Highland Park: A New Culture District in Los Angeles

Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

The lively night life of the Highland Park neighborhood is on display at the York gastropub.

Culture Monster readers may remember multimedia artist Cindy Bernard as a force behind last year's MOCA Mobilization, a grass-roots, save-the-museum movement that came into being in November after news stories surfaced about severe financial problems at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

But before she took up the MOCA cause, Bernard took on another ambitious project, this one involving video and sound: Between October 2004 and September 2005, Bernard recorded the sound and the view from a high ridge in her neighborhood, Mt. Washington, for a film called "Year Long Loop."

The full-length version of "Year Long Loop" has a running time of 24 hours and is composed of essentially one five-minute shot from each hour of the day, organized by the month. A shortened version of the film cuts each of those shots to 25 seconds, thus condensing the year into a 2-hour video that will be shown at 7 tonight on the USC campus as part of the Cinematheque108 alternative screening series, sponsored by the university's School of Cinematic Arts. 

Flying Pigeon LA peddles bike culture north of downtown

Brothers Adam and Josef Bray-Ali host monthly tours -- with dim sum or art the destination -- to introduce their shop's Chinese bicycles and also to cultivate a vision of a different Los Angeles

From:http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2009/08/clare-graham.html

Jigsaw pieces and buttons are staples of Graham's sculptures

Clare Graham's Wonderama

A Surreal Highland Park studio is elegant proof that one man's trash is another man's treasure

by Mayer Rus

photographs by Rayhmond Meier

Clare Graham’s work resists easy classification. Considering the otherworldly beauty of his sculptures, one’s first impulse is to characterize them as fine art. Graham, however, chafes at the label. As for craft, the term unfortunately conjures images of driftwood clocks, batik ponchos and scrapbooking fairs. So what, then, is the proper way to describe his wild agglomerations of bottle caps and buttons? Obsession fits the bill. Alchemy, too. Perhaps mad genius sums it up best. Think of Graham as a Tony Duquette for the 21st century. Like the renowned Los Angeles designer of interiors, home furnishings and jewelry, Graham is a wizard with a hot-glue gun and pixie dust, a sorcerer capable of transforming material of little inherent value into objects of wonder with a sweep of his magician’s cloak. While seashells, coral, gold paint and cheap chinoiserie were the stuff of Duquette’s dreams, Graham finds inspiration in lowly castoffs and consumer refuse: soda-pop cans, Scrabble tiles, yardsticks, dog tags and jigsaw-puzzle pieces. His mission, he says with a wry grin, is “to awaken people to the potential in garbage.”

At first blush, the concept of a chandelier made out of buttons or a suite of furniture fashioned out of yardsticks sounds precisely like the kind of dreck one expects to find at a lame garage sale. But the grand scale, artistry and monomania of Graham’s work elevate it from cornball into the realm of the sublime. His five-foot-tall lighting totem draped with 3,500 rosaries and surmounted by a crown of thorns made from scraps of old wire, for example, resonates with both profound beauty and meaning—however obscure. Ditto his screen of 26,000 swizzle sticks representing countless cocktails in countless smoke-filled bars and hotels.

Highland Park: A New Culture District in Los Angeles

                                                  Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

The lively night life of the Highland Park neighborhood is on display at the York gastropub.

Farm Aid: Auntie Em's Produce-Driven Dreams

An Eagle Rock favorite takes a fresh approach to cooking

By Jonathan Gold

Published on November 19, 2008 at 2:25am

Arroyo Seco placed on national register

PASADENA - The Arroyo Seco, Pasadena's recreational hub and defining geographic landmark, has officially been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The complex process, spearheaded by Pasadena Heritage, took more than three years to complete, and the official nod from the National Trust in Washington, D.C., comes about eight months after the Pasadena Arroyo Park and Recreation District was unanimously approved by the state Historic Resources Commission.

Looking for holiday gifts off the beaten path? On Sunday, 140 artists will open their studios for the Arroyo Arts Collective’s 16th annual “Re-Discovery Tour” — a self-guided tour of artists’ homes and studios in Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Mount Washington.

Photographs by Michael Kelley   

Los Angeles magazine, September 2008

So this is what the faith of our fathers has come to.Through the lattice of chain-link, through a locked gate, my eyes wandered in, lingering a moment on the broken, battered sign advertising the fall of Temple Beth Israel of Highland Park and Eagle Rock. Then my gaze resumed its ascent up a mound of dead grass to the summit and the shul itself. Built in 1920s Spanish colonial revival mode, it must have been a sweet and modest sanctuary once. Now the paint was peeling, the stucco patched. Stars of David and menorahs woven into the wrought-iron window screens protected its stained glass from local kids bent on mischief. The temple shared this stretch of Monte Vista Street with other houses of worship and ramshackle bungalows and apartment buildings, but here in Highland Park, a decaying neighborhood northeast of downtown, Jesus was king. His triumph was made manifest not only by the girth of the Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal churches but by the area’s dominant Latino population,
a demographic that, when it gets religion, usually chooses Christ.

http://highlandpark.wordpress.com/

The Pigeons Have Landed

Highland Park’s newest bike shop is not really a bike shop. Instead, its an outlet. In fact, its a dealership, a sole West Coast proprietor of the world’s most popular bicycle: The Flying Pigeon.

Flying Pigeon LA, as the store is called, is a member of the cult. That cult being the cult of the Bicycle. Like many bicycle orginzations (formal and informal) around Los Angeles, Flying Pigeon LA’s underlying mission is to do what some have said is impossible: Getting Angelenos out of their cars! Organizations from LA County Bike Coalition to C.I.C.L.E. to Midnight Ridazz, have seen the light, and continue to work toward a Los Angeles where bikes are more than toys for kids, or something to be used only at the beach on weekends. Instead, organizations (Or disorganizations as in the case of the Ridazz) and businesses like FPLA are creating opportunities for people to live, and enjoy their city without having to use the car.

What FPLA is doing is selling a sturdy, utilitarian bike that can be used effectively on the street to do local errands, like going to the drugstore, cloths shopping, grocery shopping, riding to a local cafe, or the library, or just tooling around town. It’s not designed, intended to be raced, or go moutain biking with, that’s not the point. It is a city bike for urbanites such as myself. All facilitated by the purchasing of this noble machine for only $299.88

The Three Hundred Dollars gets you the steel frame bike, a basket, bell, dynamo-powered head light, enclosed chain (a must if you ride this to work), fenders (protects against rain, mud, shrapnel) a rear carrying rack (easily holds several extra large pizzas from Folliero’s), and an integrated rear wheel bike lock.

The bike is highly functional for travelling on the streets. Large 28 inch wheels with slick tread for an efficient ride. (I always shake my head when I see people using ridiculous mountain bikes with unnecessary suspension and knobby tires to commute to work with.) The ride is very comfortable, and even the antiquated looking breaks do a great job at stopping this iron giant. The bike is comes in only one size, so when riding it can seem like you are standing up even when you are seated. My only complaint really, was with the peddles that come with the bike, they seem quite flimsy. Luckily, the guys decided to buy some stronger pedals and replace them before sending the bikes out the door.

The brothers are super helpful, and really want their customers to enjoy their Flying Pigeon bikes. For the past five weeks, they have hosted what they are calling Git Some Dim Sum, a group ride from the store on Sunday mornings to Chinatown for Dim Sum at Empress Pavilion. The ride takes off by 11AM, and best of all they offer loaner FP’s to have that authentic Chinese experience.

So stop in for some tea, try out a bike, or better yet buy one! Be sure to stop by on Friday, September 19th, for Park(ing) Day, and see what clever park installation they create outside their store.

Flying Pigeon LA
5711 N. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90042
213-909-8986
info@flyingpigeon-la.com

Open 2-9 some days, 10-6 sundays, and whenever you see the bikes out other days.

• AP foreign
• , Tuesday August 12 2008

By TED ANTHONY

AP National Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) - On blistering days in Los Angeles, drive northeast on the 110, exit at Highland Park and pull into a roadside grocery called Galco's. Then walk in and say, ``I'm thirsty. Can you point me to the soda-pop aisle?''

This question may get you laughed out of the place. Because at Galco's, the soda pop is in most every aisle. The place is a soft-drink nirvana containing 500 varieties of fizzy beverage from all corners of the planet.

Root beer? They've got three dozen kinds. Perhaps your palate craves a bottle of Cheerwine or a cold Inca Cola. Choose between soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, flavored artificially or naturally, colored pink or red or green or blue or purple. And that doesn't include the 475 varieties of beer and the 60 kinds of bottled water.

The choice is yours, if you can handle it. The store, now known as Galco's Soda Pop Stop, is an exuberant explosion of the vaunted notion of freedom of choice, one of the ideals that supposedly makes America what it is.

It is wonderful. It is also intimidating. And in an election year, it's something the next president needs to understand.

The two-century focus on what America's founding fathers called ``the pursuit of happiness'' - coupled with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the rise of consumerism in the 20th - has birthed a landscape of options as dizzying as it is liberating. Bed and Bath, it turns out, aren't nearly enough. These days, we're much more concerned with Beyond.

A mere generation after the three broadcast networks ruled, a Comcast digital cable package hands you up to 250 channels of programming. Today's average supermarket sells more than 45,000 items, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter more than four times that. On a single afternoon this month, eBay had 14.9 million auctions going, and Amazon was offering listings for 22.7 million books. By the end of last year, the Web had more than 108 million distinct pages to visit from the comfort of your lap.

John Nese, who built Galco's into a promised land of sugary beverages, has thought a lot about choice in America. He offers two assessments.

The first: ``People want choices. People want the opportunity to make their own decisions.''

The second: ``They come in and they look and they go, `We're overwhelmed. We don't know what to buy.'''

The notion transcends simple consumerism. It also is the dilemma facing whoever wins November's election. With options beyond our great-grandparents' dreams, is freedom of unlimited choice really a freedom at all?

In a universe of unprecedented static, how can an American leader lead?

Soda Pop Music

One of our favorite L.A. spots is Galco's Soda Pop Stop. Located on York in Highland Park, Galco's -- once an Italian grocer -- remade itself about a decade ago under owner John Nese into a retailer of just about every known and obscure soda in the universe.

Now, local artist Greg Laswell has shot a music video to his song "How the Day Sounds" at Galco's. Check it out -- including a brief appearance by Nese:

How the Day Sounds

From: http://yorkblvd.com/category/highland-park/ 

Lowriders!

Ξ June 30th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ 90041, Highland Park, The Arts |

All day A/C, a busy community pool, and the annual disappearance of those Lakers car pennants (at least until the next time the bandwagon starts filling up) all point towards summer kicking into full gear.  One of June’s highlights for me is the annual Highland Park Auto Show.  Just in case I might have forgotten it was Sunday, the roar of engines and squealing of car alarms woke me up early.  Since my dog is getting a little fat, I decided to take her out for a walk and enjoy the sights on Fig between Avenues 51 & 57.  Scalp tattoos, custom paint jobs that might be illegal in Utah, and vendors lined the street while hip-hop and Banda music mixed into a culturally appropriate milieu.  Note: You may want to avoid looking at the second to last picture at work.

Enjoy the photos:

“Elbows up side to side”