Glendale Freeway

GLENDALE -- Starting at 11:59 tonight, a stretch of the Glendale (2) Freeway through Los Angeles will be closed for two days for the shooting of a film. Caltrans granted the permit to Bangalow Productions of Santa Monica, which will be filming until midnight Sunday. The northbound and southbound lanes of the freeway will be closed from the Golden State (5) Freeway to Glendale Boulevard in Los Angeles. Details of the film were not available, but a voice mail message at the office of Bangalow Productions said it is producing "Crocodile Dundee III."

A deer hit by a car on the freeway Wednesday apparently got up and left, an officer said. A man driving a silver Volkswagen Jetta called 911 to report he hit a deer on the west Ventura (134) Freeway transition to the Glendale (2) Freeway, California Highway Patrol Officer Vince Ramirez said. The man had called back to tell officers that he was leaving the deer on the center divider and would call back to check on the deer's condition, Ramirez said.

Paul M. Anderson GLENDALE -- When Glendale Police Lt. Don Meredith went out to see the new signs on the Ventura Freeway memorializing slain Officer Charles Lazzaretto it brought a tear to his eye. "He was a good friend," Meredith said. "He was a super nice guy who always had a smile and something nice to say." Assemblyman Scott Wildman pushed through legislation last year that renamed a stretch of the Ventura Freeway from the Glendale Freeway to the Golden State Freeway after Lazzaretto who was killed in the line of duty in 1997.

Paul M. Anderson GLENDALE -- It didn't take an expert to diagnose why traffic was backed up on the Glendale (2) Freeway Friday morning. A collision led to the spilling of radioactive medical supplies on the freeway. Cleaning up the mess snarled traffic for miles through Friday morning, officials said. Henrik Zohrabians, 39, of Glendale lost control of the 1994 Geo he was driving at about 5 a.m., California Highway Patrol Officer Jaret Paulson said.

GLENDALE — A 30-year-old motorcyclist who was shot and killed while riding on the Glendale (2) Freeway has been identified as Manuel Vincent Martin of Venice, coroner’s officials said Thursday. Martin died Wednesday of a gunshot wound to his chest after he was shot while riding his motorcycle about 2 a.m. on the southbound Glendale Freeway, said Craig Harvey, a Los Angeles County Coroner’s office spokesman. Police have not identified any suspects in the shooting, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

A Venice man died after being shot by an unknown assailant on the connector road from the Foothill (210) Freeway west to the Glendale (2) Freeway south early Wednesday. At around 2:30 a.m., about a half-hour after the shooting took place, both north and southbound sides of the Glendale Freeway were closed, as was the transition road from the westbound Foothill Freeway, creating a traffic nightmare for local commuters. A stream of red brake lights wove from the Angeles Crest off ramp, snaked through the city of La Cañada into Montrose and trailed down Glendale as commuters tried to find a way to the Glendale Freeway.

Ron Magneson's family moved to Walnut Drive in 1948 when he was four years old, and remained there until they were forced to leave in 1964 by construction of the Glendale (State Route 2) Freeway. “It was a very short street,” he recalled. “It was one block long, running between east Chevy Chase Drive and Eden Avenue. The original home in the area was across the street and was built by the Brown family. Eleanore Drive was named after Mr. Brown's wife.” Lilac Lane was named for the lilacs she planted on the hill adjacent to the new road, which originally opened onto Walnut, he added.

LOS ANGELES ? Homicide detectives are investigating the cause of a vehicle fire early Wednesday morning on the northbound Golden State (5) Freeway that killed a woman who was apparently unable to exit the car. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the scene at 1 a.m. to find a compact sedan off on the right shoulder of the northbound Golden State Freeway between the Glendale (2) Freeway and Fletcher Drive offramp, Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said. An unidentified man sustained severe burns to his hands and face, but was able to escape the sedan, Myers said.

NORTH GLENDALE — A 27-year-old Glendale woman was killed Tuesday on the Glendale (2) Freeway when she lost control of her car and slammed into a disabled truck. The accident occurred at about noon as the woman, whose name was not released, tried to merge onto the southbound Glendale (2) Freeway from the Mountain Street onramp, California Highway Patrol Officer Todd Workman said. “She was getting on the freeway, and apparently as soon as she gets down to the bottom of the ramp, she starts veering over to the left to get over in the lanes,” Workman said.

Ten Years Ago Lt. Patti Dayhoff was named to replace Ralph Martin as operations lieutenant at the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station on Briggs Avenue. Then a 24-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Dept., Dayhoff had most recently served as watch commander at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station.   Twenty Years Ago The Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce embarked on its 65th year of serving the community with a party held at Your Neighborhood Super Shopper on Foothill Boulevard.

Glendale firefighters rescued a Palmdale man whose Saturn overturned Thursday morning into an embankment along the Glendale (2) Freeway at Mountain Street, officials said. The 37-year-old motorist, Edgar Herrera, was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, where he was treated for a fractured left femur, said California Highway Patrol Officer Kevin Denmon. Herrera also complained of pain to his chest and right wrist. Herrera was driving south in the fourth lane at about 6 a.m. on the Glendale (2)

A man who apparently jumped to his death Wednesday morning from an overpass of the Glendale (2) Freeway near Chevy Chase Canyon, snarling the morning commute, left a suicide note, police said. The Glendale man, whose identity had not been released Wednesday afternoon pending notification of his family, jumped before 6 a.m. from the northbound overpass, landing on to Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. A witness seated inside his parked car under the overpass heard screams just before seeing the man in his 30s fall, Lorenz said.

Fire crews extinguished a two-acre brush fire Friday off the northbound Glendale (2) Freeway, near Mountain Street. The blaze began burning shortly after noon on a hillside off the freeway, and was put out approximately an hour later due a large response, including two water-dropping helicopters, two Los Angeles City Fire hand crews and 20 engines from Los Angeles and Glendale, authorities said. Glendale Fire Capt. Cody Smith said the fire was close to homes, but firefighters were stationed near the residential neighborhoods and no structures were damaged.

Glendale and Los Angeles firefighters are reportedly close to extinguishing a vegetation fire near the southbound Glendale (2) Freeway and Colorado Street. The size of the fire, which was reported about 2:15 p.m., was not immediately available. On- and off-ramps to the 2 Freeway from Colorado Street were temporarily closed. [Update 2:45 p.m.: Firefighters have reported a "knock-down" of the fire, and have started moping up the scene. The cause of the fire was not immediately available.

When immigrating to the United States in the mid-'50s, I was overwhelmed: strong country, undisputed leader, riding on the crest of the World War II victory. What a change! Today's U.S.A., from the Capitol down to the locals, is saturated by the demagogues who, while stuffing their pockets, engage nonsense-ventilating gadflies to obscure the issues and call the process democracy at work. The self-serving “public servants” produce less at higher cost and split the difference with their cohorts.

Pilgrims heading up and down the Glendale (2) Freeway for the last couple of months have noticed a shadowy figure or two gazing into the distance from the hills above. Cardboard cutouts of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Gene Autry, bearing labels that read “Glendale Public Art Project 2012,” have been a mystery - something their creator says is intentional. Justin Stadel, the Glassell Park resident and artist behind the cowboy cutouts, said he created the works so viewers could draw a spiritual feeling, a sense of freedom, from L.A.'s varied landscape.

Ron Magneson's family moved to Walnut Drive in 1948 when he was four years old, and remained there until they were forced to leave in 1964 by construction of the Glendale (State Route 2) Freeway. “It was a very short street,” he recalled. “It was one block long, running between east Chevy Chase Drive and Eden Avenue. The original home in the area was across the street and was built by the Brown family. Eleanore Drive was named after Mr. Brown's wife.” Lilac Lane was named for the lilacs she planted on the hill adjacent to the new road, which originally opened onto Walnut, he added.

A 45-year-old San Pedro woman was killed Sunday after the stalled car she was in was rear - ended by another vehicle on the Glendale (2) Freeway , officials said. The woman, Teresa Rodriguez, was pronounced dead about 1:34 p.m. at the scene of the crash, which was just north of Mountain Street, according to the California Highway Patrol. “This is a bad area,” said Glendale Fire Battalion Chief Greg Godfrey. “We have multiple [traffic collisions]

Ten Years Ago Lt. Patti Dayhoff was named to replace Ralph Martin as operations lieutenant at the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station on Briggs Avenue. Then a 24-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Dept., Dayhoff had most recently served as watch commander at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station.   Twenty Years Ago The Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce embarked on its 65th year of serving the community with a party held at Your Neighborhood Super Shopper on Foothill Boulevard.

As a member of the Atheists United crew who picks up trash along the Glendale (2) Freeway every month or so, I’d like to thank the Rev. “Skip” Lindeman for his acknowledgment of our efforts (“How do you handle atheists?” In Theory, Saturday). It has been my privilege to have met Lindeman several times over the past few years and to have been a guest at La Cañada Congregational Church, where I was made to feel most welcome and treated with hospitality and friendship — just as I was last Saturday afternoon at St. Cyril of Jerusalem in Encino, where we got to hear some magnificent organ and choir music at the mass, thanks to some talented and dedicated musicians, conductors and singers.