Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
The Hollywood Boulevard revolution
Few streets in Los Angeles have a more tortured history with the automobile than Hollywood Boulevard.
Its development in the 1920s coincided with the boom in vehicle sales that would eventually make L.A. the car capital of the world. Hollywood quickly became flooded with cars, creating traffic gridlock and an acute lack of parking that left the business district struggling practically from Day One.
And traffic got only worse with time. The adage that has become a two-word L.A. survival guide, “Take Fountain!” (attributed to many people including Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Davis), underscores how the grand boulevard is about the worst way to get across Hollywood.
That’s what makes the transformation now underway so remarkable. L.A. officials are rethinking of Hollywood Boulevard wholesale. Traffic and parking lanes are giving way to bike routes that will eventually connect Los Feliz to West Hollywood. Bus lanes and wider sidewalks are also coming, with less real estate for cars.
It is L.A.’s most ambitious — and controversial — “road diet,” as well as a serious effort to make life easier and safer for cyclists.
More than a decade ago, the city Weight-Watchered Spring Street in downtown L.A., complete with special traffic lights for bicyclists. I shook my head when I looked down at the green-painted bike lanes from my desk in the old Los Angeles Times newsroom. It’s just going to make gridlock worse! Look, there are barely any cyclists using it! What a waste of taxpayer money!
The Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, with bus and bike lanes in the street. (L.A. City Council District 13)
How an L.A. bike lane hater found love
My tune changed during the pandemic when I bought an electric bike. My gym closed, and I vowed not to let COVID-19 push me past the 340-pound mark. The real gift of battery-powered cycling is how it helped me experience a world I’d missed for so long because of my weight. The beach. CicLAvia. Cruising up river bike trails. Circling the Rose Bowl, Santa Fe Dam and UC Irvine. All places that felt off-limits for so long.
I’m not sure I burn that many calories, but I’m racking up personal vindications left and right.
Last month, I went to New York for a few days. Typically, the journey would be filled with anxiety. Subway steps. Crowded sidewalks. A culture of walking. My first trip to the Big Apple was in 2011 after The Times won the Pulitzer for our investigation into corruption in the city of Bell. My mobility crisis was so intense that I rented a Chrysler 300 from a Midtown Hertz dealer each morning, slyly sharing my New York adventures on Instagram as if I was a master straphanger hustling across Manhattan.
This time, I let those electric Citi Bikes do the work. One morning I ventured into Central Park for the very first time. It always felt so intimidating for someone who struggled to walk even moderate distances. But on two wheels, I managed to make two full loops around the park and fell in love.
The next day, I hit the bike trail along the Hudson River, zooming down from Columbia University to Battery Park. After a late lunch with friends, the sun was setting and I faced a predicament. I could not figure out how to get back to Upper Manhattan by subway. Uber would cost $60 and take more than an hour. So I rented another e-bike and made the trek north through the very center of Manhattan, through Greenwich Village into the heart of Midtown, past Penn Station, the Empire State Building, Times Square and around Columbus Circle. In the dark. It was the riskiest act of physical activity I’d ever attempted, and it left me with a thrilling “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” high.
A few weeks later, I was in Washington, D.C., during a cold snap. My iPhone said “28 degrees but feels like 5 degrees.” Friends warned I’d die of pneumonia if I tried to repeat my e-bike adventure. But I had something to prove. This lifelong Californian got some gloves and earmuffs, layered myself four times over and headed to the National Mall for the first time ever.
The Walk of Fame in Hollywood (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Maybe ‘take Franklin’ isn’t the answer
So it should be no surprise that my views of bike lanes have changed a lot. If they ever build that Hollywood Boulevard bikeway, I’ll use it without worrying how much it’s delaying cars or trucks. I actually got a preview in August when CicLAvia closed down the boulevard for a day.
There is something magical about biking down a route you’ve driven hundreds of times before. It feels both slower and fast at the same time. You observe the cityscape at an optimal speed, less obsessed with traffic and annoying fellow drivers.
As I passed the Chinese Theatre, I wanted to send Bette Davis (or Elizabeth Taylor) a message: You were wrong about Fountain!
A man tidies up the area in San Diego in June that provides a tent and supplies for people crossing the southern border. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Today’s top stories
San Diego politicians want to block Trump’s promised deportations. The sheriff refuses, sparking an immigration battle
A comeback for California manufacturing? Trump 2.0 raises hopes — and some worries
- President-elect Donald Trump has vowed that his return to the White House will bring about a resurgence of blue-collar work across the country.
- The Golden State is still home to 1.3 million factory workers — the most in the nation — who make seemingly everything, from computer chips to tortillas.
More than 100 women victimized at a California prison will get a record $116-million settlement
- The women said they were sexually abused by employees at a now-shuttered federal prison in Dublin that was dubbed the “rape club.”
- The developments are the latest twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the facility. Since an FBI investigation was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight prison employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates.
Hannah Kobayashi spoke out for the first time since returning to the U.S. from Mexico
- Kobayashi, the Hawaii woman whose disappearance at LAX prompted a weeks-long search, said she didn’t learn of the media coverage around her family reporting her missing until she returned.
- Kobayashi’s disappearance was the second case in which a woman was reported missing by their families to the LAPD and their statements conflicted with the official police narrative.
What else is going on
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- Bird flu is coming for humans. We can either get ready or court disaster, writes Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and an infectious-disease specialist at UC San Francisco.
- The U.S. economy is doing very well. But don’t give too much credit to Biden — or Trump, columnist Jonah Goldberg writes.
- More evidence emerges that RFK Jr. would be a disastrous health secretary, columnist Robin Abcarian writes.
- Let’s stop killing animals in shelters and get more of them adopted out, the Editorial Board writes.
This morning’s must reads
(Photo illustration by Jim Cooke/Los Angeles Times; photograph via Getty Images)
California vowed to shut down kennels where hundreds of captive dogs supply blood for veterinary care. But blood from these “closed colonies” is still crucial for saving lives.
“I don’t want to see captive dogs,” said a clinical director of a blood bank in the state. “However, it’s a necessary evil at this point.”
Other must reads
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
For your downtime
The Timeleft app matches users with strangers for dinner via a personality algorithm. (Etienne Laurent/For the Times)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: Do you have a tradition of making tamales with family and friends? Or where do you get your tamales?
Share your tamale tips, memories or recommendations with us (along with your name) at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Your stories could be included in an upcoming edition of the newsletter.
And finally ... your great photo of the day
A view of the Lost Coast in Northern California, a popular destination for hiking and camping. (Mary Gill)
Today’s great photo is from Mary Gill of Fort Bragg: the natural beauty of the Lost Coast in Northern California.
Mary writes: “It’s special because we are so fortunate to still have wild lands and coastal areas that can only be accessed by jeep roads and rigorous hiking trails, lands that were so rugged the developers gave up.”
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