L.A.s

Across the country, President Trump has installed handpicked loyalists as top federal prosecutors. Several have been pushed out after legal battles because they lack Senate confirmation to serve as U.S. attorneys.

But in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli wields the power of a top prosecutor under a lesser title: “first assistant.”

Essayli clocked his first full year in office this week. He has survived the kinds of challenges that sunk Trump picks in other states through a combination of legal gamesmanship by the U.S. Department of Justice and a lack of action by judges in the Central District of California.

Essayli has used his position to act as one of Trump’s fiercest legal foot soldiers. He has pursued criminal charges against protesters, activists and immigrants while dropping cases involving administration allies and supporting lawsuits over transgender and environmental policies in California.

After Trump’s firing Thursday of U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, it’s unclear how her replacement will handle continuing battles over the legality of Trump’s appointees. Essayli is popular with high-level administration officials, and received a congratulatory post on X from Vice President JD Vance over the filing of fraud cases earlier this week.

A conservative former state Assembly member from Riverside County, Essayli, 40, was sworn in as interim U.S. attorney last April. Around the time he hit that role’s 120-day limit, Bondi made him a “special attorney” and designated him “first assistant.” A federal judge later disqualified Essayli as acting U.S. attorney, finding he was “not lawfully serving” in the top role. But the judge said he had no authority to undo Essayli’s designation as first assistant. With no one above him in the office, that title leaves Essayli as the de facto U.S. attorney.

In other jurisdictions, members of the federal bench have exercised their authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney. Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee’s chambers did not respond to a request for comment about why no similar action has been taken in L.A.

A court spokesman declined to comment. Essayli did not respond to a request for comment. The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokesperson issued a statement that praised Essayli for prosecuting “drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, sex traffickers, violent street gangs, leftist rioters and domestic terrorists, fraudsters, and child predators.”

“It is a disservice to our prosecutors and the American people when judges prevent the President and the Attorney General from installing qualified and capable prosecutors who will aggressively enforce our laws and make America safe again,” the Justice Department spokesperson said.

The lack of action by Gee, a President Obama appointee, has surprised some legal observers, especially given the swiftness with which judges in other districts have acted. It also has frustrated some former federal prosecutors that fled the office under Essayli’s chaotic tenure.

One former assistant U.S. attorney, who left the office under Essayli and requested anonymity to discuss sitting judges who will likely preside over future cases of theirs in the district, accused Gee and others of “shirking their responsibilities” by not appointing someone to the vacant U.S. attorney post.

Another former Central District prosecutor who left the office before Essayli’s appointment said Gee was being practical, taking a “protective” stance to “keep the court away from the ire and invectives coming out of the White House.”

It is “unfair to say the court is abdicating its authority,” said the ex-prosecutor, who also requested anonymity to speak candidly about the district’s judges.

Under long-standing Senate tradition, individual senators can block a U.S. attorney nominee in their home state by withholding their “blue slip,” which clears a nominee’s path to a confirmation hearing.

Trump has tried to skirt the Senate confirmation process to appoint top federal prosecutors in multiple states, including New Jersey and Virginia, where two of the president’s personal lawyers were named U.S. attorney — who immediately moved to zealously advance the president’s agenda and, in some cases, prosecute his rivals.

In Virginia, Trump replaced U.S. Atty. Erik Siebert, a nominee who was under Senate consideration, with one of his former personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan. Siebert had refused to prosecute some of Trump’s political enemies and resigned. In her first ever criminal case, Halligan swiftly moved to indict former FBI Director James B. Comey. The prosecution was later thrown out and Halligan’s appointment deemed illegal.

In New York’s Northern District, when judges moved to oust the president’s former campaign attorney — who received the same “first assistant” designation as Essayli — Justice Department officials promptly fired his replacement.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said Trump’s attempts to bypass the normal confirmation processes are unconstitutional.

“This is very troubling because it circumvents the constitutional procedure of having the president nominate and the Senate confirm. That’s crucial to checks and balances,” he said. “This allows the president to appoint whoever he wants.”

Though Essayli has more law enforcement experience than many of Trump’s chosen prosecutors, he’s still struggled to achieve courtroom victories. His prosecutors have lost nearly all the cases they’ve brought to trial against anti-Trump protesters and abandoned others after grand juries refused to return indictments.

Meghan Blanco, a former federal prosecutor and veteran defense attorney, suggested Gee’s inaction with Essayli might be a clever act of resistance. Rather than picking a fight with the White House, Blanco said, the judges are letting the top prosecutor fall on his face.

“If you’re a judge and displeased with what DOJ is doing and the shenanigans they’re pulling … you let the Essayli appointment play out,” Blanco said. “No one has seen a U.S. attorney’s office lose the way this office is losing now.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Times this week that he is working with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to craft legislation to clarify the procedures required to appoint U.S. attorneys and prevent Trump and future presidents from circumventing the Senate.

The legislation, which Schiff did not describe in detail, faces an uphill battle even if Democrats retake the Senate in the upcoming midterms. But the California senator said he is committed to challenging Trump’s maneuvering.

Schiff said Essayli “could not be confirmed and for a reason: He lacks the judgment, temperament and integrity required of a U.S. attorney.”

Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, said local federal judges may believe it would be “more disruptive to try and put somebody in when the administration will just fire them.”

But their inaction, she said, has effectively confirmed Essayli as U.S. attorney — and highlights “a real weakness in the system” that demands a legislative fix.

“The bottom line is you have an administration that just doesn’t want to follow the rules,” she said. “There has to be some political will to have Congress do its duty.”

You know the political silly season is upon us when campaigns start to make fools of themselves trying to court Latino voters.

In the Los Angeles mayoral race, that moment kicked off last week.

On Friday, a social media account called Latinos Por Pratt released an AI-animated music video praising the mayoral candidate and former reality television star Spencer Pratt. It starts with a fit, sunglasses-wearing Pratt rolling a trash bin brimming with detritus and Mayor Karen Bass past a crowd of cheering Angelenos. The Hollywood sign looms in the background as the title “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” flashes on the screen — Spencer, Take Out Trashy Karen, with “Bassura” a play on the mayor’s last name and the Spanish word for “trash.”

Cut to scenes of Bass playing tourist on her infamous trip to Ghana while the Palisades burn. Splice in Pratt dancing with his wife, Heidi Montag, onstage at a street party where onlookers wave a Mexican and a U.S. flag. And because L.A.’s Latino majority is overwhelmingly of Mexican descent, the thing was anchored by a peppy accordion, dramatic guitar plucks and a bold tuba, right? Right?

Uh, no.

Lyrics such as “Latinos for Pratt we’re singing / Because we’re tired of this dirty beat” play over brassy salsa rhythms that are more Miami and Cuban than L.A., where Latinos are mostly of Mexican and Central American heritage and the soundtrack of the city — corridos tumbados, cumbias, Latin rock and pop — reflect that.

That didn’t stop clueless, mostly non-Latino Pratt fanboys and fangirls from going gaga over it online. Nor did it stop Bass from joining in the we-need-Latino-voters fiesta.

Soon after the video was released, a group called Latinos Con Bass brought out big-name speakers to Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights — state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights head Angélica Salas, Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta — so they could pledge support for the incumbent with all the dutifulness of doctors reminding people to take their flu shot. Bass greeted the crowd with a peppy “¡Sí se puede!” — the standard Latino politico rallying cry for decades but one that’s not so kosher right now given its association with César Chávez, the legendary labor leader whom a New York Times investigation recently revealed to have sexually assaulted teenage girls.

Latinos Con Bass came off as a bunch of establishment types sticking up for one of their own instead of anything organic. But at least we know the track record of those involved. Latinos Por Pratt seems to be just one guy: Adrian E. Alvarez, a Cuban American whose online profile says he splits his time between the Miami area and L.A. If the lawyer by trade — who didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment — was really serious about winning Latino votes for his guy, he would’ve commissioned a corrido instead of a salsa tune. The Mexican ballad form has been trotted out by Angelenos for decades for everything from the tragic deaths of Robert F. Kennedy and Kobe Bryant and his daughter to the capture of sundry narco lords.

Those songwriters got it. Alvarez’s diss track doesn’t. And his use of Cuban Spanish on social media to promote it — carajo, fajame, mi gente — in place of Mexican Spanish equivalents such as güey, éntrale and raza sounds like a guy who doesn’t know South L.A. from South Beach.

But to dismiss “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” as an inauthentic joke is to miss what it says about this political moment. In a year when Latinos nationwide will make or break the Democrats’ effort to win back Congress, they’ll play an even more crucial role in L.A.’s mayoral race.

And it’s the Bass campaign that needs Latinos more than any of her opponents — because there’s no guarantee she’ll get them.

Then-L.A. mayoral candidate Karen Bass, center, is flanked by pioneering farm labor leader Dolores Huerta, left, and former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, right, during a 2022 campaign event in Mariachi Plaza.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last month and co-sponsored by The Times revealed that 56% of likely voters view the mayor unfavorably, the only candidate to have a majority of those surveyed look negatively on her. She’s the top choice among Latinos — 29%, compared with Pratt’s 16%. But 27% of Latinos remain undecided about whom they want as mayor, the highest percentage of any ethnic group.

Pratt has some name recognition among Latinos as a C-list celebrity, but he’s also a registered Republican who thinks L.A. should coordinate with the Trump administration’s deportation leviathan, a position that’s as popular among Angelenos as rooting for the San Diego Padres. That obviously presents an opportunity for Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who’s running for mayor to the left of Bass — if she can smartly seize it. But Raman represents a district with one of the lowest Latino populations in the city and has yet to make a name for herself across town — no wonder the Berkeley poll found just 9% of Latinos favored her, trailing even Presbyterian pastor Rae Huang.

Those shortcomings should give Bass — whose children are Mexican American and who has worked alongside Latino L.A.’s political establishment for nearly her entire political career — an advantage among Latinos. But all that star wattage didn’t win her the Latino vote four years ago against Rick Caruso. And L.A.’s biggest problems during the mayor’s first term — homelessness, beat-up streets, busted streetlights, President Trump’s immigration deluge — unduly affected the Latino areas of L.A. Even the inferno that engulfed the Palisades led to the loss of thousands of jobs for the nannies, house cleaners and gardeners that kept the neighborhood as pristine as it was.

Bass’ campaign will trumpet all of her supposed accomplishments and trot out endorsements as it did at the Plaza de la Raza event, but she lost the narrative of a healthy L.A. a long time ago.

Pratt — who doesn’t seem to know Los Angeles besides the Westside and television studios — will have to do far more than Bass and Raman to attract Latinos. But by repeatedly referring to the mayor as “Karen Bassura” — a juvenile, obvious insult that nevertheless sticks once you hear it — he’s at least making Spanish a far more constant part of his campaign than his rivals. And Alvarez’s music video, as silly and un-L.A. as it is, speaks to an enthusiasm among at least one Latino Pratt supporter that will most likely remain catchier and more inspired than anything the Bass and Raman campaigns come up with.

That reality seems to have already made Bass blink. She responded to “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” on social media a few days later with a photo of people at her Plaza de la Raza rally holding “Latinos Con Bass” signs with the caption “Latinos Con Bass > Ai Latinos.” It was meant as a political flex but came off as insecure posturing. Meanwhile, Latinos Por Pratt just released a teaser for another video, this time featuring Pratt as Batman carting out a clown-faced Bass and Raman as the villainous Two-Face.

Playing, again, to salsa. That’s weak sauce. Can someone try to really get Latino L.A.?

I promise: Sí se puede.

On March 29, Taix as we know it closes forever. The iconic French restaurant originally opened downtown in 1927 and relocated to its current chalet on Sunset Boulevard in 1962. It’s a grim reminder of L.A.’s insatiable appetite to destroy its own heritage and especially devastating to a certain milieu of writers and artists, myself very much included. Since it announced its closure, I’ve been visiting as often as I can to say farewell, not only to the charmingly shabby faux-1920s interiors, but to the many lives I’ve lived at its tables. First as a young guitarist when a bandmate worked the bar’s soundboard, next with the Chinatown artist scene, then with Semiotext(e)’s avant-garde lit circle, later through firecracker romances and heartbreaks during the art party Social Club, recently floating through the louche carnival of Gay Guy Night and now with the circus of beatniks from my reading series Casual Encountersz.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

It’s difficult to explain why this cavernous and windowless restaurant means so much, so I’ve tried to list everything I love about Taix.

I love that they don’t play music. I love the 1960s bathrooms. I love the bottomless tureens of soup. I love the complimentary crudité from the pre-pandemic era. I love the cold pats of butter. I love that you can always get a table, no matter how many people roll in. I love the free refills on Diet Cokes. I love the 80-year-old couples on dates. I love how the dim lighting makes everyone seem chic. I love the frayed carpeting. I love the fake votive candles. I love the icy martinis. I love the corner booth beside the fireplace. I love the smoked mirrors and tin-plate ceilings in the elegant back dining rooms. I love the small fortune I’ve spent there picking up the check for many strippers, poets and bohemians. I love its rundown glamour, which miraculously evokes Old Hollywood, Belle Époque and trashy Americana all at once. I unironically love the food, which isn’t spectacular, but is very comforting. I love how a waitress once ran off with a friend of mine and slept on my couch for a week. I love how my wife generally hates eating at restaurants but loves eating at Taix. I love how every L.A. artist I know has their own singular version of this list.

The only thing I don’t love about Taix is that its owners are tearing it down to erect soulless condos. I know the city needs housing, but not like this. I hope we’ll all find a new place to call home again soon.

Taix shaped me as a writer and artist, along with so many others, which is why before the new owners demolish this cultural institution, I asked other creatives what the Echo Park landmark means to them.

Chris Kraus.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Chris Kraus, writer, artist and co-editor of the independent press Semiotext(e): When I moved to L.A. in 1995, Taix was the go-to place, with its deep banquettes, cuisine bonne-femme and its nightly prix-fixe specials. Mostly it was police officers and their wives who went there. Sylvère Lotringer and I went often, for him it was a little reprieve from the non-Frenchness of L.A. He could order in French and exchange pleasantries with an elderly French waiter who seemed to live there. Years later, when Sylvère moved to Ensenada and was less active with Semiotext(e), Taix was the site of our “Annual General Meetings” — Hedi El Kholti, Sylvère and I would have dinner together and Hedi would catch Sylvère up on all the forthcoming publications and projects. Taix was a place to run into people unexpectedly. About a decade ago, when the bar was refreshed, it changed again and I kind of lost track of it.

Rachel Kushner, novelist: I dined at Taix probably once per week for 23 years. It hurts so much that it is closing. I simply stopped going, so that I could begin to grieve, and also to avoid every last random tourist standing by the host station, on their phone, and the glum possibility of being seated in the second dining room, a.k.a “the Morgue” as my friend Benjamin Weissman put it. I want to protect my memories of the special occasions I enjoyed in this perennial special occasion establishment … I want to remember Bernard, a cheerful Basque from Biarritz who worked there 60 years, got progressively trashed over the course of his shift, went to Bakersfield on Sundays to party with his sheep-herding countrymen, came back Wednesdays sunburned and happy. The old valets who were let go during the pandemic. I used to give them a Christmas bonus every year, as a thanks for letting me park my classic out front. Look, I was born in Taix. I mean, in a way. I nursed my newborn in Taix. He grew up there. People who criticize the food are losers, and will never understand. The steak frites are great. The panna cotta, discontinued after the pandemic, was my favorite. The Louis Martini Cabernet was reliable. (Bernard told me the wine cellar downstairs took up the entire footprint of the main restaurant. Don’t know if that’s true.) Meanwhile, I can’t put my arm around a memory. All the smart girls know why. It doesn’t mean I didn’t try.

Cord Jefferson, writer and director: When I started going to Taix, in 2004, you could still gamble at the bar. They sold keno slips and lottery tickets, and whenever Powerball got over $100 million, I’d buy a ticket with my pint. Where else can you do all that while simultaneously watching a game and eating a tourte de volaille? Taix was where I watched the heroic Zinedine Zidane headbutt the gutless Marco Materazzi in the saddest World Cup final ever. When France lost that afternoon, my favorite server, Phillipe, cried. Phillipe’s teeth were often as wine-stained as his customers’. He’d bum me cigarettes in the parking lot and speak abusively about the ways the neighborhood was changing. I’m happy Phillipe is not around to see the digital renderings of what they plan to erect once they demolish the Taix chateau: another condo building with all the charm of a college dorm. It’s a damn shame what’s happening to Taix. I wish I had more money so I could buy it and keep it around, but I never won the Powerball.

John Tottenham, novelist and poet: It’s a shame that Taix is closing, not only because other plans will now have to be made for my funeral reception, but because it was the last civilized watering hole in the neighborhood. There isn’t anywhere else that one can walk into and immediately satisfy the social instinct among a convivial and refreshingly diverse clientele in what is becoming an increasingly homogenized locality. It has been the nexus of my social life for over 20 years, and is simply irreplaceable.

Jade Chang.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Jade Chang, novelist: I’d only known Taix as a raucous bardo of a French restaurant, then there was a memorial service for Alex Maslansky, my beloved friend Max’s brother, owner of Echo Park’s best bookstore, Stories. Alex was a beautiful and beleaguered soul, born worried, born romantic, difficult and hopeful and apparently a shockingly good poker player. The room was packed with music people and book people, sober friends and poker friends, packed with the gorgeous girls who’d always loved him, our collective sorrow potent and sweet enough to pull the walls in around us tight as we said goodbye and goodbye.

Alexis Okeowo, New Yorker staff writer: I was a late discoverer of Taix, stumbling upon it when I moved to a bungalow just above Sunset during the pandemic from New York. I seemed to only see writer friends there. I met up with a journalist for drinks and then ran into a new writer friend at the bar. I later had a big, spontaneous dinner with TV writer friends and then a birthday celebration in the dining rooms that ended in two friends escorting me home, sick and happy off a mostly-martini meal and the selfies I took in the bathroom with the iconic pink and gold wallpaper. Every time, there was talk about ideas and gossip and so, so much laughter.

Alberto Cuadros, writer/curator and co-founder of the Social Club: About 10 years ago, Max Martin and I started Social Club as a weekly social salon at Taix. We thought of it as a kind of Beuysian social sculpture, it was a weekly ritual, and over time it became something of an institution in the L.A. art world. Everyone knew where to go in L.A. on a Wednesday if they wanted to meet interesting people or find friends. I even met my wife there who was visiting from Montreal.

Siena Foster-Soltis, playwright: Taix felt like one of the few remnants of the L.A. I grew up in and love so dearly.

Ruby Zuckerman.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

Ruby Zuckerman, writer and co-founder of the reading series This Friday: Taix is the only restaurant in L.A. that doesn’t lose its mind if new friends drop in halfway through dinner or if you stay at your table for hours after you stopped ordering. That kind of flexibility leads to spontaneous nights where what started off as an intimate hang expands into an all-out party. As a writer, that flexibility has allowed me to meet editors, collaborators and readers, drawn together by pure fun rather than networking. One of my favorite nights involved getting in a physical altercation with novelist John Tottenham after he stole my phone to send prank texts to my boyfriend. I’ll miss taking selfies in the bathroom.

Blaine O’Neill, DJ and events organizer: I always say Taix is the “People’s Country Club.” It is exceptional because of the staff who understand the importance of hospitality, and the scale of the space is humane. You’re able to evade feeling pinched by the noose of transactional cosmopolitanism.

Tif Sigfrids, gallerist and publisher Umm…: Taix was a cultural nexus. A space with broad range. It went from being the dark bar I read books and day-drank at in my 20s to the place where I rented a private room to host my son’s first birthday party. It’s where I watched Barack Obama get elected twice, the Lakers win back-to-back championships, and where I indulged in countless night caps and an unreasonable amount of all-you-can-eat split pea soup. You never knew what kind of hot jock, wasted poet or other type of intrigue you might run into there. You can’t make a place like Taix up. It’s a place that just miraculously happens.

Kate Wolf, writer and editor: Though I have been going to Taix for nearly 20 years, embarrassingly, it was only in the last year that I realized the building wasn’t from the 1920s. Those smoke-stained mirrors, that tin ceiling, the drapery and light fixtures are in fact set-dressed — ersatz! Which of course only makes me love the place more. Taix’s history, and its spot in the city’s cultural firmament, cannot be denied. But what really makes it so special are the people who work there and the clientele, not its past. This point is perhaps my only hope in losing what is my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. That by some divine grace, we will all find each other again in another spot, designed to a different decade than the horror-filled present, and fill it with the same warmth, the same bottomless soup bowl, the same cheer.

1/4

Hedi El Kholti, the co-editor of Semiotext(e).   (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

2/4

Writers Lily Lady and Siena Soltis-Foster.  (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

3/4

Poet Meat Stevens (Steven Lesser).   (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

4/4

Sammy Loren, writer and curator of Casual Encountersz.  (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

Hedi El Kholti, artist and co-editor Semiotext(e): Taix is where we would end up after every reading since 2004 when I started working at Semiotext(e). I have memories of being there with Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Gary Indiana, Michael Silverblatt, Colm Tóibín, Rachel Kushner and Constance Debré among others … Taix has that particular anachronistic vibe that made L.A. so charming when I moved here in 1992, one of these places that time forgot. It was odd when it became really hip in the last 10 years. It made me think of what Warhol wrote about Schrafft’s restaurant when it had been redesigned to keep up with the fashion of the moment and had consequently lost its appeal. “If they could have kept their same look and style, and held on through the lean years when they weren’t in style, today they’d be the best thing around.”

Loren is the founding editor of the art and literary conceptual “tabloid” On the Rag and curator of the reading series Casual Encountersz.

Replacing Griffith Park’s historic but idle swimming pool is likely to take at least three years and cost $40 million while delivering a competition pool, a neighboring recreational pool and a rehabilitated pool house with a gender-neutral bathhouse facility, city officials and designers told Los Feliz residents at an open house meeting Thursday night.

“The pool is being completely replaced. It leaks like a sieve,” said Stephanie Kingsnorth, principal of the architecture firm Perkins Eastman, addressing about 50 community members in a room next to the park’s visitor center.

Perkins Eastman, which is leading the design of the pool site, also worked on the renovation and expansion of Griffith Observatory from 2002 to 2006, when the firm was known as Pfeiffer Partners.

While neighbors look on, an artist’s rendition shows the proposed replacement of the Griffith Park Pool and rehabilitation of the pool house. The meeting was held at the Griffith Park Visitor Center Auditorium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The pool and pool house at Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard date to 1927, long before Interstate 5 was routed just east of the site in 1964. After decades as a popular spot for children’s swim lessons and recreational lap swimmers, the pool was shut down amid COVID-19 pandemic measures in early 2020. When the city tried to refill the pool, workers found that it no longer held water.

At one point early in planning to replace it, the city Bureau of Engineering forecast construction costs of $28 million. City officials say the project is complicated because of the nearness of the freeway and the Los Angeles River.

Kingsnorth said the project is nearing the end of its design development stage, with many details still under discussion.

In place of the existing seasonal pool, schematic drawings now show a new year-round competition pool, 50 meters long, 25 yards wide and from 3-foot, 6-inches to 12-foot, 9-inches deep.

Next to it, drawings show a training pool 25 yards long and 50 feet wide, with an ADA-compliant gentle slope down to about 4 feet deep.

The two-story pool house’s red tile roof, wooden trellises and Spanish Colonial Revival features will look roughly the same on the outside, Kingsnorth said, and the rehabilitation will comply with federal standards for historic structures.

But some formerly open-air areas will now be covered. An elevator and second set of stairs will be added inside, along with features to boost energy sustainability and meet modern accessibility laws. The site’s open-air showers will be rinse-only.

On the ground floor, the building’s open-air male and female changing rooms will merge into one larger indoor gender-neutral area with private changing rooms and toilet stalls, Kingsnorth said.

“Every single toilet room and dressing room is an individual room,” Kingsnorth said.

Kingsnorth said the gender-neutral dressing room design was not mandated by state or federal restrictions but was a priority for the city’s Recreation and Parks Department. On projects like this, Kingsnorth said, “this is something that’s more common for equity and inclusion.”

Questions from the community focused on features of the pool, public access, cost and effects of the construction work.

“We’re very anxious to have the school come back, so that the kids can learn to swim,” said Marian Dodge, a longtime area resident and past president of the Los Feliz Improvement Assn.

The Griffith Park Pool, seen here in 2023, has been closed since 2020, when city workers found major leakage problems.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

The pool site is within City Council District 4, represented by Nithya Raman, who was not present. Her staffers organized the meeting and urged residents to send questions and comments to griffithparkpool@lacity.org.

The next steps, a handout from the city and design firm read, include creation of construction documents (estimated at six months), obtaining city permits (five months), selecting a construction contractor (five months), construction (18 months), and “project close-out” (six months). If that schedule is met, completion would come in a little over 40 months, around July 2029.

“This is ambitious, but we’re confident that we can get there,” Kingsnorth said.

In an hourlong presentation, followed by about a dozen questions and answers, Kingsnorth was joined by city officials, including Ohaji Abdallah, assistant division head of the Bureau of Engineering’s architectural division, and
Maha Yateem, the Recreation and Parks Department’s principal recreation supervisor for citywide aquatics.

The plan calls for three rows of shaded concrete bleachers for spectators alongside the competition pool. Yateem said the competition pool will include a diving board, adding that “we’re working on a location for that now.”

Because the project means removing tons of existing pool materials and bringing in new ones, “the construction here is going to be quite intense,” Abdallah said. He and Kingsnorth said the “haul route” of construction trucks has not been decided, and Abdallah said he and other officials are discussing the plan’s possible impact on Los Feliz Nursery School, which stands near the pool.

When considering construction costs and “soft costs” like design and environmental review, “I expect this to be about $40 million,” Abdallah said, adding that the project will be vying with other city priorities for dollars from the general fund. He also noted that current estimates were made “before the war started” in Iran and gas prices surged.

After the meeting, Kingsnorth said, “We’re ready to pause if we need to because of the outlying state of the world.”

In 1936, Irish Bostonian entertainment lawyer Tom Bergin founded L.A.’s first Irish pub, the Old Horseshoe Tavern, on Wilshire Boulevard. The bar was later renamed in his honor and relocated to its current Tudor Revival-style building off Fairfax Avenue in 1949.

The tavern claims to have introduced Irish coffee to the U.S. — though some argue that San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe holds that title. Either way, Tom Bergin’s is one of the oldest bars in continuous operation in L.A. and boasts the second-oldest liquor license in the city. And its Irish coffee is still one of the best you’ll find.

Today, L.A.’s Irish pub tradition extends to Santa Monica, Long Beach and Woodland Hills, with many founded by Irish immigrants seeking to bring a bit of their homeland to the West Coast in the form of Guinness pints, corned beef and cabbage and traditional Irish folk music.

Whether you’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day or just looking for somewhere to split the G, here are 13 Irish pubs to check out in L.A. — Danielle Dorsey