...was granted for this empty space -- once 850 N. Echo Park Avenue -- where for eight or nine decades stood a two-story apartment building the front of which faced Echo Park Lake.

Photo: Feb 27, 2007, by Martin Cox.

The empty space depicted above reminds me of a recurring ontological argument I have had with my toddler daughter. It goes something like this:

"Mommy, I want crackers."
Mommy says okay (of course) and goes to the appropriate cabinet to get some, except -- she forgot! -- there aren't any.
"I am sorry, darling, but we don't have crackers. Would you like triple-fudge-peanut-butter cookies instead?"
"I want crackers."
"Unfortunately, we don't have crackers."
"I want to see."
"What would you like to see?"
"Crackers."
"Well, you can't see them because they aren't there."
"I want to see!"
"There is nothing to see, darling."
"Let me see!"
"Okay, I will show you a place where there are no crackers."
Toddler is lifted to look into the black hole where her mother recently saw no crackers. She starts to cry.
"I want crackers!"

On a more serious note, I thought the Angelino Heights HPOZ, which has been extended, protected this bit of lake front. In the middle of active efforts to preserve buildings such as the one you don't see, poof! Gone. Fell into a timeline loophole, I suppose. As did the residents.

Echo Park guy Gustavo Santaolalla thanked "The Academy" for his second Oscar last night. The latest honor came for his score of Babel. The first was for Brokeback Mountain. Perhaps a Valentine Street address turned out to be lucky for the Argentinian composer who also scored "Amor Es Perros" and "21 Grams," two among many other musical achievements.

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Above Dodger Stadium and Bishop Canyon, Elysian Fields has deep, wide view of Los Angeles in all directions. It's on the eastern side Elysian Park -- though not, in the Badlands -- it's one of the most used portions of the park, at least on weekends. I have been up there during the week with my daughter, and it was quite lonely.

But this weekend, Saturday, we were back, for the first birthday party of Milo, a friend of ours. A beautiful place and beautiful way to celebrate a birthday. Milo's mom, Fezzia, is French, and his dad, John Paul, British. Their guests spoke at least three languages -- French, English and maybe Arabic -- while a friend played guitar and sang cowboy songs. With the rolling hills and the flats of the county spread out beyond the ridges in front of us, we sang "Don't Fence Me In," "Cool Water" and a number of other songs. Some of the celebrants kicked around a "Lakers" (purple and yellow) soccer ball, while in the greater field around us several small groups of mixed ages kicked around black-and-white soccer balls. The baseball fields were full with league players.

When my daughter and I left, we crossed through a crowded parking lot. At one space, there was a black pickup with its gate down -- a tailgate party. Cases of beer on the gate, a cholo-looking crowd, one young guy in a wheelchair. On the boombox "Brown Eyed Girl" played loudly and softly at the same time -- without the euphoria and opera of Van Morrison. It sounded a bit like Los Lobos -- or a group who sounded like them -- and their "Brown Eyed Girl" was a wistful event, born of a different world. It came off easy. California style.

Wednesday, Curbed LA reported that El Prado, last of the Mexican Cowboy bars in Echo Park, will be a wine and beer bar. Make that a shot of gruner-veltliner, and if anyone asks, I ain't here. Hall of mirrors disclaimer: Curbed's post links to Chicken Corner.

Following a bit of a hiatus, Echo Park, California reports that "Local architects [i.e., 1400 block of Echo Park Avenue] Ball-Nogues have been short listed for P.S.1 and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) eighth annual Young Architects Program. The winner will design PS1’s annual Summer Pavilion."

On Owleypatrol, Ann Do Rademaker, who lives in Echo Park and is part of the band The Tyde, celebrates the year of the Golden Pig with her friends and family at Vietnam Quan Am Temple, which she says is the spiritual center of Little Saigon. Ann has a light touch as a writer and the enviable insider/outsider perspective that chroniclers work hard to achieve and find hard to maintain.

I missed this post on Jan 15, when Abandoned Couches skirted Echo Park, recording this discard in its "Yick" posting: Subject spotted at Fletcher and Riverside. I love Abandoned Couches, the blog, though sometimes I wish its author would photograph the couches at closer range.

On his CD-13 blog, Eric Garcetti yesterday posted about the Prop O project that will lead to the cleaning of Echo Park Lake. CD-13 also announces, in its Feb 2nd post that Eric and his deputy Mitch O'Farrell won the LA City Nerd Award for elected official and elected official's deputy. Belated congratulations. Chicken Corner hopes in the near future to get a comment from the honorees on this new-found distinction. According to LA City Nerd, it wasn't just a popularity contest. There also had to be passion and a mind for facts, and there was a poll. The fact that our council president answers his own email also was cited.

Elysian Park: Walking in the misty morn on Wednesday. Heading north toward the oasis, as some people call the garden area where the dog-watering station is located. Is that a condor? Has it moved? I am sure the condor moved. The Bird Man of Echo Park, one of the neighborhood's most elusive of the wild things, seems to have been active.

Later, I hear of more wild animals in Elysian Park. A reader named Kevin emailed me the story of how his Jack Russell terrier nearly leaped into the maws of a pair of coyotes at 2:30 in the afternoon.

It happened yesterday (Monday) at around 2:30 in the afternoon. I was walking my dogs (I have 3: 2 jack russels and 1 yellow lab) around the park loop. My friend and I found a soccer ball in the bushes about 300 yards past the horses as one travels the loop clockwise. One of my dogs goes nuts for soccer balls so we were kicking it for her and she would fetch it and bring it to us for another kick.

Well, here's where the scary part happens. We rounded one of the curves of the path (near where the shortcut path comes down the hill), and the ball travels over the edge towards Stadium Way. Lois, my type A russell high-tails it down the hill to get it. My friend and I watch with a smile as she flies down the steep hill...until a coyote pounces on her about 150 feet down! I instantly race down the hill 10 feet to a stride, listening to my dog howl in fear! I remember something about screaming at the top of one's lungs to scare away wild animals (I think it's for bears or cougars) so I start screaming "GET AWAY FROM HERE!" at the top of my lungs. I see another, bigger coyote jump into the mix as I'm trying not to roll down the steep hill. Well, as luck has it, my screaming worked. The two coyotes are spooked and run away a short distance. At this point, I think, they're as freaked out as Lois and I. Lois then sprints up the hill back to the trail, wondering what the hell just happened while I wonder if the coyotes are looking at me as possible prey. I just keep on screaming at them as I slowly made my way back up the muddy hill.

My friend and I check out Lois. She's fine, just muddy as hell. My heart was racing, my shoes filled with mud, but all was well. I've been walking my dogs for 7 years on that trail and only once seen a coyote, let alone have an encounter with two! I got a feeling that the ball rolled right into their den, and they thought my mostly white russell was a rabbit or cat and jumped her. I'm gonna be more careful from now on when my dogs stray from the path.

Moral of the story: Just because it's 2:30 in the afternoon doesn't mean Coyote has gone away. But you basically have to kick a soccer ball into Coyote's den to get her/him to come out and consider eating or biting you. I was glad to learn that no one was hurt in the encounter, including the coyotes.

More wild things: On Monday I went to Laguna Castle to get a look at the hole in the floor from which snake-extraction specialists plan to remove the perhaps 400 lb. creature burrowing below the yellow-tagged structure. The Castle is two separate apartment buildings, the first built in the 1920s, its partner in the '30s. There are hillside gardens and views of the lake, and as you may know, a big snake. The 1930s structure has been empty of human inhabitants for almost two years, On Feb. 20, 2005, in the midst of the heavy rains, a retaining wall crumbled thunderously in the middle of a downpour night, and the building was red-tagged about three weeks later. In the midst of renovations, a snake and an iguana have been sighted, the snake many times. Snake extractors came and power-sawed a hole in the closet of one of the apartments, but they have been hard to reach when it comes to showing up for snake-extraction appointments. Any day now they are supposed to come and climb through that hole -- which in fact is a crisp rectangle, with a finger-sized notch for lifting -- and go down into the earth and come up with an enormous, mammal-eating snake. Monday, I peered into the depths and no sign of it.

Photo: 2/17/07 by Martin Cox, who, in Martin's words, "is at this very moment coining the term 'echographer,' one who photographs Echo Park."

At last, a red-tile roof for the Echo Park Lake Boathouse! The boathouse is part of the Echo Park Lake Tour, March 24, offered by the Echo Park Historical Society.

Echographer Martin Cox has a show at The Lost Studio Gallery on La Brea. The show runs concurrently with "Moonlight," a Harold Pinter play in the theater adjacent to the gallery.

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Sunday, in response to my Valentine's Day Massacre post, I received the following email, quoted here in its entirety, from a traffic officer who also happens to be an Echo Park resident. He/she says the Department of Parking Enforcement did not have a quota.

I live in Echo Park and also work as a Traffic Officer in the Valley office of Parking Enforcement. CIVILIAN TRAFFIC OFFICER'S AUTHORITY FOR IMPOUNDS 22651 V.C. O---- Expired registration in excess of 6 months and one day. The letter "O" would have to be written in the box for authority to impound on the impound forms if the vehicles were impounded for expired registration. If you haven't registered your vehicle 6 months after the due date you should not be driving it on the street. There is not and never has been a quota in the Department of Parking Enforcement for tickets or impounds.

He or she did not say whether they had been ticketed on Valentine's Day.

In a perhaps unrelated coincidence yesterday morning, Sunday, I leashed my dog, Rosie. When I got outside my house there was a Department of Parking Enforcement ticket-mobile idling at the curb in front of my house. I stopped with my dog and waited to see what they would do. Was anyone getting a ticket? Nothing happened. I waited. A case of misguided vigilance? On my part? On theirs?

Then the car did a u-turn and came back toward me. The driver, a pleasant-looking young man, stopped at my driveway and asked me if I was walking my dog.

"Yes," I said, "I am walking my dog," though, technically, we were standing in front of my house, not walking. My dog agreed.

The ticket officer was obviously trying to be sociable and I felt sympathy for him, for all of the animosity he must endure, the stares, the anger, the mockery in neighborhood blogs. Ticket officers fall into the class of public servant who often are considered public enemies when they perform their duties. Crazy-making, no doubt.

I asked this officer if he knew anything about a sweep in the environs. He said he didn't. He said he received calls about my street. It looked like he wasn't ticketing anyone, so I said, "well, take care" and walked away. At which he smiled nicely and rolled away a few yards down the street where he ticketed my friends and neighbors for parking facing the wrong direction in front of their house. So much for being nice. Though, to be fair, my friends were in violation, even if I would have liked to see them get away with it.

Later, at a barbecue with neighbors/friends the issue of tickets came up. I expressed my personal displeasure of the ticketing sweep (at people's homes!) in the neighborhood and was surprised to find several friends in disagreement. One said she was tired of the lawlessness in Echo Park -- perhaps she was thinking also of the brand new "sweep" by taggers this weekend, who sprayed gang tags on garage doors, walls, even a discarded bedroom dresser. Another friend, the very same who received his ticket for parking backward, also was satisfied with the Department of Parking Enforcement's attention to the area.

The great Valentine's Day Massacre of 2007 took place in Echo Park on Wednesday as car after car from the Bureau of Parking & Punishment swept the neighborhood, meting out tickets and towing. Expired tags was a towing offense. One friend of mine parked near Delilah's Bakery and went inside to get a sweet something for his wife on this lover's holiday. He came out -- sweet things in hand -- to find that his car was gone. Another upstanding friend, who devotes a massive amount of time to public service, had her car towed for an expired tag. As with all things in our society, the less money you have the more expensive the punishment. Not everyone can afford to lose a shift at work, or to run down to the impound palace with cash in hand to ransom back his or her automobile. Word on the street: Dept of P & P had a quota.

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Speaking of dogs, chickens and free speech...a provocative thread in the Echo Park Animal Alliance list serve throws down on freedom of expression in the buyer-sphere. The conversation started, I think, with Animal Control's Laura Weekes posting a challenge of sorts to dog folks. Weekes reported that Amazon had stood by its sale of dog-fight and cock-fight DVDs with a 1st Amendment shield. Weekes's retort was to cite the consumer's bill of rights: she was free not to spend her money on Amazon as long as they continued to sell animal porn. She asked EPAA-listers for their input, and there was plenty over many days.

For example: Melodie, a customer, writes to Amazon:

To Amazon: It is extremely disturbing to find cockfighting magazines and dogfighting videos on your website-These are not items of fiction or essays expressing opinion, thereby protected as free speech. These are items encouraging, teaching how-to, and giving specifics on where and when to engage in illegal acts; which acts are also cruel, violent and unethical. This is NOT a free speech issue. Expressing an opinion in writing is protected. Encouraging others to engage in illegal activities is not protected speech. Please remove these items from your website immediately. I am a long and loyal customer until now unaware of your website carrying illegal and violent material. Please let me know when these items will permanently be deleted from your website; in other words when I can become an Amazon customer again. Thank you, Melodie.

And Amazon Customer Service replies:

Thank you for writing to Amazon.com with your concerns about our product selection.

As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking. That selection includes some items which many people may find objectionable. Therefore, the items offered on our web site represent a wide spectrum of opinions on a variety of topics.

Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain title because we believe their message is objectionable. Therefore, we will continue to make controversial works available in the United States and everywhere else, except where they are prohibited by law. We also allow readers, authors, and publishers to express their views freely about these titles and other products we offer on our web site. However, Amazon.com does not endorse any opinions expressed by individual authors, musical artists, or filmmakers.

We value all feedback from our customers, and thank you again for taking the time to send us your comments about this issue. We hope you will allow us to continue to serve you.
Sincerely,
Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here is a press-release email to Laura Weekes from the political arm of the Humane Society of the United States:

From: "Humane Society of the United States"/TELL AMAZON.COM TO STOP PROFITING FROM ANIMAL FIGHTING

Dear Laura, Did you know that Amazon.com is peddling materials that are both illegal and cruel to animals? It's true: Amazon.com is selling materials that promote cockfighting and dogfighting, and The Humane Society of the United States has been pressuring the company to remove these materials for many months.

Yesterday, the online retail giant told us that two dogfighting DVDs would be pulled from the site. This is a win for the dogs abused and killed in dogfights, but in the past Amazon.com has removed similar videos only to offer them for sale again later. AMAZON.COM MUST MAKE A CLEAR COMMITMENT TO KEEPING ALL PROMOTIONS OF ILLEGAL ANIMAL FIGHTING OFF THEIR VIRTUAL SHELVES.

Now, Amazon.com must also cease its unsavory profiteering from The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior, magazines that sell illegal animal-fighting paraphernalia and call attention to cockfighting venues. These magazines are the glue that holds together the criminal cockfighting industry in this country, and Amazon.com is their main internet subscription tool.

Today, please join us in telling Amazon.com that it's time for a zero-tolerance policy against the violent spectacle of animal fighting for human amusement. CALL AMAZON.COM RIGHT NOW AT 206-266-1000 and demand that they stop collecting blood money from this exploitation of animals.

This is not an issue of freedom of speech or materials that are merely offensive, although they are that. The facts are clear: Interstate distribution of materials that promote animal fighting is a violation of federal law. This week, The HSUS filed suit against Amazon.com and its suppliers to uphold that law.

You can also use Amazon.com's web form to make your point: https://community.hsus.org/ct/jdA-A5410zm-/. Then, please forward this alert to your friends and family so that they can make the call against animal fighting, too: https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_2007_amazon_fighting/forward/ww75bd3rq6mjxwe?. Thank you for taking action and for all you do for animals. Sincerely, Wayne Pacelle President & CEO The Humane Society of the United States.

P.S. To find out why this is NOT a question of First Amendment rights, read our web story: https://community.hsus.org/ct/j1A-A5410zmF

Speaking of houses on the hill (see yesterday's Chicken Corner post), some of the grandest in Angelino Heights are the work of Arthur Benton, who also was noted for helping to restore California's missions in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One of the ways Benton stays with us is in the architect's then "modern" view that regional styles of building should be developed and old buildings preserved. His houses, a couple of which were featured in Echo Park Historical Society home tour of 2005, are gorgeously appointed, spooky and big. Benton is the subject of tonight's Echo Park Historical Society's quarterly meeting presentation by historian Charles J. Fisher. The quarterly meeting, which will also include an update on EPHS events and issues of interest to members, is free and open to the public. Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at Barlow Library at Barlow Hospital, 2000 Stadium Way. (Disclosure: yours truly is on the board of this organization.)

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In response to "The House on the hill" (yesterday's post again, scroll down). Adrienne Crew emailed me with a link to her blog, LA Brain Terrain -- where last April she wrote about Red Hill or Red Gulch in regard to a talk she gave at the Echo Park Film Center. As Crew notes in her blog, EPFC has a documentary series on lefties in Echo Park.

Sunday I went on a micro-tour of Echo Park history with Nancy Stone Bernard, an archeaologist who was raised in EP, and Nancy’s friend Joan Weber, who is an artist. The two have been close since childhood, attending Thomas Starr King Junior High together in the late 40s as well as Marshall High School (which was out of district for Nancy).

One of the things I was hoping to gain from a morning walking and driving the neighborhood (and visiting, it turned out) was more knowledge about ‘40s and ‘50s Communists and fellow travelers in Echo Park, which once was nicknamed Red Hill and Red Gulch by the people who lived here. But you really can’t have an agenda when it comes to someone else’s childhood, and so, what I found instead of Communists was a Russian film editor named Jack, his Echo Park-raised wife, Ludmilla, and a pair of dogs named Rasputin and Nicholas, as well as many fine nuggets of EP history.

In Nancy I found a lively, engaged woman who by nature seems oriented in the present – despite her own specialty in “lithics” or stone age technology. She contacted me after reading a review I wrote of the book “Bohemian Los Angeles,” which is about Silver Lake and Echo Park from the 1910s to the 1950s. She was particularly interested in Fellowship Park Way, which some of her parents’ friends had created, in honor of Ralph Waldo Emerson and, perhaps, Benjamin Mills of the Los Angeles Fellowship, a spiritual group modeled after the Ethical Culture Society.

In a walk to one of the entryways to the dirt-path Park Way, which still exists, Nancy pointed out the former house of Arthur and Margaret Mayers, parents of Dan Mayers, who at age 22 was a young physicist doing ancillary research for the Manhattan Project. Nancy's parents were left-leaning intellectuals (though her father was a businessman) and she told me the Mayers and her parents were part of a group that called itself (partly in irony) the Brain Trust. The group met at each other's homes to discuss topics of which there now is no record I know of. Among her parents good friends was Carey McWilliams, who lived on Alvarado about 50 yards away from their house.

Nancy’s childhood home – where she was born and lived until she went away to Stanford -- is known to many as the somewhat mysterious large house set at the end of a long driveway at 2091 Cerro Gordo, where the street meets North Alvarado. After walking the stair-street section of Lemoyne Street, we drove to the house on Cerro Gordo, where the present owners, the aforementioned Jack and Ludmilla, were expecting Nancy.

The house was built in the late 1920s by Nancy’s parents – it was designed by the architect Sumner Spaulding, who was one of the designers of City Hall as well as part of LAX and Green Acres, Buster Keaton’s estate. We stayed for about an hour, touring the four-bedroom house and the garden, where Nancy was married almost 50 years ago with Joan Weber as her maid of honor. She pointed out the camellias her mother had planted. She said she had a childhood memory of standing in the yard at night. She could see into the yard of a neighbor to the north. The neighbor was a preacher of the night (my term). Standing alone, he shined a spotlight on himself and preached into a microphone, directing his words toward Silver Lake. This was during World War II.

Three decades later, Ludmilla was a kid. She lived on Lemoyne. She said that she and her friends used to ride their ten-speed bikes around the neighborhood, and she would stop at the gates to Nancy Stone’s house. “I would look up the driveway and wonder what kind of people would live in that house,” which was grand for Elysian Park. “I never saw anyone there,” she said, sitting in the living room of the same home, which she has owned with her husband since 1996. “It was always quiet.”

The rooms are filled with one-of-a-kind vintage objects – a four- or five-foot sculpture of a toy race car sits on top of an upright piano, for example – while the house is being renovated one room at a time.

Ludmilla’s mother and stepfather still live at the address where she was raised. Her stepfather is a former police officer, who, as a child, was an extra in the “Little Rascals,” which was filmed in Echo Park and Silver Lake. (I have visited the still-standing bungalows on Duane Street where the show was filmed.)

Meanwhile, on Red Hill, Rasputin is Ludmilla and Jack’s 120-pound German shepherd, who was rescued as a puppy on a freeway ramp and is now sleek and enormous. The other dog is a golden retriever -- Nicholas. And there used to be Tsaritsa.

According to Nancy’s family lore, she ended up being raised on Red Hill because her uncle Rudolph Stein – who was supposed to be kosher – ate a bad pork sausage in San Francisco. He died of trichonosis, and Nancy’s father, whose name was Stone. was called upon to run Stein’s textile concern in Los Angeles. Which is how he came to build a house on the highest hill in Echo Park.

An overcast sky, wet ground. I am walking along the western trail in Elysian Park, thinking about Richard Nixon and a fictional character of my own devising named Doctor Colby. Rosie the dog, who has not yet injured her thigh (as she will do soon) conducts an investigation of smells at the base of a tree, constructing images in her mind, no doubt of a canine who left these scents for her to find. Along comes actor/writer Roger Guinvere Smith, who tells me he is in his head, thinking about Frederick Douglass, rehearsing as he walks a performance he will do in Reston and Roanoke Virginia at the end of the week. In the distance, the sound of gunfire at the Los Angeles Police Academy firing range. A woman I recognize from the path comes by. She always carries her elderly and very small black and white dog. Today the dog has a crisp lipstick kiss on the white spot on his forehead. Rosie, my dog, and I arrive at the horses' pen. Frankie, Valentino and Sera eat green hay for breakfast. Rosie no longer barks at them as she used to do, but their smells excite her and she starts running. She jumps off a two-foot embankment back onto the park trail, and it’s there she injures her leg. So then I am on the path, which suddenly has no other people or dogs on it, carrying a 45-pound dog, thinking about the quarter mile back to my house, which is out of the question. We stop at a friend’s house on Park Drive. I leave Rosie at their house and return to my own for my car. The injury does not appear to be serious. Hopefully it will be one we all forget about quickly.

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More billboard: I heard from a reader named Anthony, who wrote:

The American Apparel billboards are certainly meant to be provocative. Getting people talking is what marketing is all about. I find American Apparel marketing rather distasteful in general but the bigger issue here is the Anaheim Angels logo displayed on a huge billboard near the corner of Sunset and Elysian, the entrance to Dodger Stadium! Now there's a billboard worthy of outrage.

Yes, I would say that Angels billboard is meant to be provocative, too.

CORRECTIONS: No change in American Apparel billboards. AND, I was uncertain whether Dakota Smith was a woman or man. It turns out she is a she.

One of the last of the old guard Echo Park booze holes has a "change of ownership" beverage application notice posted in the window. El Prado, at 1805 Sunset, in the same yellow-brick storefront building as Par Paints, is said to be the very last of the Mexican Cowboy joints in the neighborhood, and it seems it's going to be sucked into the vortex of The Echo/Spaceland, as Mitchell Frank's name is on the change of ownership app. (Mitchell Frank is one of The Echo/Spaceland partners.) El Prado joins the ranks of The Shortstop and Little Joy as EP bars flip for hipsters.

One piece of neighborhood lore has it that about four or five years ago an El Prado patron took it outside into the street, firing his gun and hitting someone (fate unknown). Caballero then went back into the bar and ordered another drink while the police cordoned off Sunset, looking for their suspect.

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I received a pair of responses to my post about the "kiddie porn" American Apparel billboard on Alvarado at Sunset (facing south) in which I disputed a Curbed LA writer's descriptino of the intersection where the clothing ad is posted. The first email was from the Curbed LA writer, Dakota Smith, who says that she stands by her description of the corner.

Hi Jenny: You may call my description of that corner daffy, but as an Echo Park resident, there is no other block in Echo Park where I routinely see homeless people and people on drugs, no matter what time of day it is. I was never referring to the people waiting for the bus in my story). Last fall, right under that American Apparel billboard, I intervened in a fight between two homeless people--a homeless man was harassing a homeless woman who had one eye missing.

I moved to the neighborhood a year ago. My friends have told me the corner was a known place to buy crack in 90s, but has gotten better in recent years. Maybe because I am a new resident, I am being too harsh on it, and seeing it with different eyes. But I still find it a sad corner.

Abby Arnold emailed with her take on the billboard itself, essentially in agreement with Curbed LA:

I live on the border of Santa Monica and Venice, but I work throughout Los Angeles, mostly in low-income neighborhoods. The posts about this billboard sparked my recollection of a moment in early January when I was in Echo Park. The billboard caught my attention, and I had a strong enough reaction to it to remember it here a month later...can't think of any other billboards that memorable!
My reaction was "YUCK". I wasn't thinking about the model's age, just the image of a half-naked teen looming above a neighborhood, adding to other other anti-woman propaganda like "Girls Gone Wild". Have you read "Female Chauvinist Pigs" by Ariel Levy? The billboard isn't the most damaging thing in the world, but I did have a feeling of revulsion that stayed in my consciousness for four weeks (so far). The billboard is almost bigger than the American Apparel store. Who needs it?

We all know that kiddie porn is evil, as well as criminal. Referencing it is vile, too. But it's legal, as it should be, even though it inhabits a loophole in the spirit of the law. People and companies will always find a way to talk about the things that are on their minds.

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No-kill proponents will be glad to see Carla Hall's Death Takes a Holiday" (for the weekend) story in the LA TImes today.

Yesterday, I received this from Spencer Windes at American Apparel -- about Curbed LA's response to his employer's billboard at Alvarado and Sunset.

Hey Jenny, I would love to hear what you have to say about the Curbed posting on the American Apparel billboard in Echo Park. Here’s a posting I did on the AA blog about it. Who are the mysterious “Echo Park residents” of whom they speak?

If you haven't already read the link, Curbed LA calls the intersection of Alvarado and Sunset, a place of "24-hour despair," drugs, horror. It's a strange misreading of the corner from a site that purports to interpret our urban surroundings in a meaningful way. It is true that there has been a new influx of homeless people into Echo Park recently. (These people who have no reliable shelter, whose possessions are out on the street for everyone to see, are at Echo Park Lake, and on Alvarado, on Reservoir, on Glendale, in Elysian Park.) And it's true that a lot of weary-looking folks wait for the bus at Sunset/Alvarado. But I'll echo (no pun intended) Spencer Windes in pointing out that the Sunset/Alvarado intersection is where we find 1) The Downbeat Cafe, 2) Machine Project, 3) Echo Park Film Center, 4) Pizza Buona, 5) The Edendale Library, 6) Lyman Printing, 7) Brooklyn Projects, 8) the new vegetarian cafe Elf, 9) The Brite Spot restaurant and comedy club, 10) Burrito King, 11) about ten fashionable clothing and antiques boutiques, including Wells Tile, strung along Sunset and Alvarado within two blocks of the crossroads, 12) some groovy public art. And I almost forgot Taix, the landmark restaurant on Sunset. The only thing missing is a sign -- "Major cultural nerve center right here" -- hanging from the stoplights. I guess the Curbed LA writer got his/her antenna wet yesterday. I hope they feel better soon.

As for the lascivious billboard that inspired Curbed LA's daffy description of Sunset/Alvarado, that's a tricky one. I find it, uh, difficult to get it up for a big moralizing crusade about the "child pornography" billboard since the model is supposedly 24 years old and doesn't even look like a child. (Though, if you've read about Dov Charney, former owner of American Apparel, and the sexual-harassment charges against him, the news does color the image -- of a topless girl in tight pants without underwear -- in an unpleasant way.) I am not sure what to say about a company that uses an adult model to mimic sexual interest in children trying to look like adults except that said company is breaking no laws that I know of. Are they worse than Calvin Klein? It brings me to: Are the people who walk or drive this intersection better off since the billboard was posted?

I would love to lose all of the big commercial billboards in the neighborhood. Their loss would be our gain.

I am curious to know what people think of the billboard.

Sunday afternoon, the air in Echo Park smelled like kerosene and cooking meat. The sounds of scattered house parties filled the big bowl in Elysian Heights from Kite Hill to the ridgeline on Lemoyne and beyond, to the other arroyos and canyons, I am sure. Whle the Superbowl parties were happening, some of us attended a different kind of party -- an Echo Park Historical Society author's presentation by Daniel Hurewitz, who wrote "Bohemian Los Angeles." Planned many weeks ago, the event was not intended as a test for those who are not sure whether they care more about EP history or big-spectacle sports. It was an accident. Nonetheless, the free event was sold-out, the house where it took place packed to the doorways as Hurewitz discussed the book, which centers on Echo Park and Silver Lake from the 1910s to the early 1950s.

Disclosure: I reviewed "Bohemian Los Angeles" for the LA Times books section.

It may have been a tough crowd. Probably four-fifths of the people in attendance live in either Silver Lake or Echo Park and are already fairly well-versed in local history.

Some of the guests may even be the types of activists/artists Hurewitz features in book. There were a pair of listeners in the room whose facial expressions I followed closely as they reacted to the things Hurewitz said about Communists and fellow travelers who moved from Boyle Heights to Edendale, as the neighborhood then was known. The expressions ranged from displeasure to approval and everything in between. I believe the facial expression show (stolen as it was, by me) said more about the listeners than it did Hurewitz, who is an engaging, easy speaker -- and he seemed to be aware that, in a way, he was addressing his subject.

One of the attendees, an archeaologist who now lives in Connecticut but who was raised in Elysian Heights, recalled during the open-questions that Fellowship Park Way originally was dedicated to Ralph Waldo Emerson. This was a detail I hadn't heard.

During coffee, cookies, wine time, I ran into one of my Chicken Corner sources. He had news about the demolished bungalow on Lucretia. It turns out that the bungalow once was the home of modern-architecture photographer Maynard Parker. The man who helped shaped our view of how modern houses looked in the 1940s and '50s had his own one-time home torn down by a skirt-the-law flipper.

Parker later owned two homes on Lemoyne, one of which he built out of two Sears garage kits. Now owned by set decorator Mark Johnson, the garage-kit house was part of the Echo Park Historical Society's 2006 home tour.

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This dog, Princess, is about five years old. She is described as an easy dog by animal services. She is running out of time. Her ID number is 850611/Princess.

Joe D'Augustine sent me an email about Thursday's LA Times story about the relocation of the homeless from downtown to other neighborhoods, including Echo Park.

In light of this I thought I'd let you know that I've seen a homless guy asleep a few mornings in the vacant lot [at Avon and Baxter]. He's not there all that much, and he's always gone by, like, 9:30 am but every once in a while he's curled up in his sleeping bag just above the intersection. So I have noticed a new homless presence here in EP.

The lot is a hillside next to the famed Baxter Stairs. It's all dirt and scrub -- part of several undeveloped lots, I believe. There's a footpath that cuts through part of it. I've seen coyotes on the footpath, and I have seen dog walkers who say it's a good place to walk. It's ringed by some of the nicest houses in Echo Park.

Come home, Little Sheba.

Sheba, who is known as a snuggler/jogger, needs a home. Contact the Echo Park Animal Alliance.

Langdon, one of the librarians at Edendale Library introduced a new children’s librarian at toddler story time this week. According to Langdon, Krista, the new librarian, arrives compliments of our Mayor V, who made it a campaign promise to expand library services. Toddler hour was packed this week – as usual since new year's -- not enough chairs, moms sitting on the floor. A beefed-up children’s program is more than welcome. Hours will be extended, too.

Then, just as I am getting over my amazement at seeing library services improve, I take my dog to Elysian Park and see that a good neighbor has provided hundred of “bio bags” – compostable, bio-degradable, doggy-doo bags – for free. Posted them on a tree at one of the popular foot trails that lead down to the official trail where we all walk. then on the path itself. (Not to overlook the thoughtfulness of other neighbors who have provided used grocery bags for the same purpose.) Thank you, neighbor.

On our walk I noticed a new bird -- a woodpecker, made of wood. The Bird Man of Echo Park (aka Leo) strikes again!? There has been talk that some of the other birds -- the condor, for instance -- have been moved. But no one is quite sure. It did seem to me the other day that the condor was roosting on a tree a bit farther into the "woods" than I was used to see him.

Sunday the Echo Park Historical Society had a breakfast meeting at Barragan’s on Sunset. Afterward, some of us wandered over to Echo Curio, a new gallery across the street from Barragan’s. It was the first time I had been inside the gallery. I found the left half of the space devoted to an informational presentation about worms who eat garbage – I didn’t need to read most of it because I knew all about good-works worms. A bit tipsy, I exclaimed. “Oh! I did a service piece, i.e., one paragraph, for Los Angeles Magazine about worms” – maybe three years ago. (If you are wondering, having worms eat your garbage is a great thing. Better than compost, some might say. And they make great pets.) The right side of the gallery was devoted to worm-related art, which was for sale. Honestly, I wish I had the money right now because I would buy a vermiculture-themed painting that someone else is destined to have and keep.

Echo Curio's postcard explains the gallery to newcomers: "Half of the space features revolvong monthly exhibitions ranging from outsider/fring and freak culture to local community-based historical exhibitions," it says. The other half is for sale, "affordably."

One of the gallery partners told me they have bands play at Echo Curio. But he declined to say if the musicians were The Worms, or otherwise.

About the snake at Laguna Castle, Martin Cox emailed me the following:

Snake at The Castle, the snake did not get walled in as some had thought and has scared the workers once more. Now a more organized attempt to rescue the huge animal is underway. It is believed to be in an area below my office which will mean cutting a hole in the floor to enter the space and provide enough room for removing a 200-400 pound snake. I still have not seen it and am eager to be there with camera when the serpent is removed. But this does explain the bizarre behaviour of my dog last October when she appeared to go mad every night, scratching at the walls and floor and running in circles. Her distressed nocturnal wanderings forced me to find another home or her, she was calm as soon as she was out of my house. No wonder!