The iconic STAPLES Center in Los Angeles is celebrating its 20-year anniversary this week.
Founded in 1999, the arena has grown into a world-class facility — on par with New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s O2 Arena — and is now home to four professional sports teams, including the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers.
Yet opening STAPLES two decades ago in the less-than-thriving downtown City of Angels was a risky bet.
“The success of STAPLES Center was never guaranteed,” said Lee Zeidman, the president of STAPLES Center and L.A. Live, an adjacent entertainment center. “Nobody went downtown. It rolled up its carpet and closed at 5 p.m.”
Today, STAPLES draws enormous crowds to its events, which range from basketball to hockey to the Grammy Awards. In total, the arena has held 5,000 events, welcomed 75 million fans, and sold over 20 million beers.
The arena is also gearing up for a major event in the sports world next week: the NBA’s October 22 opening night matchup between the teams that call it home: the Lakers and the Clippers.
“We will be the center of the NBA universe,” said Zeidman, who was the arena's first full-time employee 20 years ago. “It is one of the most anticipated opening night games in the history of the NBA."
The first person to fly across New Zealand’s Cook Strait in an electric plane says he did so with plenty of battery power to spare.
A man dressed in a Joker costume and brandishing a knife stabbed at least one passenger on a Tokyo commuter train before starting a fire, injuring passengers and sending people scrambling to escape and jumping from windows, police and witnesses said.
All the news you Need2Know for Monday, November 1, 2021.
Eastern State Penitentiary’s annual Halloween festival returned for its 30th year in 2021 after a hiatus amid the pandemic. Loyal fans will likely notice some differences in this year’s festival, newly renamed “Halloween Nights.”
Merriam-Webster has added 455 new words to its venerable dictionary. The list includes a number of abbreviations and slang terms that have become ubiquitous on social media.
Activists are getting a boost from CrowdLobby to press legislators to expand New York's Good Samaritan Law to teach high school students about being proactive in saving their peers from potentially dying of a drug overdose.
Carlo and Baker cover Facebook's big rebrand, the latest on Biden's economic agenda and more. Plus, ranking the best Halloween candy and the worst couple's costumes.
Cheddar's spooky Halloween recs include "Black as Night," "The Night House," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and "Child's Play."
A new study from Fidelity has found that holders of cryptocurrency are disproportionately more charitable as investors, with 45 percent donating $1,000 or more to charity in 2020.
The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation for people who don’t identify as male or female.
