Opening day in Boyle Heights for another rail line in another century. November 2, 1889.

This weekend, rail returns to Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles in the form of Metro’s Gold Line Eastside Extension. (or officially, The Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension or Linea de Oro, or just MGLEE.) 120 years before that the Los Angeles Cable Railway came to Boyle Heights.

In 1889 there were four forms of power for mass transit: horse, steam, that newfangled electricity, and cable. Cable railways were cutting-edge technology of their day, relatively quiet, aesthetically pleasing, smoke-free, and they had the ability to climb the steep hills of downtown Los Angeles with ease. But like all technology, they became obsolete. Troubled by cables that failed due to corrosion from flooding, and the expansion of electrical-powered trolley system, cable cars in Los Angeles ceased to exist by 1903. Yet, our hilly California neighbor, San Franisco managed to do what places like Paris, Bogotá, London, Melbourne, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and LA couldn’t. They saved their cable cars by referendum in 1947, and today the three cable car lines are the most popular mass-transit tourist attraction in the world.

Sunday, on the Ides of November, (11.15.09) the Gold Line Eastside Extension will open to the public, making a 53 minute trip from East Pasadena’s Sierra Madre Villa Station, to East Los Angeles’ Atlantic Station. 19.4 miles, 21 stations, and infinite opportunities for really good eating. Metro will have special events at a few of the new stations from 9-5, and the Gold Line will be FREE to everyone at every station for the entire day of service (3:30AM-1:30AM). And if there is any indication from the Gold Line’s original two-day grand opening on July 23, 2oo3, expect huge crowds, and standing room only. As for myself and my monthly pass, I’ll probably wait until after Sunday, to take the Gold Line to the Little Tokyo / Arts District Station and the Beer-Frites-Sausage Mecca that is Wurstküche.

Highland Park children play London Bridge is Falling Down on top of bike lockers at the metro station.

Passengers wait for the Pacific Electric streetcar to Annandale or South Pasadena on Avenue 64 and Roble Avenue in Garvanza circa 1907. This streetcar line came off Figueroa Street across from where the Library is today, passing The Browne Abbey on Marmion Way, over to this spot where one line headed north up 64, while the main line headed east down Roble Avenue passing Judson Studios and USC School of Fine Art, where those apartments on York are today. The trolley continued over the Arroyo Seco, past the Ostrich Farm, and into South Pasadena. The station building on the right is still there, as house today. The two-story building on the left at Avenue 64 and York Blvd. is also there (sans the second floor.) Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Archive.

Highland Park was developed as a Streetcar Suburb. At one time, every main street in Highland Park had a streetcar line: Monte Vista, York, Figueroa, Avenue 64. Streetcar suburbs were how Major cities at the turn of the last century grew in industry and in population. Factories and business would be located in the city’s central core, while the workers and businessmen could travel a few miles by trolley out to the suburbs and their single-family home with a front yard, backyard, and a car or horse barn.

The streetcar suburbs were planned communities where the trolley lines were installed before the community was developed. Places like another Highland Park, in Richmond, Virginia; Jamaica Plain in Boston, Massachusetts; Ashby Station in Berkeley; the Avenues section of San Francisco; or locally, West Adams, or the first L.A. suburb: Angelino Heights are all examples of Streetcar Suburbs. All planned around a streetcar line.

This in particular was how railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington made his own fortune, not by owning the transportation system, but owning the real estate developments around it. The communities along nearby Huntington Drive: El Sereno, South Pasadena, and San Marino were all serviced by his Pacific Electric Railroad, and part of his planned real estate developments. (Huntington Park was an exception to the planned real estate development, they established the community before they had the streetcar line. The naming of it after Henry E. Huntington was a successful effort to get him to build one of his Pacific Electric Streetcar lines into their new settlement.)

In the 1950’s the supplanting of the streetcar system with the freeway system, new outlying housing development became known simply as the suburbs, or in post-nuclear speak, Suburbia. As that freeway system continues to fail from overcapacity, the long-forgotten streetcar suburbs are looking to their past for solutions; solutions in the form of a railroad.

If there is only one public meeting about transportation, planing, and bicycling in the city of Los Angeles that you will go to this decade, Wednesday, November 4th at Ramona Hall, should be the one you go to.

Visitors to our fine city from other highly developed countries often ask the question, “Why is everybody driving?” We have the great weather, most of our city is located in a relatively flat basin, and we have a road system that is only impeded by the existence of the Pacific Ocean. Perfect conditions for using bicycles almost everyday to go almost anywhere. The only problem is the infrastructure.

Wednesday, Northeast Los Angeles gets to have its say about the future bicycle infrastructure of Los Angeles at a public workshop regarding The Draft Bicycle Plan. The City of Los Angeles has been holding a series of five workshops around the city, giving the public an opportunity to give input on the plan before being finalized by the city council.

The stated goal is to make Los Angeles the most bikeable city in the United States by 2020. What this means is creating a functioning and maintained network of bike lanes, bike paths, and bike routes around the city. It also means better integrating bicycles into everyday usage by improving bicycle parking, and use with public transit.

The plan is considerable. It is also less than perfect, and in many areas, has a lot to be desired. The local bike community are a passionate group, and have been vocal about many of the plan’s shortcomings briefly-esquely documented here:

L.A. Streetsblog

C.I.C.L.E.

BrayJ Against The Machine

SoapBoxLA

Westside BikeSIDE

One of the concerted efforts is to get The Cyclists’ Bill of Rights officially included in the Los Angeles Bicycle Plan. A simple statement of 12 principles such as, right to assembly, right to have equal access to public streets, and mass transit, right to urban planning that includes safe cycling, right to routine accommodations on roads, and at public destinations, etc.

This is the last of the workshops and should be quite informative and entertaining. Time much better spent than speculating about the 710 Freeway coming to eat your home.

Los Angeles Bicycle Plan – Northeast Los Angeles
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Location: Ramona Hall (Across Figueroa from Metro Gold Line, Southwest Museum Station)
Address: 4580 N Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm

Etch A Sketch drawing by 90042 daughter.

An event  I am really excited about this weekend is the Monster Drawing Rally at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock. This annual event sponsored by 90042-based, Outpost For Contemporary Art features over 100 artists doing live drawing, and then selling their ‘finished’ work at the top of every hour for a measly 75 bucks. The event includes DJ Dave Muller spinning records, a Kid’s Drawing Corner (bet you can buy from them for 1/2 the price), food and drink by The Oinkster, New Belgium Brewing Company, and Cafe de Leche, and live music by Dude Dogg and Artichoke. Admission is $10 Adults / $5 Students / Kids free.

To get an idea of what one may expect, check out this short youtube video of one of my favorite up and coming artists, Josh Keyes at the Monster Drawing Rally put on earlier this year by Southern Exposure in San Francisco.

Los Angeles Monster Drawing Rally 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
2:00-7:00pm
Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock
2225 Colorado Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90041

Altar de Possert

Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of The Dead). A day to remember and honor loved ones who have departed, but who’s spirit still walks along side us. What better place to remember this cycle of life than in Highland Park’s community garden, Milagro Allegro. Here are a few pictures of the garden altars:

The La Mano Press Graficomovil by Artemio Rodriguez.

Altar de Quinteros

Altar de comunidad.

Altare di Gatto.

Halloween is my favorite night of the year and my favorite night in Highland Park. I am always delighted and amazed at the robustness of Highland Park’s Trick-or-treating practices. If previous years prove to be an indication, there should be about 500 ghouls and goblins on my porch this night. I love it.

In many places where Trick-or-treating was a vibrant annual event, thanks to the scary world we live in, parents out of fear took their kids off the street and over to some organized party at their school, church or heaven-forbid, a shopping mall. But not here. Sure there are the centralized events around 90042. Such as the Hermon Community Harvest Festival, in a haunted field on Monterey Road. But for me, Trick-or-treating is where the soul or all hallows of the event is. So buy some candy, carve that pumpkin, turn on the porch light and brace yourself for the onslaught.

The sidewalk candy code for generous portions. via cockeyed.com

Of course there is more to this season than just Trick-or-treating. LA Eastside has an excellent run down of this season’s best local events, including a Dia De Los Muertos (Day of The Dead) celebration at The Highlands (Fig & 56) on Sunday, Nov 1, from 4-10pm.

Over in Highland Park adjacent South Pasadena, the legendary, spooky, and shuttered Rialto Theater will be opening its doors Halloween Night for a special midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Or you can just stay at your computer and waste away hours clicking through the days of Gothtober.

Oh, and don’t forget: There will be eggs…

Happy Halloween!

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The Myers Residence along the Metro Gold Line in South Pasadena

In honor of Halloween, this week’s TTTUT travels to the next stop on the old Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line from Highland Park: South Pasadena. Also known as the place where John Carpenter filmed his 1978 horror masterpiece Halloween.

The Myers Residence as it stood across Meridian in 1978, and where it stands today next to the Metro Gold Line. Photo composit by T Hoffarth.

Just outside the window of today’s passing Gold Line train, and across from where the old Santa Fe depot stood, can be seen a couple of the locations used in the movie Halloween. The first one is the corner hardware store (now a cursed restaurant location) where the antagonist character Micheal Myers steals his murder weapon. The second location that the train passes, is the Myers Residence, originally located across the street it is now used as an office. Almost the entire film was shot in that South Pasadena neighborhood. This causes me to often whistle the theme song as I pass through its quiet tree-lined streets.

Corner of Mission and Meridian along the Santa Fe / Metro Gold Line. Photo composit by T Hoffarth.

It is just a hole in the sidewalk. A sidewalk laid in 1926 outside the old Security Trust and Savings Bank building on Avenue 56, where the concrete was breached by a sign post once. Last month, polished stones of various colors and types filled that void. Little stones, not precious, not even semi-precious, just something outside of normalcy of everyday, something beyond the plastic straws, cigarette butts, gum, paper, bottle caps, broken glass, and Q-tips of daily litter.

The rocks sat there through various filmings, the occasional kid kicking his foot into the reservoir of stones just to see how many could be sent flying, or the dogs that made their own contributions. It lasted there for three weeks until one day, they were gone.

Back to the void. The white rocks must have been too small to gather.

For whatever reason, the takers got the best of the givers and now the hole waits for the rains and the promise of spring.

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Remsen Bird Hillside Theater. Photo by Oxy Alum, Andrew D Miller.

On Saturday, October 24th, Occidental College will inaugurate Jonathan Veitch as its 15th president at Remsen Bird Hillside Theater. The college where another certain President took his first political science class is celebrating with a variety of activities that friends of Oxy are invited to, including a concert by swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at 1pm (BBVD are playing Disney Hall on New Year’s Eve, those tickets are $60+, and this is free!) See the Schedule of Events for full details.