Image via the Eastsider LA

The Edendale Library Friends Society and several other Library Friends groups sponsored an all-day Save The Library letter and postcard writing campaign this past Saturday. The group is protesting Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s proposed budget which, if it passes, could mean further reduced library hours and staff cuts. Letter and postcard writing has been just a small part of a larger effort which included a rally this past Friday held by Save the Los Angeles Public Library. All this is happening during the Los Angeles City Council’s review of Villaraigosa’s budget. The Budget and Finance committee is expected to give their recommendations to the full council next week.

The Edendale branch has already switched over to a 6-day-per-week schedule and had its hours reduced. Save the Los Angeles Public Library predicts that Villaraigosa’s new budget would mean further reduction of library hours (including a 5-day-per-week schedule) and well as a reduction of library staff by as much as 30%.

If you’d like to make your voice heard, stop into the Edendale Library to pick up a pre-addressed and stamped postcard or visit SaveTheLibrary.org.

I was strolling around the eastern part of Echo Park the other day in search of some things to take purdy pictures of when an unusual courtyard housing complex caught my eye. Its use of brick as opposed to stucco and stoops with wrought iron railings made it look like housing you might find in New York as opposed to Los Angeles. Yay for random, cool-looking pieces of architecture!

I did some research and found out that this complex is called the Lento Brick Court. It’s a mix of storefronts (facing the street) and bungalow-style apartments built into the hillside that all face a central courtyard. It was built in 1928 by the architectural firm of Ellingson and Chambers. The original owner was an Italian-born hatter named George Lento who moved to the United States in 1899.

Read more

In case you're wondering, this is a Mother of Thousands plant. It's a type of Kalanchoe. You're welcome.

Today, Saturday May 8, Machine Project and CRITTER Salon will be hosting a plant cloning workshop entitled Clone-Home from 3:00 to 5:00 pm.

CRITTER presents Clone-Home, an afternoon open house for multiplying plants. Come with a few cuttings of your favorite plant(s) to share and trade with others. If you’re new to the world of cutting and growing, come ready to start your own little plantlets with a variety of cloning methods that will be demonstrated throughout the afternoon. No experience or green-thumb required.

Clone-Home will feature Denise King from the Exploratorium, Philip Ross and other growers from plant societies and local businesses. Clone-Home will host a wide spectrum of plant cloning, ranging from simple do-it-yourself methods to more complex recipes for making many from one, as well as music to clone plants by featuring machine’s sometime house band ing.

Enjoy some fresh herbal tea, mingle with fellow plant fans, and learn how to make your own home a little bit greener with your new buddies.

The workshop is FREE, and there is no RSVP required. Machine Project is located at 1200 N. Alvarado Street.

Today we’re going to delve into the shallower part of Echo Park’s past. “Chicken Corner” is the name used by many long-time and semi-long-time residents to describe the corner of Echo Park Ave. and Delta St. It’s where Chango has stood for the past six years. Why is it sometimes referred to as “Chicken Corner”? For the answer to that, I’m going to turn this post over to Jenny Burman and her excellent Echo Park blog, Chicken Corner.

Chicken Corner is the name of a place that does and does not exist. Technically, Chicken Corner sits at Echo Park Avenue and Delta Street, across from the Magic Gas gas station and Morton Avenue. For generations, this crossroads has been one of the nerve centers of the neighborhood. It has been a gang hangout, a drug market, an art gallery scene and now a fashion/indie rock scene, as well as a place where a lot of families have lived.

The place I call Chicken Corner is named after an Aaron Donovan mural that showed a bunch of unusual chickens. Hard-eyed chickens, one of them in leather, multicolored, painted in 1997 or 98 without a permit (I assume but don’t quote me on that) and occasionally tagged and otherwise assaulted. (At one point someone tossed about a quart of tan paint over it and at least one of the chickens disappeared forever.) The mural was titled, forgettably, “Moron.” When the Chango coffee house opened in 2004, its owners blasted out the mural in order to create a window on the side of the building.

In the late 1990s, Aaron Donovan, and his partner ran the Delirium Tremens art gallery, which was one of five storefront galleries at the base of the Del Mor apartment building facing Echo Park Avenue. The mural was painted on cinderblock on the Delta Street side of the building. It faced an open lot where chickens and goats lived. At one point, it was called a ranch. There was said to be a horse. This lot has been sold twice. Condominiums will be built there soon.

Recently, a friend of mine walked into Chango. He was wearing a Chicken Corner T-shirt. The clerk, standing behind the chicken mural mosaic, looked at the T-shirt and asked, “Where is Chicken Corner?”

Thanks to Jenny for letting me re-post her prose.

And now I think it’s time to throw this post into the Way Back Machine! The Eastsider LA posted this clip from a Three Stooges short that features “Chicken Corner” a long time ago. I thought I’d share it with you guys. During the last couple of minutes of the clip you’ll see a bunch of barrels rolling into a car-filled street. You see the sign that says “Ex-Lax”? That’s where Chango is today. That’s “Chicken Corner.” Enjoy!

*Just as a side note: does anyone know why Chango coffee is called chango? I thought that before they moved in there was a salon or something called Chango, but I’m not sure.