Monthly Archives: November 2010

City Offers 96% Rent Reduction for Its Facilties

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Ever wish for a bigger place? Maybe an extra room for a home office or another bedroom for guests or family members or maybe you thought about going into business for yourself and need a prime location to execute your entrepreneurial dream.

Now’s your chance! The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs in conjunction with the City Council and the Mayor is offering prime real estate for 4% of the going market rate. Yes, you can get a 16,700 square foot art gallery located at 4800 Hollywood Boulevard with new solar panels and a new freight elevator. They’ll even throw in $14,000 a year just in case you have trouble paying the $1,169 a month rent on the place. Don’t forget the utilities are included.

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Casa del Mexicano in foreclosure ?

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While I don’t have the time to fully look into this right now, school and college apps beckon, I still figured it’s worth mentioning to everyone, as it’ll probably go main stream pretty soon as well. La Opinion has done a few stories and reports that the center is in foreclosure proceedings from a loan taken out in 2006 and failure to make payments by the directors  Martha and Ruben Soriano. A group calling themselves the Committee to save the Casa del Mexicano have been in talks with Jose Huizar to get the husband and wife outed from their positions and to save the center. There’s a bunch of drama going on right now and it’s hard to say what’s really going on because even La Opinion is having a hard time making sense of it. The place has seen a lot of bad days and it’s not in the best of conditions, despite the new murals painted.

Southwest Museum Mural

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Mural by Highland Park artist Daniel Cervantes.

There are many reasons to appreciate this mural on Marmion Way, under the Southwest Museum: the colors that seem to glow in the sun, the attractive graphic style and most importantly, the subject, Native people of the Americas. Northeast LA is home to many American Indians and they deserve a lot more recognition than this mural but this gorgeous piece is a good start.

And speaking of respect and recognition, it’s a shame the Southwest Museum is no longer open to the public due to the actions of The Autry Museum who took the museum over many years ago and has since shuttered this Northeast LA landmark. They have many reasons for doing so but none have convinced me. Save the Southwest Museum!

A Business Sense Walking Tour

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If it’s one thing about tours, it’s that you always learn something new about something old. For example, I took a tour of Union Station last year and I found out that there’s asbestos in the curtains and that if some bird or terrorist agitated them, well needless to say it would be problematic for everyone. So, imagine what you’ll learn on this tour. Lead by Adrian Rivas of Gallery 727, walking around the men’s fashion district and neighboring areas in Downtown L.A. that go unnoticed to most of us, but a treasure cove for others.

A Business Sense Walking Tour

Tour Starts at g727 (gallery 727)
11 am – 1pm

727 South Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213 627 9563
g727.org

Tour led by: Adrian Rivas co-founder of g727 and downtown merchant

Please join g727 for a special tour of local merchants from downtown’s historic Fashion District presented in conjunction with the gallery’s current exhibitions Carmen Argote: Household Mutations and Santiago Borja: Fort Da/Sampler each of which incorporate questions of materials and site.
Examined in relationship to the five senses, the featured businesses represent our physical responses to the urban environment.

A round table discussion and refreshments will follow at G727

Participating businesses:

GLOBAL LINEN / sense of touch
MARCEL’S TIES / kinesthetic sense
NEW WAREHOUSE / sense of time
MIKE’S TAILOR SHOP / sense of sound
THE STORE / sense of balance and direction
UNIVERSAL PERFUMES / sense of smell
BEVERLY HILLS HOSIERY/ sense of sight

Mystery Building

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Last year Edith did a fun series of posts where you were asked to guess where a photo was taken. I’m going to revive the idea and have you guess where the location of one of my favorite buildings – almost on the Eastside – might be. (You just got a big hint!)

In case you can’t figure it out, this photo is another clue. I love how the old road is peeking through this nearby street.

There’s no prize except the satisfaction of being so intimate with the city you can identify buildings randomly. Oh, and maybe one day an LA Eastside t-shirt.

Good luck!

Hearing Youth Voices: Annenberg partners with La Opinión in Boyle Heights

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There are moments in my life in which I wish I was still considered an “at risk youth” or just “youth” for that matter. Back when I was in school, I wasn’t introduced to any kind of after school programs, internships, opportunities or anything extra curricular like that, that would help me do better in school and go straight to college or a profession. The closest I got was D.A.R.E. Is that program still in schools ?  Any who, I’m passing on some information that will hopefully reach the intended audience. Please forward this to any teachers, teachers aid, principals, students, parents or siblings who would know someone who would want to be a part of this on going project here in Boyle Heights. It’s safe to say that I’ll be there of course since there will be free food. But that’s beside the point, which is to save the youth from whatever social problems and ills that are affecting our communities by giving them the opportunities some of us never had. To mentor them and all that jazz, cause you know, kids are the future.

¡Tu Opinión Cuenta! Let Us Hear Your Voice!
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Zeus from Highland Park

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Zeus and his guitar

The past week I’ve been reading the book Outliers, The Stories of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The basic gist of the book is very successful people, outliers, owe their success to a few proven factors: time spent practicing their craft, dedication and luck (class, unique historical moments, when they were born etc.) Anyways, I immediately thought of this book when I went to the Rite Aid on York and Ave 64 this evening and spotted this young dude playing his guitar and singing outside the front door.

I’ve seen him all over Highland Park, at the farmer’s market, the library, on Figueroa, all sorts of places and he’s always with his guitar. I thought to myself, it’s not too many young people that would have the dedication and gumption to stand in front of Rite Aid playing on a Monday night. But it seemed to be paying off, I saw a man go to his car, get money and come back to put it in the already-full-of-bills of hat. Nobody does that in Highland Park, c’mon! Make an extra trip to give someone money? They wouldn’t even do that for their mom! Something about this dude’s spunk was admirable and piqued my interest so I asked him if I could interview him for the blog. He was really nice and said yes, even though I interrupted his song. It’s okay it was a Beatles (gag) song.
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Eastside Hawks

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Chances are you’ve seen them flying in the sky, ever so high, so high that it hurts your eyes to stare into the sky that high. It’s hard to miss them when they’re circling in the air, holding down their turf like sky like vatos locos. Picking off pigeons whenever they get hungry and no one can stop them. Up there, they have no equals. Except maybe the ghetto bird or planes that fly over the Eastside, but that’s about it. Continue reading →