Abbot Kinney

The New York Times recently put up a travel posting on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, Ca. You can see the slideshow here

Abbot Kinney, a wealthy tobacco businessman, was the founder of the city of Venice, and had a vision for the coastal stretch of land as a "Venice of America." He envisioned gondolas and performers, and all sorts of other cultural attractions to allure people to the area that he loved so much. Today it has become a cultural icon for different reasons- as a trendy and hip example of the Los Angeles beach lifestyle. An eclectic group inhabits the beachy city, where a breeze always seems to be blowing, and boutiques and small cafes with barely visible names printed on the windows in minimalist fashion, line the streets. Abbot Kinney Boulevard has materialized into a street with an identity uniquely its own, and is attractive for a variety of reasons. Restaurants like the newly opened Lemonade (with its delicious variety of unusually flavored lemonade), Abbot's Pizza (a small store front with a big variety of delicious and creative pizzas), Joe's Cafe, and many others offer great food in a relaxing environment, not to mention the various "taco trucks," serving a variety of food much more than just tacos, which frequent the street. The palm trees that border the sidewalks make the orange and pink sunset in combination with the variety of shops even more picturesque on a warm summer evening. In a strange way, the magic of the street- maybe becuase of the name, or the people, or even just the vibe, make you almost want to say "my street is cooler than yours"- almost.

-- Posted from NYT story by Kimberly Dennis
photo credits: ricardodiaz11, vmiramontes, flickr creative commons)

A Day in Downtown LA

SPRING IS IN the air in LA, and what better way to celebrate the coming of the season of sun than a day in LA? Suggested by HiddenLA's founder, Lynn Garrett, this little excursion is a great way to become acquainted a little better with downtown LA, and it shows just how much you can do in a few hours in the city.

Start by going to the only running railcar in Los Angeles, Angels Flight, right off the 110 at 3rd and Hill Streets, and ride it up to the top where you will find a little park nestled in the square of a block, called Angels Knoll. It has been featured in several films, including most recently 500 Days of Summer, and it offers a beautiful view of the city. You can sit and relax on the park benches in the cool shade of the trees, and observe the lovely LA architecture for a while, working up an appetite on the meditation of the antique fire escape railings and the stone details of the apartment complexes in front of you, and then make your way to the Grand Central Market. Literally right across the street from the bottom of Angels Flight, it is a verifiable goldmine of food, from fresh and inexpensive produce, to Mexican and Chinese food that will make your mouth water just by walking/looking/smelling it. Walk through the market and out to the other side of the block, and you will be on Broadway St.; directly across the street will be the Bradbury Building, an absolute beautiful structure, with a glass ceiling (no pun intended), and wrought iron railings and open elevators that line the open atrium of the space, now used as office buildings. After this, feel free to stroll around the streets- plenty of people will probably be doing the same-oh, and don't forget to enjoy yourself.

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo credit, Grand Central Market, Angeles Flight ricardodiaz11, flickr, creative commons)

L.A.'s Past's Vision of the Future: Bradbury Building

WROUGHT METAL RAILINGS frame the staircases and run along the wall, leaving a great wide open space in the middle with which to admire the straight black lines of everything. Ornately patterned, these rails and the open elevators are like the icing atop this century-old building located on 3rd Street and Broadway in LA.

The ceiling is all of glass, and gives the space a natural glow, with the sun bleaching the places where it falls directly. Unlike any building in Los Angeles, the Bradbury Building has a charm that history did not need to add anything to, but even so, its story is as unique as is the architecture.

Mining tycoon Lewis Bradbury fired his original architect, only to hire one of the man’s draftsmen, named George Wyman. Wyman didn’t originally want to take the project, but he and his wife were spiritualists, and decided to try to see what the spirits were telling them to do. According to lore, they were meditating over what was similar to an Ouija board, and they received a message from Wyman’s brother, Mark, who had died at the age of 8, telling him to take on the project. His inspiration for the project was supposedly a science fiction book he had read, that depicted a building in the year 2000. The great irony comes now in the year 2000, when movies like 500 Days of Summer feature the gorgeous building as a model of great architecture in LA history.

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo caption: steam-powered elevator, the bradbury building

photo credit: pink_fish13, flickr, creative commons)

April Showers Bring LA Flowers

RAIN IN L.A. Every Angeleno's nightmare. It makes us all wonder, how does Nor Cal do it so well? My dad always said that Californian's can't drive in the rain, so be EXTRA careful if you even see a cloud in the sky. We can't even function driving our cars, forget riding bikes, making it to meetings on time, or catching up with that friend for dinner across town. The whole city seems to stop what it's doing on those perfectly gloomy days (except for the traffic, of which there is inevitably more) and go inside for hot tea and a good book.

We like to think of ourselves as the happy people that they make us out to be in the ads sometimes, but when the rain comes, were just as grouchy and blah as everyone else on earth. That's when we realize that it's all to do with the warm glow of our Pacific sun. Its our secret. If I could count every time I have heard a person say that they couldn't live in a rainy place, they would be depressed if they did, Seattle has the highest suicide rate because of the rain or some variation of those, it would probably equal ten times the amount of rainy days I have ever lived through in LA. That's how much we hate it. I mean, personally, I love it. Love the sound it makes against the windows, the way it clears a place out, and the way it makes people pensieve, it forces them to think. And of course, it cleans up that LA skyline! There is nothing like a clear and crisp rainy "day after" to brighten one's spirits. But, of course, I use the collective "we" because, well, Angelenos really don't like the rain.

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo credit, kimberly dennis)

What is it about LA?....

I CAN SEE how some people find LA impersonal. I can even imagine people living here right now who feel that same way. The way that you feel when you are in a place where there are a million people around you, and you still feel so alone. It breeds the tropes that are attached to LA as a dangerous place, a place where celebs live, and one filled with materialistic people who are good looking and tan all the time. These stereotypes are damaging, as we have already seen in class, and are quickly quieted by a closer look into what we might refer to as the "real" city.

But, what about those that are still lost in the shuffle? Would they still feel like this if they were living in another city? Should I set my sights to an examination of the human psyche instead of this city, where many still leave feeling empty? The fact is, LA is not what it is cracked up to be for many people. We love to discuss the people who live in and love the city, but for every one, there is probably someone out there who doesn't love this place. Did they just not look for what we try to find? Did they not see the hidden gems that we seek out when we decided to discover the real city? Is it just too big, too impersonal for many to find a real connection with it? It could be as simple as it's just not their thing, that they just don't have a taste for this place, but I wonder if anyone has an answer to this question that has kept me thinking...

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo credit: nate vawser, flickr creative commons)