A home designed and built the late architectural photographer Maynard L. Parker will be one of the featured properties at this year’s Historic Echo Park Home Tour on Sunday, Nov. 12.   The year’s theme, “The Bohemian Havens of Elysian Heights” reflects the tour’s focus on the northern edge of the neighborhood, where secluded canyons and steep hillsides have served as refuge and inspiration to generations of artists. (more…)

The Silver Lake area is located just five miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles and just east of Griffith Park. The district gets its name from the Department of Water and Power’s Silver Lake Reservoir, which was named after Herman Silver, a member of Los Angeles’ first Board of Water commissioners.    (more…)

Annalisa Magnusson

Echo Park and its lake have always been a touchstone for the community that grew up around it.

Initially, the area we now know as the park was a natural arroyo that filled with water from a spring-fed stream that originated at Baxter Street and flowed down what is now Echo Park Avenue. In 1868 the Los Angeles Canal and Reservoir Co. dammed the arroyo to make a reservoir that aided in powering a woolen mill at what is now 6th and Figueroa (then known as Pearl St.) and was to eventually serve local residents, walnut orchards and vineyards to the south along Alvarado. The immigrants that worked these orchards and vineyards settled here and began to build small homes along Sunset Boulevard, between Echo Park Avenue and Lemoyne Street. (more…)

ARTISTS ON THE GO

The most notable feature of the intersection of Echo Park and Morton avenues used to be Magic Gas station. Now, the same area is emerging as the neighborhood’s gallery row. By late September, three galleries are expected to be open in side-by-side store fronts on Echo Park Avenue. Joining Ojala Fine Arts & Crafts, which opened in May, will be Delirium Tremens (look it up), at 1553 Echo Park Ave. Owners AaronDonovan and PattyCastillo will open their space in early September with a group exhibition featuring the paintings and drawings of VanArno, StaceyLande, JohnParra and JasonKraus. (more…)

ECHO PARK features the return of Harry Bosch, and fans of the Bosch series will not be disappointed. Bosch is working in the open-unsolved unit of the LAPD and he becomes involved in the case of Marie Gesto.

The Gesto case has never been solved, and aspects of the case have haunted Bosch for over a decade. Connelly is at the top of his game in ECHO PARK . All of the characters are motivated by different demons, and Bosch has to try to figure out why a man would confess to a murder he did not commit.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- we are witnessing history in the making with the Harry Bosch series. Michael Connelly continues to write at a level that few authors ever attain. His novel THE LINCOLN LAWYER is now available in paperback and recently won the prestigious Macavity Award for best novel of 2006 (presented by Mystery Readers International).