Music Center Plaza; LA’s new tree czar

The Music Center Plaza, opened in 1964 with a design by architect Welton Becket, has been reimagined for pedestrians rather than cars. “We had to walk a line between preserving as best we could what was here, but making it work better for the changing urban environment that we have here,” said architect Bob Hale. And Los Angeles has a new city forest officer, starting Tuesday. Rachel Malarich has two big goals: adding 90,000 trees to LA’s streets and private yards, and increasing the tree canopy in the least shady neighborhoods by 50 percent in the next decade.