Of Pigeons and Pedestrians

The Militant was riding his bike along The Boulevard on Saturday afternoon when he turned around, looked and exclaimed:

"OMG! PIGEON ISLAND!!!1"

Of course, if this were an average city blog entry, it would just be left at that, a mere curiosity meant to entertain, and perhaps to implicitly get people to comment, with the response by Anonymous #4 revealing what the real deal is.

But naw, the Militant likes to get to the bottom of the story, so here it is.

The "pigeon island" on the triangle-like median bordered by Hollywood Blvd and Vermont and Prospect avenues (surprise, surprise, it was a well-patronized Red Car stop back in the day) located on the mutual cusps of Los Feliz and East Hollywood is a long-neglected public space currently being renovated as part of a streetscape project of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, dubbed the Barnsdall Park Transit Oriented District.

After breaking ground this past Spring, the project (finished rendering pictured left) is designed to not only offer an enhanced public space for pedestrians in the area, but to improve existing bus and taxi amenities there, establish a local information center for nearby sights and attractions and visually tie the space to nearby Barnsdall Art Park, which, for those of you who don't know, lurks up on the hill...behind the Rite Aid.

The $800,000 project is expected to be complete by early 2009. Until then, those pigeons seem to be having a dandy of a time hanging out there.