The Newsroom
Nell Prosser
Local News Reporter · With the Times since 2021
Nell Prosser covers the neighborhood beat: streets, schools, small businesses, and whatever the coyotes are up to this week. She joined the Times in 2021 and files most of her stories from the walk between interviews.
Recent work
- Seven Weeks After the Heat Wave, the Refrigeration Backlog Clears, and Duane Cobb Hires His First Apprentice in Nine Years
Fifty-eight July casualties, one rebuilt diner compressor, thirty-one new maintenance contracts and a one-day spike to 97 that did no damage anyone has reported. The neighborhood's walk-ins have been cold since Labor Day. Their owners are not relaxed.
September 15, 2026
- Henrietta Palfrey, 96, Who Taught Piano in the Same Front Room for Sixty-Five Years
She kept an index card on every student — about 1,400 of them — and a rule she repeated for six decades: play the wrong notes loud. A session pianist, a dentist and three generations of one family were among those who learned it.
September 13, 2026
- The Streetlight Electrician's Notebooks Go to the City, and One Lantern Near Yucca Gets Its Gasket
Aurelio Renteria spent thirty-eight years keeping a private census of Hollywood's ornamental lamps. His daughter delivered seven notebooks and fourteen albums to the Bureau of Street Lighting last week. The bureau has already used them once.
September 11, 2026
- After 46 Years, the Hardware Store Off Santa Monica Boulevard Is Sold to the Woman Who Already Runs It
Walt Dorsey opened in 1980 and hired Marisela Ybarra as a Saturday cashier in 2004. She bought the business last week, on a ten-year note, with the key machine and the bin of odd screws included.
September 3, 2026
- With the Hills Dry as Paper, the Fire Department's Second Look Finds Most Yards Ready and a Few Still Not
A July that cured the grass a month early sent brush inspectors back through Beachwood, Outpost and the canyons in late August. Nine in ten parcels passed. The rest belong mostly to people who are not there.
September 2, 2026
- One Month In, the Bakers Who Bought Their Bakery Make the First Payment and Keep the First Argument
The cooperative's August: revenue flat, which counts as a win; the 4 a.m. wholesale route still scheduled for an October vote; and a retired owner who has been caught fixing the proofer he no longer owns.
August 26, 2026
- Opal Kilgore, 94, Who Ran a Movie Palace's Candy Counter for Fifty-One Years and Kept Its Second Ledger
She sold popcorn to three generations of the same families, memorized a thousand standing orders, and maintained a private accounting of children who could not pay, which balanced to zero every night by her own method.
August 24, 2026
- Vernon Teague, the Missing Man an Online Audience Called 'the Night Mayor,' Is Found Safe Before Dawn
Four weeks after he walked away from a Franklin Avenue care home, the 68-year-old was recognized at an all-night coffee shop counter by a server who did exactly what his family had asked: nothing, except a phone call. He is now in hospital care and back on his medication.
August 23, 2026
- The Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Were Enormous, and the Boulevard Exhales
The late, compressed season arrived exactly where the shopkeepers said it would — all at once, on the weekend. The shoe store had its best Saturday since 2019, the uniform rack kept pace, and the happiest shelf off Highland is an empty one.
August 16, 2026
- Family Seeks Help Finding Man, 68, Missing From Hollywood Care Home for Three Weeks
Vernon Teague left a Franklin Avenue residential care facility on July 26, two days after moving in. He has schizophrenia, is without his medication, and is considered at risk. Police and family are asking the public to report sightings.
August 16, 2026
- One Bag Per Child Present
Seventeen Augusts after it began as a card table with 40 backpacks, the Franklin Avenue drive sent nearly all of its 1,200 bags out the basement door in a single Saturday. The scissors were solved, the calculators arrived with a day to spare, and the pencils, as ever, were not the problem.
August 15, 2026
- Hollywood Answers the Scissors Question, Emphatically
A week after this newspaper printed the words "blunt-tip scissors," the church basement on Franklin has more than two thousand pairs, some of them left-handed. What the drive still needs is duller: money, and two evenings of hands.
August 10, 2026
- The Heat Wave Is Over. The Compressor Is Just Finding Out.
Three weeks after the July heat broke, Hollywood's refrigeration men are booked into September, the parts counter is still on allocation, and the machines that survived the wave are failing on a schedule of their own.
August 8, 2026
- Back-to-School Buying Starts Late This Year, and the Boulevard Can Feel It
Two weeks out from the first bell, the shops that live on August say the traffic is there and the baskets are lighter. The resale racks are the exception, and they are having their best summer in years.
August 7, 2026
- On Concert Nights, the Bowl's Overflow Climbs the Side Streets
Summer at the Hollywood Bowl means 17,000 people arriving in a canyon with one road in. The residents up the hill have spent forty years negotiating over the last mile of it.
August 6, 2026
- Twelve Hundred Backpacks, and Two Weeks to Fill Them
A supply drive run out of a Franklin Avenue church basement has become the largest in the neighborhood almost by accident. Its organizers can tell you the exact item that always runs short.
August 4, 2026
- A Melrose Bakery Sells Itself to the People Who Bake in It
After two years of trying to find a buyer who would keep the ovens on, the owners sold the business to their own eleven employees. The financing took longer than the decision.
August 3, 2026
- Ofelia Vasquez-Trigg, 86, Who Ran the Copper Kettle's Griddle for Forty-One Years
She never worked a station but that one, never wrote an order down, and taught three generations of the diner's cooks a system that exists nowhere on paper.
August 3, 2026
- Two Outages in Nine Days, and a Franklin Avenue Block Starts Comparing Notes
The heat wave took the power out twice on the same three-block stretch. The utility calls it a distribution issue. The residents have begun keeping their own record, in a group text with 41 people in it.
July 31, 2026
- Brush Inspectors Work the Hillside Streets Before the Season Turns
Two-person crews are walking the canyon lots above Franklin this month with a tape measure and a clipboard. What they keep finding is not brush — it is the stuff people store where the brush used to be.
July 27, 2026
- The Boulevard's Last Newsstand Learns That It Is Now a Sidewalk Vendor
Marisol Quintero has held her corner for twenty-two years under a permit for a class of business the city has just rewritten out of existence. The new rules are cheaper. They also come with a cart rule she cannot meet.
July 25, 2026
- Marvin Teale, 88, Who Coached Hollywood High Football Through Twenty-Six Seasons and One Long Drought
He won the crosstown trophy nine times, lost it eleven, and spent forty years insisting the schools had the story of where it came from exactly backwards.
July 25, 2026
- When the Thermometer Reads 104, Hollywood's Coolest Rooms Are the Ones It Owns Together
Four days into the heat wave, the library's reopened reading room, two recreation centers and a senior center are running as cooling centers. Not everyone inside is there only for the air.
July 22, 2026
- The Week the Heat Broke the Ice Supply, and Every Kitchen on Vine Started Making Runs
Restaurants can plan for a hot week. What they cannot plan for is the third thing that fails — and this time it was the one commodity nobody has a backup for.
July 21, 2026
- Thai Town's Summer Festival Returns to the Boulevard's East End
Four blocks of Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Normandie closed for two days of grilled skewers, dance and a crowd organizers put north of twenty thousand.
July 19, 2026
- Walk of Fame Repaving Hits Its Third Delay, and Merchants Are Losing Patience
A block-by-block terrazzo restoration that was to finish by spring is now promised "by the holidays," while shopkeepers count the cost of fenced-off sidewalks.
July 19, 2026
- Cahuenga Night Market Wins a Reprieve Through October
A weekend pilot that began in April will run through October 31 after organizers capped the volume and neighborhood complaints fell.
July 18, 2026
- Sixty Years On, a Sunset Guitar Shop Is Really a Repair Bench With a Store Attached
Grubb & Sons has sold guitars near Sunset and Gardner since 1966, but the line that forms each afternoon is for the workbench in back, not the wall out front.
July 17, 2026
- The Boulevard's Last Newsstand Sells Papers, Postcards and a Little Advice
Every other sidewalk newsstand on Hollywood Boulevard is gone. The one that remains stays open on lottery tickets, cold water and a regular clientele who come as much to talk.
July 16, 2026
- Hollywood High Opens Summer League on a Diamond Rebuilt From the Dirt Up
The Sheiks begin their season on an infield that six weeks ago drained like a parking lot, regraded over the spring by a coach, a grounds crew and a lot of volunteer shovels.
July 14, 2026
- At 35, the Hollywood Farmers' Market Is Run by the Children Who Grew Up in Its Aisles
A neighborhood experiment that began with a dozen stalls and a lot of empty asphalt now spans seventy vendors, several of them run by the second generation raised behind the tables.
July 12, 2026
- The Copper Kettle Turns 95, and It Still Won't Laminate the Menu
Ninety-five years on the same Franklin Avenue corner, the diner keeps its menu on paper, its coffee bottomless, and its opinions about both.
July 9, 2026
- Hollywood Library's 1920s Reading Room Opens Again, Card Catalog and All
The Hollywood branch reopens its high-windowed 1920s reading room after a 19-month seismic retrofit, keeping the old card catalog in place as furniture.
July 8, 2026
- A 1962 Tiki Bar Reopens, With the Founder's Grandson Behind the Bamboo
Shuttered for six years, a Hollywood tiki lounge is pouring again under the grandson of the man who built it, who kept the carvings and threw out the fog machine.
July 5, 2026
- The Coyote in the Road: Beachwood Canyon Learns to Share the Hill
Sightings are up sharply this year in the canyon below the Hollywood Sign, and residents have settled into an uneasy coexistence of umbrellas, indoor cats and grudging respect.
July 5, 2026
- Perla Quintero, 79, Whose Flowers Stood Behind Fifty Years of Premieres
From a family shop off the Boulevard, she built the arrangements that framed opening nights and funerals alike, and she could tell you which was which by the order.
July 2, 2026
- Behind the Stucco on Whitley, a Wall Full of Oranges
A renovation crew stripping stucco from a Whitley Avenue storefront found an eight-foot painted citrus-crate label dated 1936, and the building's owner must now decide its fate.
June 30, 2026
- Dorothy Bramble, Who Crossed Three Generations of Children on Franklin Avenue, Dies at 89
For forty-one years she worked one school corner with a whistle, a stop-sign paddle and every child's name, until the neighborhood could not picture the curb without her.
June 28, 2026
- The Hillside Stairways Get a Repair Budget, and the People Who Count the Steps
The city set aside money to fix a handful of the public stairways threading the Hollywood hills, and the walkers who log every step have opinions about which come first.
June 27, 2026
- The Tailor Who Dresses Award Season and Quinceañeras, Often the Same Week
A third-generation shop off Western Avenue takes in a rented tuxedo and a fifteenth-birthday gown with the same pins and the same deadline, and treats neither as more important.
June 22, 2026
- Dark for Forty Years, the HAROLD'S Sign Burns Again Over Cahuenga
A men's clothier closed in 1985, but the family kept the original transformer wrapped in a moving blanket — the one part no restorer could replace.
June 21, 2026
- A Hollywood High Sprinter Signs On With a State College, Timed to the Hundredth
The Sheiks' fastest runner in a generation has committed to a state university, a decision her coach measured the way he measures everything, in tenths of a second.
June 20, 2026
- On the West Edge, a Row of Vintage Shops Where the Costume Designers Come First
A cluster of resale and vintage-clothing stores has taken hold near the neighborhood's western boundary, and the film-industry buyers who arrive at opening keep the racks turning.
June 19, 2026
- The City Counted Hollywood's Street Trees. The Ficus Is the Problem.
A new street-tree inventory finds the fast-growing ficus is the corridor's most common tree and its most frequent cause of buckled sidewalks.
June 17, 2026
- After 38 Years on the Same Beachwood Route, the Mailman Hangs Up the Satchel
Gil Ferreira delivered to the same climb of streets above Franklin Avenue for nearly four decades. The route knew him, and he knew the route down to its dogs.
June 13, 2026
- The Film Bookshop That Outlived the Chains Is Expanding Next Door
Larkin & Sons has sold books about movies from the same narrow Vine Street storefront since 1971; this summer it is finally taking the vacancy beside it.
June 11, 2026
- Vera Lindqvist, 85, Who Taught Three Generations to Dance Above a Boulevard Storefront
From a walk-up studio with a sprung floor and a wall of mirrors, she taught the children of her first students, and then their children, for six decades.
June 10, 2026
- Skate Park Opens Under the 101 After Eleven Years of Promises
The long-delayed plaza of ledges, banks and a shallow bowl opened Saturday, and the first drop-in went to a man who had waited for it since before his son was born.
June 7, 2026
- Roz Vardanian, Who Fitted Costumes for Six Decades of Pictures, Dies at 87
A studio seamstress who built hero garments in matching copies and aged new cloth to look worn, she knew everyone's measurements and kept every secret.
June 5, 2026
- The Line Outside a Thai Town Roastery Has Become a Neighborhood in Itself
By seven on a Saturday the queue is already forty people long, folding back down a block that had no reason for a line five years ago. The owners roast their own coffee, run out of cardamom buns by ten, and did not plan on any of it.
June 3, 2026
- Ten Years In, a Storefront Theater Company Counts Its Seats and Its Odds
A fifty-seat company off the Boulevard reaches its tenth season proud of the work and unsure of the lease, in a year when nobody in the business has money to spare.
May 30, 2026
- The Wait for a Garden Plot on Fountain Avenue Is Now Nine Years
With 48 plots and more than 200 names on the list, the Fountain Avenue garden's wait has stretched to about nine years.
May 28, 2026
- A Hollywood Coffee Roaster Bets on a Second Cafe, in a Shop That Used to Sell Film
After eight years wholesaling beans and running one small counter, a local roaster is opening a second cafe in a former camera store — a modest expansion its owner has done the arithmetic on twice.
May 27, 2026
- A Green Winter Filled the Hills, and Now the Trails Are Paying for It
Spring rains left the slopes above Hollywood lush and crowded, and the volunteers who maintain the fire roads say the boots are arriving faster than the trails can heal.
April 20, 2026
- Kostas Andreou, Whose Boulevard Newsstand Sold the World's Papers for Half a Century, Dies at 89
The kiosk was the size of a closet and stocked, at its peak, more than four hundred titles, and he knew where every one of them sat without looking.
April 14, 2026
- A Shuttered Hollywood Flower Shop Reopens, Betting on a Busy Spring
New owners have revived a neighborhood florist that went dark last year, timing the relaunch to the run of proms, weddings and Mother's Day that makes or breaks the trade.
April 9, 2026
- A Spring Planting Drive Tries to Refill Hollywood's Thinning Street Canopy
Volunteers and city crews are putting hundreds of young trees into bare parkways this season, picking species valued less for speed than for their willingness to share the sidewalk.
April 5, 2026
- After a Near-Miss, Parents Press the City for a Safer School Crossing
A petition from families near a Hollywood elementary asks for speed humps and a marked crossing on a street where drivers treat the morning rush as a shortcut.
April 3, 2026
- Little Free Libraries Are Multiplying on Hollywood's Side Streets
The small book boxes have appeared on parkways and porches across the neighborhood, tended by residents who treat a wobbly shelf of paperbacks as a low-stakes act of trust.
March 9, 2026
- A Hollywood Bike Shop Rides a Busy Spring, One Eye on the Promised Lanes
Repair racks are full and first-time buyers keep arriving, but the shop's owner has learned not to count on street improvements until the paint has dried.
March 4, 2026
- For Small Caterers, Awards Season Is the Rent That Carries the Year
Watch parties, after-parties and industry dinners hand the neighborhood's independent kitchens six frantic weeks of work, a bright stretch against a production year that has been anything but.
February 24, 2026
- The Boulevard Lights Up for the Holidays, Fencing and All
With the Christmas parade past and the decorations up, Hollywood Boulevard settles into its brightest weeks of the year, worked around the construction that will not quite go away.
December 4, 2025
- At the Firehouse, the Annual Pile of Toys Starts to Grow
A Hollywood fire station's holiday toy and coat drive is underway again, a decades-old collection that leans, this year, on a neighborhood with less to spare.
November 24, 2025
- On the Boulevard, Small Shops Load Up for a Holiday Season They Can't Predict
Independent retailers are betting on gift trade and awards-season visitors to rescue a soft year, even as they order less and watch the weather.
November 20, 2025
- At a Side-Street Bar, the Industry Regulars Have Thinned Out
A small Hollywood tavern that leaned for years on crews and editors between jobs is finding the between-jobs stretch has grown longer, and quieter.
November 6, 2025
- Estela Villalobos, Who Baked Hollywood's Bread Before Dawn for Four Decades, Dies at 82
Her workday began at eleven at night and ended as everyone else's was starting. The loaves at a dozen counters were hers, and most of the people who ate them never knew her name.
October 22, 2025
- Young and Thin at the Line, Hollywood High Football Bets on a Long Season
The Sheiks return only a handful of starters and are learning a new offense on the fly, but their coach says the roster is bigger than it has been in years.
September 19, 2025
- A Wave of Mail Theft Puts a Hollywood Neighborhood on Edge
Checks fished from a corner collection box, chemically altered and cashed for the wrong amounts, have residents below the hills driving to the post office rather than trusting the blue box on their own street.
September 17, 2025
- As School Returns, Parents Press for a Crosswalk at a Blind Corner
A neighborhood group says the corner where children reach a Hollywood elementary has gone years without a marked crossing. With classes back in session, they want it fixed before a close call becomes something worse.
September 4, 2025
- Souped-Up E-Bikes Turned the Boulevard Into a Racetrack, and a Neighborhood Argument
The teenagers call it the cheapest sport in town. Residents call the nightly packs of modified electric bikes a menace. Enforcement is stuck between them.
August 23, 2025
- A Weeklong Heat Wave Empties the Sidewalks, and the Boulevard Chases Shade
With temperatures pushing past 100, the businesses that live on foot traffic are improvising — misting fans, later hours, and the fruit vendors who follow the shade around the block.
August 8, 2025
- A Softer Summer on the Boulevard, With Fencing to Blame or Thank
Souvenir sellers and tour operators say the crowds came this summer but spent a little less and lingered a little shorter, with the repaving fencing steering foot traffic and taking some of the shine off the walk.
July 30, 2025
- Marvin Sokol, Who Bent the Glass That Lit the Boulevard, Dies at 89
For six decades he shaped and repaired the neon tubing behind Hollywood's marquees and shop signs, a trade of burned fingers and held breath that has nearly vanished.
July 15, 2025
- With the Reading Room Closed, a Folding Table Keeps the Library Open
The branch's main reading room has been dark since winter for a seismic retrofit. A pared-down curbside service is holding the regulars together until the doors reopen.
July 9, 2025
- After Decades at the Griddle, a Family Luncheonette Passes to the Next Cook
The couple who ran a memorabilia-covered counter for thirty-one years are stepping back, handing the grill to their daughter with the menu unchanged and the landlord, for now, holding steady.
June 24, 2025
- Repaving Crews Clear Their First Block and Move West Along the Boulevard
The panel-by-panel replacement of the cracked Walk of Fame has finished one stretch near Highland and shifted toward La Brea. Merchants on the next block are counting the weeks until the plywood reaches their doors.
June 18, 2025
- The Walk of Fame Gets Its First New Panel, a Ribbon and a Marching Band
The city launched a long-promised repaving of the cracked terrazzo on Tuesday, pledging to finish within the year. Merchants who have watched the sidewalk crumble for a decade will believe it when they see it.
May 13, 2025
- Effort to Revive the Runyon Canyon 10K Stalls Again, and the Hill Stays Quiet
Organizers hoped to bring the dormant race back to the fire road this spring. Permitting and park-use concerns pushed it off once more, leaving the climb to the hikers for another year.
April 25, 2025
- A Wet Winter Greens the Hills, and Trailhead Neighbors Brace for the Crowds
Months of rain have left the slopes above Hollywood the greenest they have looked in years. The people who live at the bottom of the trails are readying for the weekend cars.
April 8, 2025
- A Nineteen-Year-Old From an East Hollywood Gym Fights Her Way Toward the Regionals
She came to the gym two years ago to lose weight and stayed to box. Now her coach thinks she has a real shot at the regional amateur tournament, if she can keep her temper in the ring.
April 3, 2025
- Lorraine Sisk, Who Led a Hollywood Community Chorus for Forty Years, Dies at 89
She built a volunteer choir in 1979 out of whoever showed up — retired teachers, a mail carrier, out-of-work actors, teenagers sent by their parents — and almost never turned anyone away.
March 6, 2025
- A Third-Generation Shoe Repairman Keeps the Lights On as the Repairs Grow Rare
The shop has resoled Hollywood's shoes since the 1950s. The grandson who runs it now says the trade survives on the customers who still believe a good shoe is worth saving.
February 25, 2025
- A Landmark Ficus Comes Down on Carlton Way, and the Block Feels the Gap
The old fig had shaded the street for the better part of a century before its roots heaved the sidewalk into ridges and cracked the curb. The city says a sapling will replace it, in a season, someday.
February 25, 2025
- With the Reading Room Still Closed, a Storefront Keeps the Regulars Reading
A year into the library's seismic retrofit, volunteers have set up a small pop-up lending shelf in a borrowed shopfront, an improvised stand-in for the tables the neighborhood lost.
February 11, 2025
- Parents Press the City for a Crosswalk Outside an East Hollywood School
After a winter of near-misses at an unmarked corner, families near a neighborhood elementary school have gathered signatures for a painted crossing and a guard the city has not funded.
January 23, 2025
- A New Wage Floor for Tourism Workers Arrives, and Boulevard Kitchens Do the Sums
A higher minimum wage for hotel and tourism workers took effect with the new year. The restaurants that live off the same visitors say they support the raise and are quietly raising prices to meet it.
January 9, 2025
- Hollywood Library Closes Its 1920s Reading Room for a Long Retrofit
The high-windowed reading room on Ivar Avenue went dark this week for a seismic retrofit expected to run into 2026. Regulars who treat it as a second home are being sent to fold-out tables down the hall.
December 11, 2024
- One Licensed Kitchen, Rented by the Hour, Feeds a Dozen Small Food Businesses
A shared commissary off the Boulevard gives caterers, bakers and market vendors a legal place to cook, and a foothold most of them could not afford alone.
December 7, 2024
- After a Slow Year, a Franklin Avenue Restaurant Is Counting on December
Fewer studio lunches and a thinner weekday crowd have made 2024 a lean one for a family-run kitchen. The owners are betting the holiday season, and its parties, will close the gap.
November 23, 2024
- Hollywood High Loses a Homecoming Game It Nearly Stole
The young Sheiks fell to a stronger visiting team on Friday, but a fourth-quarter push in front of the alumni crowd left their coach talking more about November than the scoreboard.
October 5, 2024
- Adele Marchetti, Script Supervisor Whose Eye Caught What the Camera Missed, Dies at 90
For sixty years she sat at the elbow of the camera, holding a film's thousand small continuities in her head so the finished picture would not come apart at the seams.
October 1, 2024
- Under the Friday Lights, Hollywood High Opens Its Season With a Comeback
A young Sheiks squad trailed at the half in its home opener before rallying in the fourth quarter, giving a small but loud crowd something to stand up for.
September 13, 2024
- After Nine Months Behind Plywood, the Rec Center Gym Reopens
A renovation billed as a four-month refresh at the Hollywood Recreation Center ran to nine, but the gym, clubroom and courts are back in time for the last weeks of summer camp.
August 22, 2024
- A Coed Softball League That Plays for Bragging Rights and the Round Afterward
On a public diamond near Los Feliz, a Tuesday-night league plays out the summer, where the standings matter a little and the bar tab matters more.
July 13, 2024
- A Sinkhole Swallows Part of Yucca Street, and a Block Settles In to Wait
A section of pavement the size of a small car dropped without warning one Tuesday morning, taking a parked sedan's front wheel with it. Engineers still cannot say how big the void beneath is.
June 4, 2024
- A Neighborhood Hardware Store Closes After 46 Years of Keys and Advice
The owners are retiring and the rent is rising, and the shelves that carried a single odd screw for every occasion are being sold down to the pegboard.
May 8, 2024
- A Hollywood Bike Shop Turns 40, Kept Alive by the Riders It Taught to Fix Their Own Flats
The small repair-and-sales shop off Sunset has outlasted three big-box competitors. Its owner credits the Thursday-night group ride it has hosted, unpaid, for most of that time.
April 18, 2024
- After a Soaking Winter, Griffith Park Trails Reopen to a Green Hillside
A run of storms closed several fire roads and footpaths above the flats for weeks. Rangers reopened the last of them this month, to a canyon greener than most regulars can remember.
March 20, 2024