LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS
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Foodie openings at the Alexandria, and other happenings Around Town.
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A real estate veteran makes a big move in the Downtown brokerage community.
W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
January 10, 2010
Volume 40, Number 2
INSIDE
Berzerk Is Back
The Veil, the Vault and the Victory Eli Broad Lifts the Shroud on the Designs for His $100 Million Art Museum
Union Station on the sales block.
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PICK THE
PROS Pick football games, win prizes.
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Nokia Theatre gets a punch.
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rendering by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro
Diller, Scofidio + Renfro’s design for Eli Broad’s Grand Avenue art museum features a concrete “veil” that lets in natural light. It changes patterns across its five façades (including the roof). It is slated to open in about two years.
A City West housing project sells.
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Swill the wine, then sip it.
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by Ryan Vaillancourt staff writer
E
li Broad and the architects working on his planned $100 million contemporary art museum lifted the veil on the project last week, giving the first public views of the facility expected to open in about two years. The future neighbor of Walt Disney Concert Hall looks like a honeycomb or a porous white
With Football Stadium Dreams, AEG Chief Goes Where Many of L.A.’s Rich and Powerful Have Tried and Failed by Jon Regardie
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15 CALENDAR LISTINGS 17 MAP 18 CLASSIFIEDS
web that will encase the museum on five sides, including the roof, letting diffuse light inside and providing the primary structural support for the building, Diller said. Nearly half of the 93,000-square-foot museum will house Broad’s collection in archive and storage space, with most of it set on the second of three floors rising over Grand Avenue (the musee Museum, page 10
Tim Leiweke and the Super Bowl Shuffle executive editor
A whale tail in Exposition Park.
sponge pulled up at two corners to let the public inside. It will be the most distinct architectural icon on Grand Avenue since Disney Hall debuted in 2003. Liz Diller, a principal with New York architecture firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, attended the Disney Hall presentation on Thursday, Jan. 5, to explain the design the firm has dubbed “the vault and the veil.” The veil is a pre-cast concrete
T
he subject of bringing NFL football to Los Angeles is sort of like the movie Showgirls. It never seems to end, and throughout the excruciating observation process you simultaneously want to laugh and THE REGARDIE REPORT
cry, while also feeling the pain of all those involved. Southern California has had numerous football flubs since the region managed the wondrous feat of losing two teams following the 1994 season. For the record, Justin Bieber was 9 months old the last time the Raiders played in the Coliseum. When the Rams’ had their final
contest in Anaheim, no one except a few eggheads used the Internet. This was before Lewis and Clark College student Monica Lewinsky had begun her White house internship. When the season ended, O.J. Simpson’s murder trial hadn’t yet begun and Tim Leiweke was working for basketball’s Denver Nuggets. A lot has changed in 16 years. Bieber grew up, Lewinsky met Clinton and O.J. was O.J., and I’m not sure which of the three is the most frightening. Meanwhile, the Rams and Raiders made Super Bowl appearances in Oakland and St. Louis, respectively, and Leiweke became the unelected emperor of Los Angeles. In the period that is, depending on how you see Football, page 11
The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles
photo by Gary Leonard
In pushing football in Los Angeles, AEG President and CEO Tim Leiweke is following failed efforts by figures including Peter O’Malley, Mike Ovitz, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle.