The Downtown Blob makes a move on Lincoln Heights. LA Eastside
Maybe the Downtown Blob should bring a broom and some trash bags to Lincoln Heights. Loteria Chicana
Obama’s Occidental College years to get the Huell Howser treatment. York Blvd.
Avenues gang members plead not guilty to killing deputy in Cypress Park shooting. LA Weekly
Colombo’s: Eagle Rock’s other longtime Italian restaurant. Pasadena Weekly
Post-Christmas shoppers take a holiday. Eastside Living
Mixed use: An artist studio/home/water tank selling for $649,946. Curbed LA
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Echo Park studio of the artist behind the now world-famous Obama poster is less than two miles away from downtown Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. But when it came time to organize Fairey’s first major museum retrospective, the contemporary museum that took up the task was in Boston. (I guess MOCA was too busy getting into financial trouble).
The Institute of Contemporary Art of Boston opens “Shepard Fairey: Supply & Demand” on Feb. 6. in time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Obey Giant,” the image that established Fairey as one of the nation’s best known street artists. It does not look like the show, based on press materials, is traveling to Los Angeles.
Image: Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday approved a preliminary gang injunction against the Temple Street gang, which claims the southern edge of Silver Lake and Echo Park. Nearly 40 gang injunctions, which restrict the activities of gang members, have been used to in other parts of the city. This is the first gang injunction to cover Echo Park and Silver Lake. The Temple Street injunction names more than 250 members, which KCBS reports are subject to a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and other restrictions within in a one-square-mile area:
Image: Brown Kingdom
Baseball season ended months ago but Dodger Stadium has been far from quiet. The last few days of the year find the giant stadium parking lot reverberating with the sounds of tubas, trombones and drums as marching bands practice for their New Year’s Day stroll down Colorado Boulevard during the Rose Parade. The 350 members of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s All District High School Honor Band makes most of the noise. But in years past bands from other schools and organizations have also shared the parking lot to perfect their sounds and moves in time for the Pasadena parade.
Many of the residents who live near Dodger Stadium spend most of the Spring and Summer dreading baseball game traffic and noise. But come December many of those same residents look forward to what has become an annual, holiday concert series. Some people don’t just listen from their homes. Entire families trek through the stadium parking lot to watch and listen to the young musicians practice across the asphalt, say nearby residents.
“I love listening to them. They are phenomenal” said Mary-Austin Klein of the school district band. They keep playing [the theme to] “Sesame Street” this year. It’s hilarious.”
Peter Lassen is another marching band fan. But he has his limits. “I am not happy about hearing “Proud Mary” over and over again. But it’s fun.”
If you can’t make today’s final band practice at Dodger Stadium, then tune in the Rose Parade on Thursday and wait for LA Unified’s Honor Band to roll by. They are scheduled to be entry No. 83. I wonder if they will still be playing Proud Mary.
Photo by NoHo Damon.
Earlier this month an administrator from Barlow Respiratory Hospital near Elysian Park expressed concern that the Los Angeles Times was preparing a story about the hospital’s plan to redevelop its campus. It turns out that the executives of the 106-year medical facility had nothing to worry about. The Times’ Barlow story ran Friday and contained not a single word of criticism or skepticism about a plan that would demolish most of the park-like campus, a city historic landmark, and replace it with high density housing, leaving a little patch left over to build a new Barlow.
Some Echo Park residents have already expressed concern as well as support for Barlow’s preliminary plans, which have been presented to small groups. In late September, one Echo Park resident who attended one of those meetings described the hospital’s plans as “insane.” But none of those sentiments were reflected in the Times story. Instead, the only words devoted to the surrounding community were these:
“…many nearby residents are fiercely insular and protective.”
Apparently insular and protective people are not worth interviewing because the only persons quoted in the Times story are Barlow employees and hospital consultants.
Coldstone Creamery in Atwater Village to close but a new sweets shop is on the way. Atwater Village Newbie
Just so there’s no confusion: Echo Park’s new Thai restaurant is called “It’s Thai.” Daily Dish
Rock Row under development in Eagle Rock. Curbed LA
Dov Charney, not exactly a cover boy. LA Biz Observed
Update @ 8:18 am: A police SWAT team entered the store and found no one inside, one resident reports.
The LAPD this morning has surrounded an Echo Park pawnshop where a burglary suspected is believed to be holed up inside. A three block section of Sunset Boulevard between Echo Park Avenue and Lemoyne Street has been closed off, according to nearby residents. Police arrived before 6 a.m. at the pawnshop located on the ground floor of the Jensen’s Recreation Center, a neighborhood landmark at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Logan St.
A police officer at the Rampart Division station had no details about the incident. It’s not clear whether a burglary was in progress or what exactly triggered the police response. One tenant who lives in the apartments above the Jensen storefronts said police have not attempted to evacuate the building.
Tenants are watching the scene from their windows and have listened to police repeatedly order the suspect “to come out with your hands up” and threaten to send in dogs. But tenants were pretty calm about the situation.
“I’m sitting here in my bathrobe watching,” said one resident.
What are people thinking? A puppy complete with carrier dumped in Elysian Heights. Echo Elysian Forum
$67 leather key rings and more at Echo Park’s new Mohawk General Store. LA Times
Silver Lake’s Malo goes downtown. Daily Dish
Meet the Occidental College professor who is at the head of the pack of L.A.’s bike movement. Streetsblog
Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens is not exactly impressed with Shepard Fairey’s Obama portrait featured on the cover of Time or the magazine itself for that matter:
“The Che Guevara-esque, eyes-to-the-far-distance portrait by “street artist” Shepard Fairey is a throwback to the magazine’s earliest days, when hero worship was considered an honest form of journalism.”
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