Preservation Update: Westwood's Crest Theatre Sold; Pasadena Freeway Threatened

(Flickr pic by avilon_music.)

:: L.A. Observed reports that Westwood's Majestic Crest has been sold, and that the upcoming screening of the Julia Roberts movie "Eat, Play, Love" will be its last. Owner Robert Bucksbaum is vague about the future of the theater, however. From an email sent out by Bucksbaum:

I'll provide more details about the sale in the next few weeks but I think it will be a positive experience for our patrons and the Westwood community.

:: The New York Times writes about concerns that Caltrans' rehabilitation project on the recently renamed Arroyo Seco Parkway (formerly the Pasadena Freeway) has damaged the drive's historic features:

Paul Daniel Marriott, author of “Preserving the Historic Highway,” a guide to melding safety improvements with historical accuracy for parkways and highways, said in an interview recently that a $17 million maintenance and rehabilitation project now under way on the Pasadena Freeway, or State Route 110 in California, was endangering original elements of the road, which opened in 1940 (as the Arroyo Seco Parkway) and is the oldest part of what became the Los Angeles freeway system.

Caltrans, the state transportation department, has nominated the highway for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. But now, Mr. Marriott said, Caltrans is adding concrete Jersey barriers and chain-link fences to the narrow highway and destroying its historical character.

According to the paper, "Caltrans says the new barriers are necessary to insure safety and to reduce maintenance costs."