"Life is Good in Hollywood"

I was going to inaugurate this blog with some grandiose, and equally verbose prologue explaining this blog and how it's written not just from a Los Angeles native's viewpoint, but from the perspective of someone who participates in the community, etc. etc. Of course I thought of that months ago when I decided to create this blog, and thus time spent thinking equated into no time actually doing.

So I'm gonna jump into this feet first, cold turkey and countless other euphemisms.

Sitting In The Park

But yeah, life was good in Hollywood today. Being just 2 miles from home and within my 5-mile bicycling radius in my personal gas/traffic-saving program, I biked to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce building on The Boulevard next to the Roosevelt to attend a stakeholder workshop for the proposed Hollywood Freeway Central Park, the plan to cap the 101 with a 34-acre greenway and recreation area, filling just part of the dearth of park space in the Hollywood area, which currently has less than 3% of the City standard for park space (Even with the park,only 1/3 of our park space deficit would be fulfilled).

The meeting was put together by Don Scott, chair of the Hollywood Central Park coalition, and coordinated in conjunction with Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the Portland, OR (hey, I dig em already)-based Fregonese Associates, the planning consultant for the project.

Fregonese's presentation was a slick PowerPoint, showing before-and-after CGI renderings of what could be and seemed highly inspirational, save for some of the towering developments and depictions of rather Aryan-looking folk in the pictures (the consultant recognized this, and attributed it to the Swedish-based firm that made the software).

The presentation also brought up some interesting facts that piqued my militant interest:

- There are 80,639 people who live in the above-mapped area.
- 80% of those people live within one mile of the park (That's Euro-type density right there).
- There are 30,323 households in the mapped area.
- 26% of the residents are children.
- 56% of the area is renter-occupied.

The rest of the meeting had us split into three groups and analyze the map to come up with some suggestions to shape the community's vision. Ideas ranged from parking facilities, a bike/pedestrian path between the park and the Hollywood/Western (M) station, an overlay zone (pioneered in NYC) to mitigate the effects of gentrification and allow longtime residents the ability to buy property in the area, banning commercial structures along the park, a sloping topography to allow for pedestrian/bike path bridges to cross over major thoroughfares, an Armenian Genocide Memorial (especially if portions of the project are ready by 2015) and more. Just when the ball was rolling, they called time. The next meeting would be sometime in July with a larger community meeting in September.

Of course this Militant Angeleno who lives in the park-deficient confines of the Hollywood area supports the park, and if done right can really transform the community, especially re-claiming the neighborhood fabric that was destroyed when the freeway cut through over 50 years ago.

Got My Juices Flowin'

While biking home I passed by some happy tourists on the perfect Los Angeles sunshiny day, snapping their cameras on the Walk of Fame, the El Cap and Ho-Hi. Then just before Vine, I came across a familiar sight:


To my delight, the wonderful Hollywood institution, The Juice Fountain, had survived its relocation (to make way for the gargantuan W Hotel Hollywood project) and is now located on The Boulevard (6332 Hollywood Blvd to be exact). It's not the shack anymore but the place is filled with the aroma of fresh fruit, and most notably, the blended fruit shakes are still there. Surely in this age of Jamba/Robeks I could have biked a few more blocks to get a smoothie fix, but this is a true Hollywood institution, anointed by Sir Huell of Howser (a photo of the filming day adorns the walls) and is still serving the community, so I felt they were more than worthy of earning my money today. I got the #1 shake with strawberries, and a bag of veggie chips.I told them I was glad they were still in business.

As I pedaled my bike ride home along The Boulevard, I felt hope in a greener future and the present smiling on me like the sun on this clear day, I had an Ice Cube-esque epiphany: "Life is good in Hollywood."

Some other pics along the way:

OMG, I ARE A T00RIST!

Channel 2/9's "Miss Saigon" Billboard.