Drew Street
No one in Cypress Park ever wants to join the Gay Street Gang.
I’m into authenticity. I’m a Militant Locationist. I think people should take pride in where they live and not try to pretend otherwise. Case in point, Drew Street.
Drew Street lies on the edge of Los Angeles and Glendale in Glassell Park, roughly a 1000 feet from the Notheast Los Angeles Police station, and roughly a 100o feet from Micheal Jackson’s final resting place at Forest Lawn. The street named after Drew Glassell, is in a densely populated working-class residential neighborhood of single-family homes and apartment buildings, with a horrendous history in recent years. The city and residents of this street have been working hard with much success over the past two years to improve their street and reclaim it from the Drew Street clique of the Avenues Gang that ruled over it for many years. While the efforts to improve living conditions should be commended, the latest idea from some Glassell Park activists to erase Drew Street completely by renaming the street to something else is ridiculous.
Eastern Group Publications reports that some residents of Glassell Park would like to change the name of Drew Street to Rainbow Place, Marshmallow Place, Cotton Road, Sumi Street, Juntos Street or Hope Street in order to erase the connection to the Avenues clique and promote Glassell Park for development.
Although I am a fan of magical realism, and magical thinking, it is just silly mysticism to believe that changing a name of some place will magically make everything better. This is similar to the thinking that by forcing school uniforms on students, that gang affiliations will go away. It is merely treating the symptoms, and not addressing the causes.
The idea of changing the name of some place to erase its gang history is nothing new around here. In recent years, there has been talk of renaming Avenue 43 to Lummis Drive in order to honor Charles Lummis who’s El Alisal stone house is on Avenue 43, and to rid the avenues’ connection to the Avenue 43 clique of the Avenues Gang in Montecito Heights. Such a name change would have made a lot of sense in the 1920′s, but to do it now would be silly.
An earlier example that we have learned little from, is the Dog Town and Clover Street neighborhoods. These two residential neighborhoods dated back to the late 1800′s, and were desperate places in the center of Los Angeles’ industrial and railroad districts. Located along North Main Street, sandwiched between the Union Pacific rail yard, and the Southern Pacific rail yard (now Los Angeles State Historic Park) –the neighborhoods gave birth to a couple of Los Angeles earliest street gangs: Dog Town Rifa, named for the city dog pound located there, and Eastside Clover, named for Clover Street where the UPS distribution center is today.
The city bulldozed the neighborhoods in the 1930′s and developed the neighborhoods into warehouses and public housing with the William Mead housing projects in 1942. The gangs kept their names and moved around. Eastside Clover moved into Lincoln Heights, and Dog Town went from the Mead Projects to wherever Public Housing and Section 8 took them. Some went over to Lincoln Place housing projects and helped some Venice skaters find their identity, while others made Monte Vista street here in Highland Park their home.
Place gone, name gone, gang still around.
However, the meaning of some names and symbols are so effected by their history, they can never be altered. Take the swastika for example, no matter how hard and noble artist ManWoman tries, that symbol is forever doomed as evil. But on a positive side, the pink triangle used by that same political party to designate homosexuals, was co-opted by the Gay movement and used as a symbol of pride and triumph. It is all about what value you give those things. What value, what meaning you give a name.
Own the name. Take back the street, and you take back the meaning of it. Don’t try to erase Drew Street, let it stand for a place of pride, where the residents took back their street. Make the name conjure thoughts of block parties and neighbors, well-kept yards and a clean street. A place where families live. Just like it always has been.
Excellent point. I hope that the neighborhood will take your advice.
Thanks so much for your well written and interesting posts. I learn something new about my neighborhood every day!
Changing, or removing, a street name does not mean the gang affiliated with it will necessarily go away. Clanton 14 in Boyle Heights and Clover in the Lincoln Heights area are two gangs with names based on street names that no longer exist!
Of course it is easy to attack the concept as a simple steet name change as a substitute to all efforts necessary to eradicate 40 years of gangstre life. But with all of the other steps being taken, changing the name of the street will help. The analogy is brand affiliation. If Coke suddenly changed its product to another name, it is likely to lose customer’s that are tied to the Coke name. Same thing here. Drew Street is so strongly tied to the Avenues gang that changing the name will have an effect of unassociating the street from the gang. Whats the problem with taking a proactive step to erradicaing the gang affiliation with this street. If you have a better idea, then I suggest that you present it and volunteer some of your time, effort, and calories to help. Othersiwe, shut the F___k up.
The Coca-Cola analogy is a great one, but you got it wrong.
In 1985 Coke lost customers not because they changed the name of their product to New Coke, but because what they changed it to sucked. It was the new recipe that that people were against, not the name.
So too is what is needed for Drew Street. The recipe, the ingredients there need improvement, not the name. If you change the name and still have the elements that gave rise to the gangster lifestyle, it is useless. Kentucky Fried Chicken may now be called KFC, but it will still cause coronary heart disease as it always has.
BTW, its OK to say FUCK here. (But let’s not make a habit of it.)
Changing all the Avenues to other names is a brilliant idea. It’s worked in other areas. A mayor did it in another town in CA and it totally worked. The more diverse ideas to break down what is the “norm” the more you will see the gang influences disappear. They may never go away, but the posturing definitely will. What brings gangs to their knees? It’s easy: Lots of new retail. Fixed up homes. Landscaped lawns and medians. Bars off windows. Towing abandoned cars. Less auto repair shops. Enforcing animal welfare laws. Did I say more retail? The recipes are simple, but then again, so is denial…the truth is, the politicians are too frightened to speak out about it and impliment a real plan. So it’s up to the community. Dare to take a stand? JUST DO IT.
All good points Cam they really should think about school uniforms too. It helps keep kids who don’t belong out of schools.
I’m sorry to say that even though this seems like a good idea, it would not work. If this were another smaller or more recently formed gang maybe that that could be done, but The Avenues gang and there clicks go back to over 50 years and many generations. There is no way they would even acknowledge the new street names unless it was to take pride in the fact that they are again in the spot light and again The City and its people are making another effort to try and stop this gang, which only increases there status.