Most of the Spanish Colonial-style homes and storybook cottages that line the streets of Atwater Village were built in the 1920s and 1930. Those homes are relative newbies compared to this newly listed three-bedroom home in the 4000 block of Baywood Street. The farmhouse-like structure was built in 1890, according to the listing and city records. It’s not clear if the house was built somewhere else and later moved on to the block but its location north of Chevy Chase Drive puts it one of the earliest parts of the neighborhood to be developed, according to an Atwater history posted by the Friends of Awater Village. In fact, at the time the house 122-year-old house was built, there really was no community known as Atwater – the area near the river was called Riverdale – and Baywood Street was known and Eucalyptus Street.
How much to own a piece of pre-20th Century Atwater/Riverdale? Asking price is $454,000, according to Redfin.
When Echo Park Lake’s costly clean up is completed next year, one of the park’s icons – the Art Deco-style Lady of the Lake statue – will be restored and returned to her original location at the tip of a peninsula on the northern end of the lake. Most long time residents welcome the relocation of the nearly 80-year-old statue by Ada Mae Sharpless to its original and more prominent spot, currently occupied by concrete-block pump house. But, at last night’s update on the lake clean up project, there was some conflicting views as to which way the Lady of the Lake should face when returned to her original home. While many residents remember that statue facing to the north, away from the water, a few residents at last night’s meeting insisted that the statue faced south in the direction of the lake. Would it not be better if the Lady of Lake faced the water, said one woman.
But, as the above 1974 by Echo Park resident Stephen Roullier shows, the 14-foot-high Lady of the Lake faced north, away from the water.
Several of the artists who were involved in a pioneering Chicano art movement in Highland Park during the 1970s attended Saturday night’s opening reception of Resurrected Histories: Voices from the Chicano Arts Collectives of Highland Park. With their hair now streaked with gray, the artists, friends and family members were part of an over-flow crowd that jammed Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park to view the vintage photos, posters and artwork generated during that era. In the photo above, artist Richard Duardo, who founded Centro de Arte Publico, and his sister, Lisa Duardo, stand in front of a photo (bottom image) taken of them during the 1970s when Centro de Arte was one of three Highland Park artist collectives that turned the neighborhood into a center for young Chicano artists. Click on the link below for other photos from last night’s art opening.
Highland Park residents on Tuesday night celebrated the restoration of another historic sign above Figueroa Street. The neon and opal glass Manning’s Coffee Store sign was relighted as part of a program to restore some of the vintage signage, including the green and white Highland Theatre sign, which was restored last year. Nicole Possert with the Highland Park Heritage Trust provided a bit more history on Manning’s and it’s now restored sign:
Manning’s Coffee was the precursor to today’s Starbucks. With a large west coast operation from 1908 – 1984, there were 20 Manning’s locations throughout the City. In 1936, Manning’s opened a Highland Park location in a newly constructed building yet moved this rooftop sign, constructed in 1933, from their location in Hollywood that was expanding and being renovated.
The rooftop sign has sat dark for decades after Manning’s closed but was never removed. This sign is the only Manning’s signs left standing in the City. In the 1990s, the sign was vandalized and most of the opal glass letters were stolen. Through a wonderful coincidence and the network and dedication of historic commercial sign advocates, like the Museum of Neon Art, the original opal glass letters were recovered and brought back to Highland Park. Amazingly, all 22 original glass letters will be cleaned and reinstalled in the original sign.
Inspired by the historic sign restoration, La Cazuelas restaurant, which now occupies the Manning’s storefront, had its neon, star-shaped sign redone in time for Tuesday’s relighting by the same team that worked on the Manning’s sign.
The City Council earlier this month declared Heritage Square, the open-air Montecito Heights museum dotted with fanciful Victorian-era homes and buildings, a city historic cultural monument. While many of the buildings visible from the 110 Freeway are landmarks in their own right, the City Council’s action designates the entire museum grounds, a narrow strip of land leased from the city, a historic landmark. The museum applied for landmark status earlier this year in part to get around building and safety codes that would have required it to construct a parking lot in the middle of museum grounds as part of a new drug store exhibit.
City officials will gather on the First Street Bridge – one of the Los Angeles River spans linking Boyle Heights to downtown Los Angeles – on Tuesday morning to celebrate the reopening of the structure following a widening project that took longer and cost more than expected. Portions of the 82-year-old bridge have been closed to traffic since 2007 to allow the bridge to be widened by 26-feet to accommodate the Metro Gold Line tracks that run down the middle of the structure. While the Gold Line trains started running across the bridge in 2008, work on widening the span ran into unexpected trouble and delays, ranging from the unexpected discovery of large boulders and unknown utility lines that complicated foundation construction to restricted work hours near a Metro rail yard. Officials had estimated last year that cost overruns could reach as high as $12 million.
As a result of delays, the project, which was to have been completed in May 2010, dragged on, leaving the bridge closed to westbound traffic until last Thursday. Now, traffic, trains and pedestrians flow in both directions.
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Get ready to wait – again – for the First Street Bridge to be finished. The Eastsider
Waiting for the arches to return to the First Street bridge. The Eastsider
A small fire broke out on Thursday afternoon on the site of a nearly 90-year-old East Los Angeles handball court that has been nominated as a state historic monument. The fire at Maravilla Handball Court – the oldest surviving handball court in East L.A. – caused relatively minor damage to a vacant store connected to the brick court and will not interfere with the landmark nomination, said Los Angeles Conservancy official Cindy Olnick who inspected the damage.
The dusty and dingy white exterior of the nearly century-old Echo Park church at the corner of Morton and Parmer avenues was recently repainted a bold shade of terra cotta red with mustard trim. The colors might be too bold for some but the new look has helped highlight the steeple and the old stained glass windows of the Faith Christ Church Los Angeles (though at least two walls have been left unpainted). When the church was completed in 1914, it was known as Providence Congregational Church. An L.A. Times story said the church reflected the sweat and labor of its parishioners and leaders, the Rev. John H. Cooper and pastor A.E. Reinschmidt:
Rev. Reinschmidt has been a conspicuous character in blue overalls ever since the work first began, aiding in every way that was possible. Rev. Cooper, in addition to an exceptional and liberal donation by Mrs. Cooper and himself, undertook to do all the painting and tinting gratis, the greater part of which has already been completed.
What would Rev. Cooper think of those new colors?
Neighborhood Fixture provides a bit of history and background about buildings and sites that catch our attention, for better or worse.
Many Los Angeles area residents associate the name “Rose Hills” with a large cemetery near Whittier. But it is also the name of a hillside neighborhood on the western edge of El Sereno. Rose Hills, the neighborhood, stands to get a little more attention under a proposal by Councilman Jose Huizar to install “Rose Hill” community signs on Monterey Road near Hermon, Soto Street near Mission Road and Huntington Drive near Collis Avenue. A major advocate of Rose Hills history and identity has been resident and LA 32 Neighborhood Council President activist Anthony Manzano, who has claimed that Rose Hills is Los Angeles’ oldest neighborhood.
Other neighborhood historians would probably disagree but Manzano argues that his neighborhood’s name is derived from Rancho Rosa de Castilla – the name of a Spanish-era ranch – and Ostungna, which he said means “Place of Roses” in the Tongva langauge. Here is Manzano’s reasoning in a recent email:
As time progresses … it is recorded that Ostungna became Rancho Rosa de Castilla and a map of 1852 indicates that the area north and east of the Pueblo was one Ranch. The name Rancho Rosa de Castilla is still carried slightly by the name of the street that is used at Cal State L.A. … and the community of Rose Hills still carries the name true to the Native Tongva Indians for over 7,000 years.
The large gray mansion with steeply-pitched roofs that crowns a Silver Lake hilltop is now best known as the home of American Apparel founder Dov Charney, who has attracted notoriety for hosting employee meetings in his bedroom. But decades before Charney moved, the nearly 12,000-square foot home served as the home for the family of industrialist Frank Garbutt, who built the house in the late 1920s. In 1981, the home was restored and was declared a national historic monument as the hilltop around it was developed for a gated community called Hathaway Hill Estates. Unless you get an invite from Dov Charney, there’s no way you can even get past the Hathaway Hills guard house to enjoy the 360-degree views from the Garbutt mansion, which now sits amid 1980s tract houses. But, the video above allow you to tour the Charney-Garbutt estate after it was renovated 30 years ago. The bottom video shows the house under renovation – check out the tiled kitchen, painted elevator doors and what seems like a bidet in every bathroom. Want more Garbutt? There’s even a pre-renovation video.
The videos accompanied a story in Echo Park Patch that notes the house remains closed to the public despite its landmark status. If only Dov would let us in for a quick peek.
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Highland Park residents on Tuesday night celebrated the restoration of another historic sign above Figueroa Street. The neon and opal glass Manning’s Coffee Store sign was relighted 
The City Council earlier this month declared 
City officials will gather on the 
The dusty and dingy white exterior of the nearly century-old Echo Park church at the corner of 
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Best of L.A. 
The Eastsider publishes stories and news from the northeast corner of the City of Los Angeles and neighboring East Los Angeles. Who is the Eastsider? Where does the Eastsider roam? 
