LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS August 2, 2010
Volume 39, Number 31
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Urban Scrawl on the X Games.
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A courthouse swap, a night out, and other happenings Around Town. Chinatown launches a nighttime series, with a little help from the CRA.
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Dick Van Dyke appears Downtown.
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INSIDE
Dogs rule!
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The Civic Park’s master builder.
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The New Cheese Wiz A South Park At Mac & Cheeza, Everything Revolves Watermarke Around a Single Dish by RichaRd Guzmán city editoR
All the latest Health news.
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The 3 on 3 b-ball tournament returns.
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Five great entertainment options.
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30 CALENDAR LISTINGS 32 MAP 33 CLASSIFIEDS
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arkin Mackey and Joshua McBride don’t make macaroni and cheese like your mother made it. Nor do they make it like Kraft, which turned the dish into a simple-to-prepare American classic in the 1930s when they put it in a box and called it Kraft Dinner. Instead Mackey, the chef, and McBride, the PR and business mind, have turned the old concept of the meal on its head. In their restaurant Mac & Cheeza, which opened in February on the ground floor of the photo by Gary Leonard Chapman Building at Larkin Mackey (on bike) and Joshua McBride at Mac Eighth and Broadway, & Cheeza. The restaurant that opened four months they reveal what the ago is dedicated to letting customers customize their humble dish is really ca- macaroni and cheese. pable of becoming. “People have done mac more like an ice cream parlor, where and cheese at restaurants before, but customers pick their flavor and add this is the first totally customizable toppings. In Mac & Cheeza’s case, mac and cheese restaurant where they start with a size (Baby Mac, you get to pick what goes in it,” said Momma Mac or Daddy Mac), then Mackey, a talkative chef who left his select the type of noodle, which can office job at a children’s hospital to be the regular or rice varieties. That pursue his love of cooking. is followed by a choice of cheese, To wit, the 400-square-foot space either Mackey’s three-cheese secret functions less like a restaurant and see Mac & Cheeza, page 10
Luxury Tower Sees Life After Beginning As a Meruelo Maddux Project by Ryan VaillancouRt staff wRiteR
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itting on the seventh floor terrace of the new Watermarke Tower, a luxury apartment building at Ninth and Flower streets that sold for $110 million this year, one can’t help but be impressed by the views. Looking south from a row of lounge chairs on the east side of the terrace, there’s a long view down Flower Street. The north side affords a mostly unobstructed view of the towers of the Financial District. From
the southern portion of the terrace, near the 100-foot infinity pool, there are site lines not only in the direction of L.A. Live, but also of the Santa Monica Mountains to the west. But the most impressive direction may be straight up. With a craned neck, squinting at the sky, one can see up the top of the 35-story, aquacolored glass monolith. It is the tallest purely residential tower in Downtown Los Angeles. Named after the company that acquired the building in April, see Watermarke, page 6
photo by Gary Leonard
Watermarke Properties director of acquisitions Peter DiLello oversaw the company’s $110 million purchase of the former Meruelo Maddux tower at Ninth and Flower streets.
The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles