Griffith Park Ranger Horses Partake in the Sacred Rite of Ham and Eggs

In 1925, the Los Angeles Breakfast Club was founded (as simply The Breakfast Club) by a group of staunch horsemen who took their morning canters along the bridle trails of Griffith Park every Friday morning. 

When they'd had their fill of clip and clop, they'd park their horses at the Griffith Park Riding Academy and breakfast at a horseshoe-shaped table under the shade of eucalyptus trees across the street.

The Riding Academy is gone, but Griffith Park is still open for equestrian activity, for those who prefer to saddle up rather than strapping on their hiking shoes. And The Breakfast Club is still meeting weekly—now on Wednesdays—on that same parcel of land, along a stretch of the Los Angeles River now known as Riverside Drive. (Although they did move around a bit before they could return there in 1965.)

 

I've been a member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club since 2017—and for over nine years, my only equine experience with the club has been sitting on a sawhorse named Ham for my initiation.

 

That changed last Wednesday, when horses returned to the Shrine of Friendship—and those who'd gathered for an indoor breakfast moved the festivities outside to honor two horses of the City of Los Angeles Park Rangers - Mounted Unit.

Photo Essay: Bob Baker Marionettes' Choo Choo Revue Pulls Into the Station

Bob Baker Marionette Theater has been around for over 60 years—but it's been more than 40 years since it debuted an entirely new production. The last new show was Hooray LA from 1981.

 

That all changed this past weekend with the premiere of Choo Choo Revue. 

Photo Essay: Riding the D (Or, Bringing the D to Beverly Hills)

When you move from New York City to Los Angeles, everybody outside of LA says, "Oh, but you have to drive." 

That's not a bad thing to me. I often wished I had a car when I lived in three of the five boroughs. And by the time I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 2003, I'd been avoiding the subway ride home late at night for years already. At one point when I was making enough money, I took cabs to work every day. 

But living in Beverly Hills since 2011, I have felt the pinch of not even having the option to ride the subway. If I wanted to, say, ride the Expo line to an event at the Coliseum (so as to avoid traffic and high parking fees), I'd still have to drive five miles (or 20 minutes) and park my car in the Metro lot. 

Thank goodness for the bus lines, which have gotten me where I've needed to go many times when my car has been in the shop and I couldn't afford rideshare.

So even though public transit has not been part of my daily routine, I was still excited that the LA subway was finally coming to Beverly Hills, thanks to the Purple Line Extension—or what's now known as "the D." 

Photo Essay: Lloyd Wright's Legacy Lives On at the Henry O. Bollman House

The construction of the Henry O. Bollman house in Los Angeles' Sunset Square Historic District is very much a story of sons. 

Henry's father was a prominent Hollywood man, Otto Bollman, president of the Dial Film Company (perhaps best known for the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat). 

Henry forged his own path as a builder/developer—and when he was planning for his own home to be built on North Ogden Drive in the early 1920s, he commissioned it from the son of one of the most notorious architects of the time.