Family friend Eric Grebe used to work the door at Ace Hotel New York until life grabbed him and told him to go West, young man. If you’ve stayed with us, chances are you remember him. He’s the deceptively doe-eyed fellow “who looks exactly like Keanu Reeves (circa Point Break),” says Fast Company. And if you miss him, we know how you feel. But rest assured he’s okay, riding waves and working through his New York jones with collage therapy. Soon enough, we’ll open an outpost in his adopted neighborhood and he can grace us with his hangdog smile any time he’s not staring down a barrel wave till it raises the white flag.

The proposed LA Streetcar would provide carbon-emission free transportation in Downtown LA, home of the soon-to-be newest member of the Ace Hotel family. We can tell you that we love our streetcars in Portland and Seattle. But you have to make up your own mind. If you’re a resident of Downtown LA, there’s a Q&A about the project — going to vote by special ballot in November — October 17. Next stop on this trolley, Informationville.

We’re nail-bitingly excited about Echo Park Rising which goes down this Saturday, August 25, in LA — a community resurrection of what was once known as Sunset Junction Street Fair. All events are FREE and most are all ages, too. That’s our cup of tea. So are the bagpipes you can hear at Stories Books & Cafe, the kids’ book hour with Ukelady (is it a lady with a ukelele or a hybrid creature?), and the classic horror flick screening on the roof of a local bank building.

Sonic Trace is the brainchild of radio producer Anayansi Diaz-Cortes — working with the LocaLore Initiative, she and her team are gathering stories from Latin American communities in and around Los Angeles in public (noisy) places about their experiences coming to, going from, staying in and returning to the US. They sent a call out to designers to pitch a portable sound booth and the winners, La Burbuja, have been working with Mat-ter to build this shiny, hypnotic orb pictured above — an illustration Mat-ter made of the booth at Plaza Mexico in LA. They have 48 hours to finish raising money for the project on Kickstarter so give them some strong love. We’re captivated, and very excited to see what’s on the horizon for this team.

Our dear and brilliant friend, Chantale Doyle, is a curator, collector and life-liver of the highest order. Her shop, Mt. Fuji General Store, has emboldened and inspired the Joshua Tree creative community, not to mention many travelers and wanderers, for years as Chantale spent five summer the last five years traveling twenty-four US states and three Canadian provinces (not to mention Ace Palm Springs for a few pop-up shops) in her vegetable oil-converted VW bus creating an awe-inspiring collection of vintage goods. Now, she’s set up shop at Reform School on Sunset and Hyperion in Silverlake, LA with YES — do yourself an enormous favor and catch a glimpse of Chantale’s unexpected selection of vintage and new men’s and women’s clothes, accessories, eyewear and treasures — like these hand-beaded VANS made exclusively for YES by BrownBeaded — before it’s rampaged. She’s hosting an opening party this Saturday, June 30 from 7-10pm and you’re invited. See what’s in store (see what we did there?) here.

Interview Magazine’s June issue features a photoshoot with Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart shot by Mikael Jansson at the United Artists Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, future home of the next Ace Hotel.

Interview was founded by Andy Warhol as a radical alternative to contemporary music criticism and journalism, based on the notion that artists can support, shape and affirm one another’s work independently. These same principles are at the foundation of the United Artists Theater, founded by Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and friends in 1927 — now an architectural and cinematic treasure we’re thoroughly honored to steward.

SCI-Arc surfaces. Thanks for the visit.