Community News

Neighborhood regular sparks chats and compassion

Frank Sinatra liked Italian food and regularly downed three shots of bourbon while waiting for his table at Chasen’s. Hitchcock preferred champagne, fruit and French cuisine. Mick Jagger showed up at restaurants after a gig at the Roxy in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. So recalls Giorgio, the 56-year-old Larchmont Boulevard regular from behind his possession-piled […]

More change to Larchmont in New Year

It’s anything but business as usual on Larchmont Boulevard, where a number of storefronts are struggling with landlord and pandemic related issues. A few of the former tenants from the Lipson Building, which is now under construction — like Chevalier’s Books and Landis Stationery — have found new homes, while other longtime businesses on Larchmont […]

Los Angeles’ ‘cheerleader,’ Tom LaBonge, 67

Former City Councilman Tom LaBonge brought his love of Los Angeles and enthusiasm everywhere he went, from his regular hikes in Griffith Park, to dining at Pink’s Hot Dog stand and to city streets, where he would help city crews pick up trash. He lit up the Larchmont Chronicle offices when he walked in with […]

GWNC requires advance registration to vote by mail

Registration for the March 2021 Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council (GWNC) election has begun. Apply online at: tinyurl.com/y6tmcgzt The 2021 neighborhood council election season opened in November, with 44 local stakeholders volunteering as candidates by the end of last year. They are: Joane Henneberger Pickett, Owen Smith, Jeffry Carpenter, Zubin Davar, Brian Donahoe, Jose Tamayo, Jennifer […]

What's Entertaining

New things to come in 2021 for Scout troops and packs

Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, Boy and Cub Scouts still meet (albeit via Zoom), participate in activities together (outdoors and socially distanced), and explore new territory (though maybe closer to home). Cub Scouts Pack 16 Cubmaster Alexandra Liston of Cub Scouts Pack 16 (for grades kindergarten to 5th), which meets through St. Brendan School, said […]

Same great bite-size joy, Girl Scout cookie sale

Girl Scout cookies are always met with great delight, but especially with an ongoing pandemic, local Girl Scouts hope their cookie-sized bits of happiness will provide much needed smiles this season. “They bring people joy,” Hanna Allee of Troop 17125 said, “and they taste good, too.” The cookie kick-off began on Jan. 11, but nowhere […]

As Shakespeare says, ‘They are all — all — honorable men’

For Valentine’s Day last year (O tempora, o mores!), the inestimable Mrs. F asked me what I would like to do. Rather than dining at one of our favorite restaurants (Petit Greek, Marino, Vernetti), I took the busman’s holiday option of going to the theater. I had read the “New York” reviews for Heidi Schreck’s […]

Celebrate the Paul Williams legacy in Hancock Park and Windsor Square

The release of the new book on Paul R. Williams, Angel City Press’ newest volume in its “Master Architects of Southern California 1920-1940” series, is an exciting start to 2021’s African American history month. This new work by Bret Parsons, Marc Appleton and Stephen Gee celebrates the life and work of Los Angeles’ and perhaps […]

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Cooking and music… and ooh la la, 25 years later

“Food kind of brought us together,” says chef and financier Gene Straub of meeting his wife Janneke. To be fair, music and the City of Lights also played a role in the Larchmont Village couple’s romance. While Janneke lived in the French capital, Gene’s route to Paris was a circuitous one, starting on the East […]

Commonalities and a devious blind date lead to marriage

Kathi and Mike Genewick grew up two blocks apart in Lockport, New York, a town of 25,000 in the snow belt near Buffalo. There, as Kathi states, “Everybody knows everybody.” They attended the same schools, shared friends, and he, three years her senior, dated one of her older sisters before turning his attention to Kathi. […]

Margaret Sowma, 105, community activist

Margaret Sowma, 105, died Jan. 10 at St. John of God assisted living, after a battle with COVID-19. The longtime Windsor Square resident had been a block captain for the Windsor Square Association, an alternate director on the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council and a labor and community activist. Born in Connecticut, as a child she […]

Love bloomed in the Catskills and at Village Pizzeria

Steve and Nancy Cohen, owners of Village Pizzeria on Larchmont Boulevard, met at Queens College in New York. They had mutual interests and friends, and one weekend Nancy asked Steve for a ride upstate to her friend’s bungalow. During the summer and on weekends, Steve worked in hotels in the Catskills. Top stars and comedians […]

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Master architect Paul R. Williams left a local legacy

As we celebrate the triumphs and struggles of African American History this month, there is perhaps no local example that highlights such achievements better than the residential designs of architect Paul R. Williams. In his six-decade career, Williams worked on more than 3,000 projects that ranged from modest homes to extravagant mansions commissioned for the […]

Holocaust survivor’s book tells of fear, loss and triumph

Holocaust survivor Gabriella Karin wrote her memoir as a 90th birthday present to herself. While her story speaks to the horrors of war, it also celebrates the triumph of the human spirit. In 1944, Karin hid in a cramped apartment for nine long months. But unlike Anne Frank — the diarist in the Netherlands who […]

The highs — and lows — of Brookside’s El Rio del Jardin de las Flores

Brookside’s stream, El Rio del Jardin de las Flores, has had some highs and lows over the last few years, both in the amount of water moving through the streambed, and in the ongoing research to preserve the stream. Last September, Brookside resident Nancy Levine reached out to the Larchmont Chronicle with an update, letting […]