In this entry of the Los Angeles neighborhood blog, we will cover Elysian Valley. Elysian Valley is a small working class neighborhood in Mideast Los Angeles (MELA), bordered by Fletcher to the north, the 5 freeway to the west and south, and the Los Angeles River to the east and south. It’s surrounded by Elysian … Continue reading California Fool’s Gold — Exploring Elysian Valley (aka Frogtown)
Los Angeles and Southern California‘s mountains have been in the spotlight as of late. The mountains are always there, of course, but a seemingly endless barrage of drizzle, rain, freezing rain, hail, graupel, sleet, and snow have painted our semi-arid landscape with brilliant strokes of green and swathes of blinding white. The unexpected precipitation has … Continue reading Mist & Iron — The Mountains and Hills of Metro Los Angeles
As most of my readers know, I’ve been trying for years to wrap my head around Los Angeles by exploring and mapping the metropolis. My first maps were hand-drawn on paper, starting with a map of Elysian Park‘s trails that I drew around 2001. I also have made quite a few Google Maps. The Google … Continue reading California Fool’s Gold — The Los Angeles Community Directory
INTRODUCTION Over the years I’ve drawn maps, painted maps, and created digital maps. For the latter, I’ve most often used Google‘s My Maps program for several reasons. It’s relatively easy, looks relatively good, has pretty good functionality (e.g. links to websites and decent customization) and because Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) is the fourth-largest company … Continue reading Pendersleigh & Sons Cartography — The Google Maps
Los Angeles was at one time home to the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan and the contributions of Japanese-Angelenos to history and culture are many. It was in Los Angeles that Hollywood created the first Asian-American film star. It was also in Los Angeles that a legal challenge in the Supreme Court re-shaped … Continue reading Pan-Asian Metropolis — Japanese Los Angeles
Club Tee Gee is a long-standing bar in the Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village. After the owner died in 2016, there were fears that it might be shuttered. After a sale and renovation, it reopened on 14 November 2018 — and so in the interest of research, I headed over for a few … Continue reading Swinging Doors — Club Tee Gee
INTRODUCTION The other day, I explored Elysian Park, because it was leading in the California Fool’s Gold neighborhood poll. When I created that poll, I hadn’t yet created Southland Parks. While Elysian Park is sometimes described as a neighborhood (e.g. the Los Angeles Times’ Mapping Los Angeles and Wikipedia) and there are a few homes … Continue reading Southland Parks — Visiting Elysian Park
Most metropolitan areas — at least the ones I’m familiar with — are divided both into neighborhoods and larger, multi-neighborhood administrative divisions or regions. Paris has its arrondissements, New York City its boroughs, Busan and Seoul have gu (구), Taipei has qū (區), St. Louis and New Orleans both have wards, Mexico City has municipios, and on. Their names vary, then, but the concept is generally the … Continue reading Los Angeles Linguistics Part 2: Regional Differences
Neighborhoods often take their names from significant features within them, which in Los Angeles are often major street intersections and parks. Neighborhoods named after intersections include Vermont-Slauson, Broadway-Manchester, Central-Alameda, and Adams-Normandie. Neighborhoods named after parks include South Park, Alondra Park, Cypress Park, and, of course, MacArthur Park. MacArthur Park, however, was for half a century … Continue reading Southland Parks — Visiting MacArthur Park
There are hundreds of bridges in Los Angeles County. They cross rivers, creeks, ravines, roads, train tracks, and other obstacles. If there’s a bridge you’d like to see me visit for this series, Take ’em to the Bridge, contact me to let me know or leave a comment.Trip, trap, trip, trap! ***** The Glendale-Hyperion Bridge … Continue reading Take ‘em to the Bridge: Visiting the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge
Eric Brightwell 