Oh no, Downtown is on a hungry rampage and moving east! It first started with The Brewery and then The San Antonio Winery and now has consumed every hipsters’ favorite place to shop, The Saint Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in Lincoln Heights!
An article in today’s Los Angeles Times features the downtown loft of a “recycled living” bohemian realtor and his fashion designer girlfriend. This couple is really cool cause they are into old stuff that was previously used! Wow! Read what I mean:
In the spirit of adaptive reuse, nearly all the furnishings inside the loft hail from flea markets or thrift shops or are alley finds.
Uh, huh. And where might one of these chic thrift stores be?
Heller stops by downtown’s St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop at least twice a week.
Downtown? How did that happen? According to the Saint Vincent de Paul website, the store is located:
Just north of downtown Los Angeles … in Lincoln Heights, is one of the largest, well-stocked thrift stores in all of Southern California The St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store which according to Los Angeles Magazine is the “Best Thrift Store in Los Angeles.â€
So it’s happened again…Downtown, in it’s appetite to swallow anything that might be “cool” has now gobbled up an even bigger chunk of Lincoln Heights. What will follow?
ooooooooooo hell no. UGH!!!!
Invisible Heights indeed!
The reverse is also true. People calling places like Koreatown, Pico Union or South Los Angeles “Downtown.” The LA Times ran a story about someone getting shot “Downtown.” It was at Pico and Western.
Take it easy, huh?
Take it easy, huh? As Julio so succinctly put it: “ooooooooooo hell no!”
Not only east, but south! You don’t know how many times I’ve heard T.V. reports from the Shrine Auditorium sign off as “From Downtown L.A.” or “near Downtown L.A.” I use Washington as a divider because single family housing starts south of Washington.
I like how USC is now downtown LA. I always remind people USC is in South Central.
That article irritated me too Chimatli. I was reading it and I couldn’t put my finger on it and then I thought about this person who made his money off of legalized slavery via the sweatshop industry (what did he call it a fashion manufacturer…lol…so that’s the new term for owner of a sweatshop) and I thought how can think he’s so freakin artsy?
Artists don’t make their money off of literally exploiting people.
Yeah I liked the La Crisis angle, if you buy lots of second hand stuff it’s ok…like that is supposed to make it less pretentious.
Browne
Downtown still equates ethnic to a lot of people. I’m more annoyed about the celebration of rich white kids doing things working class brown kids have done for quite some time. They also have a garden, take the bus and drink cheap beer, which is so “kitschy” and should be commended. Give me a pinche break.
I have a prima who just moved back to LA after living the huero college life in Portland and travelling cross country with her rich friends. It took her a full day to remember that being poor is not kitschy and nobody cares about you when you are brown (in a generalist sense).
First they came for our crappy winery. Then they “adaptively reused” our even worse Segunda. Next they’ll be coming for our eloteros!
Funny how they always claim the stuff they find of interest, but leave the normal daily shops out of their claims. BTW, I’ve seen people calling the Airliner club downtown as well.
I love the graphic! Let’s face it, there are certain people who feel entitled to rename certain areas of the city into whatever the Hell they want. I call it “Gentrimandering”
“Downtown still equates ethnic to a lot of people. I’m more annoyed about the celebration of rich white kids doing things working class brown kids have done for quite some time. They also have a garden, take the bus and drink cheap beer, which is so “kitschy†and should be commended. Give me a pinche break.” Art
Inspriation is the new steal, conquer and a make it mine and write a book about it. You know this Heller guy or is girlfriend is about to do some art project or put out some book about buying second-hand items, you know that crap is coming.
Also I want to know what the difference is between a swapmeet and a fleamarket?
Browne
Al , I like that term gentrimandering! I had fun making the graphic, thanks for noticing.
I hope it’s obvious that this post was in good humor, I don’t want to get called an essentialist again. And anyways, it’s not my fault that the Los Angeles Times doesn’t have enough staff that’s familiar with Los Angeles to know the different neighborhoods.
I was talking to my 80 year old great aunt the other day, she’s the one that always gets in a big huff about the appropriation of the term Eastside by Silver Lakers. She was telling me how she was born on the “Eastside” on Lamar Street but then when she got a little older her family moved across the river to Dogtown (another name appropriated). She also said the neighborhood directly west of Dogtown was called “Macy.” The Eastside was called that cause of the Eastside Brewery (where the art colony is now). She said it was really common when she was growing up to be asked “where you from?” and people would answer “State” or “Macy” or “Eastside” etc. Perhaps this is how the early clubs/gangs started? It’s also probably why I grew up with such a sense of neighborhood and culture…but don’t call me an essentialist. Haha 🙂
wow, i thought the graphic was an old horror flick’s promo poster or comic book advertisement. nice work!
despite the stupid pen collection, times verbiage expanding downtown and the fashion designer’s desire to “highlight street art” with “an underskirt hand-painted with graffiti imagery,” i must admit i like the couple’s loft. it’s not my style, but at least it’s vibrant.
When I read that article yesterday, I was like “there’s a St. Vincent’s downtown too? Why haven’t I gone there?” and then I realized no, it’s our St. Vincent’s all overpriced and picked over.
Oops, didn’t mean to take credit for the whole graphic! I just added on to it, situationist style.
There was some architecture school competition a year ago where the goal was to bridge Downtown to the Boyle Heights flats (west of the 5 freeway). So, there’s an explicit goal to surmount the river, a physical dividing line, to push Downtown’s eastern border westward.
The winning entry was some “green” park that would cover the river. What a load of technological bullshit.
—–
Thanks for the heads up about USC being in “Downtown”. WTF? I was looking in what is now called “West Adams” for a place to live. This was north of USC. I was surprised at this designation, because I thought West Adams was farther west, like near Western.
Anyway, I’m surprised at a couple things about West Adams. First, that it’s kind of gentrified. Second, that I didn’t even know about it.
After looking around the web a little bit, it seems like the “gentrification” has been going on for almost 30 years… meaning it’s not exactly like the gentrification we’re seeing with downtown.
—–
Oh yeah, old stuff in very “in” these days. I was moping at a party where there were, what I assume were “westsiders”. Maybe they live in hollywood. Whatever. They started to enthuse about how cool the floor was, because it was so old looking, and how it had history. Weird.
I guess they’re fortunate enough to have so much new stuff that old stuff is a novelty!
Judging by the ways our hoods get any write-ups in print these days, sometimes they make it seem like things just aren’t valid until a white person does it and talks about it.
This seems to be the common style:
(1)find any any old ghettoish neighborhood that usually is inhabited by generations of brown folks.
(2)Find the minority white folks who just moved there.
(3) Interview these white folks about their perspectives on the neighborhood and about how they’ve just “discovered” all the cool things about the neighborhood.
This shit is just annoying. We brown folks need a good PR person in this town.
I was in Lanza Bros Mkt on N. Main a while back talking to Johnny Lanza when in walks two “artists” from the Brewery. They both start looking around the store and saying wow! this is cool, one guy says “Gee I’ve lived at the Brewery for two years now and never knew this place was here, how long has it been here?”
Lanza says very dryly and cool, “Oh not long, 1919 I think it was”.
Those Cabrones at the LAT did it again today:
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-0103-kramer-pg,0,3487238.photogallery
And here’s another Baboso practicing “Homeless Chic”…
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-teman3-pg,0,5031406.photogallery?index=2
It’s only hip when you really DON’T HAVE TO find your furnishings on the street, but you have enough money to pretend to be that poor. Soon there will be designer shopping carts available to help you schlep all your found hip furnishings home.