What Was THE Event of 2012? YOU DECIDE!

Yep, it's that time of the year when we wrap up those times of the year that made this year. Los Angeles had a pretty interesting year, to say the least. Here are some big stories that may or may not have made Twenty-Twelve the year that was:

Kings win the Stanley Cup
It took the Dodgers two years to win a title since arriving in Los Angeles. The Sparks, six. The Galaxy, seven. The Lakers, 12. But the Los Angeles Kings? 45 years of frustration, until this year, when they beat the New Jersey Devils in June to win their very first Stanley Cup. Kings fans, who are the most diehard in all of Los Angeles sportsdom, celebrated joyfully and responsibly. Look ma, no riot! From Disneyland to Dodger Stadium they proudly and rightfully showed off The Cup across the Southland. And with the 2012-2013 NHL season still being in limbo due to the lockout, it looks like we might get to hold on to the Stanley Cup a little bit longer...

Space Shuttle Endeavour returns
The most photographed subject in all of Los Angeles this year was not a celebrity nor a sunset, but the Space Shuttle Endeavour, decommissioned by NASA and making a triumphant return to its Southern California birthplace this past Fall. I wasn't just one event, but three: The playful flight of the shuttle atop a NASA 747 got nearly every one of us looking skyward on September 21; in mid-October, the impromptu parade through Westchester, Inglewood and South Los Angeles drew a million people in simultaneous displays of patriotism, scientific achievement and local pride. And in late October, the shuttle finally went on display at its new home at the California ScienCenter. In a year that saw the loss of the USC-educated Neil Armstrong and San Fernando Valley native Sally Ride,  the shuttle seemingly passed their pioneering astronaut spirit on to all Angelenos.

The opening of Grand Park
Los Angeles finally has its own town square in the opening of Grand Park, which stretches from Los Angeles City Hall to the Music Center in DTLA. Opened in two phases in July and October, the park has already been put to good use as a concert venue, a CicLAvia stopover and a place to watch the results of this year's presidential election. Gee, could we have like a New Year's Eve countdown celebration there sometime?

The Metro Expo Line opens
Rail transit finally reached the Westside for the first time in 60-something years as the newest branch of Metro's rail network had a new set of commuters "Going Metro" for the first time. Kings, Lakers, Clippers, Trojans and concert fans have already seen the wonders of Expo. And the story isn't over yet: By 2016, the Expo Line will become "The Trolley To The Sea" when it finally reaches Santa Monica.

Guggenheim buys the Dodgers
The long nightmare that was the Frank and Jamie McCourt era finally ended this year when Magic Johnson and some of his wealthy friends in the form of Guggenheim Baseball Management got together and made their 2-billion bid to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers. The organization wasted no time in flexing its financial muscle, doing things like lowering the stadium parking fee to $10, resurrecting the Cool-A-Coo and making some high-profile mid-season acquisitions on the roster. If only the team's physical muscle were as strong...But hey, at least no more McCourt!

Dwight Howard joins the Lakers
Lakers diehards have talked about getting him for a while, and this year we finally landed Superman Iron Man. And okay, so he hasn't really done much this season aside from being a glorified (and expensive) cheerleader for the Purple & Gold, but he will be the face of the franchise following Kobe's inevitable retirement.

You as a reader of The Militant's blog has the opportunity to vote on which one of these was the Los Angeles event of 2012. Just select it on the upper right side of This Here Blog and vote! Polls are open from now until 11:59 p.m., Sunday, December 30, 2012 (That's New Year's Eve Eve!).

The Militant may or may not have missed some other important events this year...if you think there were some more he should have added to the list, feel free to list them in the comments!

A Grand New Park Opens Downtown

When The Militant was a wee young Lil'Mil, and hadn't yet discovered his great City in its entirety, his only exposure to Los Angeles' Civic Center was during KABC's Eyewitness News when Dr. George Fishbeck read off tomorrow's forecast, listing the temps for Van Nuys, LAX, Torrance, Pasadena, Santa Ana and the "Civic Center."

"Mom, where's the Civic Center?" asked Lil'Mil.

Mama Militant explained to Lil'Mil that the Civic Center was some place in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles, near where City Hall was.

Not yet aware that the Los Angeles Civic Center is the largest government center outside of the Washington D.C. Beltway, he envisioned a large, linear park next to City Hall with a steel tower some 30 feet high that had a thermometer on it that told everyone what the weather in Los Angeles was  (Lil'Mil also thought that Mayor Bradley was the guy who, with the flick of a switch, turned on the City's streetlights every night, because that's what the mayor does).

Well, more than 30 years later, though the Civic Center Thermometer Tower still exists only in Lil'Mil's imagination, his vision of a large linear park next to City Hall did come true on Thursday with the opening of (...at least half of) Downtown Los Angeles' new $56 million Grand Park (the rest opens in October).

The Militant was there on Thursday noon with a program presented by the Los Angeles County Supervisors, making the usual grandiose statements about the importance of parks as politicians do. Then there was an Olympic opening ceremony-style music and dance performance number which involved kids in colorful costumes, puppets, people on stilts and blue people dressed as if they were in a luge competition (again, the Olympic connection, a day before London 2012, in fact).






Actually the Blue Luge Group was pretty cool, doing an interpretive dance to Mariachi music around the Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain (which has actually been there since the 1960s and not a new element of the park).

Despite all the hoopla, this actually isn't a new park, but a re-branding and renovation of the Los Angeles County Mall, which has been there, bookended by the Stanley Mosk Superior Courthouse and the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration for almost 50 years. Unless you're a Los Angeles County employee, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt dancing with a bunch of people to a Hall and Oates tune, you might have never been there before. The only actual new elements are the relatively small green space towards Hill Street, the public wading pool in front of the Will Memorial Fountain, some pink benches and a bunch of new plants, wading in a sea of mulch.

Many have wondered whether this park will be a sign of DTLA rebirth or an Epic Fail, whether it's a park made for rich gentrifiers or a true park for the people (When you really think about it, parks like MacArthur Park and Lincoln Park were originally built for their respective once-wealthy neighborhoods).

But after the County Supes left from their barefoot photo-op in the wading pool, and after the media had packed up their cameras, a bunch of children, all visually representative of Los Angeles, ran around in the wading pool, giggling and screaming with delight, some touching the water spilling over from the larger fountain, others playfully kicking water towards their parent's shins. One woman, walking a trio of dogs next to the wading pool, stopped to talk to someone, while her largest dog ran towards a column of water and repeatedly took sips from it.

As The Militant sat down in Grand Park, with the cool water mist of the fountain wafting towards him in the breeze, he finally understood what this park really means for Los Angeles. See, those kids don't think about economics or politics or demographics. They're only concerned with what's in their imagination. Except unlike Lil'Mil, that magical park in the Civic Center is for real.

More pics!

The dance performers queue up

These exotic purplish plants are from Brazil. Edumacational markers indicate the regions of the world the various plants are native to (and though there are some California native plants in the park, there are no markers recognizing them, sup wit dat?!?)

The new arrangement of the park allowed some of the old, obscure elements of the old County Mall to be more prominent, such as this memorial to the victims of the 1932 Ukrainian Genocide.

This historical recognition of Los Pobladores (the founders of Los Angeles, in case you didn't know, and if you didn't know that by now, you should be ashamed of yourself) has always been here, but The Militant just thought it was cool to look at.

Adaptive Reuse, East Los Style

The Militant took the (M) Gold Line all the way to East Los Angeles on Thursday, bike in tow, and after disembarking, he rode straight down Atlantic Boulevard. He was on a mini-adventure to go clothes shopping (The Militant doesn't mind revealing that he buys his threads in The Eastside).

Riding down Atlantic, he passed by some scenes that were quintessentially East Los: A middle-aged veterano riding down the street in a lowrider bike, a dude driving a car with a large Lakers "L" logo emblazoned on the driver's side door. And why hasn't this place been incorporated into its own city yet?

The Real East Los Angeles isn't really the rough-and-tumble vato kingdom the mainstream media wants you to see. It's actually part-urban, part-suburban, part-small-town, part industrial, with some historic buildings, such as a seemingly random art-deco structure that's a mini-market in its current life.

Speaking of history, The Militant passed by a rather imposing building on Whittier and Atlantic that caught his eye (pictured above).

It was the Spanish Baroque-Reviaval Golden Gate Theater, once a 1500-seat grand playhouse and silent film palace built in 1927.  It was part of a complex called Golden Gate Square, surrounded by a mixed-use apartment and retail structure called the Vega Building (pictured right), which ran throughout the southwest corner of the intersection (The top facade of the Golden Gate Theater can barely be seen above the Vega Building's roof, just left of the central tower structure).

Though the theater's marquees were located on the street, the actual venue was situated in the middle of the block, separated from the Vega Building by an outdoor courtyard.

The Golden Gate Theater once looked like this inside.

In the 1970s, the theater started screening peliculas en español, up until 1986. The next year, something called the Whittier Narrows Earthquake happened, and the Vega Building was heavily damaged and later condemned. It was razed in 1992. The property owner at the time even attempted to remove the theatre from the National Register of Historic Places, but the County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles Conservancy successfully saved it from the wrecking ball.

The building sat vacant for nearly 20 years when the current property owner made a deal with CVS Pharmacy to put a store there, where current construction is occurring to make that happen. Okay, kinda weird, but if you look at the 50s-era photo of the Vega Building above, you'll see that there was a drugstore there back in the day. Sooooo...

Fortunately, there is strong interest to return the building to its theater origins, and its future life as a 24-hour drugstore will only be a temporary chapter of the building's storied history.  The Los Angeles Conservancy reportedly successfully lobbied to have the drugstore maintain visual elements of the theater, such as the high ceiling and balcony, and other elements, such as the original concession stand, were removed and stored for future use.

Riding father south on Atlantic, The Militant finally reached his shopping destination: The Citadel Outlets. Not letting the minuscule and tucked-out-of-the-way bicycle parking bother him (at least it was there, though), he went on to a few unspecified stores to get some of the latest camouflage fashions for Spring.

On Sale!!!!!!!1

Incidentally, the very place The Militant shopped in, is itself an example of adaptive reuse. Originally built (You natives/long-timers who already know the story can skip this part...) as the Samson Tire and Rubber Company in 1929, it was the largest single manufacturing building (1,750 feet long) west of the Mississippi, and along with the Firestone (so important, they named a street after it) and Goodyear plants in the area, helped make Los Angeles the largest tire manufacturing city in America (tied neck-and-neck with Akron, Ohio). Themed like its namesake historical figure, it was designed like an Assyrian palace, with motif images of griffin and Assyrian/Babylonian figures. In 1962 the company became Uniroyal Tire Company, which operated the plant until it closed in 1978. Like the Golden Gate Theater, it was also a late-1920s structure, listed in the National Registry of Historic Places and then languished for years as a vacant structure before it was repurposed as retail space (Citadel opened in 1992). Unlike the theater, though, only the freeway-facing wall and central structure were preserved. But hey, that's what matters, right?

Now it's got big-ass video screens to distract drivers on the 5.

After The Militant finished his shopping trip, he rode back towards the Gold Line station. Just a few blocks north of The Citadel, he happened upon this building, alongside the nearby railroad tracks...

It's the old Union Pacific Railroad East Los Angeles station, also built in the late 1920s (1928) and in operation until 1971, when Amtrak took over the Union Pacific's passenger operations. In the '70s and '80s, the station housed the railroad's credit union offices.

Since then, the building has been dormant, and falling apart. Metrolink originally considered re-using the station for commuter rail use (and it has the right-size of a parking lot for it), but it cost a lot less to build a new station a few miles east than to restore the old one. There have been no plans to restore the building, and likewise no plans to demolish it either.

If any building here in East Los Angeles is a candidate for adaptive reuse, this one is it. So what's it gonna be? Museum? Restaurant? Community Center? A Wallgreen's?

Only time will tell.

Silver Lakers' Triangle Defense

As you may or may not know, CicLAvia is a totally awesome event that occurs on a handful of Sundays each year, closing streets to automobiles and opening them to bikes, pedestrians and any other human-powered transport.

After experiencing the awesomeness of CicLAvia for all three of its iterations so far, The Militant is inclined to say, "Shouldn't we have CicLAvia every Sunday?"

Do cyclists really lock their bikes up to a rack
that looks like a bike?

Well for a small section of Silver Lake (always remember -- Silver Lake is two words, not one) starting this past Sunday, you needn't wait six more weeks for the next dose of Los Angeles Street Awesomeness. In fact, you can has CicLAvia every day.

The Silver Lake Triangle (a.k.a. Sunset Triangle) is the junction of Sunset Boulevard, Griffith Park Boulevard and Edgecliffe Drive. Home to a tiny park with a fountain and the twice-weekly Silver Lake Farmers Market, this little area of public space is a popular one in the community.

Now the space got a little bigger with the Sunset Triangle Plaza, boasted as "Los Angeles' First Pedestrian Plaza" (Um, The Militiant disagrees with that little superlative...sounds like transplantspeak...didn't they ever hear of oh...Olvera Street or the Venice Boardwalk?) Anyway, Sunset Triangle Plaza takes about 300 feet of Griffith Park Boulevard and turns it into a big-ass lime green Twister board.

The space got its formal opening on this day,  and even afterward, adults, children, pets and even hipsters got to hang out on the space, sitting in umbrella cafe tables (pictured left) on this 85-degree Winter day. Large planters with non-native, but drought-tolerant flora serve as physical barricades to keep cars, trucks, buses and elderly drivers safely away.

The organization Streets For People (People on Streets! De-Da-De-Da-Day!) in cooperation with the Silver Lake Improvement Association were responsible for making it happen, a concept that had been in the planning for some six years.

This is apparently a pilot project, which means if successful, "Los Angeles' Second Pedestrian Plaza" may or may not be coming to a street near you.

In the meantime, come by to Silver Lake and enjoy this thing. The Sunset Boulevard bike lanes take you there, and Metro Local lines 2 and 4 stop nearby at Maltman. For the kids, it's a prime surface to go planking on, and the lime green paint scheme make it a perfect candidate for a St. Patrick's Day Flash Mob Street Party next weekend. Tell 'em The Militant sent ya!

Long Beach Week: Exclusively LB - DTLB's New Exclusive Bike Lanes

After The Militant rode his bike from the old Pacific Electric bridge, biked a short-but-sweet path in northern Long Beach and discovered a bit of LB history in Willmore City, he continued a bit south to Downtown Long Beach to check out this city's brand new exclusive bicycle lanes, which opened in April.

Not far from Willmore City, he joined the lanes at 3rd and Pacific to see what they were all about.

For those of you unfamiliar with LB's new bikegasmic thoroughfare, it's a bike lane, but not just any ordinary bike lane! Picture a bike lane where you are physically protected by moving vehicles. Picture a bike lane where you don't have to worry about motorists opening their doors in your way (The Militant almost had a couple of those encounters). Picture a bike lane where you have your own traffic signals. No need to picture it, you can actually bike it!

Here's a map:

View Long Beach Exclusive Bike Lanes! in a larger map

There is no formal start or end, just jump in! It's basically a circular two-mile route on two one-way streets - 3rd (westbound) and Broadway (eastbound), between Magnolia on the west and Alamitos on the east. The lane is at the leftmost side of the street, protected by a short curb or raised barrier on the street. Cars can par on the street, but they are well to the right of the bicycle lane, with ample room between cyclists and the length of an open car door, eliminating that dreaded "door zone." As the street is one way, so is the bike lane, no need to watch out for cyclists going in the other direction!

The first thing he noticed besides the seemingly Montana-wide space for cyclists, were the green areas. In areas where the bile lane crosses vehicle traffic in any way, the bike lane is painted green, to aid in visibility. This is most pronounced on all driveways (pictured right). The Militant only encountered about a couple of cars in the green zone, and we all had no problem recognizing each other.

The westbound lane came to an end around here, so The Militant navigated around some road construction one block to the south, to Broadway, where he was about to head eastbound this time.

The next thing The Militant noticed were the concrete planters placed in the area between the car lanes and the bike lane. Not just for aesthetics, but also to give a protective buffer to protect cyclists and parked automobiles alike.

Then came the badass traffic signals. For bikes only (pictured left). At one intersection, The Militant had stopped his bike at a red light. But after the cross traffic cleared, the Bike Signal went green even before the standard signals for cars, to give cyclists a few seconds to either re-mount or begin pedaling. OMG this is so freaking badass!

The Militant will admit there were moments where he nearly missed the signal. It is relatively small and easy to miss if you're not accustomed to them. But not every crossing has these. In intersections with large thoroughfares, such as Pacific Avenue and Long Beach Bolevard - both wide streets with light rail track in the middle - there is no exclusive Bike Signal. Cyclists must use the standard traffic lights.

Likewise, in those instances, there is a left turn lane for autos. The bike lane sort of zig-zags with this left turn lane (pictured right), and another green zone comes up, letting cars about to turn left know they're crossing the bike lane. Again, The Militant had no problems with cars here (though most people have already gotten off of work, so traffic was already tapering down).

He continued east until just across from LB's Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, the exclusive bike lane was no more. No sign that it was ending...just the harsh reality that after the next intersection your utopian cycling wet dream was all of a sudden over. So The Militant hung a brief north on Olive Avenue to head west again.

As he noticed the parked cars to the right of him, he also noticed that the parking meters were still in their usual places (pictured left). But this time, they were numbered. The corresponding parking pace number is painted on the street, so motorists who park there would have to walk across the bike path to reach the appropriate meter. Very practical, since parking meters do not have to be moved. Also, when in the vicinity of the Long Beach US Post Office, there were mailboxes conveniently placed in between the bike lane and the car lanes. Extra convenient (though they should have had at least one mailbox face the bike lane...).

Just as soon as The Militant was about to break a sweat, the bike lane ended (pictured right). (Awwww...) But no fear, there's more to come! It looks like this is just the first phase of a larger exclusive bike lane system (Yaaaaayyy!)

So is this the future? Will we see this in Los Angeles too (Shhheeah, maybe in The Year 3000...)? As cool as this is, you really need a wide one-way thoroughfare to make this happen, and not every place has the luxury of this kind of space. And even for cyclists, it's a weird new paradigm: As The Militant left, he caught a young family on bikes (one of them with a small child in a bikeseat) riding west along 3rd St...on the sidewalk! So even for the LB locals, this thing needs not only some getting used to but a public outreach awareness program - for motorists and cyclists alike.

Long Beach has been a very bike-friendly city for decades now. From the Bikestation built in the 1990s to today's exclusive lanes, who knows what the future will bring? Well, as long as it's not those silly bike licenses they had...
Ride Militant, Long Beach!

Has The Public Space Revolution Begun?

Ever since the post-World War II years, Angelenos were pretty much content staying in their homes, with their big front lawns and big backyards. The region's expanse geography has often been named as a factor, but an even bigger factor was our built environment - the only places where people were seen en masse in a recreational setting - aside from the beach of course - was indoors, like shopping malls, or in paid-admission environments (Dodger Stadium, the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, Magic Mountain, Disneyland).

The suburban-based postwar paradigm was a contrast to the way things used to be; Downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s was virtually indistinguishable from New York City or any other bustling city center. And the historic nucleus of our City is, after all, a public plaza. But the freeways, parking lots and tract homes from the late 1940s on changed things.

There have been exceptions: Melrose Avenue, Westwood Village circa early 1980s. Then in the '90s, more of these pedestrian pockets started to gain popularity, namely Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade and Old Town Pasadena.

In the 2000s, we've seen Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles gain active street life and public open space (or publicly-accessible, privately owned space, i.e. Hollywood and Highland, LA Live).

Are we in the midst of a public space revolution in Los Angeles?

Today, as you may or may not know, is the fourth annual observance of Park[ing] Day LA, a day where parking spaces reserved for autos become reclaimed for the day in the form of public human activity spaces. The intent, as the activity's SF-based founders established, was to create a dialogue. The Militant covered Park[ing] Day LA extensively back in 2007 (and a following-day epilogue) and in 2008.

But it doesn't stop there -- Hollywood Community Studio's "Streets For Feet" demonstration will transform Hudson Avenue at Hollywood Blvd into a pedestrian plaza from today until Sunday, with a bevy of activities.

And earlier this week, as reported in this here blog, The Robert F. Kennedy Inspiration Park opened to the public right on Wilshire Blvd (in front of the Ambassador Hotel LAUSD's New RFK Community High School) in the form of trees, plants, grass, benches, a public art memorial and even jazz music.

But wait, there's more! The four-block long Civic Center Park in Downtown has recently begun construction and the ever-popular mobile gourmet food truck scene has shown 21st-century Angelenos how to (literally) go out to eat. More and more communities are holding their own weekly Farmers Markets and the increasingly-successful Downtown ArtWalk, and similar regional events, are turning that Missing Persons song into outdated nostalgia ("Words" and "Mental Hopscotch" will still rock for all eternity though).

The revolution will not be televised. It will be outside.

Puttin' On The Ritz

The Militant once heard in a song the line, "A skyscraper hasn't reached maturity until it has the ability to shine at night."

That line couldn't have been more true driving back to the Compound on Tuesday night via the eastbound 10 when it beckoned him to come closer.

The sight was of the awesome glowing outlines of the 54-story Ritz-Carlton Hotel building (heretofore referred to by the Militant as "The Ritz" (no not that one, nor that one either), now the 10th tallest building in Los Angeles, and the tallest non-office building in town.

As the Militant swept through the curving interchange from the 10 east to the 110 north, the glowing white LED outlines of each of the building's four curving corners seemed to vary in luminosity depending on the viewer's position, and at times, one corner would "vanish" from a certain angle. Furthermore, because of an optical illusion from the building's glass skin, when three lighted corners are visible, the "hidden" fourth corner seems to appear faintly in its expected position, as if the building were a transparent figure.

Like whoa (The Militant learned, upon closer inspection that the lighting effect is achieved through strategically-angled LED lights and a parallel column outfitted with reflectors).

The Militant, admittedly a building and wannabe architecture geek of sorts, hasn't been this excited over the first lighting of a building in Downtown Los Angeles since the 73-story Library Tower (now the USBank Tower) made its debut nocturnal illumination on the night of July 3, 1989 (yes, the Militant remembers these sorts of things).

It's no wonder since The Ritz is the first skyscraper to be built in Los Angeles in nearly two decades, also representing not just a continuing southward shift of the Downtown skyline along the Figueroa Corridor, but signifying the shift from highrise commercial office space to residential (the upper half of the tower are residential condos) and hotel use. In fact, it's not just one hotel but two: From the fourth floor to the 21st, the building houses 879 rooms of the newly-opened J.W. Marriott Los Angeles LA LIVE (a.k.a. the expensive hotel). From floors 22 to 26, it's 123 rooms of The Ritz-Carlton Los Angeles (a.k.a. the really expensive hotel), with a combined 1,001 hotel rooms.

For those of you who have been following the nearby area for the past 20 years, the hotel is a really big deal with regard to the nearby Los Angeles Convention Center. Unlike its nearby competitors in Anaheim (popular with music geeks) and San Diego (popular with comic book geeks), the Convention Center, last undergone a major expansion in 1993, has long lacked adequate hotel facilities to not only host convention guests but to provide supplementary convention space. The new Ritz/Marriott tag team changes the game at long last.

For us locals, the hotels may or may not mean much to you, unless you plan to have your wedding reception/high school reunion/overtly lavish quinceañera booked there. But it sure looks purty. Designed by the architectural firm Gensler, The Ritz effectively widens the skyline and adds an extra 21st-century flair to our late-'80s/early '90s style-dominated Downtown towers. And even during the day, the building's glass skin panels form a complex pattern corresponding to the various uses of the building's parts (Gensler even employed a computer-generated design to achieve this).

Most of all (and the Militant has heard all the different sorts of criticisms lobbied at LA LIVE), you can't deny that the synergy of the hotel, the new Regal Cinemas LA Live Stadium 14, the Nokia Theatre, The Staples Center and the amenities of LA LIVE itself, sort of signal the fact that Something Big Is Happening Downtown, even if it's not exactly the organic street-fronting facades us new urbanism types salivate over. But who's to say that the surrounding streets can't be that, and they already are. Getting off at the 9th Street exit from the 110 north already almost feels like exiting the 80 or the 101 in Downtown S.F. It's part of the energy that Downtown needs. It's not everything of course, but it's all interconnected. It's starting to happen folks.

Movin' On Up To The Eastside: (M) Gold Line Extension Opens!

After the Militant graduated high school, he knew things were changing in this City. A different-looking skyline was going up, subways were being built below, the place he knew from the '70s and '80s was going to me no more, and he wanted to be there to witness that change, so when he attended his unspecified Pac-10 university, he never left Los Angeles.

Since July 14, 1990, the Militant has attended every single one of the (M) Rail line openings, and Sunday was no exception. And he especially wanted to be there for his Militant readers, as this was the first (M) Rail opening since this here blog began.

It's been reported that around 75,000 people took advantage of the free rides of the 6-mile Gold Line Eastside extension opening, which is about the same amount of people that ride the 22-mike (M) Blue Line on a typical weekday!

The Militant has definitely been to the Eastside - and East Los Angeles proper - before. But for many Southern Californians, a good number who've long held the notion that East Los was some putrid 3rd world ghetto of sorts, this was a discovery, an awakening. A curious one, since the Militant overheard many families on Sunday talk about how eager they were to not only ride the line, but to go to a part of So Cal they usually don't go to. And if it was good enough for Metro to invest $800+ million to go to, they might as well check it out.

Of course though, by the time the autumnal dusk set at the 5 o'clock hour, the lengthy, nearly-hour-long lines at both ends had shrunken down to "just a bunch of people waiting on the platform," maybe those preconceived notions had not changed just yet. Tiny steps...

The short lines were perfect for the Militant though, as they gave him an opportunity to see the two light rail subway stations at Mariachi Plaza and at Soto - the first since 7th Street/Metro Center opened to Blue Line riders in February, 1991, and also the first deep-bore subway stations in Los Angeles not directly linked to the Red Line tunnel system.

Both stations resembled mini-Red Line stations - the same plaza-mezzanine-platform design, but with a lighter infrastructure (shorter platforms and no TransitVue video screens -yet). The Militant also noticed that the track floor is flat and not sunken-in like that of the Red/Purple lines - which means that if you fall in the tracks, you either have to GTFO or you'll die, as they lack the crawlspace clearance of the heavy rail trains that allows one to get run over by a train and still survive.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina said that the Gold Line was and "inadequate" transit system. She needs to STFU, especially as an obvious non-transit rider. The Soto and Mariachi Plaza stations aren't just the nicest stations on the Eastsdie extension, but they're some of the nicest (M) stations in the entire system. Soto's blue glow motif is a wonderful addition to the 1st/Soto intersection and the palace-like Mariachi Plaza station (hands down the fun-nest transit station name in human history) makes an already-cherished community public space even more vibrant. It's like the Leimert Park of the Eastside.

It's only six miles, but this relatively short stretch of light rail infrastructure is perhaps the most meaningful segment of the (M) Rail system to date. Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne summed it up best in his recent Eastside Extension review:

...as trains trace new paths across the city, some of the divisions that for generations have made Los Angeles a balkanized collection of neighborhoods may begin to wobble or fall away.

That's not to say that some homogenization of L.A.'s various parts is on its way or should be our goal. Quite the opposite: New transit lines tend to throw the vibrant differences among neighborhoods into high relief.

(Bless that Hawthorne guy...he's not a stuck-up elitist prick like his predecessor, Nicholas Ouroussoff was. The Militant sooo wanted to slap that sucka upside the head many times).

There are some in the Eastside who fear that despite the increased accessibility for its denizens, that the Gold Line will bring on hipsterification and all that. It may or may not happen, and some of it will happen, but ultimately, in the bigger picture, the Militant predicts they have nothing to fear. The community culture of the Eastside is strong, solid and well-defined. No one can take that away. Stop worrying about how the rest of the City will change the Eastside and start thinking about how the Eastside can influence the rest of the City.

Night and Day: Compare this picture, taken Sunday evening:

With the same view, taken a little over two years ago for a previous Militant Angeleno post:

How Wide The Sidewalk?

The Militant may or may not have found himself walking in the rain somewhere in the Valley, in a somewhat familiar strip of Sepulveda Blvd. in North Hills. Shielded from the elements by his um-ba-rella (ella...ella...ella...eh...eh...eh...) he walked northbound along Sepulveda, walking ever...uh. Walking continuously...uh. Um.

Wait a minute.

Turns out the sidewalk was so narrow at some points that the Militant was literally blocked, and had to tip his umbrella at an angle just to pass, thereby allowing several drops of rain to dilute his camouflage garb, thus defeating the purpose of carrying any instrument designed to protect oneself from the effects of precipitation.

Could you imagine of the Militant experienced any cross-traffic with another umbrella'd pedestrian walking the other direction? Who would have the right of way? Would he and the other pedestrian be stalled there waiting for the other to pass? Oh the horror! But of course, this being the Valley, pedestrians were a woefully rare sight anyway, regardless of weather conditions.

So this got the Militant thinking, in terms of urban design standards -- Sidewalks should be wide enough for a person carrying a large umbrella to pass through unencumbered. A reasonable request, no?

Of course, so far, this has been a Valley problem, and the Miltant's short-term solution was to get out of there.

Where's The Party?

If there was elect-ricity in the air on Tuesday morning, then Tuesday night was a powerful jolt indeed, as America selected its new Presidential Idol by the name of Barack Obama, who, in his undergrad stint at Occidental College in the early '80s, lived as an Angeleno (an Obamangeleno?) in Eagle Rock (or rather, Eagle Barack?) for two years, at least in the Fall and Spring.

In New York City, crowds at Times Square and Harlem gathered, cheered and danced in the streets. In Washington, DC, multitudes staged an impromptu street party outside of Obama's next home, And in the president-elect's.hometown, an estimated quarter million people celebrated in Grant Park to see El Nuevo Presidente make his victory speech.

Like over 60 million others, Obama was the Militant's choice on the ink-a-vote card (He didn't want to openly endorse him on This Here Blog since his rivals might make a case of the Illinois senator associating himself with...Militants (is that such a dirty word?)). So thusly, he wanted to celebrate this historic moment.

He thought about heading to Century City (via Metro Rapid, because the parking situation was no doubt gonna be nuts out there) to join in the big-ass party that was the Century Plaza Hotel, but by the time he was ready to leave, the polls have closed in California, the networks have just projected Obama as the winner, and McCain's concession speech will soon follow. So the Militant had to scrap the Westside trek and return the compound and see it on TV.

See the problem here? The biggest party in Los Angeles - one of the cities where the president-elect resided in - took place in a private space, a hotel ballroom in the Westside that was limited to a capacity of less than 7,000 people. There was no public celebration (though the Militant has heard from operative reports there were a smattering of small, neighborhood fetes), no dancing and partying in the street. Perhaps the biggest thing he heard in terms of public celebrations were people driving along Wilshire, honking their horns. Whoop-ee.

Surely, one or more of you will respond in the Comments section with a paragraph that includes the phrase "too spread out." Sure for those of you out in Canyon Country, Rancho Palos Verdes or Rancho Freaking Cucamonga, but the Militant lives walking distance from a subway station.

But then again, despite a dense Central area of the city that is more transit-advantaged than the rest of the region, we still have a ways to go in terms of the use, or even the awareness, of public space.

Park(ing) Day MA

Friday was Park(ing) Day LA, an event that the Militant is very familiar with. So he decided to look up the map and roam around town on bike and on rail on Friday afternoon to tour some of the temporary parks being set up on street parking spaces to call attention to the need for people-oriented public spaces. Pretty much the majority of the proposed parks were situated in the Central Los Angeles area, with a few in the Westside (Santa Monica to be specific), a couple in the South Bay, and a handful in the SFV and SGV combined. It seemed as if Park(ing) Day LA was less of a deal this year than last, and it did seem that there were less points on the map. Of course, the Militant still couldn't see 'em all, so here's the somewhat limited tour...

The Militant headed to one of the nearest parks to his compound (pictured right), in East Hollywood's "Hel-Mel Bicycle District" where a park set up by the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and the local neighborhood council yielded an inflatable swimming pool, a BBQ grill and some potted plants for decoration. A few people took a dip in the 80-plus degree heat, and others had their Scoops ice cream while chilling out at this location.

The Militant then headed to the nearest Metro station and took the12-minute ride Downtown where he disembarked at Pershing Square and..had to carry his ride up the northeast station portal (escalator was not in service, d'oh) to 4th street, where he headed due east. Near 4th and Spring, he saw a park ready to be taken down, with just a patch of astroturf marking the spot. Hmm. The Militant headed further and made his way to Main and Winston, where a rather large park installation was taking place.

Well, this was kind of cheating, as it wasn't the takeover of parking space but rather a (the Militant assumes, permitted) street closure. Winston, as some of you may or may not recall, is the tiny sidestreet upon where Blossom Vietnamese restaurant is situated, which the Militant covered in his long-dormant spinoff food blog, the Militant Angeleno's Mess Hall (wonder when he'll start that thing up again...).

This particular park (pictured left) was also organized by the local neighborhood council, this time the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (which was cool since the Militant always thought that neighborhood councils were just comprised of a bunch of cranky-ass, quasi-racist rich white old farts with no lives who like to shout at each other, wank off to Planning and Land Use Management issues and cling to their little fiefdoms. Oh yeah, did the Militant mention they're OLD? We're talking Pre-Cambrian, stop-driving-your-car-or-you'll-crash-into-a-farmer's-market fogeyness here. But the Militant digresses...good to know there's some NCs who aren't as fogey-ized and dig the Park(ing) Day thang) . This park had the requisite astroturf foundation, but also bore an entertainment stage, a basketball court and a display of James Rojas' infamous "Lego Downtown." The Militant also may or may not have spotted another local blogger there, who apparently had no idea the Militant was in his midst. Muhahaha. The main theme though at this park was the $196 monthly cost of a parking lot space, and various posterboards gave a quantitiative indication of what can be purchased for that price (i.e. one park bench, seven basketballs, 174 tennis balls, etc.).

The Militant continued on to the Financial District where he was promised a bunch of parks. Unfortunately he wasn't able to see squat. One site (Melendrez) was supposed to be near Pershing Square (which is an actual, permanent park - aren't we supposed to be putting these things up where there is no park space?) but apparently they decided to shut down early, and no trace of it was found.

The Militant did get to see the Torti Gallas and Partners Park, on 6th and Grand, who cordoned off their area with a picket fencing and adorned the space with a realtor's sign. Their theme was a similar cost-analysis of space, this time treating the parking space as though it were real estate property (valued at $77,000) and "selling" a parking space-sized residential structure for that price.

The rest of the Militant's search wasn't very fruitful. Either these sites never sprang up or they shut down early, mostly due to parking lane traffic flow restrictions inherent in Downtown (booo...). The one park by the Central Library was gone, for example.

The Militant also made his was a little west to Pico-Union where a park site was to go up on Hoover and Alvarado, but the Militant found no trace of it whatsoever.

So that was one complaint of the day, either many sites only set up for a short amount of time, or not at all. That was pretty much it for the Militant's tour, though Damien Newton from Streetsblog seemed to have more luck than the Militant in his report.

At one of the sites the Militant visited, he did run into a couple ladies who told him they set up their own site in Little Tokyo, which subsequently got shut down at around 2:30 p.m. by the cops. BREAKIN' DA LAW! They also explained that earlier in the day, other officers would drive past and even wave, though they theorized one of the businesses in the area called to complain. But they shrugged it off as no big deal, as 2:30 was past their original time limit anyway.

Still, Park(ing) Day 2008 didn't seem to have the splash it had last year, when it generated some mainstream media attention. This time, it was strictly a blogging event, it seems.

The Militant also didn't go to the Miracle Mile afterparty, though it probably had better music than the parking garage festivities of last year.

Oh well, maybe we'll have a better impact next year.

The Militant's Fi(r)st Annivasary - "Life Is Still Pretty Good in Hollywood"

One of the Militant's first blog adventures happened exactly a year ago today when he blogged about attending a meeting on the proposed Hollywood Freeway Central Park, visiting a popular Huell-approved juice joint on the Boulevard and simply taking in the day (and not long afterward, some curious blog readers posted these things called "Comments" on the Militant Angeleno's then-nascent blog, thus making the Militant realize, "Hey, people actually read this thing...Awe-some").

Well you don't know how far you've gone unless you look back on how far you've been, or something like that, so the Militant will revisit his little Hollywood adventure. Or, mind you, the Blockbuster Hollywood Sequel (Hey, The Militant can have fun with cheeky showbiz media cliches, too).

Earlier this month there were a pair of meetings on the proposed freeway cap park to wrap up community feedback on the project, which the Militant is glad to report is progressing nicely. The duplicate meetings, done on a Saturday morning and a Wednesday night, respectively, were held to accommodate people's schedules. Large-sized concept illustrations (pictured above) and descriptions of the park's design (all recommended and subject to change, of course) were shown to the community -- of which a neighbor of one of the Militant's operatives - mind you, this neighbor is a white male homeowner in his late 50s - said, "Judging by the faces in the room, this doesn't look like it's representative of the community." Hey, his words, not the Militant's!

Anyhu, the design included elements like art features (sculptures and murals), an amphitheater, multipurpose sports fields, a water feature, a viewing place for the Hollywood sign, a restaurant in the park, a dog space and an emphasis on greening the residential streets directly adjacent to the park.

Transportation was important, and some community members voiced their support and the need for an uninterrupted bike path, a DASH-type line and overall pedestrian-friendliness, including access to the Hollywood/Western (M) station - the closest to the park.

Even some Hollywood Hills-billies wanted a piece of dat park action, requesting that some of the park be extended north of its intended Bronson Ave. limit. Not so fast there podner -- the freeway no longer runs below ground level at this point!

The 34-acre park is expected to cost more or less around $1 billion, which is still cheaper than acquiring the equivalent amount of existing land at today's property values, and is expected to be 80% funded by federal moolah, and the remaining 20% by state funds, which includes a possible public-private partnership. And speaking of which, with the Speaker of the House being a Californian and the Speaker of the California State Assembly an Angelena, now's the time to work it (gurl)!

With a projected (optimistic) timeline of around 10 years , two down, eight or so to go...

All The Hollywood Juice

Wow, a sub-headline. The Militant hadn't used one of those in a long-ass time. Anyway, a year ago, the Militant paid a visit to the Juice(s) Fountain (pictured right, and BTW, WTF is up with that "C" in the window?), which he had stumbled upon for the first time since they moved from their old location on Vine Street. Unfortunately, on this recent return visit, as he was ready to come in, a fellow pedestrian said to her walking partners, "Sorry, were closed?"

The Militant went into worried shock mode, up until he read the sign on the door showing the closing time as 5 p.m., which was about an hour and a half ago at this point. Fear not, for he shall soon return to that blended fruit juicy goodness.

Though speaking of fruits...or at least wannabe fruits, or more specifically, fruit-topped chemically-composited fro-yo with a name making a reference to a type of treegrown fruit, which has subsequently spawned thousands of imitators referencing that very same fruit, is coming to the Boulevard. Yes folks...

...Pinkberry is coming to the Boulevard (Full disclosure, though the Militant was admittedly a fan last year, he has since Seen The Light in the form of Red Mango. It's all about the creamy, certified active yogurt-cultured Red Mango, baby). Too little, too late. Insert disappointed, jaded sigh here. Of course, they knew full well that they were trumped by another competitor looong ago as staking a claim to the World's Most Famous Street.

The Militant headed to the general area of his compound, not on two wheels this time, but on 48. But first he had to reach his subway train through a rather busy, scaffolding-inundated environment in the form of the gargantuan Hollywood Dubya Hotel, now very much under construction.

Ah, Hollywood. Pardon our dust. The Militant will retrace his Walk Of Fame steps yet again, for his second anniversary.

Wide Open Spaces

What an exciting time to be an Angeleno. For those of us focused on Downtown, among other places in the city, you are witnessing urban evolution in action. Consider one tri-street junction on the northern edge of Downtown, just north of Union Station. Where Alameda St., North Main St. and the former Alhambra Ave. once converged, a new open space has sprung up where it was once a tangle of tattered asphalt and partially-exposed freight railroad tracks, and worse - a part of town where, due to location, aesthetics and perception, people have absolutely no interest in going to as a destination.

But it's close enough to Philippe's The Original to sit down and enjoy a French Dip, close enough to Chinatown to enjoy your little box of dumplings to go. People who work at The California Endowment may very well call it an extension of their postmodern, high-tech campus.

The folks at Angelenic tracked its progress at the beginning of the year, and now it's pretty much complete. It's certainly got the recognition of the "Islands of LA Nat'l Park" folks (pictured right), who have something to brag about for this particular concrete-bordered island.

The triangular park has nascent trees, a patch of grass, a circular path and some benches. So what's missing? People...or at least people for whom the park was intended for (pictured left).

It's a typical urban renewal conundrum: Build It And They Will Come. But if "those other people" come, then "They" won't come. And if "Those Others" are there already, then "They" pretty much give up on "It" and in effect give it away to "Those Others." The same equation plays itself in many a neighborhood where personal safety has been a realistic question.

But friends, that's the nature of public space, or anything public. It belongs to those who stake their claim to it. Use it or lose it. So stake your claim. Use it.