One delivers, the other doesn’t: No sooner...

One delivers, the other doesn’t: No sooner does the downtown restaurant Engine Company No. 28 achieve some renown than someone else announces plans for a name-alike joint, Fire Station 28, in the San Fernando Valley. The someone else is the L.A. City Fire Department. While many things aren’t what they seem in L.A., Fire Station 28 will be a firehouse. It’ll be interesting to see if the restaurant sues.

Excavation of Fame: An unusual event is scheduled next spring on the Walk of Fame, one that won’t be accompanied by star appearances and speeches. It will be a star-removal ceremony at Hollywood and Vine to make way for the construction of a Metro Rail station.

No one’s sure yet which celebrities will be affected, but actress Constance Talmadge, cowboy actor Rex Ingram and opera singer Blanche Thebom could be getting a temporary heave-ho.

You may recall that a few years ago one Maurice Diller was permanently ejected after it was discovered that no luminary bore that name, not even an ex-husband of Phyllis Diller. That space was then given to Mauritz Stiller, an early 20th-Century Swedish director for whom the honor was apparently intended all along.

List of the day: The self-promoter who hung from the HOLLYWOOD sign the other day inspired some eye-catching photos. But in terms of creativity, he doesn’t rank up there with some of the classic practitioners of the art saluted in the recent book “Publicity Stunt!” by Candice Jacobson Fuhrman. For example:

* To hype the movie “The Egg and I,” publicist Jim Moran sat on an abandoned ostrich egg at an L.A. farm for 19 days, 4 hours and 32 minutes until it hatched. He occupied a “customized bed that enabled him to rest his posterior lightly on the egg.” Hundreds of spectators, who paid 50 cents each, visited daily. “They oughta be doing something worthwhile” was the mock complaint from mother Moran.

* In the 1920s, Southern Californians were taken aback by a series of billboards that issued such warnings as: “If you dance on Sunday, you are outside the law.” Or: “If you play golf on Sunday, you are outside the law.” Later, it was revealed that the messages were plugs for a movie--”Outside the Law.”

* A special premiere of “Blazing Saddles” for horses was staged at an L.A. drive-in near a stable. More than 250 horses attended, “each one standing in a car space next to a sound hookup pole.” The concession stands served oats in popcorn containers and, of course, horse d’oeuvres.

* Publicist Russell Birdwell hired an ex-federal agent as a “brain guard” for David O. Selznick International in the 1930s. Birdwell explained that the agent was there to guard not against the theft of equipment but the theft of ideas. These days, there wouldn’t be much for a brain guard to watch over.

Jock humor: KMPC-AM uses the slogan “One station fits all.” After seeing the all-sports station’s newest billboard on let-it-all-hang-out Sunset Boulevard, author Harry Medved opined that it should be “One station offends all.”

Go Granny, Go Granny, Go Granny Go! So there she was, a smiling, white-haired woman cruising about in a car whose license plate honored a Jan & Dean oldie. It said: ALOLFP.

Hint: The license plate frame indicates that the lady is from Pasadena. And may be the terror of Colorado Boulevard, for all we know.

miscelLAny:

The Los Angeles Coliseum sits on a

site once used for horse, camel and greyhound racing until protests from residents about the seedy clientele led to the dismantling of the racetrack in 1910.