipal street......

I reside within the city limits of Los Angeles. I have been in many movies. I was built in Boyle Heights. When I was completed, I was the one of the most costly and finest houses in Los Angeles. I no longer live in Boyle Heights. A week ago today, you may have seen me. I am within a hop and a skip of two major urban arteries. Someday, a red car like the one......

I love Mexican food, and really who doesn’t? I’ve met few people who don’t love the flavors of our neighbors to the South. That being said, not everyone likes the same types of Mexican food. By types I don’t mean Tex-Mex or Oaxacan—I mean that there are several different culinary categories of Mexican food to be found here in our fair city. There’s taco truck Mexican food, which on a good day can be......

So after Sunday's Question and Monday's Answer, the LA City Nerd challenged LAist and you, our readers to a quiz: "I saw you posted a Pop Quiz on LAist, and thought I'd see if I could challenge your readers with an LA City Nerd Pop Quiz." So here you go kids, let's go at it! Put your guesses and answers in the comments section. 1. Before the 2005 opening of LAPD's Mission Division in......

Do you live within the Hollenbeck Police Station area? Don't know? It's these neighborhoods: Aliso Village, Boyle Heights, El Sereno, Estrada Court, Hillside Village, Lincoln Heights, Montecito Heights, Monterey Hills, Pico Gardens, Ramona Gardens, Rose Hills Courts, University Hills Cars are being stolen at a high rate in these areas especially, but still continue to a problem in all of East Los Angeles. Toyotas, Nissans and Hondas stolen off the street are the suspect’s vehicles......

Have you seen Santa trying to cross the street this holiday season? Did you yield to him or were you naughty? Those who are bad are getting tickets in the LAPD's Santa Claus Crosswalk Enforcement Detail. You may have also seen a rise in DUI Sobriety Checkpoints, and heard of the free MTA riding this Christmas and New Year's. It's been a busy week for the LAPD and here is some blotter info: A 20-year......

Happy Summer Solstice! Summer is finally here. It's time to chill out, take a vacation, sit on the beach and get lost in a good book. Angelenos are lucky to have so many literary choices and librarians like Eileen Ybarra, a young adult librarian at the Los Angeles Central Library, to guide our tastes. As Eileen notes below, the library is still one of the best places to access information, preserve free speech and celebrate......

The MTA has bumped into a gravesite of Chinese immigrants in construction of the Gold Line in Boyle Heights. It dates back to the late 1800s, when the Chinese in California had no rights — they were even charged to be buried in their own Potter's Field, while poor whites were buried for free. This isn't the first time relics of Chinese history have been unearthed by the MTA. When subway and light rail......

We hate to do this, we really do, because it is letting el gato right out of the bag. Curbed LA has the skinny on lofts in development that may be the coolest in the city, in the East LA community of Boyle Heights. The Buena Vista Lofts will have views of Hollenbeck Park and downtown LA. The building, a former hospital, is a recently-designated historic landmark. There will be actual greenspace. Sigh. We're......

Looking for real estate by neighboorhood can be tricky; it's easiest to search by zip code, but 90039 is tony Silverlake, the still-sketchy Frogtown flats and spotty Glassel Park all at once. Trulia is trying to make it easier, combining Google Maps and local real estate listings. Want to live downtown? Look for a little green icon and click: yipes, $893,000. Forgot to hit the "less than $500,000" filter. The idea is great, but......

Well, it's another month in magazine publishing, so it's another month's list from the folks at Los Angeles Magazine. This time, like they do every year, they're apprising their readership of their picks for the "Best" in LA. We've noticed over the years that there's no particular method to their madness, just for them to make mention of 101 things that have struck their fancy this year in this city. In looking at their......

The Grand Avenue Committee invites "you to join us and to learn of our progress in preliminary planning of the Grand Avenue project which aims to transform LA’s downtown, stimulate reinvestment in the community and create a new civic and cultural heart of the city for all Angelenos." The next phase of the public process begins this Tuesday, February 22nd at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Grand Hall in Downtown (135 Grand Ave). Other outreach......

Few people in Los Angeles are as plugged into the urban and cultural planning scenes and other fascinating areas of overlap as James Rojas. In addition to his 9-to-5 as a project manager at the MTA, James's irons in the fire include helming the Latino Urban Forum and lecturing on various planning and cultural issues at venues that range from the university to the community grass roots level. He's also co-owner of the Gallery......

The field of forthcoming weekend events is quite crowded, but why stop inundating our readers with activity suggestions now? Before you completely fill your Filofax pages or Palm appointment functions or whatever you use to keep track of your busy lives, add the open house on Sunday at the Breed Street Shul (formerly Congregation Talmud Torah) in Boyle Heights. Sunday�s event showcases the progress made on the ceiling and windows in this significant vestige......

Didja catch catch the Los Angeles Times 8/1/04 piece about Self Help Graphics in East LA? The community arts center, founded by Sister Karen Boccalero, not only promoted Chicano artists but also nurtured the LA punk rock scene in its infancy. Willie Heron of the band "Los Illegals" and Joe Suquett persuaded Sister Karen to let them found the Club Vex, a twice-monthly punk-rock club, at the Self-Help Graphics' hall. Club Vex attracted people from......