California Today: Batman, a True Angeleno

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/california-today-batman-a-true-angeleno.html

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Good morning. Today’s introduction comes to us from Jennifer Medina, a national correspondent based in Los Angeles.

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Are they a public work of art? An eyesore? A statement about urban development? Or a marketing stunt? Three houses were painted bright pink last week on a residential corner near the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. The top-to-bottom paint job, which includes driveways, windows and bushes, has become an instant Instagram hit as thousands have flocked to the neighborhood for selfies (and at least a couple of commercial shoots, including one woman modeling in a bathing suit.)

But perhaps not surprisingly, some neighbors are less enthused, complaining that there was no advance warning about the paint job. The pink is only the beginning: the homes will soon be demolished to clear the way for a high-end 45-unit apartment building. Many see the new four-story complex as just the latest example of gentrification in what was recently a middle-class neighborhood in the heart of the city, where 2-bedroom 1920s Spanish bungalows can now fetch nearly $1 million.

The architecture firm designing the new building thought some kind of art project would bring attention to the site, which has sat vacant for months as it awaits approval from the city. So it hired a man who calls himself “The Most Famous Artist” and creates murals he describes as “instagramable experiences as-a-service for brand partners worldwide.” Matty Mo, as he is known to his friends, is a former tech investor whose fortunes were upturned when a video of him drunk and naked on a beach in India landed on Gawker in 2013. He’s since turned his attention to “cracking the code” of the art world: first identifying what will be a social media hit and creating art that will reach the maximum number of people.

For the pink homes, it seems to be working for him, though it has been a bit more of a headache for the architect, Matthew Rosenberg, who has spent much of the last week fielding complaints from nearby residents. Still, it hardly seems to be affecting the bottom line: Mr. Rosenberg said in an interview that there already was a waiting list for the apartments. He said he could not predict what the monthly rent would be and that four had been set aside as affordable housing units for low-income residents.

(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)

• California lawmakers passed a spending plan for the coming fiscal year Thursday, meeting the state’s budget approval deadline with a $183.2 billion package. [The Sacramento Bee]

• Here’s a look at some of the most important changes to California government services and programs in the coming 12 months. [Los Angeles Times]

• For the past two years, San Franciscans have complained about homeless tent cities sprouting outside of the central part of town — and now they have statistics to back up those complaints. [San Francisco Chronicle]

• The motive behind a UPS worker’s deadly rampage in San Francisco remained a mystery to many of his co-workers. [San Francisco Chronicle]

• The Los Angeles police chief, Charlie Beck, said that he had ordered an examination of the department’s youth mentorship program after three teenage cadets were charged with stealing at least two police cruisers. [Los Angeles Daily News]

• Facebook said that it would begin using artificial intelligence to help remove inappropriate content from extremist groups. [The New York Times]

• A woman who was raped by her Uber driver in India filed a lawsuit against the ride-hailing company and three current and former executives, after revelations that they had obtained and mishandled her medical records. [The New York Times]

• Slack, the office messaging company, is in talks to raise around $500 million at a valuation of around $5 billion. [The New York Times]

• Ed Templeton’s pictures of surfers, beaches and California streets are the focus of a new show in New York. [The New York Times]

• Deborah Borda, the chief executive who helped make the Los Angeles Philharmonic the envy of the music world, left for New York. But nobody in Los Angeles seems worried. [The New York Times]

• The L.A. Dance Project has vivid performers and fine repertory, but its choreography leaves something to be desired. [The New York Times]

As twilight fell in Los Angeles on Thursday, a crowd of fans dressed as Batman began to gather on the steps of City Hall.

The caped crusaders, and the hundreds of civilians with them, were not there to take on the Joker, or to trade punches with Two-Face. But nonetheless, they were responding — if a bit preemptively — to a bat signal shining on the tower of city hall.

The city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, and Charlie Beck, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, were on hand to “light” the ceremonial signal, which was mounted in honor of the actor Adam West, who played Batman in the 1960s television series and who died last week at the age of 88.

Batman, of course, is from Gotham, a city more often associated with grim, gritty New York than with Los Angeles. Asked before the ceremony if his town was trying to poach the Dark Knight, Mayor Garcetti made a bold claim.

“Batman may hail from Gotham, but to us, he’s a true Angeleno,” he said in an email. “The TV show starring Adam West was filmed almost entirely in and around Los Angeles — and I know I speak for generations of Angelenos when I say that growing up would not have been the same without the Caped Crusader.”

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California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.