LAST CHANCE!!!! Please submit your nomination for the 2008 Broker Boy or Broker Babe of your choice by tomorrow, Saturday, August 23rd at midnight. Nominations must at a minimum include a picture, or a link to a picture of the nominee. The nominee must have also had a listing within the last six months and be located in Southern California. Nominators remain anonymous! Let your love flow free. Please email us at la@curbed.com with your nomination. [Curbed LA]

Someone is bailing out broke-ass Ed McMahon, but it's not Trump, reports the Associated Press. The former Tonight Show sidekick has found a buyer for his hilltop Beverly Hills mansion. The home, part of a gated community that houses Britney Spears, went to an unknown buyer for a yet to be disclosed price. McMahon and family will hit the high road once the sale is complete. [AP]

Nothing sexier than making your way through a General Plan on a steamy August afternoon. Open a Corona and curl up with the Draft 2008-2014 Housing Element of the Long Beach General Plan; it's now available for public review and online. [Curbed InBox]

Where: Everywhere. But specifically: Last night, Silver Lake restaurant. Who: Architect friend. Sentiment: Not enough work for the smaller firms, too many architects in LA. "There aren't enough crumbs to go around." Also: Some of our architect friends without enough work are fricking moody these days. Doomsday mentality, talking about how the last recession shook out lots of talented architects. Everyone to China! [Curbed Staff]

No word yet on what neighborhood Dodgers manager Joe Torre moved to when he moved out West last year, but check out his blog. Yup, Torre has a blog. Here's his take on driving: "Getting used to driving in general again, and on LA freeways, no less. It's not all as easy as cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway, which I need to start calling the PCH, apparently. I've got to find my way around a place that stretches over 400 square miles, sit in traffic, NOT get run off the freeway, and figure out how to make left-hand turns in the city." The delightful headline on that post: "He Who Is No Longer Car Free." [Torre's Stories]

Yesterday, the Cultural Heritage Committee voted to review an application to make Griffith Park historic. As noted, Griffith Van Griffith and his family trust applied for Historic Cultural Monument status for the park. Next up: A staff member in the Cultural Heritage Committee Office tells Curbed that tours of the park (to study the park) will commence (and, hey, the public is invited to join the tours), followed by public hearings. Then the commission will give its recommendation to the City Council. [Curbed Staff]

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's signature on a law that was called one of the "nation's toughest laws on pet sterilization," (dogs and cats must now be spayed or neutered by the age of 4 months) was likely applauded by anyone concerned about the issue (like residents of San Pedro, where efforts have been underway to curb its feral cat population). But now there's this: "Just little more than a month before the law is set to go into effect, the city isn't prepared to enforce it, according to the city controller," writes the Daily News editorial board. A review released this week found there's been no public education on the law, budget cuts will hinder enforcement, and it's basically an honor system on the part of pet owners to enact the sterilization. [Daily News]

Blog Yo Venice reports that Saturday is Go Topless Day, a 9-city event that is organized by a group that wants "women to have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men." According to the Go Topless group, supporters should gather at noon at Venice Beach "Where Navy Street meets the sand"; the web site notes topless women "will rally in great numbers across the USA to protest this gross inequality in the law..." [Yo Venice]

Pasadena's Evelyn Boadway apartments will soon have a new home. The Pasadena Weekly reports that the 81 year old apartment building, which sits cut in half on a city parking lot, will be moved next week to a new location at Mar Vista and Union Street. "Last August, developer Antreas Hindoyan purchased the structure from [Fuller Seminary], which had slated it for demolition as part of its campus expansion project, for $10 in hopes of converting it into an affordable housing project." [Pasadena Weekly]

The New York Times' Mireya Navarro uses Candy Spelling's recent purchase at under-construction skyscraper The Century as evidence that LA is growing up, literally. While in decades past, being ultra-rich in this city meant owning a mansion the size of Rhode Island, more and more richies are buying palaces in the sky, (as Candy did for $47 million) thanks to traffic concerns and a desire for urban-living. Says real estate expert Delores Conway on LA's verticalization: "The city is becoming more interconnected and growing up. It’s a major change in the landscape.” [NY Times]

Where: Everywhere. At least three friends have mentioned it recently. Three is a trend, right? Who: Silver Lake couple, Los Feliz man, Santa Monica woman. What: "We have a fly epidemic." In a city known for its lack of annoying anthropods, the flies seem to have descended. Several long-time LA residents have started to complain they have flies in their homes for the first time ever. Is it because of climate change? More humidity than usual? Are the locusts next? [Curbed Staff]

Today's the day that the city's Cultural Heritage Committee will review an application to make Griffith Park historic: Griffith Van Griffith and his family trust have applied for Historic Cultural Monument status, which if approved, would make the park the country's largest historic landmark. City Councilman Tom LaBonge is skeptical of the idea, worrying it could affect the park's maintenance and infrastructure (sewers, etc.); Ken Bernstein, manager of the Cultural Heritage Commission tells the LA Times' Joanna Lin a historical designation would not "freeze historic properties at a point in time." If the Cultural Historic Commission decides to formerly consider the application, they'll ultimately also have to decide whether to pass the matter to the full City Council. [LA Times]

Real estate agents aren't the only ones being trailed by cameras: As referenced in AM linkage, tonight the Sundance Channel debuts "Architecture School," a show that follows 12 students in Tulane University’s design-build program, URBANbuild, in post-Katrina New Orleans as they build a 1,200-square-foot house for a low-income family. A round-up of reviews: New York Sun: "But ultimately the series is more "This Old House" than "Fountainhead"..."LA Times: "...it is less about the clash of personalities than the way they cooperate....the series is low on manufactured drama." Archinect: "...the series accurately shows the combative discussion sessions, we've all been a part of with students and professors challenging the designers on their work and how well it serves the low-income residents it's intended for. "How does your design make better the life of someone who wants to live in the house," one critic asks, "rather than stoke the ego of the architect who wants to express their nifty idea?" Ouch!...the show spends a considerable amount of time with New Orleans neighborhood residents, discussing the hurricane's effect on them and their hopes for rebuilding."