The late Westchester businessman, developer and civic leader Howard Drollinger had a Westchester street named after him last week.
What was once 89th Street on both sides of Sepulveda Boulevard is now Howard B. Drollinger Way, thanks to a motion from L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.
Drollinger, who died in August 2006 at 84, was credited with establishing Westchester’s business district in the 1940s and then helping to revive it 50 years later. His family built Westchester’s first commercial building in 1944 and, three years later, Drollinger established a development company that eventually acquired control over much of the commercially zoned district just north of what would later become LAX.
In the mid-1990s, Drollinger helped spark a Westchester revival by converting a row of largely abandoned buildings along Sepulveda into a “retail village” anchored by a Ralphs supermarket.
Accidental Collector
LACMA’s newest exhibition showcases art from the Price Collection, which is considered among the finest sets of Edo-period Japanese art. But Joe Price said his collection started as little more than a whim.
Price, an engineer, said he was walking in New York with his tutor, famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1953 when Wright stopped in an art shop. A Japanese print of grapevines caught Price’s eye, he bought it, and what was to become a world-class collection was born. (The grapevines print is displayed in the show, which opened June 22.)
“For years and years, nobody wanted the stuff,” Price said last week at a preview of the show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After one important purchase, Price recalled, one person scolded him by saying, “I can’t believe you bought that.”
The good thing, said Price, who lives in Orange County, was that he got some great buys. “But it sure didn’t seem like it at the time.”
Sports Winers
The Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits 2008 competition added a unique category this year: It’s called the Wine World of Sports.
The event, which was held two weeks ago, solicited entries from the growing number of sports personalities who own wineries or lend their names to labels.
Tommy Lasorda’s Pinot Grigio was named the best overall winner, beating out entries from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and golfers Arnold Palmer and John Daly, among others. Lasorda began distribution only last August.
Winemaking is a tradition in the Lasorda family; his father brought presses with him when he emigrated from Italy and Lasorda helped his father pick grapes to make wine when he was a child.
Staff reporters David Nusbaum and Howard Fine and Editor Charles Crumpley contributed to this column. Daniel Miller can be reached at
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