Things I Found in February

What's better than finding stuff? (I guess having a lot of money to buy whatever, whenever one likes.) As I was saying, what's better than finding stuff?


Flag holder, picked from atop a dumpster on 24th near Vermont.



Maybe I shouldn't show off my found wares. Will others be inspired to salvage? Will I face more competition for choice cast-offs? Wouldn't I rather face more competition? I'd be a relief really, to drive by a stack of splintered wood and think, Jack and Joan'll see to that rubbish, and if they don't there's always Marty and Mort.








Pedestal sink. Placed at the curb near Venice & La Brea, along with the oft-discarded aquarium, a built-in tub, and drywall scraps.




Door hardware. Removed from discarded doors on Jefferson near St. Andrews. (Awaiting a tri-sodium phosphate bath.)

Favorite LA Movies 3

The Driver

Director Walter Hill's The Driver is the veritable A to Z of downtown Los Angeles, a back drop to impossibly long car chases, expertly lensed by d.p. Phil Lathrop. Ryan O'Neal plays a nameless get-away driver, single-mindedly pursued by a conniving detective (actor Bruce Dern). The Bonaventure Hotel and Union Station receive especially long cameos along with some, probably long gone, SRO hotel. Despite the abundance of night driving sequences, Lathrop's photography, while sufficiently source motivated, is always permeable and coherent. Hill's second directorial effort (after 1975's Hard Times), the minimal, neo-noir Driver was released in 1978, a year before Hill's break-out success, the street gang picture The Warriors.

The Alley

Sooner or later it has to rain (doesn't it?); and, sometimes in Los Angeles it rains very hard, without interruption, and where is all the water to go?

In heavy rains, the water flows from my rear yard into the alley.

In preparation (of impending storms!) I cleared the leaves, deposited by my arch-rival the bouganvillea, and trash along the alley side of the run-off, anything that might interrupt or impede my serviceable grading. With regard to fluid dynamics, I was eliminating turbulence, or so the applied science reads.

My alley is ungated, backs a moribund commercial corridor, a pocket park, a library; and, increasingly disused, serves only to access a few garages. Open on both ends, it is prone to dumping. Richard the metalsmith who lives in a twenties warehouse behind me has furnished nearly his entire space in alley cast-offs, even window treatments.
"If I'm willing to wait", he once proclaimed, "it'll show up."
Some houses on my block/alley lack garages altogether. Some have converted their garage (illegally) into an in-law or rental (which makes street parking more scarce). Yet most prefer to park on the street which is less desolate and therefore feels safer. In many places the alleys are gated. By doing so the city abdicates their maintenance responsibilites. The gates are padlocked and only the residents have keys. This tends to discourage their use even further.

One elderly neighbor, exiled by his wife, uses the alley as a place to smoke. He doesn't seem the least bit concerned about fluid dynamics.

The Brick Pile

Five years ago I replaced my original foundation (from 1909) and removed a chimney that acted as a vent chase (for a floor furnace and wood burning stove).

Both were made of brick ("unreinforced masonry"), together they created a heckuva pile.

I've begun in earnest to sort through the heap, scraping away the disintegrating mortar, tossing the broken pieces, restacking the rest. Delightedly, many are "clinkers", bricks that became mishapen and irregular, vitrified, in the firing process.

The "clinker" name comes, supposedly, from the sound the bricks make when knocked together, owing to their increased density.

These odd lots were often discarded, until practitioners of the Arts & Crafts movement began to prize their organic, pre-industrial non-conformity.

Last year, I took a few hundred and laid a patio. This year maybe I'll make an horno, and then next year a giant tower that'll reach hundreds of feet up into the sky.....

Maybe I should just keep scraping.

Signs on Trees

Electrical poles and streetlights are commonly "papered" with notices and fliers, recording industry promotions and pleas for los perros perdidos. Trees on the other hand are seldom festooned, respected as living things and quasi-private possessions.

Sometimes, revoltingly, a tree is tagged, often after the tree is adorned with a bright headlight-reflecting stripe.



My favorite, from the 2000 block of Oxford, presumably a No Parking sign, engulfed by a broad, unyielding trunk.






Scripture, sensitively fastened by string. These signs appear in many places, presumably the work of one, in English and Spanish. (32nd Street near Hill)





Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is spearheading a praiseworthy initiative entitled, Million Trees LA. As with most urban forest ventures, it encourages tree planting.
With my infinite powers, I would make tree planting mandatory. Every (plantable) lot in Los Angeles would be required to host at least one tree. Plant it, or face a property tax assessment!


And no signs, please.

Favorite LA Movies 2

The Late Show, produced by Robert Altman, written and directed by Robert Benton, pairs nostalgia and whimsy, Art Carney and Lily Tomlin. Released in 1977, the film dressed down classic potboiler elements, interjecting Tomlin's scatter-brained wit and moments of gentle comedy.

The Late Show contains plenty of down home L.A. streetscapes and practical interiors. Carney's character, a wizened P.I., even lives in a West Adams area boarding house (note the Denker street signs). Ah, the bad old days.

Pilasters

Get a load of those pilasters!


Pilasters are engaged, that is attached to or partly embedded in a wall. Pilasters, like these ionic columns, are purely decorative, as opposed to full columns that would instead be a supporting feature.

(Apartment building on 8th near Westlake)



Pilasters are a common detail in Greek Revival architecture, also featured in Georgian, Federal, and Colonial styles.

This house on 25th street in Kinney Heights has a pilaster that resembles a doric column, with a single story shaft, terminating at the stringcourse.




Pilasters are most commonly either piers or pillars/columns and can be constructed as a projection of the wall itself. This example in North University Park is also column-like, sporting a small rosette and capital (a type of finishing crown).

The entalature above is festooned with a garland, resembling a band of flowers, a swag of fabric, a festive decoration.

Listings Update

The Emard house in West Adams Heights is in its final week of escrow.

The Kinney Heights Craftsman (2171 W. 24th St.) is also in escrow.

3637 2nd Avenue has received offers and may move into the pending category next week.

What's upcoming?

Another 24th Street listing, an Adobe Revival, built in 1931. Another dreamy Jefferson Park bungalow, and an unusual side-by-side Craftsman duplex in West Park. More details in a couple weeks.

The Death of the Empty Lot

Remember the empy lot of your childhood? How it functioned, even minus picnic benches, a corkscrew slide, and spring rider as a defacto park, a sandlot, for unorganized games and adventure play?

But when was the last time you saw that? As the original horizontal city tilts vertical, as the term high-density infill becomes a councilman's mantra, empty lots are being devoured like hot dogs at a Nathan's event. They're inaccessible besides, wrapped in tall, liability-staving, chain link.

While the city becomes more dense (adding an average 30,000 new residents a year), rarely are the remaining un-built parcels commandeered for municipal use. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will sometimes acquire an acre of two, protecting its holy land, in the canyons or passes, inaccessible to most, practical for none.

The Cornfield or Chinatown Yard, the city's first state park, is a notable exception. The 32 acre site, former Tongva village, and Southern Pacific train yard, funnels into the LA River, near the Brewery Art Colony and Lincoln Heights.



Of course urban infill is supposed to be about less resource intensive sustainable (is it a chant or a drone....) access to urban amenities--like parks! Really it's about units man, units, units, units. Is it smart growth or just big growth?

Which is why we need more parks, particularly if we've lost its poor cousin--the empty lot.

Crime Part 1

Is it safe?









Is there crime in that grand swath of basin neighborhoods ("South Mid City"), in, around, and south of Historic West Adams, from Figueroa to LaBrea, Olympic to Slauson?

My response, with less and less hesitancy is, "very little, particularly relative to the past two decades, and to other big cities".

For starters, Los Angeles on a whole has gotten safer: on a per capita basis, type 1 crimes (which includes all violent crimes, burglary, and auto theft) is at its lowest point since the early 1950's. The FBI in their last Uniform Crime Report (UCR), ranked Los Angeles second safest (to New York) amongst the 10 largest cities in the country. According to Morgan Quinto, who publish state and city crime rankings each year, the 10 most dangerous cities with over 500,000 people in 2006 were: Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, Houston, D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas, Nashville, Charlotte, Columbus, and Houston. Not only was Los Angeles absent from that ignominious roll but it also placed better than even smaller cities like Cincinnati, St. Louis, Atlanta, Kansas City, Birmingham, Richmond (VA), and Orlando.






While the police force takes credit, research professionals muse, and other critics cite stochastic hocus-pocus, the rankings continue to impress.

The Central Division which includes downtown (and the near nihilism of skid row) reported the lowest incident numbers since 1944, despite (or perhaps because of) a vertible population boom in the South Park area near the Staples Center.

Property crime dropped 9% last year in Los Angeles, and is now less than that of Sydney, Australia.

Homicide numbers have declined precipitously.

In 1992, LA's most violent year, the city recorded 1,083 homicides. Ten years later (2002) 647 persons were murdered--436 fewer. Last year, 436 persons were murdered (a further decline of 211 in five years). An unvarying reduction that seems to undermine all those haggard notions of urban hopelessness and inescapability.



Even former Fort Apache outposts like the Southwest precinct, 77th Street, and Harbor are posting statistics that mark a huge decline in violent crime. The Southwest precinct, which encompasses everything from University Park to Baldwin Hills, over 13 square miles and 165,00 residents including Baldwin Village and the notorious "Jungle", reported a mere 3 homicides in January (even with unusually dry, warm weather).

Some number of homicides too are not street crimes, but the tragic outcome of a destructive domestic dynamic. Still lamentable, but at least typically without the potential for collateral circumstance and broader violence. (The Bureau of Justice Statistics claim that 1,700 murders a year nationwide are the result of domestic violence.) This raises a further question, what number of murder victims are "unintended victims"?















To Be Continued...

Important Community Notice

There will be a public hearing:

Monday, February 12 @ 1:30 pm.
Los Angeles City Hall
200 North Spring St. Room 1050

Statement from the Jefferson Park Preservation Coalition:




Do you want this to happen in your backyard?
Please help us protect out historic neighborhood

We believe the Department of Building and Safety erred and abused its discretion in allowing a 3-story addition to a 1-sotry single family residence in a predominantly 1-story R1 neighborhood. This has a great effect on the value and integrity of our neighborhood. We need your help to show that the city erred in allowing this to be built. Please join us at the hearing on Monday. If you are not able to attend the hearing, we urge you to support out community by submitting your comments to City Hall. You may mail a letter to the above address, fax it to 213-978-1334, or email it to jppcla@hotmail.com. You must include the case number: DIR 2006-9632 (BSA). We appreciate your efforts. You may contact the Jefferson Park Preservation Coalition at jppcla@hotmail.com.



I took these digital images this morning between 8 - 9 am. They fail to accurately depict the gross breach of scale, particularly from the rear. The property in question is located on the 2000 block of 29th Place--conspicuous at a great distance!
It is amongst the most egregious, neighborhood-damaging alterations of recent vintage in the low-lying West Adams neighborhoods.

For past posts on this issue, see the Masonification of Jefferson Park

The Expo Line

Why I am so optimistic about the future of neighborhoods like Jefferson Park, King Estates, and Expo Park West, amongst others?

In part due to the upcoming Expo line. While the ultimate terminus of the future MTA rail line (also sometimes dubbed the Aqua line) is still undecided, the first phase, scheduled to begin service in 2010, will run 8.6 miles, mostly along the Exposition Boulevard right-of-way (ergo the name), linking downtowns Los Angeles and Culver City.



The Exposition right-of-way, formerly the property of Southern Pacific Railroad, hosted passenger trains, including a Pacific Electric Red Car line, linking downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica until 1953. The right-of-way continued to carry freight service until 1990.

A neighborhood is like an industry, it needs to continually attract new people with commitment and concern. I'm not talking about gentrification, displacement, or any of the like. Neighborhoods suffer turnover: people move away, people pass away.

What does your neighborhood offer? The neighborhoods paralleling the 10 freeway have long offered attractive house styles and centrality (and in some cases, relative affordability). Now they'll also offer easy access to L.A.'s burgeoning inter-urban rail system. Stops will include: Flower at 23rd and Jefferson, and on Exposition, at Vermont, Normandie, Western, Crenshaw, LaBrea, LaCienega, and lastly at Washington and National.

More Sports Arena Memories

A continuing series devoted to that great, unheralded Los Angeles landmark: The Los Angeles Sports Arena.














The last professional basketball game played at the Sports Arena was on April 5, 1999. The Seattle Supersonics nipped the Los Angeles Clippers, 107-105 on a buzzer-beating shot by UCLA alum Don MacLean. The loss capped a rotten Clipper campaign (9 wins, 41 losses), in a season shortened by a labor dispute.





After the game, long time season-ticket holders were honored. They gathered at half-court, wearing vintage warm-ups and jerseys. A highlight film was screened (on the jumbotron), mostly consisting of playoff highlights from the "Larry Brown" era. A commerative poster, celebrating the team's 15-year tenancy, was passed from bins near the exits.



Today, my wife cannot remember the date, game action, opponent, or score. She remembers only that I cried.