26.2 Points Of Light

If you squint, you can see some of the illumination columns from the Los Angeles Marathon lights (Taken from atop the La Cienega Metro Expo Line station parking garage).

So yeah, The Militant is a sucker for epic things in Los Angeles: Epic sunsets, epic space shuttle parades, epic CicLAvia tours, you know the deal. Naturally, when he found out earlier in the week that Asics America would be sponsoring a special by-the-mile illumination of the 2015 Los Angeles Marathon route on Friday night to celebrate its 30th Anniversary, he was down like James Brown for this, and even almost forgave Fr*nk McC**rt for running the Marathon (...almost).

We haven't seen anything quite like this. Not even for New Year's Eve, not even for the '84 Olympics. So this was pretty epic indeed.

The Militant instinctively knew that the usual vantage points -- Griffith Observatory, Runyon Canyon, the Getty Center, etc. would be crowded as hell, not to mention the usual parking snafus you'd expect from such a gathering. So being near the Crenshaw area at the time, he made a dash to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook...where a Culver City police car was blocking the entrance.

Okay then. Plan B. Head to the Metro Expo Line's La Cienega park & ride station, and view the lights from the roof of the parking garage. So here goes:

Okay, that was subtle. It didn't quite look like this:

But we sure fell for it, huh? Actually, the rendering looks like each block was being illuminated, rather than each mile, and the actual time the lights went on was an hour or so after dusk.

But if he looked real hard, he could make out the lights, shooting up straight into the partly-cloudy nighttime summer winter sky. It just didn't turn out so well on his Militant Spyphone.

He wanted to see these lights up close so he headed east on the 10 towards Downtown, and made his way though Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The next light column was at Sunset and Silver Lake Boulevard, easily visible along the road ahead:

It wasn't a single Klieg light, but a quartet of Syncrolite SXL 7,000-watt Xenon skylight fixtures at each mile marker, plus the start and end of the Marathon route.

The Militant headed west along Sunset and then Hollywood Boulevard, but was shocked to find the nearest light turned off. He asked the attendant what was up, and he told The Militant, "They're doing something..."

Oookay.

But a few patient minutes later, four blue-white columns of light beamed up from atop the rented Enterprise flatbed truck, several thousand feet into the sky, where spots of light dotted the sky like an impromptu constellation above the City of Angels. The lights were so bright from the ground that dust and flying insects were automatically illuminated directly above the truck. The Militant was solo tempted to make shadow puppets.

It was incidental macro-sized public art (eat your heart out, Christo). Though it wasn't as impressive as the rendering -- admittedly more light into an already light-polluted environment isn't really going to be that outstanding -- it held a beauty on its own. You can trace the Marathon route in the sky, somewhat. From a distance, you can see what a mile looks like. For those who were attracted to the lights, it was a moment of community, of a shared experience, of beauty.

It might be cool to do this again. Maybe with brighter LEDs. Maybe with a more sustainable means of power than 27 diesel power generators. Maybe Metro can do this on the night of July 14 with light columns emanating from all 80 Metro Rail stations to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our modern rail transit system (no, maybe they should do this).

[Hey yo, Militant, not bad for your first blog post in three months...that didn't hurt, did it? Now let's try this again sometime soon, okay?]

Cypress Park's Underground Art Scene

Welcome to the Cypress Village Tunnel!

Los Angeles' subway tunnels have become known for their public art -- but there's another kind of tunnel in town that's known for its artistic installations as well.

The City of Los Angeles has some 100 pedestrian tunnels, which were initially built in the 1920s near elementary schools, as a way for schoolchildren to safely cross the street and avoid the dangers of automobiles and streetcars (sort of like the 20th century version of Safe Routes To School). Since the 1960s, though, these tunnels have become magnets for crime, tagging, public urination, garbage dumping, drug deals, and any other thing parents wouldn't want their kids to get near, so many of them got locked up for good, only to become oversized trash pits and general urban blight. Some were filled in and removed altogether.

In the Northeast Los Angeles community of Cypress Park, local Yancey Quinones, owner of nearby Antigua Coffee House on the corner,  worked with then-councilman Ed Reyes and the City's Public Works department to convert one of these abandoned pedestrian underpasses, located on the corner of north Figueroa and Loreto streets, into a public art gallery, known as the Cypress Village Tunnel Art Walk. The tunnel is the focus of monthly Art Walk events, which take place on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

A block party on Saturday to celebrate the tunnel's 1st birthday as an art space.

This past Saturday, Loreto Street was closed down for a mini-street fair to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the opening of the tunnel. There was music, poetry, an arts and crafts fair, and an overall Eastside-centric good time.

The Militant also got to go into the tunnel for the first time, and was fascinated by not just the temporary art on exhibit by local artists, but by the permanent art painted on its walls (the western end even has an homage to the Los Angeles River culvert cats!). The cubbyholes where the light fixtures go into are also part of the exhibit, used to not only hold lighting, but other art pieces.

But the most impressive thing about the tunnel is (aside from the noticeable absence of urine or any other offending odors) the comforting quiet, despite the cars, trucks and buses speeding along Figueroa Street just a few feet above you. That, and being with others who are not just enjoying the art but the odd serenity of the tunnel space. Something certainly never felt in such a utilitarian structure before.

The tunnel has also inspired other pedestrian tunnels in the city to be converted into art spaces, such as one in El Sereno. Man, the Eastside has got it goin' on!

Volunteers continue to decorate the tunnel

If you want to experience the Cypress Village Tunnel yourself, check out the next art walk event on Saturday, June 14 (the second Saturday of the month), from 6 to 10 p.m. The tunnel floods during rainstorms, so art walk events are usually cancelled in the event of rain (We're in a drought right now, so we wouldn't have to worry about that for a while, heh...).

The Militant just loves these kinds of transformative projects, done by the community and for the community. Does your neighborhood have a tunnel that can serve this kind of purpose?

Yo, No Ho!

The Militant spent most of his Monday in North Hollywood, visiting an unspecified operative about a mile from the (M) Red Line terminus, which he took along with his bike. After the operative he decided to embark on a bike ride around the place for the next nine or so miles.

Though it was the middle of Summer, it was uncharacteristically warm (as opposed to freaking SFV hot), and by the time the Militant left the operative's house at around 6 p.m., he was more struggling to feel the warmth of the Sun's rays rather than submitting to them (remember, the Militant is solar-powered, after all).

He rode west on Burbank, then up the Lankershim diagonal (which is in serious need of a re-paving, at least from a cyclist's perspective) until Victory, then followed the Sun west to Coldwater Canyon, where he went shopping at an unspecified store.

Heading south on ColCan, in what may or may not be North Hollywood (technically Valley Glen, though isn't that kinda redundant?) he happened upon the Tujunga Wash, one of the Los Angeles River's major tributaries. You may or may not know that the westernmost wall of the Tujunga Wash is adorned with one of the longest (at 2,754 feet) murals in the world - The Great Wall of Los Angeles (pictured above). Created in the mid-late 1970s by Venice-based community arts nonprofit SPARC (the Militant rode by their arts center on a Westside ride a couple years ago), the mural details Los Angeles history from 20,000 B.C. to 1984 (though everything from the 60s to '84 has been abruptly summarized). Most of the wall depicts the achievements and struggles of our ethnic and immigrant communities during the 20th century. The mural will be undergoing a three-year renovation which will also include a more detailed update of local history from the '60s to today.

Interesting thing, as the Militant crossed Burbank Blvd on his bike, he couldn't help but notice the cars making a left turn westbound from Coldwater Canyon seemed noticeably less courteous and considerate to this cyclist than other parts of the City. Hmmm. So there you go, Westsiders, Eastsiders and Centralists - you all treat cyclists much better than them Valley folk!

After evading being mowed down by SUVs, the Militant continued on his way south and headed due east on Chandler, with the whirr of silver-colored Orange Line buses passing him every few minutes. Returning back to Lankershim, the question went before him: Head back to the compound now on the subway, or bike down to Universal City?

The latter won out, of course. But not before noticing a little something in the NoHo Commons building: A memorial (pictured right) to LAFD firefighter Thomas G. Taylor, who died in the line of duty while fighting an arson fire on this location (then Cugee's Restaurant) in January, 1981. People put their lives out on the line in this City. Recognize.

Just south of there, the Militant, in search of any hole-in-the-wall sammich shop, happened upon a curious structure spanning Lankershim. He couldn't quite make it out. It said...

"OH ON" - But with the "N" reversed - Must be some Russian thing. The Militant wasn't aware the Russian community in North Hollywood was that big.

No wait...
Ohhhhhhhhh...it says, "NO HO." Duh.

This must be the infamous No Ho Gateway, erected a year ago (No, this wasn't the first time the Militant saw it, but let's just pretend that it was). What does the Militant think? It's...interesting.
But in all seriousness, it is art, and one of art's responsibilities is to provoke, and that it does. Besides, the locals hated this thing in Paris when it first got built, and much more recently and closer to home, a lot of Angelenos initially weren't so hot on this thing, either. But both are now icons. So if history is an indicator, eventually, people will tolerate and eventually accept the thing, just you watch.

Failing to find a suitable sammich shop, the Militant settled for Pita Fresh on Lankershim, where he found him a-good-but-not-awesome (because there's better pita joints in the areas not too far from the Militant's compound) chicken kebab pita plus a drink for $7. Funny thing, most of the people at Pita Fresh were not chomping down falafels, but visiting Facebook on their laptops (they do have free Wi-Fi though).

Soon after the Militant and his bike descended the elevator taking him deep below the ground at Universal City where he boarded the southbound Red Line train and spotted a dude in his car who looked a lot like Sam Hall Kaplan. But like any other people who may or may not be recognizable figures, the Militant just dismisses the person as some random dude who just happens to resemble the local writer and reporter.