The residents of the Garvanza section of Highland Park are playing a guessing game over what looks like a new restaurant in the works at 519 Avenue 64 near Repton Street. Neighbors have noticed that a rooftop sign for “Garvanza’s Comida Por La Vida” – has replaced signage for Timbo’s, a Mexican restaurant that kept erratic hours, according to postings on Yelp. The windows to Timbo’s are now papered over, and one person working inside told The Eastsider a restaurant would be opening soon but provided no more details.
Meanwhile, a posting on the Garvanza Improvement Association’s Facebook page said the owner lives in Garvanza and is planning to open the second week in December with a menu featuring “Latin eclectic mix of foods from all regions.”
Photo courtesy Lauren Crist
The Eastsider has been crawling with stories and photos of spiders recently, including the brown widows of Montecito Heights and a spider dangling over Silver Lake. Our most recent spider photo shown above comes courtesy of Lauren Crist of Garvana, who snapped a shot of the spider in silhoute against her back door light. Yes, it’s real, said Crist, who provides the details:
Roughly 1.5″ body. Legs made it bigger. It actually skittered away last night as I was taking photos of it. I’ve seen other types of large spiders in my backyard but nothing that “fat.”
The L.A. Times on Sunday took a look back at when the Garvanza section of Highland Park served as a hub of the local arts and craftsman movement. At the center of this artistic activity was British painter and teacher William Lees Judson, who in 1893 moved to Los Angeles and built a house in Garvanza overlooking the Arroyo Seco. Judson co-founded the Arroyo Guild, a group of artisans and craftsman, and also helped started USC’s College of Fine Art in a building located across the street from his Garvanza home. That building would also serve as the headquarters of the Arroyo Guild and its collective of home builders that Judson had organized. The fine art building burned down in 1910 but Judson had a new structure (pictured above) constructed in its place .
In a few years, however, the guild was out of business and the fine arts school moved to the main USC campus. But the old college and guild building on Avenue 66 still remains and now serves as the home for the Judson Studio, a stained glass business operated by David Judson, a great, great grandson of William Lees Judson. The slogan of the Arroyo Guild - “We Can” – can still be seen above the entrance to the building. Judson told the Times:
“We’re still trying to invoke the ideals of the Arroyo Guild … “I hope the original members are looking down and approving of what we are doing.”
Photos by Martha Benedict
The narrow streets of Garvanza are lined with modest Craftsman-style bungalows – many using river rock from the nearby Arroyo Seco - as well as some grand Victorian-style homes and imposing churches. Tonight, the city’s Planning Department will hold a public hearing to help determine if a 45-block section Garvanza, located between Pasadena and northeast Highland Park, should be protected as a historic district. The public hearing – which will be followed up by other city meetings – is part of a more than decade-long effort bu preservationists to protect what they view as a treasure trove of historic architecture. “This is a longtime in coming,” said Nicole Possert with the Highland Park Heritage Trust.
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