The first thing Maria noticed was the sound—an abrupt clank, the double-thump of a hydraulic arm, and the low growl of a truck idling against the late afternoon heat. She had been standing in her Culver City kitchen doorway, a cup of coffee cooling in her hand, and suddenly a bright green roll-off dumpster sat where her neighbor’s Lexus used to be, as if the street had swallowed a piece of the construction site and spat it out onto Venice Boulevard.
Setup: A Project, a Team, and a City That Never Stops
Maria was nine days into a kitchen renovation that had been promised to take
