Maybe you missed it, I almost did too. The news item in the L.A. Times made it seem like a joke. But they are in escrow for 55 acres and plan to spend $3.55 billion (with a B) on this development. This is the “City of Angeles Monument” that will take over Crown Hill. The map shows the development taking all the land from 1st St./Beverly Boulevard on the north to 3rd St on the south. (more…)
Well, it’s summer at CCAC again. You can tell by all the kids that are at the center. Some come at 8 am to start work with SYEP (the summer youth employment program for kids that the City of Los Angeles sponsors). We have about 75 youth working out of our center. Some are placed at the childcare centers in Echo Park, others are at the Methodist Church and Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic and the rest work at the center. Most of the kids who work at the center are painting out graffiti and sprucing up Echo Park and some are working in the office for Gloria and other staff.
Besides working with the kids, we planned another Summer of Fun for our younger ones. We started off by having a great and profitable weekend at the Lotus Festival. So far we have been bowling, swimming, attended movies, had a few beach trips and even went fishing. (more…)
The Los Angeles Visitors & Convention Bureau has selected Echo Park as one of about two dozen communities that will be featured in a $2.5 million campaign to promote neighborhood tourism.
The program–which is called `LA Lifestyles: The Neighborhoods of Los Angeles? is aimed at the growing number of travelers who want to go beyond the traditional tourist destinations–such as amusement parks and the beach–and explore areas with a rich variety of history and culture. Echo Park is that kind of place, say people at the convention bureau.
As part of the program, Echo Park and the other neighborhoods will be promoted in local and national travel and entertainment publications as well as in a series of colorful street banners. In addition, the convention bureau will also publish and distribute an Echo Park guide with a description of the neighborhood and a suggested itinerary. How about a paddle boat ride across the lake, followed by a shopping trip on Antique Row and then drinks at Les Freres Taix?
The convention bureau will rely on local Neighborhood Tour Organizations to come up with the itinerary and identify events–such as the Echo Park Arts Festival and The Cuban Festival–that would be of interest to visitors. Also, local organizers would be called upon to put together a guided tour for groups that express interest in exploring local historic sights or artist studios.
If you have any suggestions for stops on guided or self-guided tours, please contact Jesus Sanchez at (213) 250-4155 with your suggestions. Also, volunteers who are knowledgeable about the neighborhood are needed to lead small group tours.
Echo Park Night at Dodger Stadium will be held on Monday, August 30 at 7:00 P.M. when the Dodgers play the Brewers at our local ballpark.
The baseball game has been sponsored by the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce for many years. It is a great time to get together with friends and neigbors and enjoy a good old summer pastime. A portion of you $8 ticket price funds local activities such as the annual Holiday Parade. (more…)
Visitors to Echo Park have long enjoyed a variety of recreational activities. A swimming pool, tennis courts and a softball diamond may be found on park land south of the lake, while picnic areas and a children’s playground can be enjoyed alongside anglers fishing for trout and catfish in the well-stocked lake.
It is boating, though, that has always captured the imagination of visitors to Echo Park. The original wood frame boathouse built in 1921 featured a functional watchtower and rented wooden canoes. It burned down later but by the mid1930s had been rebuilt in the popular Mission Revival style complete with arched windows and a clay tiled roof.
The lighthouse is now strictly for show and the canoes have been replaced with sleek, pedal-powered fiberglass boats, but the old-fashioned charm of boating on Echo Park Lake has changed little over the years.
(Excerpt from “Ghosts of Echo Park”. Only a few copies are left! Final orders will continue to be taken via the mail. Send $15.00 to Echo Park Publishing, P.O. Box 261021, LA 90026.)
A recent article in “US News” discussed the alarming tree loss in American cities. Satellite images taken in 1972 of Puget Sound in the Seattle region were compared to images taken in 1996. The results were startling. The amount of land with less than 20 percent tree coverage more than doubled during the period studied and the land with more than 50 percent tree cover dropped from almost 50 to 23 percent during the same time.
It is difficult for the average person to appreciate the importance of trees. Trees benefit us by filtering tons of pollutants from the air, absorbing storm water runoff, insulating houses, and absorbing carbon which help limits global warming. Tree loss has been so gradual that most people have not realized how dramatic the decline of the number of trees has been. It is also surprising to learn that only 10 percent of urban trees are owned by cities–the rest are privately owned.
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Make a Difference LA has a message for all of us ? VOLUNTEER! And to let us all know about volunteer and service opportunities, the Volunteer Bureau of Mayor Richard Riordans office will hold its 2nd Annual Volunteer Festival on Sunday, October 3.
Hundreds of community organizations will participate. There will be food, entertainment, and displays of city services as well as pet adoptions.
The Festival will be held at two sites: L.A. Valley College in the San Fernando Valley (5800 Fulton Avenue) and Museum Row at Wilshire and Curson on the Miracle Mile (5801 Wilshire Blvd.). Parking is free at both locations.
For further information regarding festival participation, contact the Volunteer Bureau at (213) 485-6984 or 1-888-CARE-4-LA.
Dragon boat races, lotus blossoms, fireworks, people selling scents, clothes, and jewelry. Smells of exotic foods in the air. Where are you” In the Far East” No, it”s in your own backyard ” here in Echo Park where, for one weekend in July, the Lotus Festival is held. And this year, as in many other years, EPIA participated with a booth of their own.
For this year”s festival, held on July 10 and 11, we didn”t just have a booth. Thanks to the artistic skills of Suzy Rogers, we had beads and butterflies, silks and satins to decorate out booth. After Suzy Rogers, aided by Steven Arthur decorated the booth on Saturday morning, the volunteers to man the booth starting arriving.
Most people sign up for an hour or two each day. Some volunteer for both days. What do volunteers do while they”re at the booth” They tell people about our neighborhood. Everyone has a favorite topic. Some like the garden, some talk about how safe Echo Park is, some talk about our tree plantings. We must have done at least an OK job because 60 people signed up to hear more about our organization. Hopefully we”ll see them at future meetings, in fact we sent them postcard invitations to our August meeting.
Booths must be torn down and set up each day. Steven Arthur, who coordinated the event, and Lynn Barbé, his faithful sidekick, helped with that task. They claim its well worth it as they get to watch a fantastic fireworks show on Saturday show from a prime seat in the EPIA booth.
Congratulations and many thanks to all volunteers who included Greg Altunian, Steven Arthur, Lynn Barbé, Steve Batte, Susan Borden, Maxine Cummings, Carmla Emanuele, Ron Emler, Alicia Francis, Chie Iseri, Helen Kano, Suzanne Kimbrough, Sophie Lewis, Elizabeth Maier, Isa-Kae Meksin, Barbara Neal, Becky Orona, Judy Oroshnik, Barbara Rausch, Jesus Sanchez. While an exhaustive survey of volunteers was not made, it seems that everyone had a good time and is ready for next years event,
There was a serious incident of vandalism and burglary at the garden on the Monday after the fourth of July weekend. The perpetrators painted graffiti on the front wall and on the shed, they also peeled off a corner of the shed’s roof and stole two pick-axes and a saw. A crack team of gardener-carpenters repaired the shed and painted over the vandalism. We hope that everyone appreciates the garden during the day, and leaves it alone during the night.
The garden’s July 17 workday would never have been a success without Chris Arcudi, Susan Borden, James Cramer, Nichelle Harris, Erika Higgins, Al Renner, Illeana Ruiz, Jesus Sanchez, Barry Walker and David Zahniser. Every now and then we take some time to weed, water, prune, and mulch-mulch-mulch. We cut back the native Salvia Cleveland, pinched the chrysanthemums back, and dead-headed the roses in preparation for the late summer weather. We built new beds, and ended with a pleasant picnic.
Collaboration has been very satisfying for the Echo Park Community Garden and three other community gardens nearby. The city can help a little, but success comes to those who help each other. The Solano Canyon Community Garden is getting underway and Al Renner, who helped us start and now is indispensable to us, has been hustling to get them underway with great success. They built their own fence, have won two big grants and a few nice donations, and have done great work organizing the Solano Canyon Neighborhood.
The Rosewood Avenue Community Garden is just starting out with great help from Hays Witt of Councilmember Jackie Goldberg’s Office, and many others. Gardeners from Echo Park have been helping then design their garden. In spring the Burlington Avenue Community Garden contemplated shutting the gate for the last time, but this summer they have too few plots for all the eager members. Some Echo Park Gardeners, and many others, gardened over there and got the neighborhood re-excited about their garden. You might have heard Rosewood’s Nola Mott interviewed on KCRW’s “Good Food” a few weeks ago. On the web you can hear her by clicking HERE, and you can read about the Echo Park Community Garden in Kitchen Garden Magazine by clicking HERE.
The Echo Park Community Garden is at 2223 Sunset Boulevard, at the corner of Rosemont and Sunset. The gate is open between 10:30 and 2:00 every Sunday (except holidays or when we’re tired), so come on up. The Community Garden has no plots available as of this writing, but the waiting list is just four people long. There are countless gardening opportunities. Everybody who likes to garden (or dig, cut wood, etc.) can participate, Call (213) 882-4835 for more information.
By her own admission she’s always been a fighter and a hell-raiser. Activist Karen Jaeger’s strongly held — and worded — opinions have enlivened life in Echo Park for some thirty years since she arrived in 1969 “to live an adult life” in Los Angeles.
Karen left Los Angeles in June after her recent retirement. Happily she plans to return occasionally to the area where she made a strong mark.
It was Karen who started Friends of Echo Park Library in the mid ’70s in response to the closure of the branch library in 1972 and its removal to temporary quarters alongside the freeway on Laveta Terrace where, Karen said, “The police couldn’t even find it!” They certainly needed to — crime was a constant problem. Fifteen windows were broken during one incident of Vandalism alone.
After selling used books in the parking lot of Pioneer Market with owner Mike Leum’s blessing, Karen finally got official permission to use the temporary branch’s basement to store donated books and hold book sales. But the Los Angeles Library Department neglected the little orphan branch in Echo Park — they would not even replace the library clock when it broke! And when the branch’s TV and VCR were stolen, Karen and the Friends held book sales for two years to raise money for replacements.
A tireless advocate for a permanent library in a more convenient location, Karen confessed that she “raised hell everywhere”. She wasn’t afraid of being unpopular with bureaucrats at the Library Department if her noisy complaints reminded them of the needs of the Echo Park community. Nearly 25 years of loud persistence paid off when the new library on Temple Street opened — complete with a bookstore of its own for the Friends. But, she points out, needs still exist — dictionaries and children’s books are in short supply.
Says Karen; “I enjoy a good fight!” With friend and fellow activist Juanita Dellomes, Karen set up the Inner City Alliance to address the threat posed by “Central City West”. A speculators’ scheme that resulted in the destruction of thousands of low income homes.
Self-titled “Echo Park’s Minister of Information for Life”, Karen took an active part in shaping the Cathedral Center of St. Paul which replaced the church of St. Athanasius at 840 Echo Park Avenue. Although impressed with the church’s commitment to social causes, she recently characterized the Cathedral as “about as spiritual as a downtown hi-rise”.
In spite of her worsening health, concern for the mismanagement of Echo Park’s park facilities prompted Karen to campaign for better care of her beloved lakeside park. Letters were written to the newspapers and a fledgling group formed with Gloria Sohacki and other friends. A few years ago Karen began to address the shortcomings in children’s and teens’ programs at the park’s recreation center.
A university graduate from Michigan, Karen arrived in Echo Park with, as she put it, “a banjo on my knee”, meaning that she hoped to become an actress. Talent isn’t always recognized thought and Karen started teaching for LAUSD instead. She thought third grade was “terrific” and taught at Solana Avenue School for a year as well as a couple of other schools before switching to Special Education and speech therapy.
But now perennial warrior Karen, forced into retirement by chronic illness, has left Echo Park for the more peaceful life of a rural community. True to form, when she visited the little town to which she’s moving, Karen started writing a letter of protest to the editor of the local paper — she had been dismayed by a Christmas Nativity display at City Hall. “But then”, she says with a laugh, “I said, no! Wait ’til I get here to give ‘em hell!”