CurbedWire: Pier Pointe Hit, Bike Locker Backlash
We’re off tomorrow for the holiday, but we’ll be back Monday. Have a good weekend!
MARINA DEL REY: It’s killing us trying to find out who owns this thing now. What is known: Pier Pointe, that Washington Blvd building development (formerly owned by Lennar) that was (possibly) sold at an auction a few months ago, is now attracting taggers. Ghost building status approaching? More photo evidence here. [Curbed Staff]
LOS ANGELES: A reader takes exception with all the rah-rah bike posts. Fair enough. “All this gleeful talk of bike lockers and hitches! I don’t know if this is newsworthy, but some of us stuck working in the Valley have a very different view of LADOT. We get to see the inept side. The L.A. County Bicycle Coalition administers bike lockers for Metrolink stations in the Valley. LACBC seems helpful and responsive, but the actual owner of the lockers is LADOT. As of late 2008, brand spanking new lockers went up. Hooray! Well, guess what. Here we are six months later, and LADOT has still not turned over the keys to LACBC. So the new lockers remain empty while eager bicyclists wait and wait (and drive and drive). So what’s up with LADOT? Are they completely unresponsive? A morning of phone calls got me nowhere. Any suggestions on dealing with this faceless bureaucracy? Hint to government agencies: if you want any sympathy in tough financial times, show some accountability! [Curbed InBox]
Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough: Staples Center Jackson Tribute On
Elvis Presley memorial/New York Times photo, August 17, 1977, Caption: A policeman standing on brick wall at gate of Elvis Presley’s mansion in Memphis implores crowd to stay away from gate so emergency vehicles can pass.
The Jackson family just announced that a Michael Jackson tribute will be held at Staples Center on Tuesday, with 11,000 tickets handed out, according the Los Angeles Times. This news follows as fans, who’d hope Neverland would hold the event, have to turn around from Santa Barbara and head home. Meanwhile, there have been small, fragmented Jackson celebrations around the city, which raises an important question about LA’s public gathering places. When the downtown civic park is built, will that space act as a place for tributes, marches, and rallies? And looking back over the New York Times coverage at the time of some of the tributes to both Elvis Presley and John Lennon (following Lennon’s death, about 600 people gathered in Griffith Park), one can see many parallels to what’s been going on following Jackson’s death. Celebration, some chaos. But tree injuries? Perhaps not in downtown LA. Those ficus are hard to get into.
NYT: 18 August 1977: Presley Fans Mourn in Memphis: Download pdf of story here
The story recounts fans going to Graceland to view Presley’s body. “Elvis Presley’s fans came to Memphis today by the thousands and thousands to get a last glimpse of their idol. They stood for hours, first in a light rain, later in the hot sun, waiting to see the plump corpse of the great rock and roll singer, neatly laid out in a cream-colored suit.”
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Doris Grant drove 400 miles from Dalton, Georgia, but was turned away weeping when the gates were shut and police began pushing the crowd back. Local television stations had erroneously announced that the viewing would go on into the night and mourners who had flown in from Chattanooga or driven all night from other points were bitterly disappointed.
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Responding to repeated questions about whether an autopsy had revealed any signs of drug abuse, a coroner said Tuesday that the only drugs he had detected were those that had been prescribed for Mr. Persely’s personal physician for hypertension and a blockage of the colon, for which he had been hospitalized twice in 1975.”
NYT, 15 December 1980, Silent tribute to Lennon’s Memory is Observed Throughout the World. Download the PDF here.
“By far, the largest vigil took place in New York’s Central Park, not far from the Dakota apartment building where Mr. Lennon was slain. At least 100,000 people, some of them waiting since Saturday, stretched across the concrete walks and grassy slopes near the band shell and mall at 72nd Street–a gathering that for many evoked memories of antiwar demonstrations held at the same spot in the 1960s.
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Some, of course, also were there just to be seen, or to drink beer and wine, or to smoke marijuana. Others were out to make a dollar, and John Lennon buttons and T-shirts were selling quickly.”
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Whatever impelled people to the park, they listened for an hour to music booked from giant speakers straddling the bandshell stage. There, Mr. Lennon stood in portrait, arms folded, wearing a T-shirt that said, “New York City.” Mostly they heard Beatles songs, including a few that had been rallying calls a decade ago. When the crowd realized that a number called “All You Need is Love” was beginning, it surged with a charge almost electric in its intensity.
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About 25 paramedics from the city’s Emergency Medical Service were on hand, but they, too, were not kept busy. One man reportedly was bitten by a dog, two people suffered possible drug overdoses, several people fainted from not eating, and a few hurt themselves falling out of trees, including a 10-year-old boy who fractured his ankle.”
LA Architects Making the World Better: Pugh + Scarpa’s Plans for the Lower Ninth Ward
LA Architects Making the World Better is our irregularly scheduled look at projects around the globe designed by LA-based architects. Want your work showcased? Email us.
Pugh + Scarpa shares the details of their Make It Right Foundation duplex design, the plans of which were just released yesterday. MIR’s goal is to sustainably build 150 homes in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans–the 14 duplex designs that came out yesterday are part of that mission’s second phase. Pugh + Scarpa says their plan, “[S]eeks to redefine the concept of a home into a flexible, multifunctional and adaptable space addressing the needs of today’s modern family, on a limited budget.” So what does that translate to? Large front porches accessible from both sides of the building, outdoor cooking and seating areas, internal doorways between the two living spaces, “and a platform just big enough for two rocking chairs to take in the life on the street.”
The house is five feet above street-level (one of several storm-resistant features MIR insists on), but the porch extends down to the ground as a way of integrating the home with the neighborhood. The design includes passive solar strategies to beat the New Orleans heat, like protective overhangs, a sloped roof, a double-height living room, and an exposed north side.
Pugh + Scarpa also explains why they are designing for the Lower Ninth Ward, a very lowland neighborhood: “The central concept of our new duplex home is the restoration of ‘pride of place’ to those districts hardest-hit by the hurricane.” There’s no word on when this particular duplex will break ground, but projects from this phase start construction in August. As of May, eight Make It Right houses were completed and 13 more were underway.
· Dreamy Houses [Curbed LA]
· Brad Pitt Adds LA Architects for New Orleans Building Project [Curbed LA]
High-Speed Rail Having Banner Day: More news re: high-speed. Via…
More news re: high-speed. Via the AP, today U.S. Senator Harry Reid and California Department of Transportation Director Will Kempton announced that the SoCal-Las Vegas route has been designated a federal high-speed rail corridor, a “a designation that endorses the viability of high-speed train travel in the region,” according to the AP, and makes funding easier to secure. Additionally, Reid told the Las Vegas Sun that the DesertXpress train to Victorville, a private project, is moving forward. “Officials hope to break ground in the first quarter of next year, with the project expected to be completed two years later.” [AP/Las Vegas Sun]
The Secret to More Real Estate and Mortage Leads
Do you suffer from a buy or die mentality? Meaning that if 100 people come through your website, and 1 registers as a lead, then 99 are lost. They died. Follow up is key and the best follow up is…
On the Market: Wellworth is Bank Owned and Skinny-Minnie
LA’s version of London’s skinny house? Located on Wellworth, two blocks south of the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood. Broker Lynn Borland tells us that the property began as apartments, became condos, and recently went from being developer-owned to bank-owned, though five of the 10 units are already occupied (the building went up last year and units first went on sale in late ‘08). Complications with the bank prevent Borland from releasing specific prices publicly, but he doesn’t dispute the front yard sign that says the two bedroom/two and half bath units are going for the mid-600s. Units are about 1,800 square feet and have two subterranean parking spots. Borland described the area as eminently walkable, which we have to agree with, though it only scored a 78 on Walk Score.
· 10911 Wellworth [Official Site]
Everyone Complains About Jet Noise, But Nobody Does Anything About It: ">ABC7 reports that Los Angeles…
ABC7 reports that Los Angeles World Airports has introduced a new way for people living near its airports to complain about the noise. WebTrak gives neighbors of LAX, Ontario International, and Van Nuys airports an online noise complaint form for area residents to identify loud (especially loud?) airplanes. Well, what else can you do? Santa Monica’s attempt to ban certain noisy types of planes at its airport was shot down by the FAA and the National Business Aviation Administration has come out against a similar ban proposed by Van Nuys Airport. Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport has dedicated several years and millions of dollars to a curfew proposal that would prohibit takeoffs and landings between 10 pm and 6:59 am. They submitted new documentation in May and are still waiting for the FAA to weigh in. To top it all off, no one wants anyone else’s bans to go through because it will mean more traffic (and more noise) at their airports. [ABC7]
Dwell Home Tours: Baxter and Work Houses in Silver Lake
Another look inside two of the homes featured in last weekend’s Dwell on Design east side home tour – above are pictures from the Barbara Bestor-designed Baxter House and the John Southern-designed and occupied Work House, both in Silver Lake. The Baxter House, set on a terrifyingly high hill near the reservoir, is what the architects are characterizing as a “virtual remodel.” Bestor and co inherited a foundation and footprint, and re-designed the home within those constraints. Not exactly a small footprint, either. The house was huge. Like, seriously huge. We were exhausted by the time we finished touring this house. The house has two distinct wings, with the “interiors…broken into several smaller more habitable zones.” The interior design is by Wendy Park.
The second house we visited in Silver Lake was the Work House by John Southern and his firm Urban Operations. It operates as both his firm’s office as well as his residence. According to the architect’s statement, “the boundaries between the familiar signifiers of domesticity are contaminated by the operative functions of work, resulting in a series of open, inter-connected spaces which contain the remainders of what we all view as ‘house’.” Yikes. Archispeak to English translation: it’s a live/work space. Using mostly off-the-shelf materials, the house served as a nice palate cleanser after the expansiveness of the Baxter House. And we dug the jerry-rigged valises that were turned into a lamp.
ยท Dwell Home Tours: Standard Architecture’s Hidden House [Curbed LA]
Habitats: The Traveling Circus Stops Here
Two clowns who perform in some of the most troubled places on earth practice in a walk-up near 128th Street.
Light Reading: What are you bringing to…
What are you bringing to the BBQ this weekend? A bottle of pinot grigio? A six pack of Tecate? Nah, bring a scoping report and you will be the life of the party. “The California High Speed Rail Authority recently released a draft scoping report for the San Jose-to-San Francisco segment of the proposed statewide high-speed rail system. The report summarizes more than 950 comments obtained from interested agencies, organizations and individuals regarding environmental protection, alignment and station location alternatives, and land use and property acquisition.” [Progressive Railroading]