Decade in review: Education struggles with budget cuts

Unprecedented budget cuts and increasing education mandates set the course for the state’s schools over the past decade, and the Beach Cities’ three school districts were no exception. Two districts saw the highly publicized resignations of superintendents, while another endured a lengthy quarrel over a school gymnasium. The school districts of Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo…

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South Bay restaurant timelines: 2010 to 2001

Following is a list of every restaurant in the Beach Cities that I can verify opened between 2001 and the end of 2010. A few types of restaurants are not included, such as chain fast food restaurants, food counters inside grocery stores, and other places whose prime purpose was not to serve food. In some…

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Decade In Review: Architecture

Modernism arrives in the South Bay In decades past, the South Bay was known more for its utter lack of architectural significance than for anything actually built here. It was a disconcerting experience for architects who came to Los Angeles to explore the cutting-edge inventiveness of places like Venice Beach and Pacific Palisades to drive…

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2001 to 2010: Restaurants have high hopes modest successes

As 2001 dawned, the hype in the South Bay dining scene was our elegant future. Restaurants such as Legacy in Redondo and Beluga in Manhattan Beach offered caviar and haute cuisine, while Soleil, Francesca’s, and XinhDoi offered items so eclectic they were adrift from ethnicity. The restaurateurs who opened these places were confident that locals and visitors would favor their high-priced establishments far into the future, and they were ready to make a bundle.

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The Year in Review: Redondo’s turning point

2010 was a year of turning points in Redondo Beach. Politically, the nine-year battle over the future of the harbor finally culminated in a ballot-box battle. Measure G, an attempt to pick up the pieces of the failed Heart of the City plan and revitalize the city’s ailing harbor area, handily prevailed at the polls…

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Recreation department to move to Artesia Boulevard

The City of Redondo Beach announced on Tuesday that lease terms had been agreed upon that will allow it to relocate its Recreation and Community Services Department to Artesia Boulevard. The agreement, finalized in the City Council’s closed session Tuesday night, is a nine year lease with two five year extensions. The city will pay…

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Animal ambassadors visit Tulita school

Officers Marco Garcia and John Carrillo spend their days conducting unruly, dangerous, and sometimes stinky missions. The city’s animal control officers track down runaway dogs, moderate barking disputes, and are sent into garages and sometimes even kitchens where raccoons, possums, and skunks have accidently found themselves cornered. They scoop up injured turtles, deal with peacock…

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Beach passings: 2010 to 2001

2010
Hermosa Beach resident Sean Kelly, 44, and Palos Verdes residents Chuck Chambers, 58, and Russell Urban, 63, died in a plane crash on Nov. 21. The three were flying back from Baja Mexico after a week of surfing, when they ran out of gas while approaching John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

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Decade in review: Art and theater

Civic Light Opera South Bay producer James Blackman was at a rare loss for words, if only briefly, after enlisting his childhood idol Carol Channing to be the guest of honor at the gala opening of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center in January, 2003. “I feel like baby in a high chair with a cake in front of me, clapping and goo-gooing. Yay, isn’t life grand! I have nothing intellectual to say about this,” finally gushed.

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Decade in review: Surfing’s long, cold winter

The local surf industry’s assimilation by the global economy, and its accompanying economic undertow; and the pressure on domestic board shapers to abandon their hand tools for milling machines to fend off foreign imports has not left South Bay surfers with warm feelings for the first decade of the new millennium.

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Decade in review: Greening of the Bay

Diving off Rocky Point is comparable “to the experience a hiker has walking inside Yosemite Valley,” Santa Monica Baykeeper executive director Tom Ford said last year, during the debate over making 18 square miles off of Rocky Point a marine preserve.

“I mean, it’s got it all: canyons, sea grass beds, kelp beds, marine mammals flying around all over the place, big fish, and big sharks,” Ford told Easy Reader reporter Mark McDermott in a September 2009 interview.

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Tron:Legacy soundtrack review

The French duo Daft Punk – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – have been playing together and recording for over a decade, but the Joseph Kosinski-directed “Tron: Legacy” is their first film score. The movie is the long-awaited follow-up to “Tron,” released in 1982. It goes without saying that the cinematic technology has advanced by leaps and bounds.

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Tron: Legacy [MOVIE REVIEW]

In 1982 Walt Disney Studios released “TRON” – a movie that used computer-generated graphics as never before – to create a glowing neon world entirely made of pixels & imagination. While it generated quite a bit of news for its technology, the film was ultimately considered by many, including Walt Disney Studios, to be a commercial and artistic flop. The studio turned its back on it.

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