sidewalk

Footage aired by KTLA-TV showed one of the two cars upside down on the sidewalk by the Starbucks’ outdoor patio area.

Parisians, most of them children with strangely adult faces, stand transfixed or walk past each other, engaged in what the urban theorist Jane Jacobs called “an intricate sidewalk ballet.”

Drive through enough neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and you might notice an odd phenomenon: In front of some newer apartment and commercial buildings, the street is slightly wider, and the sidewalk meanders around the indentation.

“Never judge a book by its contents,” quipped a wag in a porkpie hat as we both regarded the cover of an aging paperback guide to vitamins, for sale on a Broadway sidewalk.

For years, the city hasn’t budgeted enough money to adequately maintain streets, lights, sidewalks, trees and public infrastructure.