Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

-- Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne finds that the second phase of L.A. Live, which includes the Grammy Museum and ESPN Zone, ‘seems to rule out for good the prospect that L.A. Live might bring a fresh, forward-looking model of mega-development to downtown.’ More photos here.

-- MOCA’s financial situation ‘is not that drastic,’ one trustee says. Meanwhile, supporters start a letter-writing campaign. Blogger Brady Westwater offers up his suggestions for rescuing MOCA.

-- More than 500 items from the Empire State Building archive will go on sale Dec. 11 at the Wright auction house in Chicago.

-- The Shubert Organization names two longtime employees to replace Gerald Schoenfeld as chief of the theatrical company that oversees 17 Broadway theaters.

-- Iraq considers turning one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces into a museum.

-- An 18th century Italian painting found in an attic is sold at an auction in London for $4.2 million.

-- Folk singer and civil rights activist Odetta Holmes dies at 77.

-- A British architect calls Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Peter Eisenman ‘increasingly irrelevant’ and attacks his country’s ‘dismal’ design.

-- Who knew Southern California had so many Rembrandts?

-- Liza Minnelli returns to Broadway tonight in ‘Liza’s at the Palace…!’

-- The city of Salzburg blocks plan for a ‘Sound of Music’ hotel in Austria.

-- Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is named director of the 2012 Documenta.

-- Atlanta’s Theater of the Stars is blamed for the demise of American Musical Theatre of San Jose.

-- Broadway’s ‘Boeing-Boeing’ to close on Jan. 4.

-- Lisa Fung

Top photo: Phase 2 of L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles is set to open this weekend. Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times