Finally the place got so bad we up and moved to Alhambra, where at least at that time you didn’t have those idiot gang bangers and Chicano politicians who had a million and one excuses for their bad behavior.

So if new people are moving in and cleaning that mess up like they did in Atwater and other areas of Los Angeles I say good! It’s about time.

chicano middle class
middle class
‘the chicano’ artists
all other artists
‘progressive chicano’ politicians
politicians
progressives
anarchist (some)
hmmm who else did i leave out?
oh ya Democrats.
We dont really have to worry about Republicans here…
or do we?

http://zinelibrary.info/files/yuppy_takeover_11_17.pdf

I first started coming to Highland Park to see bands at Mr. T’s. Later I started a band that played Mr. T’s. (We’ve even played with 8-bit before.)

Since moving here, I’ve fallen in love with the staples of Highland Park. I’m constantly trying to learn more about my new neighborhood.

As a new resident who happens to be in a band (in some people’s minds, that automatically makes you a hipster), I have a fear of being lumped in with the a-holes (as someone before dubbed them) who move here on daddy’s dime.

So let me just say, some of the newer residents aren’t hipsters. Some of us attend Historic Highland Neighborhood Councel meetings. Some of us are full of civic price. Some of us picture living here for a long long time among the same neighbors they have now.

I enjoy good discussion, even with those who disagree with me, but Im too old and well adjusted for pissing contests.

If I’d had the chance to write this article, I would have focused on the efforts, prior to the opening of these new businesses and retrofitting of older ones, by the LADOT to add a travel lane to York Blvd. by removing car parking.

The LADOT has a singular focus in LA that runs counter to the interests of local businesses in old fashioned walkable neighborhoods like Highland Park: they only care about car throughput and speed. Fast cars on Figueroa and York and high volumes of cars on both street guarantee that few cars stop, few people care to walk and shop, and even fewer try to socialize and mingle in the commercial areas.

Yes, the streets are filled with locals walking to stores, but nowhere near what it could be if the monolithic focus on cars was shifter to encourage more retail foot traffic.

Anyway! Long story short: the LADOT’s proposal to speed up York Blvd was shot down. Instead a coalition of businesses and residents got a section of York narrowed, added signals, and slowed down car traffic and boom: the York, Grassshopper, Cafe de Leche, etc. etc. etc. right in the middle of the calmest traffic area on the block.

Basic reporting with longtime residents would obviously reveal more, like the hard-fought liquor permit further down the street for what is now Juanita’s Restaurant that the building owner/developer pulled a coalition of neighbors together for to show that they wanted commerce on their commercial corridors – that, to me, was a moment when the baby-boom “I hate the city” voters got their asses kicked by a new generation of pro-urban residents.