IVAR HILL's FIRST LIVE BLOG: Jury Duty

POST JURY DUTY: Well, it wasn't that painful after all. They called lunch at around noon and had then told us we didn't need to come back after lunch and our civic duty was taken care of for another year.

11:27am - First trial has just been called. They pulled about 15 people out to be screened in the courtroom. I'm still seated at my cubicle i staked out early this morning.

10:20am - Still waiting for something interesting to happen.

9:55am - First Break (20 minutes) - it was a very trying first portion of Jury Duty today. I had to wait in a long line to get past security, then we listened to orientation.

9:51am - You can forfeit your .34/mile in gas mileage for an MTA pass. They claim this pass is worth $14.

9:45am - On your second day of jury duty the LA superior court will pay $15/day + .34 per mile for gas mileage one way. Didn't the federal government just raise the required gas mileage paid to .585/mile (link) shouldn't the court be required to pay the IRS rate for gas mileage?

9:34am - This video is about 5 minutes longer than it should be. I'm reminded of a certain Veronica Mars episode where she is a juror on a trial. She broke all the rules they are telling me about in this video.

9:24am - During orientation the video "Jury: Ideals Made Real" screen. Moderator told us to turn off our cell phones during the video because they conflict with the tv system. All tv's are hardwired.

Book signing at Borders Hollywood

Jennifer Brandt Taylor the author of Vintage L.A. will be appearing at Borders in Hollywood Wednesday, June 25th at 7pm. I looked through the book the last time I was in the store and it looked interesting, the perfect coffee table book. It is focused more on places that look vintage than are actually relics of an earlier age of Hollywood and LA. It does have mentions of some great places in the Wilshire corridor but also uses the word "Hipster" quite a bit so take your LA history with a grain of salt (or a pint of PBR).

Borders Hollywood (corner of Sunset/Vine)
Vintage L.A. on Amazon

Public Transit to Dodger Stadium

The LA Times is reporting that the city of Los Angeles will offer a transit alternative to paying $15 to park at Dodger stadium. Dodger stadium is a great place to see a ball game but options are few and far between to get there any other way than by car. The plan which would operate a Dash shuttle between Union Station and Dodger stadium with two stops on Sunset will cost approximately $70,000 with the city of Los Angeles picking up the tab with the Dodgers responsible for promotion.

I'm excited to hop on the red line and transfer to a shuttle to check out a dodgers game. It's about time we get another option to get near the parking lot surrounded dodger stadium - lets hope this program is successful and continues for years to come.

(Image via Google Maps)

uWink at Hollywood and Highland

UPDATE: LAist has the full story - uWink opens tonight! June 17th and has a "soft" opening until next weekend. Ivar Hill wasn't invited to the media night - maybe next year. They do have a full photo gallery and the place looks pretty nice.

On the train monday evening coming back from the Valley noticed two women getting on the train at the Hollywood/Highland station wearing uWink polo shirts which reminded me that the countdown for the Hollywood/Highland location is opening in a matter of weeks - Eater LA has the date at or around June 26th.

I've been to the Woodland Hills location a few times and the most interesting thing about the place is seeing what might be - it's an innovative concept and one that can grow to be great but it's not there yet. Ordering food at your table is cool but not flawless - you will likely still need some help if your screen freezes. Also, the games are cool (mostly the trivia) but last time i went still won't allow you to play against other people at your table or the restaurant. If you read about the concept at all they plan for lots of interactivity between everyone - the way it is now it seems like it's perfect for a family that doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Regardless - I'm excited for the opening and am anxious to see if they made any improvements for the new location.

Asssscat at Upright Citizens Brigade

Went to go see the Upright Citizens Brigade show last night Asssscat. I've been to a few other shows there and enjoyed them but hadn't been to this one - i had heard from others that this one was the one to go see. So we bought our tickets Saturday morning so we could be sure we would get in and stood in line for about 20 minutes outside before being let in. There was a standby list but who wants to wait around if you aren't sure you are going to get in.

The show impressed - from the Start Matt Besser and Matt Walsh (both were players on the UCB show) walked on stage and chatted with the audience for awhile and then introduced the rest of the cast. They only asked for suggestions from the audience twice and both words kicked off a monologue by guest monologist Morgan Murphy and then followed by a 30-40 minute improv jam inspired by the monologue.

The whole show was hilarious, i was laughing the whole time. At only $8 for a ticket it's cheaper than going to see a movie and you can bring your own drinks into the theater. Highly recommended.

Bonus points for being in an awesome neighborhood (Franklin Village) with lots of good food and an awesome bookstore not that far away.

Upright Citizens Brigade Theater
5919 Franklin Ave.,
Hollywood, CA
90028

Orange Line Sepulveda Development

This isn't exactly Hollywood news but it's close to a house i used to live in - it's also nice to see Metro endorsing a development that's not a 20 story tower.

Metro released their recommendation for a plan to go ahead and build on the current site of the 1,000+ spot parking lot adjacent to the Sepulveda Orange Line station. The plan is interesting and bit radical - it calls for 560 for-rent units, 30,000 Sq/ft of retail adjacent to the orange line stop and another 103 spot parking lot to be built to replace the massive underutilized lot currently there.

I think this proposal is mostly good - It seems massive for the neighborhood and i'm sure the Victory Park neighborhood is going to be up in arms about it - but the location is next to a metro line and it calls for density. I was surprised the large shell of wickes furniture is still in the drawing - last i saw they were going through a major store closing sale and i had hoped Metro had bought up that land as well so they could move the Orange Line stop to a more reasonable place closer to Sepulveda itself.

I would have liked to see a development including a bunch of row-house style town homes and a small park but this seems like an interesting plan.

The full report can be downloaded here


It's not hard to see why they want to develop this parking lot - this photo was taken mid-day on a Saturday.

Hollywood Franklin - not leasing anymore

This is a bit of old news but meant to pass it on awhile ago. The building that was the subject to my last post was all set to open mid-april to may and abruptly closed up shop and turned away anyone who wanted to lease it out.

I went for a tour and saw some interesting units - very overpriced but in the current Hollywood market i'm sure they would have been rented eventually. I went the second weekend they had an open house, saw people putting down deposits and seemed busy. Then - the pulled down the "now leasing" sign and according to a poster over on Curbed started returning deposits. (Curbed LA)

Comments seem to jump between scientologists and selling the unit off as condo's. Someone who seemed to know what was going on said it was a mishap with DWP and shoddy construction work which i wouldn't be that surprised by. In any case, the building is fully built out and no one is going in and out anymore.

New Kid on the Block: Hollywood Franklin

It looks like the building at 6400 Franklin is finally opening it's doors and looking to rent units in the somewhat near future. The building is located on Franklin between Cahuenga and Vine adjacent to the Alto Nido apartment building. They put up signage on the building a few weeks ago and the website has an interest list. They promise "exclusive rental flats"

The building has been undergoing renovations for at least the past 6 months and probably longer. Looks like they still have a ways to go when you look in from Franklin. One bedrooms and Studios available - i have it on some authority that rents for studios with be in the $1250-1300 range and one bedrooms will be in the $1650 range and occupancy is slated for early April if everything goes well with the city ... so maybe sometime in July they might be moving people in.

I got an email about an open house this weekend - Saturday from 10-5 and Sunday from 11-5. Will be interesting to see what they did with the building.