Which Way, L.A.?

The Fate of the Historic Ambassador Hotel

LA-s landmark Ambassador Hotel with its 444 rooms of Italian Renaissance and Mission revival architecture has been closed since 1989, leaving 23 acres unused in the heart of the city. The community around it is so dense that 4000 kids live within walking distance. So, the LA Unified School District bought the property, and is looking at no less than five different plans for building an elementary, middle and high school-all of which include preservation. Can this historic center of glitz and glamour become a meeting point for education, commerce, and historic preservation in Koreatown? We hear from an expert in adapting historic buildings for reuse, a preservationist from the Los Angeles Conservancy and the director of the Wilshire Center Business Improvement Corporation. Making News: Tokin- Sentence for Convicted Medical Marijuana Grower Ed Rosenthal is popularly called California-s -guru of ganja.- Today, the 58-year old advocate of medical marijuana could have been sentenced to 60 years on federal chargers for growing 100 pot plants. Instead, he walked of the courtroom a free man. The San Francisco Chronicle-s Bob Egelko, who admits that the verdict surprised many in the courtroom, deciphers the decision that deciphered California and federal drug laws. Reporter-s Notebook: Was RFK-s Assassination the First Shot in the Terror War? Thirty-five years ago tomorrow, just after he won California-s presidential primary, Robert Kennedy was shot to death in the Ambassador Hotel. Sirhan Sirhan, the man with the gun, shouted, -I can explain.- Was America listening? Michael Fischbach, who teaches history at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, says the 1968 political murder offers valuable lessons for American foreign policy today.