Echo Park reacts to LA Times’ hipster hysteria (hipsteria?)
The LA Times published an article last Friday about how Echo Park is now a “hipster destination,” and it seems to have caused a bit of a knee-jerk reaction amongst Echo Parkians and Angelinos. It must be a case of hipsteria?
For one thing, the article, titled “Echo Park evolves into hipster destination,” implies this is a new thing and that we’ve lost its Latino roots to this mainstream subculture. “Once a largely working-class Latino neighborhood,” the author writes, “Echo Park is now home to one of L.A.’s most densely packed night-life corridors, with more than 15 popular bars, clubs and restaurants drawing crowds each weekend and often on weeknights too.”
Instead of being a new thing, this actually has been happening for quite some time now, and is also really just another cycle in Echo Park’s evolution (okay, I’m actually starting to hate that word). Call it gentrification – another scary word – but this is a discussion that has been going on in Echo Park and other older Los Angeles communities for a long, long time.
Twitter mentions exploded after the article was published, this is just a sampling
One commenter on the LA Times article writes: “Actually, the headline should read, ‘Echo Park DEVOLVES into hipster destination’. I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about hipsters OR racists. Isn’t there a way to spiff up a neighborhood without invoking either one?”
The word “hipster” causes a knee-jerk reaction in itself, especially for long-time residents who have seen Echo Park “evolve.” The skinny jeans, worn out vintage boots, rollie fingers, American Apparel sweater, iPod-wearing, super trendy, possibly with a trust fund kind of hipster. The subculture has definitely been attracted to Echo Park, where artists and activists have for a long time been a part of the community. But are is the hipster presence really that bad?
And on another note, why give the so-called hipsters all the credit for improving the community? One commenter on the LA Times article writes (sarcastically, we hope), “So next time you see me walking down echo park ave… you remember that it was us hipsters that made this neighborhood decent enough to walk with your children at night.”
Well, considering I don’t see “you” at the community meetings with the neighborhood council, Echo Park Improvement Association discussions, Echo Park trash cleanups, CCAC graffiti removals, working with the LAPD, or actively involved in the community in general, I won’t give all the hipsters all the credit for making Echo Park safer for businesses. But I also won’t necessarily shame the hipster style or lifestyle for that matter, I just think that credit should be given where’s it’s due, and not to a temporary subculture that happens to be “in” right now.
This is such a ridiculous thread. You might not see hipsters at community mtgs, but you also don’t see them shooting people in the streets. Echo Park is finally (slowly) becoming a nicer place to live so we should all be thankful and enjoy it regardless of how it’s happening.
actually, i go to occasional chamber meetings, and participate in the nightlife and art community here. i’ve dropped in on both sides. what i’ve learned is that government money is pretty hard to get unless the area is proven to be viable, and for a long time it wasn’t. we didn’t even have street trash bin collection [business owners were expected to do it] or street sweeping on our part of sunset blvd [this is supposed to now happen quarterly next year]. this hasn’t been the work of any one group alone.
the thing is, the community groups, while very well meaning, all have their own agenda. the chamber is primarily occupied with storefront businesses and has almost nothing to offer someone with a home-based business. they also take a hard line on the taco trucks which, to my mind, represent an important part of echo park cultural history. they’re not for everyone. each group helps in its own way.
echo park’s gentrification is no different than any other, it started with the typical artist, bohemians and “hipster” types moving into what had been considered a run-down area for years. these types of people tend to do a lot of diy improvements, and while they’re not all business owners, they do tend to play an important part in beginning the revitalization process in dormant or declining areas. they helped make us viable–we’ve all worked to garner attention for better police protection, street cleaning and improvement services, and attracting business owners who believe echo park is a great place to do business. let’s not debate individual commenters or try to parse out who gets what level of credit. we are who we are because we’re all here working on our neighborhood.
i think echo park now does a great job of building a bridge–or maybe proposing a bridge–between people who are very involved in the echo park community via civic activity, and people who might not be, but contribute in other ways. seeing black and white information about neighborhood council meetings, echo park improvement association discussions & echo park trash cleanups right next to the weekly music listings and announcements about art openings reminds–me, anyway–that these things are happening simultaneously in the neighborhood. and that you better do both….
also, echo park is a neighborhood which–boasts?–tons of outspoken people of all ages–which can get rough, but i think is ultimately a sign of the health of the neighborhood. at least i hope it is.
anyway–thanks echo park now. keep up the good work!
There was a time when being a hipster meant you collected rare jazz albums….
Thanks Echo Park Fan! Everyone does have good points – this is a multi-faceted issue that’s really difficult to sum up in a short article. Heather has a great take on things and has eloquently described her point of view (feel free to write an article for us any time, Heather!). I’d also like to share an interesting quote from an old 1972 LA Times article we actually wrote about a while back:
“The Hip community calls it “The Other End,” the other end of Sunset Blvd. from the Strip. Barefoot hippies buy food with food stamps in the same supermarket lines with young deputy public defenders with mod clothes and lavish mustaches. Chicano street types dress in a uniform of neat jeans (or overalls) and clean white T-shirts; they haven’t learned, as have their Anglo contemporaries in the suburbs, to believe that dirt is somehow revolutionary.”
That’s what I mean by these sorts of debates have been for a long time part of the community.
I’ve been reading some well-written articles about the hipster hysteria, as I like to call it. These articles made me want to write about the sociological side of hipsterism, anyone interested should visit this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/Greif-t.html as well as this one: http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-york/8355/why-the-hipster-must-die
Interesting stuff!
thrifty and creative people in their 20s/30s who like music/art and like to be social. period.
I don’t think any echo park local can ever “thank” hipsters. While at bins the other day I overheard a group of white hipsters commenting about how they “saved” echo park. This is the type of attitude that makes locals hate hipsters. In essence, I stepped in and made the comment, “what would happen if a bunch of us filthy, gang banging, spics moved into your parents neighborhood?” and they responded with “that would never happen” and continued on praising their cult. Hispanics would definitely get the short end of the stick in such a situation if such were to happen, especially if we claimed to have “saved” the neighborhood. This place was built by locals, hipsters and their vegan tacos are seriously busting a modern day hitler move – minus the brutal slaughtering. With that said, many locals are getting fed up by our “superior beings (aka hipsters)” and are ready for them to grow up and become efficient adults in the community, rather than party animals who puke outside of my house in the middle of the night… And to be quite honest, I’d take gunshots and gang drama over colonialist hipsters any day of the week!
Saying every person in their 20s/30s who wear tight clothes and like art culture is a trust fund phony parasite is like saying that every Latino with dickies and a flannel is a gun carrying gang member
I agree with Fred (December 13th comment). This “Holier than thou” attitude that has been emerging to the “eastside”–or as many locals call it, Central Los Angeles (the Eastside is East LA, get it straight)–has been really getting in local residents nerves. A few years ago, in order to actually state that one is a resident of Echo Park, you gotta have been born and raised here. Now I am hearing and reading of how new residents claim to consider themselves true Echo Park (or the “E.P.”) residents just because they have been living here for the past year or so.
The Echo Park that has been in existence in the past 5 decades was formed by locals, predominantly Latino and Asian working class families. These groups of families started to enter Echo Park after informal racial covenants were uplifted and Anglo-Saxon families abandoned most of the community (Trivia, you know that street Bixel and Boylston in South Echo Park? that was exclusively white up to the 1960’s). The working class families managed to maintain the neighborhood and brought back commerce in the busy streets of Temple and Sunset. Yet, there was some problems with violence and poverty, but that is because there were structural conditions that allowed these problems to grow. There was a lack of quality education, social services, after school programs, and what have you in Echo Park in comparison to communities of the Westside. Yet, families and individuals took it upon themselves in getting involved with after school programs (e.g. El Centro del Pueblo and Central City Action Committee) and community re-enhancement projects.
I do admit that the community is “safer” than from any time that I can recall, but to say that Hipsters are the main reason why this has occurred is ridiculous and a slap to the face the community organizers, community leaders, and departments who have been striving to make Echo Park a better for decades.
On the contrary, you know what the new demographic has helped?? It has helped long time residents of Echo Park in leaving the community. Why? Rent. Rent has skyrocketed since the beginning of the Gentrification and it has forced not so privileged individuals to leave.
In one instance that I know of, the landlord (knowing of this new scene and the rise of property value in Echo Park) kicked out his tenant. Not legally per se–because the tenant did pay their rent on time and for years–but through a threat. The landlord threatened the undocumented tenant that he would call I.C.E.. This is not a single isolated incident, but there are cases out there in which a similar instance occurred.
I would like to thank Kelly for bringing up this article, and it is correct to give credit when credit is due.
You’re right about Echo Park was dominated by latino they were mexicans only, Filipinos, Italians and whites even before 1960, yes they were hard working people. But when the Salvadorans, Guatemalans arrived which they brought their dirty garbage, the whites left, they had their businesses in EP too. The filipinos left too, some stayed. The Italians also left. Thank God the whites are back, the community now is better. At least it’s alive, more happenings, it’s hip. As for the gangs, they’re the ones that ruins EP with their shootings, and for what? They’re killing their own brothers.
“Thank god the whites are back”. Isn’t that why you have Hollywood? Plus hipsters waited for the shooting to calm down or else they wouldn’t even be here,remember it can all come back so don’t get to cocky.
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