LA Weekly had a cheeky article a few years back titled “The Evidence Room: Five Signs You’re Gentrifying.” At the time, the primary target of gentrification was Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park. I don’t think there’s a gelato parlor downtown yet, but clearly, for better or worse, downtown is being “revitalized” faster than you can say “doggie day care.” Enter Gary Phillips, a community activist turned mystery and comic book writer who will debut the first three pages of his webcomic, Bicycle Cop Dave, next week on October 28 on Four Story. Bicycle Cop Dave will follow LAPD officer David Richter as he patrols downtown LA and “encounters interesting characters from a lawyer smoking crack in a port-a-potty to a one-armed prophet in a Skid Row bar with his wooden tablet of odd commandments.” Phillips also promises upside down bodies below the Sixth Street bridge, an inevitable Big Bad Developer villain, and at least a comment or two about the displacement of the poor as result of old gentrifying politics finding a new battleground downtown. The story will unfold over the course of several weeks, as new pages will be published every other Wednesday until the entire comic is online. I’m hoping he’ll stray away from hyper liberal tendencies to simply demonize gentrification without providing a more weighty critique; in any case, the comic is worth a bookmark and hopefully some good discussion.
I took a look at and snapped some photos of the latest construction project in Marina del Rey. It’s the expansion of the Best Western Jamaica Bay Inn on Admiralty Way near Panay Way. The old Jamaica Bay Inn was a quaint two-story place with approximately 42 rooms, where people liked to go for breakfast. Renderings of the expanded four-story 111-room hotel, for which the neighboring Cafe Escobar was bulldozed to make way, can be found here. The Inn’s PR company describes its project as (warning: get out your air sickness bag) one:
“that will transform the familiar Marina Del Rey property into a lush Caribbean-themed resort befitting its name. The new Jamaica Bay Inn will take advantage of the hotel’s unique location on the only beach inside the marina, an inviting arc of sand and calm water appropriately known as Mother’s Beach. The new hotel will have a colorful porte-cochere that will be a street-side landmark for the property and an elegant lobby with a sophisticated West Indies décor, rattan/wood/leather furniture and a large stone fireplace and chimney as a focal point. Gag on this
Welcome to the first in what will be a random and sporadic series of posts celebrating the “Anti-HOA yard of the day”. HOA, as in Home Owner’s Associations that control and dictate how your property looks to maintain that banal cookie cutter sameness. It stifles the little silliness like this mail box.
The lack of HOA’s in most of LA’s neighborhoods is one of the things I love about this city. Every neighborhood has its own character yet there is an individuality to each home that makes it special. It is this freedom that needs to be celebrated. It certainly better than making sure you have the right Stevenson Ranch Rose or Brookstone Beige when the time comes to repaint your home. This will be a little celebration of the “yard art” or entire homes that uniquely set themselves apart from their neighbors.
I do need to give a hat tip to our own Lucinda Michele for the inspiration for this series. Her series “Random yard of the valley” always is charming when they pop up and certainly one I enjoy.
Pic by me from a recent meander and it does get bigger with a clickaroo.
In celebration of that most 1950’s-esque, American-as-apple-pie, Eisenhower-and-nuclear-family-ish holiday that is Memorial Day, here I present a triptych of three Valley homes, all built in the ’60s, in the same subdivision, on the same template, and now all drastically different from one another.
Solair added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Solair in order for you to be friends on Facebook.
Actually, I don’t know Solair. In fact, there are very few buildings in Los Angeles that I consider friends. Do I accept the request, or ignore? This is a decision not to be taken lightly, as I do not want to hurt Solair’s feelings.
While millionaires admired each others’ handiwork at yesterday’s New Wave of Venice Architecture tour, part of this weekend’s Venice Art Walk & Auctions events, pedestrians flocked to the nearby Art Auction preview for something more within reach. First up was the Architecture tour, comprising six modern (some just-finished) homes, several of which have won design awards. The homes were located in the “West of Lincoln” neighborhood, with five of the homes inside the area bordered by Lincoln, Venice, and Abbott Kinney Boulevards, and the sixth home just across Abbott Kinney. I was told that this area has the most architects per capita on the planet, and I wouldn’t doubt it. Some of the architects took a break from their houses to check out the competition. Likewise, some area residents got a rare opportunity to do the same, and to get some design ideas for their own homes. Click here to take the tour
Forbes.com has published a list of the 20 most overpriced cities in the United States, and, perhaps to the surprise of few, Los Angeles tops the list. According to Forbes, “earnings potential and living expenses,” including salary information, unemployment figures, the cost of living, and the Housing Opportunity Index, were all examined in compiling its list. Forbes cited a 10.3% unemployment rate in Los Angeles, as well as a housing bust in construction and sales that is made worse by the fact that home prices here are still among the highest in the nation.
The sixth annual AltBuild Expo, held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium this past weekend, was billed as a showcase for “the best of Green Building & Design Materials, Energy Efficiency, … Sustainable Landscape, … ” and more. However, the unwritten theme at the Expo was simplicity. I was struck by the rather low-budget displays — often just a table and some posters mounted on the black curtain backgrounds — by the building materials and other companies exhibiting their products. But as one marketing consultant who attended the show with me commented, “they don’t have any money.”
Hat tip to my neighbor for posting this notice on her blog about a community meeting (conveniently timed during the middle of Coachella weekend) on April 18 regarding a proposed mixed use development for 94 rental units, restaurant and retail in Silver Lake on Sunset at Sunset Junction.
Dear Neighbor, Guess Who's Moving In?
Here’s what the notice says:
Dear Neighbor,
The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council
Invites you to attend
Community Meeting / Open House
Saturday, April 18
11:00 AM
Location: The parking lot on Santa Monica between Sanborn and Manzanita, across from Jiffy Lube
Regarding 4000 Sunset Blvd. (Sunset Junction)
Proposed mixed use development for 94 rental units, a restaurant and retail (more…)
I Will, I Will Mock You Verdell Wilson OK, igetrad. You win. No contest. igetrad red line a few years back. saw a dude with his shirt pulled up under his chin furiously picking away at scabs... girlvaughn Flossing. seriously. So disgusting. Also – agree with nail clippers. The sound of it makes me gag.
LA Weekly had a cheeky article a few years back titled “The Evidence Room: Five Signs You’re Gentrifying.” At the time, the primary target of gentrification was Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park. I don’t think there’s a gelato parlor downtown yet, but clearly, for better or worse, downtown is being “revitalized” faster than you can say “doggie day care.” Enter Gary Phillips, a community activist turned mystery and comic book writer who will debut the first three pages of his webcomic, Bicycle Cop Dave, next week on October 28 on Four Story. Bicycle Cop Dave will follow LAPD officer David Richter as he patrols downtown LA and “encounters interesting characters from a lawyer smoking crack in a port-a-potty to a one-armed prophet in a Skid Row bar with his wooden tablet of odd commandments.” Phillips also promises upside down bodies below the Sixth Street bridge, an inevitable Big Bad Developer villain, and at least a comment or two about the displacement of the poor as result of old gentrifying politics finding a new battleground downtown. The story will unfold over the course of several weeks, as new pages will be published every other Wednesday until the entire comic is online. I’m hoping he’ll stray away from hyper liberal tendencies to simply demonize gentrification without providing a more weighty critique; in any case, the comic is worth a bookmark and hopefully some good discussion.
I took a look at and snapped some photos of the latest construction project in Marina del Rey. It’s the expansion of the Best Western Jamaica Bay Inn on Admiralty Way near Panay Way. The old Jamaica Bay Inn was a quaint two-story place with approximately 42 rooms, where people liked to go for breakfast. Renderings of the expanded four-story 111-room hotel, for which the neighboring Cafe Escobar was bulldozed to make way, can be found 
