West Adams' Creative Canvas

West Adams Heritage Association Spring Tour

A doozy, entitled Art in Historic Places: West Adams' Creative Canvas, this year's tour showcases the work of West Adams resident artists.  Ten architecturally diverse venues are on tap, including those pictured, single family homes, a 1920's fourplex, a carriage house turned studio, and an early movie theatre.

Featured artists include: Rob Remer, Marina Moevs, Max Miceli, Sue Ann Jewers, Jenny Hager, Steven Irwin, Tom Lazarus, Taidgh O'Neill, Tolanna, Shelly Adler, Dianne Lawrence, Art Curtis, David Pacheco, Rory Cunningham, Susan Arena, Art Tobias, Mas Ojima, Donald Ferguson, Aaron Morse, Kim Lee Kahn, and Fredric Booker.

This self-guided, drive--or bike--yourself, tour is scheduled for 

Saturday, June 5th, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.  Tickets are $30 on the day of the event, at the check-in: 1824 S. 4th Avenue (at Washington Boulevard).

For more information, call 323-733-4223, or write tours@westadamsheritage.org; and, as always please wear shoes that won't mar hardwood surfaces.

America's Second Most Famous Architect?

In January, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) nominated ten Frank Lloyd Wright designed structures for inclusion on its list of world cultural heritage sites, an unparalleled honor. Wright is doubtlessly America's most famous architect. But who is number two?

I surveyed ten "archiphiles," a group of architects, planners, 

architectural historians, and authors. Responses varied, from Canadian born Frank Gehry to Chinese born I.M. Pei, from Thomas Jefferson to modernist mad men.

The consensus number two with a whopping two votes: Henry Hobson Richardson (or H.H. Richardson), a giant of late 19th century architecture, progenitor of the Richardsonian Romanesque Style, which loosely reinterpreted Medieval characteristics.

Is there another American cultural form so beholden to the legacy of a single practitioner? Who would vie for the mantle of America's greatest painter, film director, fiction writer? Miles Davis, Ansell Adams, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Elvis Presley, Fred Astaire, none seem as peerless as Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright.

(Images are of FLW's Hollyhock House)

No More Apologies

Despite a plethora of celebrated Mexican and Salvadorean eateries, barbecue and soul food spots, the restaurant scene in West Adams has seldom been trumpeted; and, the question--oft asked is, 'Does one have to leave the neighborhood for a decent meal?'

As it happens, the previously under-served USC area is exploding with new options, including a fleet of gourmet loncheras, mostly stationed along Jefferson and Hoover. Greek, Korean-Mexican fusion, Vietnamese, pizza by the slice, and desert trucks, an ever changing roster, have enlivened these bustling corridors.

Adjacent to the events center on Figueroa, the USC hospitality folks have assumed control, replacing a tired Sizzler with a gastropup (The Lab), replete with firepits and flatscreens, added an upscale surf-n-turf (McKay's), and a pizzeria.

At Grand Street and 37th, Mercado La Paloma, a former warehouse, hosts six restaurants and a couple handcraft vendors, sprinkled about communal space. Amongst the food choices: noted Peruvian-Japanese establishment Mo-Chica, and a satellite location of Westlake's legendary Yucatanean hot spot, Chicken Itza.

A veritable restaurant row is in the making, making my response easy.