| |
Posted Jul 19, 2011, 1:53 AM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,710
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by JDRCRASH
However... I truly feel if we follow your advice, this thread will be depressed all the god damn time and slowly die.
|
JDR, this thread doesn't need blue sky, big dream, urban studies type of posts to keep it alive. It needs something as basic, but as revealing, as posts like the one from LA/ocman. His comments about his experience in dt on saturday are always what I look for & enjoy in this thread.
It doesn't help that alot of us don't live in dt, or aren't there on a very regular basis. So it's easy to wander off & start talking about transit projs serving west LA or the valleys, or other cities, or debating about very generalized topics that apply to any city from A to Z. IOW, this thread easily goes from being "downtown project rundown" to "urban affairs 101". And that's harder to avoid when a major slowdown in new devlpt in dtla doesn't give alot of new angles to cover.
To make up for my lack of firsthand posts like the one from LA/OCman, I have to glom onto stuff from others. These 2 articles appeared in yesterdays LA times. i've left out several parts of them due to ssp's rules of posting copyrighted material....
Quote:
The upside of living downtown
The streets of downtown Los Angeles may have once been considered gritty, but they are now home to a diverse collection of people, art and entertainment
By Joan Springhetti, July 17, 2011
Eight years ago, as I watched a building near my work be converted from vacant offices into lofts, I couldn't stop thinking about it. If I lived there, in that beautiful old building, I could walk less than a block to work. That micro-distance was important: Any farther and I wouldn't have felt safe walking home after dark.
There were no streetlights on the block back then. Homeless people curled up in doorways and under cardboard boxes. On the sidewalk was a row of public outhouses, which I soon realized were "owned" by drug dealers. (I will never forget one lunch hour watching as a man who'd just made a buy took off his suit jacket, crouched between two outhouses, rolled up the sleeve of his dress shirt and put a needle in his arm.)
Today, the outhouses are gone and there is a restored landmark (the former St. Vibiana's Cathedral) and two major new civic buildings (Caltrans and the LAPD headquarters) across from me. The streetlights are on; that was the first of many civic initiatives my neighbors and I became involved in as we rolled up our own sleeves. We fought for a park, to save a neighborhood landmark, for a Metro line to be built underground, not above. Even when we didn't prevail, we won. We got to know our elected representatives and their staffs, developers, city planners, the LAPD and Fire Department. And we got to know each other.
Slowly but surely, new businesses opened: coffee shops, galleries, theaters, groceries and dozens of restaurants and clubs. It's been exciting every time. Blocks considered unsafe became safe. Initiatives by police and social service agencies reduced the number of people living on the streets as well as the most blatant drug dealing.
Gradually, Main and Spring and other streets came back to life. When I walk down the street, I always see someone I know. When I ask what's going on, something usually is.
I walk to the library (the branch in Little Tokyo and to the Central Library on 5th Street). I walk to my doctor's and optometrist's offices, to Walt Disney Concert Hall and to the free Grand Performances. I walk to one of the coolest little hardware stores in the world (Anzen Hardware & Supply), to a great store for used books (The Last Bookstore) and to purchase art supplies (at Raw Materials). I walk to restaurants with friends for dinner and drinks, and we never need a designated driver.
Often, my neighbors and I put together impromptu dinners in each other's homes. There are plenty of great cooks in the kitchen, and lessons too. We've savored incredible cheese souffle, pho, arroz con pollo and apple pie. We throw parties to celebrate neighbors becoming citizens, and we held a centennial celebration when our building turned 100.
Living downtown means coming to terms with seeing poverty, mental illness and broken spirits. But it also means realizing that "the homeless" are individuals with names and emotions, and that a piece of sidewalk is sometimes a home.
My community is filled with marvelous artists, musicians, lawyers, bankers, photographers, filmmakers, architects, nurses, doctors, clothing designers, educators, engineers and skateboarders. And it is also home to their bulldogs, poodles, greyhounds, labs and schnauzers.
Joan Springhetti is an editor and writer who has lived in downtown Los Angeles since 2003.
|
Quote:
Downtown L.A.: A nightmare on Every Street
Downtown Los Angeles boasts some big-city perks like spacious lofts and trendy restaurants, but living there is a different kind of beast.
By Mike Armstrong
July 17, 2011
"Look, Daddy, that man's going to the bathroom!"
No, not the words any daddy wants to hear from his 10-year-old daughter, especially during a stroll through their brand-new neighborhood.
Moving my wife and kids into a downtown Los Angeles loft may not win me "Dumbest Dad of the Year" honors, but it should at least get me into the quarterfinals. The loft itself was great. More like a movie set than an apartment. High ceilings, new appliances, breathtaking views and a deck with a Jacuzzi that was used at least once every six months during our year there. It wasn't what was inside the building that broke the deal; it was what was out there on the mean and strange streets of downtown Los Angeles.
Why we moved there is academic. More space for less money, a new environment, cool restaurants and various other meaningless enticements. I got sucked in; I was wrong, and I admit it. I've apologized to everybody involved, and I will continue to do so until I am either dead or forgiven. In the meantime, let me tell you about my downtown L.A.
Within a week or so after our arrival, there were ominous signs that the neighborhood was still working out its kinks. There were two murders in two hotels within three blocks of our new home. What I thought were firecrackers at 4 a.m. on the Fourth of July were in fact gunshots in front of our building. And there must have been something about me that made me a target for every heroin dealer on the block, like the fact that I was breathing.
I've lived in big cities before: Boston, New York, Toronto. I've been mugged, and I've seen things on subway platforms at night that I'm still trying to forget. But downtown Los Angeles exists in its own separate category. It's the low-grade horror movie of American cities.
At night it's an odyssey of sirens, police helicopters and, if you're unfortunate enough to find yourself out on the sidewalk, a particular class of zombie-like human being seemingly so devastated by drugs or mental illness or both that he or she can't even form the words to ask for money.
...One of our neighbors who became a good friend (she moved out last month) was groped for several minutes on a street corner in broad daylight by something resembling a human being. As she was trying to fend off this gentleman, a group of men employed by some jewelry stores near Broadway and 7th stood watching with amusement, never offering to help.
It was around this time that "For Rent" signs in other neighborhoods started to catch my eye. I also took the subtle hints from my daughters. "Daddy, I hate living downtown. Why did you bring us here? I thought you loved us."
But honestly, not everything was terrible.
I'll miss the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Central Library and the surprisingly wonderful Indian food from a restaurant located on the ground floor of a seedy hotel. I'll miss the view and having an empty Jacuzzi in which to store things. I'll especially miss Ricky the Pirate, a beloved fixture who can be found in and around Spring and 6th. His "Arrrgghh" will frighten you the first time you hear it at 1 in the morning from the shadows of a doorway, but after a while, you won't feel safe without it.
As I put my daughters to bed in our new, somewhat safer and more boring neighborhood, I tell them to "Sleep tight," "Don't let the bed bugs bite," and "Not everybody who reads the Bible screams it at the top of his lungs."
Mike Armstrong writes screenplays and television scripts in Los Angeles.
|
^ I notice the article that disses the hood has received more page views at latimes.com than the article that casts DT in a positive light. Maybe cuz of the saying in the world of news----& based on what alot of the public is drawn to----that "if it bleeds, it leads"?
|
|
|
Prev
Linear Mode
