Iconic L.A.: Angel's Flight

CLOSED FOR nearly a decade after a German tourist died in an rail-related accident, Angel Flight, literally rises again. Today marks it's first day open to the public since 2001. The funicular, which rises up Bunker Hill connected the Broadway entertainment and business corridor to the "Hill." According to Kevin Roderick's site, L.A. Observed "Let's return to the days when the funicular originally called the Los Angeles Incline Railway was an integral part of Downtown life. Passengers paid a penny (later a nickel) to ride Olivet and Sinai between 3rd and Hill streets and the neighborhood of hotels and rooming houses on Bunker Hill." His full post relating the history of the two rail cars, Olivet and Sinai, that scale the steep grade and boast a mix of Arcadian and Utopian views of Los Angeles here.

The above piece, called "Angels Flight," was painted in 1931, by artist and architect Millard Sheets, a Claremont native. Sheets reinterpreted many L.A. street-scapes and this one hangs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. You don't need a Way-back machine when you have these. This is John Fante's L.A.

-- L.G.

illustration credit: LACMA Collections Online

Waiting for the Rainbow Sign: L.A. April 29, 1992

TIME PLAYS tricks.

It's impossible to believe that almost 20 years has passed since the L.A. Riots of 1992. This week we will look at a set of essays that look at what was brewing under the surface of airbrushed, nip-and- tucked L.A. for decades.

I found a bit of my piece I wrote for L.A. Weekly online over the weekend and it brought it all back in a rush...


from: "Waiting for the Rainbow Sign"

By midnight, no one phoning long-distance bothers with hello. Instead, they just ask, ‘Is it as crazy as it looks?’ I want to say, ‘It started long before all this . . .’ Long before this afternoon’s bewildering decision left me less astonished than strangely numb. Long before George Holliday ran tape capturing Rodney G. King’s struggle and submission. Long before Latasha Harlins, Eulia Love and Marquette Frye became cautionary symbols. Long before Watts shouted its existence into the sky in ’65, sending up searchlights in the form of flames...

Everything felt different for a long time after that: The way people interacted with one another -- or didn't. The texture of the city changed for some time after -- much like the way it feels after you've been in an argument with someone whom you love dearly yet are not what sure the first sentence out of your mouth might or should be.

Years later, essayist Richard Rodgriguez wrote of those three days in April 1992:

"It was the worst moment for Los Angeles. It was also the first moment, I think, when most people in L.A. realized they were part of the whole. The city that the world mocked for not being a city, for lacking a center, having only separate suburbs, separate freeway exits -- L.A. realized that it was interconnected. In fear, people realized that what was happening on the other side of town implicated them.”

A Letter from the Future -- Fifty Years After the L.A. Riots (Jinn Magazine 4/28/97)
-- by Richard Rodriguez

Rodriguez was right, though only partially. Three days after, the first day of "clean-up" community volunteers crossed the region attempting to pick up the mess as if one would be cleaning a negligent child's messy room. But it was a powerful symbol watching people working together. Eerily, however, there were little pods of town that seemed to be operating as if nothing happened: people near the water meeting for their lattes and such talking about work, childcare, and maybe, the "bad air" that the smoke, curling into the sky, was creating -- while others, not so far away, were digging through ash, rubble and worry.

But I guess that's L.A. -- a swirl of stories, a cacophony.

-- L.G.

photo caption: watching l.a. burn on t.v.
photo credit: dan graves, flickr creative commons

Read L.A: Ruben Martinez's Territories

LAST CLASS, Professor Ruben Martinez, who is the Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing here at Loyola Marymount University (and my longtime colleague), spoke passionately about his time served here in Los Angeles as journalist, poet, performance artist and pundit -- and how at one point all of that seemed to have merged. He also spoke eloquently about race and class; about communities and causes that had been marginalized by the media; about how a writer finds his/her voice while attempting to describe life from the inside out, make the invisible visible.

Post session, I asked him to share a few of his favorite/resonant texts that deal with Los Angeles. Pulling from various sources and disciplines, he didn't stick to the page as you'll see.

Top-of-the-head response from a quick email:

ask the dust , john fante
white album, joan didion
chavez ravine (the album, the play, the book of photographs)
& of course city of quartz, mike davis

- L.G.

Celebrity Prom

DAVID FINE discusses the rise of 'unreality' in his Imagining Los Angeles. In the 1920s, studio back lots started to seep into daily life and turn the city into a massive theme park that did little to separate fantasy from reality.
Perhaps, the most disturbing part of the Oscars to me was the film clipdiv>

Let's discuss this theme park's favorite holiday: The Oscars. I knew it was going to be an interesting night when a friend arrived at my door with a case of Blue Ribbon and said "I thought I should bring this....since James Cameron is involved." In the style of theme park, the show opened with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin flicking Avatar creatures across the screen, which was less than impressive to George Clooney, whose countenance spoke loudly. It featured a series of break dances to the nominees for best score, which definitely looked like a part of that bad show you try to avoid at Disneyland while eating your twenty dollar hamburger. Steve Carell, a natural funny man, looked like he had been told someone just died. And a poor old man in some obscure category was cut off before he could even begin his speech with the swell of the Oscar music.

that they chose to associate with the film Precious: a very large Gabourey Sidibe steals a bucket of fried chicken and runs down the street with it, fat flowing out everywhere. And the audience laughed. This one clip managed to miss the genius of this monumental film.

Fine talks about "fiction that played , at times obsessively, on themes of unreality, masquerade, and deception." The Oscars, to me, can often be that place of unreality, where the interviewers have to act like Miley Cyrus has a chance in hell at winning an Oscar one day.

We still live in this "fantasy world", and for some odd reason, I don't hate it. I think that we've found a happy medium in that we can appreciate these unrealities for what they are and still fun of them at the same time. Precious was not acknowledged properly, but Mo' Nique still received an Oscar, even after admitting she would ditch the after party to binge eat at El Pollo Loco. Ben Stiller was allowed to go on as an Avatar creature gone wrong. Tyler Perry was allowed to announce onstage that he feels he literally has no place at the Oscars. And Woody Harrelson could be called out openly for being blazed out of his mind. Though in L.A. we still always feel like we're interning on a back lot, we're allowed to make fun of ourselves in the process. Slowly but surely, the industry is starting to become a place where reality meets the early makings of L.A. fiction that Fine describes. The Oscars are that place where we can find a happy medium of making fun of celebrities with friends, learning about striking new fiction, and celebrating genuine talent in the most ostentatious manner imaginable.

-- Thea Green
(photo caption: ferris wheel
photo credit: puttal, flickr creative commons)

The Glory of Getting Lost is Finding Your Way Around

“GET LOST on purpose.” The funny thing is that when Mike Sonksen came to speak to our class, it wasn’t the first time that I had heard those words. I actually had interviewed someone for the profile piece whose stories were about nights planned with an open-ended agenda. Up until the last weekend of February this idea seemed so dangerous and would have been one of the last things I would do.

I spent the weekend showing a friend of mine the city of Los Angeles. He attends the University of Michigan and is originally from Wisconsin, so coming here to California was a first for him. Our only big plan was seeing the LA Philharmonic and some project bands at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We intended for the rest of the weekend to be random, but nothing beat that Friday night.

Before the show started, the two of us were walking through the venue and my friend ran into a colleague of his from Michigan. He lives close to the hall so we asked him where he recommended eating after the show. He replied one word: Wurstkuche.

Driving down 3rd and Alameda, I thought to myself that this would never be an area that I would drive through—especially at that hour and just for a hot dog; something didn’t seem right. We had no idea where we were going but after a few minutes of driving it didn’t matter. The spontaneity was enticing and the mixing of nervous and exciting feelings cancelled out any fear I had for being out of my element.

If it weren’t for this moment, I probably would have never known about the existence of such an eccentric eatery: The five-year-standing, dimly-lit venue filled with people, ranging from the early 20s to early 70s, sitting and standing around long tables that stretched across the room. Belgian beers lined the bar in one corner and a DJ was mixing beats and playing popular songs in the other. The eccentricity of the place was overwhelming.

Even though the restaurant blew my mind, nothing was more mind boggling than the idea that I had actually thrown myself, willingly, into a different idea. It used to sound like the most challenging thing to do, but I’ve come to realize it’s not so bad.

-- Antoinette Ochoa

Hidden L.A.: Late Night Speakeasies

ONE OF the best things about L.A. is finding the hidden pockets that you only discover by talking to people, the kind of places that people don't necessarily want to let you know about because they want to make sure that only the right people are there. You know when you meet a guy who is trying to pick up girls in a Venice bar by simply using the line "I'm a musician" that A: this guy is shady! and B: he's weird enough to know some really rad hangouts.
This is how I stumbled onto the speakeasy at the Stronghold, which is a clothing store by day, free-for-all by night. I couldn't give you any specific details other than the fact that magic goes down there on most weekend nights, as there doesn't seem to be an established time, cover, or genre. First, you stand downstairs and drop a general name of someone who you clearly don't know (but there's always a Bill, right?) to try to get into the place for free, which we did by yelling at someone who poked his head out from an upstairs window. You make your way upstairs to a sea of locals, real musicians, "musicians", druggies, forty-something soccer moms, and other twenty-two year olds with empty pockets like myself, trying to live on the edge of adventure.

There's a thirty-year-old woman in a vintage wedding dress and glasses heating up the dance floor. The band is good, and they've got the kind of sound you'd probably pay thirty dollars to see on Sunset with a jazzy-country blend that's got people going wild, and the old, blind, bass player with sunglasses on is just jamming out. For good conversation, there are the smokers on the back porch, who seem to either be members of the band or drunk singles trying to figure out where they fit into the scheme of things. I was there until after three A.M., but it seems that at the Stronghold, the party never stops. I highly recommend checking out this hidden nook of Los Angeles, especially with friends that seem to be in the anti-L.A. funk. This place has a twenties feel that brings L.A. back to another decade with less headaches and more fun. Those from small towns will feel right at home, the trendy chic won't feel out of place, and the music lovers will be hit in all the right places.

The Stronghold- 1625 Abbott Kinney Blvd, Venice

-Thea Green

Bukowski Court: Almost Vanished L.A.

WHILE WE'RE the subject of Bukowski, this story had his fans up-in-arms. The little bungalow where the author wrote "Post Office" was almost razed. At the 11th hour, the City of Los Angeles moved to protect it as a historical landmark, but this story isn't unfamiliar. This is how much of L.A. history is erased, quickly, quietly and under the cover of night.
-- L.G.

(photo: Charles Bukowski's Hollywood house
photo credit: from LAist)

Read L.A.: What Makes Mike Run?

JOURNALIST, TEACHER and poet, Mike Sonksen, (BKA, Mike the Poet) touched down in class last Monday night and spun L.A. history via shimmering rhyming couplets. He threw out names of some of his favorite books, authors and hidden places in L.A. Full list to follow but here are a few of the books and/or authors he made mention of both in conversation and verse:



Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run?





Kamau Daaood, Leimert Park CD



John Fante, Ask the Dust




Charles Bukowski, Hollywood

L.G.

The Hart of Newhall

BY 1925, William S. Hart had starred in over 60 silent films and retired from the Hollywood lifestyle. The silent movie star then moved to the Santa Clarita Valley and built his own home and ranch. His home, which is now The William S. Hart Ranch and Museum, boasts a 22 room mansion, containing many of Hart's treasured items including Native American artifacts and western themed art. After his death in 1946, his ranch was opened to the public and is still open to this day. The museum has also become home to many farm animals including the esteemed bison.

-- Nicole Ryan









(photo caption top: View from Hart Ranch
photo caption, bottom: William S. Hart Ranch Museum
photo credit: Nicole Ryan)

Iconic L.A. : Olvera Street

OLVERA STREET is distinctly Los Angeles due to its history. 1781, when the 44 pobladores accompanied by a militia and two priests as legend has it made their way to the very spot that the first mayor of Los Angeles had declared to the king of Spain a good spot to build a town the City of Angeles was born: Olvera Street. The Street, or as some would call it the very first calle in this city shows the spontaneous aspect of growth and development that has turned this desert into a city (chaparral). The sociology of this city has formed around the power of people and the continuous influx of new people has kept the heart of this city beating booms. As both a haven of immigration being that the original settles of Los Angeles were of mestizo, mulatto, and African ancestry it seems that Los Angeles grew into its Anglo centered origins long after. For myself with the air gorged on the thick smell of chicken, beef, and pork with all sorts of different spices and flavorings you just feel as if this place is an emblematic symbol of “old style Los Angeles.” a possessive feeling that one gets once going downtown and seeing the adobe re-creations and colorful dresses all juxtaposed not only against gentrification but also the ebb and flow of the 21st century being next to Union Station, “One of the last great railway stations,” all its own just makes you feel proud. Olvera Street isn’t just speckled with facts about the first street but also is a temptress, wanting the tourist to join into the traditional dances, song, and dress. Olvera Street is truly a symbol of Los Angeles and is a quaint reminder of those that called this place home way before today. Olvera Street seems to also be a beacon for the immigrant who comes to this city and needs a healthy dose of home. No place actually incorporates with such vigor elements of its past such as Olvera street serving as a real life representation of how things used to be. Even within the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and the domineering figures that have made Los Angeles a city of wonder. Olvera Street speaks to the immigrant and culture in a very real way. With Mexican flair and faithfulness the Immigrant can find a home away from home inside its Spanish speaking environs.
The wares that are sold can also be cherished Time after time. Tourism spots have made Olvera Street a must for those coming to see California and most of all Los Angeles. This city tainted with the light of a dystopia can find a very real culture beating under the heart of artificiality.

-- Jason Collins

(photo caption, middle: "Found on Olvera Street"
photo caption, bottom: "Avila Adobe on Olvera Street."
photo credits: Loren Javier, flickr pool, creative commons)