Behind Blue Lies
Do You Recall?
Hotels That Should Be Housing Right Now
L____ A____
Devon Tours His Mom Around L.A. pt. II
200
On June 22, this local FOXLA mouthbreather tweeted out that an off-duty LAPD officer received a tampon in his drink from Starbucks after presenting a police union debit card as payment. It was quickly revealed that the item in question was not a tampon, and that there was no misconduct.
Bill Melugin
200
This supersonic plane made its last commercial flight on October 24th.
Concorde
200
There are approximately 1001 rooms in this 54-story LA Live hotel located in CD14, which could be 100% FEMA reimbursable housing in no time if the LA City Council or Eric Garcetti acted with any sort of urgency.
J.W. Marriott/The Ritz-Carlton
200
He won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times from 1999-2005.
Lance Armstrong
200
"So the Dodgers actually played here for three full seasons while the city and team basically evicted all the people who lived where Dodger Stadium and its parking lot are now."
L.A. Coliseum
400
After she was arrested by deputies while covering a protest, LASD declared that this local reporter "did not identify herself as press and later admitted she did not have proper press credentials on her person." After she released several videos clearly showing her credentials and featuring her yelling out "I'm a reporter...I'm with KPCC" the charges were dropped.
Josie Huang
400
The second biggest election of 2003 happened on May 21, where this person beat future Congressional Candidate Clay Aiken in the 2nd season finale of American Idol.
Ruben Studdard
400
The first Academy Awards Ceremony was held in 1929 at this historic hotel, where there are 300 rooms that could easily be used as 100% federally reimbursable housing.
Hollywood Roosevelt
400
A breed of dog originating in Tibet.
Lhasa Apso
400
"This opened originally way back in the 1910s as a huge grocery store that catered to the working class people who lived in Bunker Hill, but it's really taken a MAJOR turn towards gentrification in the past decade or so, which is a huge bummer. There's still some cool hidden gems though, so we can definitely find something good.*"
Grand Central Market
*we ended up eating at the only place that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, a BBQ place that opened in 2013. I'M SORRY.
600
After brutalizing people peacefully protesting outside of the Mayor's house in December, the LAPD arrested activist Jamie Penn as she shielded and helped an elderly protester and charged her with "suspicion of _______"
Lynching
600
On March 12, the World Health Organization issues a global alert for this coronavirus-borne disease, after it spread from its origin in China into Hong Kong and Vietnam. It would be declared fully contained four months later in early July.
SARS
600
This 139-room hotel closed last month, citing increased leasing costs. Now I'm no money expert, but I bet we could've absolutely leased those rooms to shelter our unhoused neighbors at whatever cost would keep them open and FEMA would have covered 100% of it. But again, not a money guy.
The Standard
600
A statement made to recognize and uplift the Indigenous groups to which territories rightfully belong, as well as the dark history of genocides and forced removals that have brought you to reside on such territory.
Land Acknowledgement
600
"Yeah, so like tens of thousands of years ago animals used to get stuck in here and die, and so when they started excavating in the early 20th century, they found all these different fossils of mammoths and saber-toothed cats etc. They even found a woman and her dog from like 10,000BC apparently. ...Yeah that is pretty sad about the dog, I guess."
The La Brea Tar Pits
800
The City of LA paid out an estimated $125M in settlements after a late '90s scandal, which uncovered massive corruption and misconduct in the anti-gang unit of this LAPD division.
Rampart scandal
800
On May 1, George W. Bush infamously announced an end to major combat operations in Iraq on the deck of this presidentially-named aircraft carrier.
USS Abraham Lincoln
800
Beloved Mayor eric garcetti co-owns part of this small hotel south of Venice, which has 21 rooms that could easily be filled and paid for with 100% reimbursable federal funds.
The Inn at Playa Del Rey
800
A college or education that traditionally covers natural science, social science, arts, and the humanities
Liberal Arts
800
"So THIS GUY, who this whole USC library is named for, was a huge oil tycoon in the 1900s, and his mansion a few blocks north of here is now the campus of Mount St. Mary's. There Will Be Blood was kind of based on him. Yeah, the movie.....Um...Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano... ...No, you're thinking of No Country for Old Men. There's like that scene at the bowling alley at the end? ...No, now you're thinking of The Big Lebowski. Paul Dano plays a really weird little whiny guy? ...Okay, sorry yeah that one is too vague. But yeah, that movie is about this guy."
Edward L. Doheny
1000
After three LAPD officers were charged with falsely labeling people as gang members, and over 20 more officers remain under investigation, the CA Justice Dept. revoked access to LAPD's entries in the state gang database, otherwise known as this.
CalGang
1000
The election results were officially certified on November 14, exactly one week after BOTH of these two now-classic holiday films were released.
Elf, Love Actually
1000
The cover of The Eagles' classic album Hotel California features a sunset view of this famous hotel, which I'm sure has a lot of history embedded in its 200+ rooms (that could be easily utilized to shelter vulnerable Angelenos at ultimately NO cost to Los Angeles whatsoever).
The Beverly Hills Hotel
1000
This Grammy-winning country group changed their name in June 2020 due to the prior name's connotations to slavery, but in doing so, appropriated the name of the blues/gospel singer who had been using the name for over two decades.
Lady A / Lady Antebellum
1000
When I visited LA for the first time in 2001, the theatre behind these famous handprints went by this name.
Mann's Chinese Theater