Lifeways Part One

More Light Festival images, no relation to text.

Inspired by Allen L's protestations (please see Those Dangerous White Suburbs comments), I invite readers to contribute what cultural anthropologists call Lifeways, a custom, practice, or art, behaviorisms (an approach to psychology that measures observable behavior) particular to their neighborhood. Allen notes wilding dogs cast adrift by indifferent owners, and "mid-streetin'", traffic blocking conversations between motorists.

Lifeways in the center city are evolving, owing in part to technology and unyielding demographic change. The cell phone, for example, has replaced the "ghetto bell", that practice of horn honking to summon passengers.

Ever noisy street vendors have been reinvented, peddling tamales, pork rinds, buttered corn, and even plant food for roses. Fruit sellers encamp at high traffic intersections, hawking oranges by the bag, cut flowers, and salted peanuts.

The Free Gaff or House Party has been replaced by the Fiesta, frequently an indoor-outdoor affair, accompanied by effect lighting, and often preceded by a daytime kiddie bash with requisite Cartoon Network themed jumper.

Merry Christmas

Four photographs of the 12th annual Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Light Festival.

This year the festival, laid over a one-mile segment of Crystal Springs Drive, switched to LED (light emitting diodes) lighting.
While the route is open to all forms of transportation, walking only nights were scheduled this year between November 21 - 25.


More images on Boxing Day. The festival runs through December 30th, from 5 to 10 p.m.
Merry Christmas!

S. Tilden Norton

It was my privilege to serve as a porch docent (and shepherd) during the recent West Adams Heritage Association Holiday Tour. I was stationed at 1656 W. 25th Street, an early work (1905) of accomplished architect S. Tilden Norton, about whom I generated part of the following spiel:

Samuel Tilden Norton, or S. Tilden Norton as he was known (possibly to distinguish himself from former New York governor Samuel Tilden and Olympic wrestler Samuel Norton Gerson), was born in Los Angeles on January 21, 1877, the son of Isaac and Bertha Norton. Isaac Norton, advantageously, was the founder of a building and loan firm. Bertha Norton-Greenbaum is thought to be the first Jewish child born in L.A., in 1851. A graduate of Los Angeles High School in 1895, S. Tilden Norton began his professional training at 18, apprenticing in New York City, and for local architect Edward Neissen.

In 1902, Mr. Norton founded his own architectural practice, later teaming on some of his biggest assignments with partner Frederick H. Wallis (or F.H. Wallis).

S. Tilden Norton was a prominent Jewish citizen, serving as president of the Board of Trustees of Congregation B'Nai B'Rith, the first president of the Jewish Men's Professional Club of Los Angeles, director of the Federation of Jewish Welfare Organizations, president of the Jewish Consumptive Relief, and the Nathan Straus Palestine Society. Subsequently, many of his most prominent works were ecclesiastical : the B'Nai B'rith Lodge (9th & Union, 1923), the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California (1924), Sinai Temple (407 S. New Hampshire, 1924), Young Men's Hebrew Association (Soto St. and Michigan Ave, 1925), Israel Temple (Franklin and Argyle, 1927), and a clubhouse for the Council of Jewish Women (1928). He was also one of three architects attributed with the iconic Wilshire Boulevard Temple, completed in 1929 at Hobart & Wilshire, and for whom he served as president in the 1950's.

Norton is further credited with several surviving downtown landmarks including the 1927 Financial Center Building (with F.H. Wallis) at 704 S. Spring St. (which housed his own office), the William Fox Building (now the Fox Jewelry Mart, 608 S. Hill St., 1929), and the opulent Los Angeles Theatre (1930 co-credit with S. Charles Lee). The Los Angeles Theatre enjoys continuing life as a prime venue during the Last Remaining Seats program. Other enduring highlights include The Greek Theatre (1913) and the Shane Building (Hollywood & Cherokee, 1930 now "Hollywood Center").

S. Tilden Norton and his family lived for many years in Fremont Place where he was known to design at least one home. He died in 1959 at 82 years of age.

Harvard Heights henchmen Danny Miller and Bob Myers contributed to this piece.

Winter in L.A.

With the threat of drought perhaps abated, or at least momentarily muffled, I enjoyed the winter radience today as I seldom realize, strolling about central West Adams, calling on clients, neighbors.

I thought of those English painters obsessed with atmospherics, mist, haze, and crystal clarity, repulsed by prettified landscapes, Constable and Turner.

Here's one example of William Turner at his shimmering, tranquil best, light and color as more than mere pictorial elements. Mood matters.

Rise, Tile Riser

The tiled front step riser has returned. A once familiar feature in Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (see left), which culled detail from several eras of Spanish and Mexican architecture, and during the art tile heyday of the 1920's and 1930's.

This decorative jotting is increasingly revisited, applied to non period appropriate architecture, masking concrete steps from here to Cudahy. (Or an entire block of E. 31st ST. , near Trinity, whence all these pictures were taken. ) I've even noted tile adhered recently to the wooden stairs of a 19th century porch.

Sometimes the total walk (and both the rise and the tread and the skirt) is tiled. The astonishingly common design (in images 2 and 3) resembles a colloform pattern: a rounded, globular, mineral texture. I call it, cartoon marble.

On one level, I understand the desire to make decorative a surface that is otherwise flat and undistinguished. Paradoxically, this embellishment is often instituted by homeowners who've otherwise obliterated substantial architectural decoration.

This love of tilos, however chintzy--mostly chintzy, and possibly inspired by a form of mal du pays (or country sickness/homesickness), at times runneth amok. I visited one turn-of-the century cottage, at the behest of a feedback-seeking agent, positively girdled in tile. A light-colored porous tile, single-fired, blanketed inside and out. "Easy to clean", the agent offered. "To whose standard", I challenged, "certainly not mine. The grout is filthy."

"The wood floors were old," this agent continued. "I'm sure", I added, "nonetheless your sellers have covered $12,000 in hardwood with $800 in hardibacker and uniform tile. Would one trade a '37 Duesy with a flat tire for an '07 Kia?" I hoped the sellers, sequestered within earshot, might recall my objections when faced again with old wood floors. (Added to the list of, ill-advised alterations beget ill-advised alterations: tiled over floor registers spurred the installation of vertical wall furnaces.)

Note the shallow rise on the bottom step (in the final image). Like roofing strata, this walk has accrued multiple tile layers. A new door has been added too, possibly because the former may no longer have cleared the built-up threshold. If something needs fixing, it's sometimes reasoned, it's inherently less good than the thing that doesn't, ergo it ought to be replaced.

Jeez, a row of 49 cent tiles can sure lead to a lot of mess.

Another Ali Biopic, I Fretted

I'm an admitted cinema goer. Despite the wonderful service that is NetFlix, and freely circulating academy screeners, I struggle to consume things at home, distracted by work, little ones, and the tamale stash. So I go, often, but seldom to new releases. Sunday night, I gorged on the Andrzej Wajda films at the Aero.

I'm probably a bit of a film snob, but also just disinterested in computer aided and generated animation, and stories culled from children's books, and theme park rides. Yet, there's one new release that has my attention: I Am Legend. Mostly, on account of its star. No not Will Smith, rather his canine companion--a German Shepherd. Tired am I of Dalmatians, Goldens, and Terriers (Cairn, Jack Russell, Fox, Yorkshire, etc, etc). Sure the Shepherd was celebrated in Rin Tin Tin, but nowdays even Great Danes and Rottweilers show up more often on the big screen.

Where's the urban mix? The pit-chow-mastiffs, the dober-rottis? I see a heck of a lot more of those than I do Sulukis or Pomeranians, Poodles or Collies. Matter of fact, one of the last new releases I really dug was the hard-boiled anthology film directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Amores Perros. The movie's third story, "El Chivo and Maru", features a man living mostly on the streets, caring for a large collection of mongrels. Hollywood dogs they were not. The animals didn't perform cute tricks, carry out extraordinary acts, or upstage their human masters. None was trained to use a toilet.

The Two Westmorelands

Amongst those confusing things geographic in West Adams are the two Westmorelands. This isn't a case of street and place, parallel, and alongside. Rather they're exactly one mile apart, still close enough to confound.

Westmoreland Boulevard, two streets East of Western, runs only a block, between Venice and Washington Boulevards.

Just East of Vermont, Westmoreland Avenue (or South Westmoreland Avenue) assumes the course of Ellendale--at Venice Boulevard and continues North through the Byzantine-Latino Quarter into Wilshire Center and beyond.

It is believed that the Westmorelands are named for a place (possibly a former county in the Lake District in the Northwest of England, now part of Cumbria), not a person, and certainly not General William Westmoreland, born in 1914.

Inventory Update

My last open house of the year is Sunday, December 16th from 1 - 4 at 2361 W. 20th ST (90018). Here's two more reasons to see this knockout:

A lovely, working pocket door, with a center mullion, and 10 raised panels. More commonly, pocket doors of this era sport long, uninterrupted rectangular panels, but I prefer this divided look.

2361 W. 20th Street: 3 beds plus den, 1.25 baths (full bath plus separate water closet). Nearly 2,000 square feet not including usable basement space and attic storage. Detached two car garage. Western Heights Neighborhood Association and Historic Preservation Overlay Zone.

In-bathroom linen closet. Many houses feature linen closets, or built-in hall cabinets, but few baths boast an internal closet. Few baths are large enough. Accordingly, the bathroom remains wonderfully clear of bathroom bric-a-brac, tissue boxes, and the like.

Directions: 20th St. is one block South of Washington Blvd. 2361 is one-half block East of Arlington, enter off Washington at Cimarron or Gramercy. Visitors can park in the driveway.

$759,000.00

Window Replacement (Part One)

The only thing made certain by window replacement is more window replacement.

This property recently exchanged its high-efficiency, noise muffling, value adding aluminum windows for....high-efficiency, noise muffling, value adding vinyl windows.

With some wood windows in continuous use for over 500 years, you gotta feel good about those everlasting aluminum windows and their nearly 20 years of yeoman service, er planned obsolescence. Which is probably more than the owners will get out of this improved vinyl product. But who cares? Seemingly not the gullible consumer and certainly not the window industry, which peddles energy efficiency and cost savings--responsible virtues, whilst stoking a needless consumption cycle and contributing to a land-fill of old-growth lumber, lead ballast, cord, and glass.

Of course, wood windows can be double paned too (though sound reduction depends on the distance between panes, an often overlooked consideration), are reparable (unlike many other materials), and can be made as energy efficient (through weather stripping, et al). While vinyl window systems can limit draft, most conductive (energy) losses occur around the frame, so the unit's efficiency actually depends on the installation. (Note the expanding foam around the far window.) Unsurprisingly, sloppy installations abound: daylight leaks around undersized frames or gaps filled with ply scrap and wood shims. This is also why homes often stucco (over clapboard) in combination with window replacement, because the new off-the-rack windows don't fit the old custom casings.

Consider the side view image again, not a lot of glass face, eh? Another by-product of the stucco/re-fenestration coupling, windows are down-sized or eliminated altogether (to avoid the cost of custom sizes and the intrusion of re-framing for larger windows). Consequently, houses (or commercial buildings, see next) lose natural light and become more energy and climate control dependent.

END PART ONE

Those Dangerous White Suburbs

During a break in Sunday night's hectic WAHA Holiday tour, I conversed with a new area resident who moved, she explained, after her daughter left for college. The daughter, she confessed, disliked the parents new surroundings in Adams-Normandie, and preferred instead their previous home in Manhattan Beach, "where the schools are good and it's safe".
"It's safe here too", I added, perhaps showing a bit of the chip on my shoulder, and also eager to challenge the dominant ideology.

What I've wanted to add, for the longest time, probably inappropriately is, "safe unlike those places outside city centers. You know, the places with the mass-killings." Leaving Virginia Tech out, because college campus craziness is a category onto itself, and yesterday's dire news in Omaha, we're still left with the Amish classroom tragedy, Columbine, the Tacoma Mall, Wakefield, Red Lake High, the Honolulu Xerox repair manhunt, the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, and others. None of which involved "negro stick-up men", Crips, Bloods, La eMe, or rap-star posses.

For a change, I don't mean to be flip or indifferent, this is about people losing their lives. As much as I prefer to prick the hegemon and serve a little 'come get yours whitey' comeuppance, when Christmas shoppers are gunned down in a mall, it's sad news. When a 24 year old black man is shot dead on a street corner--it's also sad news (even if he wasn't a pro-bowl safety), and it's no more natural or environmentally ordained.

In El Pueblo stories abound of terrified outsiders, begging off dinner invitations and asking for escorts to the driveway on account of a graffiti scrawl three blocks away, avoiding the 110 freeway lest car trouble require surface street interaction, and mistaking film shoot pyrotechnics for street gang warfare. Probably fueled by yellow media, some legitimate hardships, and big screen depictions like Keven Kline's near car-jacking in Lawrence Kasdan's bromidic Grand Canyon.

Maybe urbanites should instead play the biggety fool, asking prickly questions about retail outlets in Thousand Oaks, or assuming cover formations whilst visiting relatives in tiny New England hamlets. Maybe then America would really get serious about gun violence, and recognize the universal vulnerability it has wrought.

T.G.I.M.?!

It begins about 6 a.m., the low rumble of sanitation trucks.

I love Mondays. No really, and it isn't on account of prime time football, salmon shmears at the office, or a discounted call plan. Monday is trash pickup day.

As the din of hydraulics and flapping plastic lids approaches, my anxiety builds, in fear of an extended silence. An overburdened can rejected, passed over by a cross-faced, grudge-holding, union stooge.

Many weeks I'm flirting with the allowable weight limits, back straining, canister bulging loads. Today's mix: asphalt shingles, topped with household waste, and plywood scraps. Yes sir, construction debris.

My immediate neighbor and I have an unwritten pact, I'm allowed to top off his black refuse container, in exchange for curbside placement and retrieval.

The other neighbors know as well, "while I'm away," they offer, "can you take care of the cans?"

Sometimes there's other projects in the neighborhood, and deals are struck: "I'll save space in my green for your landscaping project, if you let me stuff my layout board in your recycling."

I hate to pay for additional disposal. I know there's trash haulers galore and cheapo dump sites. Heck I own a pickup, but even so....

It's amongst those things I hate to pay for.

The List of Things I Hate to Pay For (Top Five)

1. Additional Sanitation Charges (see above).
2. Parking: I will arrive 15 minutes early, and park 1/4 mile away to avoid a valet.
3. Water: I have a filtration system in my refrigerator, a one time cost.
4. Television: I know all the best things are on cable. I know there's great sports--that's the problem.
5. Anything Sold on Airplanes.

The Great Weekend

Today and tomorrow (December 1 & 2) the West Adams Heritage Association is holding its annual holiday tour. The fancy-smancy progressive dinner tour, showcasing six fabulous homes in the West Acres tract (part of the Adams-Normandie neighborhood) is sold out. But Sunday afternoon's self-guided walking tour still has tickets available, at $30. Reservations are necessary, and more information is available at WAHAholiday@aol.com.

I'll be manning the porch at 1656 W. 25th St. on Saturday, and shepherding the final tour on Sunday. My assignment Saturday, at the soup house, is a particularly savory one, an early commission of S. Tilden Norton, whose fingerprints are on some of the most spectacular L.A. buildings of the late 1920's - early 1930's. I'll write more about Mr. Norton later this week.
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Sunday morning (beginning at 10am), we'll hold the Mission-style furniture sale on 31st Street, just West of Arlington. Bob Gangl of Carol Eppel Antiques in Stillwater Minneapolis will open his trailer of merchandise unsold at Pasadena's Craftsman weekend. Bob typically carries high and mid-level antique pieces, some name makers, and truly unusual pieces from the American Arts & Crafts era.

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Sunday afternoon from noon - 4pm, I'll hold 2361 W. 20th St. open. If you're headed to and fro the holiday tour, stop in. If you need a place to watch the game, stop in. (One interested party called during the last showing to ask if I'd have Pats-Colts on.) We've lowered the price to $759K, and won't be open next weekend, and only once more this year (December 16th).

Here's a black & white rendition. Julius Shulman eat your heart out. (I could've used a ND grad on the sky....)