Locked behind a concertina wired fence in a city lot once destined to become another alleyway parking lot, grows Highland Park’s first and only community garden, Milagro Allegro. With the dedication and devotion of the staff and gardeners, in just a few very short months this empty lot has been transformed into an urban oasis teeming with fruit, flowers, vegetables, birds, and butterflies.
This Saturday, July 11th at 10AM, the garden will open its gates to the public for its first series of garden classes and community events. Events include classes on Basic Gardening Skills, Organic Pest Control, Composting, as well as musical events, guest speakers, and a outdoor film screening set for Sunday, July 19th. Here is the run-down for July:
The Community Garden Calendar For July 2009
Saturday, July 11th*
10am: Gardening Skills Class
11am: Organic Approaches to Pest Control Class
2-5pm: Garden Workday—volunteer at the garden!
Saturday, July 18th*
10am: Compost Workshop
2-5pm: Garden Workday—volunteer at the garden!
Sunday, July 19th*
7-9pm: Guest Speakers, Live Music, Film Screening
Bring your family and friends, food to share, blan-
kets, pillows and comfortable clothes for an outdoor
event co-sponsored by Resistance is Fertile LA.
*raffles at all events
Garden Location: 115 S. Ave 56, LA 90042
One block SE of Figueroa—Behind the Highland Theater
Info: www.hpgarden.org 323-256-7122
1947 Chevy Fleetline poses in front of the Highland Park Car Show Mural on Figueroa.
For the first time in its 25 year history, the popular Highland Park Car Show will not be held in the heart of Highland Park on Figueroa Street. Instead, it will take place on the baseball field of Franklin High School this coming Sunday, June 28.
It would seem the same fate that threatens Silver Lake’s Sunset Junction Street Festival, has befallen this annual (albeit smaller and less controversial) event as well: a lack of local support and endorsement from city hall. Turns out, closing a major thoroughfare in a business district costs a lot in city services, and in local sales revenues.
It will be a much smaller show than Highland Park has been used to, occupying a small field rather than the half mile of Figueroa it has had in the past. It will also now have a $5 admission charge to attend. (Proceeds going to the Franklin ASB.) Unfortunately, with Franklin being located in the middle of a residential neighborhood, I expect the traffic to be horrendous. (Traffic at a car show? Now that’s ironic.)
So the nail salons, the restaurants and movie theater will be open this coming Sunday without having their usual customers blocked out, and the city won’t have to spend the non-existent funds to facilitate this special event. Not that I will miss the tradition of being rousted from bed at 6AM on Sunday morning by revving engines, thumping bass, and antique sirens. Yet, I will miss seeing this most popular Highland Park tradition on historic Route 66, in the heart of Highland Park where it made its home for so many years.
HT to The Boulevard Sentinel
Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928)
Charles Lummis
Charlie Lummis walked out from Ohio
Along the railroad tracks
There was a snow storm, broken arm
But he had to go
more than 3000 miles.
Down to LA
That’s where he’d stay
While working at the fledgling LA Times
Until a stroke
Would paralyze
A shoulder and the arm on his left side
He moved out to New Mexico to recuperate
He wrote about corruption
He kept his eyes wide open
As he rode the plaines
They sent a hit-man out
He found a home
With the pueblo
He live with them beside the Rio Grande
Until the man
Upon his trail
Shot a load of buckshot in his hide
But Charlie Lummis survived to write more books
Founded the Southwest Museum
Got a private troubadour
And he loved to cook
He built a house of stone
A bacchanal
El Alisal
He could not seem to keep it in his pants
He lost a wife
And then two more
He liked to watch the ladies when they danced
By the side of the 110
The trees are growing
By the side of the 110
El Alisal
By the side of the 110
The Lummis House
By the side of the 110
El Alisal
Charlie Lummis fought for the rights of man
And for the Spanish Mission
He called on Roosevelt as a childhood friend
To help the Indian
He lost his job
And then his health
Maybe he pushed too hard, was too intense
Ran out of cash
But in the end
The world and fields are bursting with his friends
By the side of the 110
The trees are growing
By the side of the 110
El Alisal
By the side of the 110
The Lummis House
By the side of the 110
El Alisal!
Charles F. Lummis Home & Garden
I was going to do a post on this interesting exhibit tonight, but since Lucinda Michele posted her’s on Metblogs, I’ll just let her mad blogging skillz do the job for me.
What I will mention, is that New York City exhibitors, Apexart are coming to Los Angeles, more specifically: to Highland Park. On Thursday, June 4, from 6-8pm, Apexart will host an opening reception at the Outpost for Contemporary Art for the X,Y, Z and U exhibition curated by Franchise winners League of Imaginary Scientist. The Outpost for Contemporary Art is located at 6375 North Figueroa Street at Hamlet Street. (Near Figueroa Produce, 99¢ Store, The Design High School, Burbank Middle School, Bicycle Station, etcetra, etcetra, etcetera…)
Although Mota may be found being enjoyed along our Avenues, or along some secluded spot in the Arroyo, in this instance MOTA Day refers to Museum’s of The Arroyo Day. Which simply translates to (as the postcard I found at the Southwest Museum Station says,) “Six Museums. Free. Fun. One Day Only. “ The six museums being the ones along the Arroyo: Heritage Square, Lummis House, Southwest Museum, The Los Angeles Police Museum, The Gamble House, and The Pasadena Museum of History. (Sorry, no Norton Simon Museum.)
After doing this over the last few years, I have yet to visit all the museums in one day. Every year I start out thinking I can, but end up spending too much time a each place and only manage to visit half. There will be music, crafts, entertainment, and it is all free, including a free shuttle between the museums as well. (Although, being along the arroyo, I wish we could just go by canoe…)
MOTA DAY
Sunday, May 17, 2009
10AM to 4PM
Park and Ride.
In continuation for the love of the bicycle, I’d like to mention that this Thursday (yes, THIS THURSDAY) May 14th, is Bike to Work Day. An Annual event where people pump up their bike tires, don their helmets and ankle strap, hop on their bikes, and ride to work. There will be special events around town with all kinds of free swag to be had. Best of all, transit is free to all cyclist who are too lazy to bike the whole way. All it takes is to bring a bike or a bike helmet with you to the bus or train.
Will Campbell's Ride. He rides nearly everyday to work from Silverlake to Westchester near LAX. He has amassed over 2600 miles just this year.
On one hand, it is a noble effort to get people out of their cars and on their bikes to make their daily commute. On the other it’s sort of like a Christian going to church only on Christmas. I tend to tease my wife about only riding her bike the 1.5 miles from the metro station to her work om this one day of the year. But this year I will simply praise her and be proud that she is trying again to beat her car addiction, if only for one day.
Even recyclers ride to work
According to the schedule, supposedly Friday is also Bike To School Day. (Remember when kids walked and rode their bikes to school!!!???) Being a teacher, I guess this means I get to ride my bike two days in a row. Yay me! All this comes just before the monthly NELA Critical Mass Ride on Friday at 7pm. (Something tells me I should really get around to fixing the brakes on my bike…)
In the year 1949, Edward Seymour invented the aerosol spray paint can. This hyper-convenient hand-held disposable device revolutionized what was once nothing more than painting with a brush, or carving into surfaces (like trees or on the bricks of buildings) and gave birth to modern graffiti as we know it today. (I vividly recall visiting California Caverns in Calaveras County once, and seeing a linear progression of graffiti from California Gold Miners in the 1850’s, who etched their names with a nail on the cave walls from the entrance into the cave. Near the end of a hundred year’s worth of inscriptions is the first visit by an aerosol can dated 1955.)
Tags, throw-ups, toys, hits, spots, bombs, pieces, murals, to buffed. Aesthetic values, artistic expression, communication, socialization, vandalism, intimidation, oppression, to teritoritalization. It will all be discussed in a lecture presentation and book signing on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 7:30 by author Steve Grody at The Highland Park Ebell Club, located on graffiti-drenched Avenue 57. (131 South Avnue 57 to be exact.) The event is sponsored by the Arroyo Arts Collective and Future Studio Gallery. Admission is $5, or free for Arroyo Arts Collective, and Ebell club members.
This Saturday, May 9th at 9AM is the Grand Opening of Highland Park’s first and only Community Garden. Located behind the Highland Theater on South Avenue 56, the garden consists of 32 boxed plots all supplied with precious soil and water. They are currently accepting applications that will be put into a selection lottery. The plots are $60 a year (that’s only $5 a month!) Besides the growing plots, there is also an central stone circle area for communal gatherings, a space set aside for doing garden classes, a comunity tool shed, and most importantly: a port-a-potty. The garden plan sounds like the Bike Oven, but outside and edible.
Here are some pictures I took recently of the progress:
Milagro Allegro Community Garden
Waiting for seed.
The Gathering Circle. Rock on!
The Los Angeles Times has an excellent article in today’s paper regarding the hit and run death’s of Highland Parker, Gaspar Nicolas, and USC student, Adrianna Bachan who were both killed on the same day, the same way. One was a young 18 year-old woman with much promise, walking across Jefferson Blvd. at 3AM. The other was a poor 55 year-old construction worker from Guatemala who was using the crosswalk outside Food 4 Less on Figueroa Street and Avenue 51 on that same day at 11pm. One victim gets a $235,000 reward, from L.A. City Council, L.A. County Board of Supervisors, USC and private donors to capture the perpetrators. Over a month later, the other gets a tentative $50,000 reward from the city council , that has yet to be approved by the Mayor. The suspected killers of Adrianna Bachan were arrested within 5 days. Gaspar Nicolas’ killer(s) are still at large, and with only LAPD Detective Michael Kaden to search the planet for the silver Volkswagen Jetta that was responsible.
5.5.09 Update: On Monday, Mayor Villaraigosa signed off on the $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the killing of Agapito Gaspar Nicolas. Good work LA Times!
Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa will return to Northeast LA tomorrow, May 4th, to host a town hall meeting at Monte Vista Elementary School, in Highland Park from 3:3o to 5pm. The Town Hall Meeting is part of a series of Town Hall Meetings on the Mayor’s 2009-2010 Budget. An important topic in our recession-wary city. However, I suspect the meeting will focus more on public safety than jobs. Perhaps, Villaraigosa will be answering his letters personally.
Back on March 16, Monte Vista Elementary went into lock-down mode after two gunmen opened fire on each other outside the school. And while the economy may suck as much as it does, I’m sure the questions among stakeholders will be to the effect: “What is being done to stop gang violence in our community?”
I’m kind of hoping that the Office of Community Beutification contractors don’t buff out all the Dogtown gang graffiti on every single wall and building on Monte Vista, just so the Mayor can see what we see every day.
The Town Hall Meeting may be scheduled too early for most working-class Highland Parkers to attend. There is another Town Hall later this same evening in Boyle Heights at Our Lady of Talpa, across from the Evergreen Cemetery from 5:3o to 7pm.
(Of course all these dates are tentative, depending on virility of the dreaded Swine Flu.)
Mayoral Town Hall Meeting
MONDAY, MAY 4, 2009
FROM 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Monte Vista Elementary School Auditorium
5423 Monte Vista St,
Highland Park, CA 90042
FROM 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Our Lady of Talpa Church
Parish Hall
2914 E. 4th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033
