STREET BEAT : Old McDonald’s

The winsome Speedee, McDonald’s original mascot, is doing the retro thing at the recently opened McDonald’s at Highland Avenue and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The frenetic chef-boy, was last seen hereabouts perched atop the signage at the landmark McDonald’s in Downey, closed in 1994 to howls of protests from preservationists. Speedee got his reprieve by way of the Hollywood Sentinels, a neighborhood crime-watch group that consulted with the company on the new restaurant’s design. “We wanted something different than the usual McDonald’s sign,” says Sentinels founder Virginia Charon. The company, she says, investigated resurrecting the Downey restaurant’s sign but opted instead for a reborn Speedee. Charon approves. “I think it’s very neat. We’ve lost so much of our history in L.A.”