The following video “LA Light” was created by Los Angeles native and photographer/videographer Colin Rich. It’s simply stunning!
We had been at the pre-opening festivities for families and friends (oh yes, and press!) for Mohawk Bend, the newly renovated movie theater-turned 230 seat restaurant in Echo Park. But we still really, really wanted to check it out again as it functioned as a truly open restaurant, so we dropped in last night for the grand opening of Mohawk Bend!
It was definitely exciting – all the blogs and news blogs and websites that write about Los Angeles food, news, and pretty much everything covered this opening. We’ve definitely been keeping close tabs since the Spacecraft walls were up, shielding us all from the amazing renovations going on inside. So of course we’ll go and check it out on opening night!
But I’m realizing now that I might be a little too old to show up at a grand opening of a HUGE Los Angeles project at 9:00 pm, without any dinner in my tummy. Hence the reason for the “but” in my headline – this wasn’t a doom-and-gloom moment for me and my future obsession with Mohawk Bend’s beers and cuisine whatsoever. But after putting our names on the list, and waiting 10 minutes at the bar for a beer, and realizing I had probably another 10 minutes to go before placing my order, I realized I could just not compete will all the opening day traffic.
And that’s not a bad thing – it was a huge success and I can’t even imagine how crazy it was for the kitchen and the front of the house staff to work that many people, to make them happy and put on a good first impression. I just happened to be a little more hungry than I realized (okay, we went to Masa and had a delicious caesar salad, my fave, and got to talk with Manny, a favorite Masa employee) – but this will just be a lesson to me and any other hungry and hungrily impatient future Mohawk Bend-goers out there: Perhaps go a little bit early? Leave the 9:00 pm crowd to the younger ducklings… or at least scope out a seat!
So now it’s day two of Mohawk Bend and here’s the new news that you should take note of before going (apart from going early…):
Reservations made prior to this announcement are being honored, but because last night was so crazzzy they are no longer accepting new reservations. Instead, as the Mohawk Bend Facebook page announced earlier today:
Last night’s opening was so very encouraging! We so are glad to be in the neighborhood, and want to be able to accomodate walk-ins each and every night. As a result, we have decided to put a hold on reservations for the time being. This does not meet we are booked; just that much of our seating is reserved for walk-ins. Hope to see you soon, and thanks for your patience!
The new Mohawk Bend website no longer says “coming soon,” thanks to Echo Park graphic designer Heather Perlato who designed the site. Launched just today, the new website has the full menu for both booze and food, so check it out!
All that said, we’ll be the old people at the end of the bar, on a weekday, once we punch out from work…
Need to catch up? Read about Mohawk Bend throughout the months.
Apparently, very walkable!
With an average “walk score” of 75, Echo Park is #19 of 95 neighborhoods scored by the website walkscore.com. The green highlights in the map shown above indicate a high walkability zone (where “daily errands do not require a car”), while the red areas are less walkable (where “almost all errands require a car”).
Now, we love the walking thing – in a beautiful neighborhood like Echo Park, it’s wonderful, free exercise and we get to explore the many hidden stairways.
You may notice that the map, however, doesn’t show ALL of Echo park, missing the neighborhoods west of Alvarado and south of the 101, but you get the picture.
Click here to check out the full map and details from the Walk Score website.
Shield your mothers from the computer, this might be the most graphic thing we’ve ever posted on EPN… (scandalous!!).
We can’t help it, this is one of those headlines that makes you wonder. Curbed LA posted this little tidbit today along with the following head-scratching photo:
Photo from Curbed LA
A tipster sends in this photo of what we’re pretty sure is not a Smurfs promotion and writes: “As if Echo Park isn’t strange enough, this blue penis sculpture was just merrily sitting on the hellstrip on Allesandro at Whitmore this afternoon. It disappeared in just a few hours. Who put it there? Who picked it up? How strange is this place?” Pretty damn strange, EP! Your move, Silver Lake.
Perhaps this is a replica of the murder weapon used in A Cockwork Orange? Oops, I mean A Clockwork Orange?
Curbed LA, you are a cheeky and clever internet friend. We dig it.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, August 2, 2011) is the 6th annual Echo Park National Night Out. The theme: “Our Community, Our Future, The Power of Choices.” The purpose: To provide a safe community event with the goal of preventing drugs and crime in our neighborhood. From the EP National Night Out website:
The National Night Out is a program promoting neighborhood spirit and police-community partnership in our goal for a safer nation. The annual National Night Out (NNO) event, is unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TOWN WATCH (NATW). The purpose is to promote and strengthen community involvement, partnership with police and community, it is a positive tool used to enchance the quality of life, for a crime and drug free town.
Stop by and say hello from 5:00 – 8:00 pm in the Walgreens parking lot located at 1625 W. Sunset Blvd.
Free entrance, hot dogs, crafts and activities for kids and adults, and free give-aways. There will also be free eye examinations, chart reading and checkup for Glaucoma, along with check-ups for blood pressure, diabetes check-up and oxygen.
Master of Ceremony is Leonel Ledezma, which special appearances and speakers by:
Captain Williams Murphy from Northeast Police Division, Senior Lead Officer Bobby Hill from Northeast Police Station, the office of City Council President and Member Eric Garcetti of District 13, Alana Yanez (deputy for the office of Senator Kevin de Leon), District 1 City Council Member Ed Reyes, and Mitchell Frank (Echo Park Chamber of Commerce President and Owner of the Echo/Echoplex Club, El Prado, and Malo).
Visit the Echo Park National Night Out website for details on participating booths, sponsors, and how to get involved.
A Facebook announcement by the people behind Echo Park’s (and Los Angeles’) most anticipated restaurant opening has the words we’ve all been waiting for – “We are opening this evening – for real!”
There was a bit of confusion out there on the ‘nets about when Mohawk Bend would open – dates went from end of June to early July, to July 27, which was last week and was obviously not happening. As we’ve mentioned before, if you’ve ever worked or opened a restaurant, there’s a lot of kinks to work out (especially with the city permit office).
While we are confirming the exact time doors will open, expect to have dinner out tonight with an incredible selection of vegan (and non-vegan) dishes, cocktails, and of course over 70 beers on tap.
Be sure to read up on our past stories about Mohawk Bend:
- Old Ramona Theater begins transformation. July 2010
- Owner of new Echo Park restaurant speaks up. August 2010
- Mohawk Bend to open in Echo Park soon, “very soon”. July 2011
UPDATE:
We just received the official press release for the grand opening, which gives us the restaurant/bar hours as:
Open daily from 5:00 pm. to 11:30 pm Sunday through Thursday, and 5:00 pm to 1:30 am Friday and Saturday. Dinner will be served first upon opening — lunch and brunch will follow in the coming weeks.
In the press release, owner Tony Yanow says, “We’re so excited to open in Echo Park and be a part of the Eastside community. With Mohawk Bend, we are really hoping to create a neighborhood restaurant and bar and one that shows our commitment to California with all of the California-based products we use, from our 100-percent California beer, wine and cocktail program to the local, organic ingredients in the kitchen.”
Looking forward to checking it out again!
For the week of Monday, August 1 through Sunday, August 7
Monday
Monday Night Residency: Active Child, Therapies Son, Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Cassettes Won’t Listen @ Robert Francis, Boots Electric, Taylor Locke @ Bootleg Theater
Mikki And The Mauses, Stab City, Nana and The Happy Cats @ Lot 1 Café
Tuesday
Tuesday Night Residency: The Allah Las, Bleached (members of Mika Miko), Neverever, Dream Homes, DJ Tuna @ Echo
KXLU presents: Woods, The Fresh & Onlys, White Fence @ Echoplex
The Orion Experience, Think Alike, Random Patterns @ Lot 1 Café
Wednesday
IPO presents: New Maximum Donkey, Light Fm, Kingsley, Jon Lindsay, Garland, Backnbloom @ Echo Dub Club @ Echoplex
Count Fleet @ Origami Vinyl
The Swamp Coolers @ Taix Lounge
Live jazz every Wednesday night at 7:00 pm @ Downbeat Café
Thursday
Spaceland Under the Stars With Bixby Knolls @ Pershing SquareHeavy LA @ Echoplex
Jaxart: Basement Babies, Wild Ones (features members of Typhoon), Pageants @ Lot 1 Café
Grievous Angels, Bobkat @ Taix Lounge
Friday
Iron Room Presents Yob, Dark Castle, Ancestors, Of The Horizons @ Echoplex
The Donkeys, Red Pony Clock @ EchoClub Underground @ Echo
J. Irvin Dally, Naive Thieves, The Spires @ Lot 1 Café
Abe Lincoln Story, Kevin Killen @ Taix Lounge
Saturday
Bootie LA @ EchoplexFunky Sole @ EchoTouché @ Origami Vinyl
High Places, Sun Araw, Matthewdavid @ Bootleg Theater
Vum, Thurlow, Sue Scrofa @ Lot 1 Café
Jezzebelle, Toni Burke And Guests @ Taix Lounge
Sunday
Grand Ole Echo with Drunk On Crutches, Gal Holiday, The Vaquetones @ Echo
Smiths/Morrissey Nite with Guest DJ Jose Maldonado (from Sweet & Tender Hooligans) @ Echoplex
Jaberi & Deutsch @ Origami Vinyl
Visit the venue websites for more information on the cost and times of shows. This list may not represent all the musical events happening in Echo Park this week – feel free to add more events in the comment section. All events listed are subject to change at any time. New events announced for the week after this posting may not be included.
Another great post by The Big Map Blog recently shows a map of Los Angeles’ 1906 railway systems. Those systems weren’t lacking in Echo Park, so we’ve zoomed in on the BIG map to show you a little bit of our ‘hood back in the day.
The Glendale Line, which you can see in green, is a” Los Angeles Inter-Urban RY Co.” line that took people between Glendale and Downtown, and possibly even up to Burbank. The Glendale Line ceased to run in June of 1955. The path made by the Glendale line went past Echo Park Lake on the west side of the lake, through “Edendale” and then they had to cut through the hills creating what was known as the “Edendale Cut” (where the 2 freeway is now) and next to Max Sennett’s studio.
The black lines, which you can see going along Sunset Boulevard then up Echo Park Avenue, were the “Los Angeles Pacific R.R.” There’s an old Three Stooges episode of note that shows Echo Park Avenue and the old railway tracks on the road, and you’ll note a lot of existing stairways in this area so that people could easily access the trains from their hilltop homes.
The red lines note the path for the “Pacific Electric Railway Co.” lines, which on the east side of the Los Angeles River took passengers up to Highland Park and beyond to Pasadena.
And finally, yellow – the “Los Angeles RY. Co.” lines, which had a lot of lines into East Los Angeles and up into what is now Elysian Valley.
However, apart from probably different sized trains between each line, I’m not certain on what the exact difference was between each company that handled the different lines. LA Taco has a little more insight on the matter:
At that point, LA was an underdeveloped but rapidly growing city, and rail was the dominant form of intra-city transportation. The yellow and red lines on the map show the two main competing streetcar systems, Los Angeles Railway (Yellow Cars) and Pacific Electric Railways (Red Cars). At this point, both systems were only 5 years old. The Yellow Cars carried more daily riders, but the Red Cars extended farther from the downtown hub. At the height of the Yellow Car’s operations, the system had 20 streetcar lines and 1,250 trolleys, and served the core of LA in addition to Echo Park, Westlake, Hancock Park, Exposition Park, West Adams, the Crenshaw district, Vernon, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.
Either way, it’s disappointing that in the mid-50s and into the 1960s and ’70s these tracks were being dismantled. Surely there were politics, power and money involved, but you also can’t help but think about the emerging car culture in those times. People were probably more keen on that new Mustang than getting on a dusty old red car!
Click here to download the full map or visit the Big Map Blog website.
The cheese fridge at Cookbook
There’s only one reason why I’m not a vegan – and that’s because of cheese. There’s nothing better than a hand crafted, melt-in-your-mouth Spanish Manchego, or Humboldt Fog or… well that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s even better when you know your cheese – so Cookbook in Echo Park is hosting a few summer cheese classes for you to impress on your next cheese date. The classes are taught by Los Angeles chef, caterer and “cheesemonger” Amanda Brennan.
The class schedule is as follows:
Class 1, August 3rd, The Mystery of Cheese: including cheese basics such as types of cheese, types of milk, seasonality, how to purchase cheese and more.
Class 2, August 10th, Domestic Cheese: including how cheese in America came about, and the strides American farmers are making today to produce beautiful artisanal and farmstead cheeses.
Class 3, August 17th, Exploring France and Switzerland: including each region’s regulations, terroir, and types of animals.
Class 4, August 24th, Exploring Italy and Spain: again including each region’s regulations, terroir, and types of animals.
All cheese classes will run from 7-9pm on Wednesday evenings in August.
$30 for a single class; $100 for all four.
RSVP by emailing Cookbook at marta@cookbookla.com, and indicate which classes you are interested in taking.
Flickr photo by reddawg31
In conjunction with Navy Week in Los Angeles, tonight’s Dodgers game against the Arizona Diamondbacks will feature a flyover and parachute jump performed by the US Navy team, the Leap Frogs. The demonstration is also part of the Navy Appreciation theme that will be taking place at the Stadium this evening.
The game starts at 7:10 pm, so keep your eyes on the sky around 6:50 pm.
Also, in preparation for tonight’s event there will be a similar flyover and parachute jump earlier in the day between 10:30 am to 11:30 am.
Call the Neighborhood Focus Line at (323) 224-2636 with questions or concerns.
Check out a new show at Ballard’s Artwork Framing tomorrow, Saturday July 30, from 8-11:00 pm. They’ll be featuring new works by Diana Creighton, and performances by The World Record at 9:00 pm.
The Warehouse LA is holding their “biggest sale ever” to make room for some new stuff, so make sure to stop by tonight and through Sunday, July 31, to take advantage.
In a week they will also doing some remodeling, so expect a new look once the work is done.
The sale includes 40% off clothes and 20% off all other items in store, including housewares, furniture, and accessories.
Check out The Warehouse LA at 1197 W. Sunset Blvd.
They are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 am – 10:00 pm, and Sunday from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm
A giant lobster sculpture isn’t exactly your typical “pizza place, enter here” type of signage, but what the heck – it’s Echo Park. Unfortunately for this lobster, which has taken up residence outside of Two Boots on Sunset Boulevard for some time now, not everyone appreciates its grandeur.
Last November, the sculpture appeared spic-and-span in the following photo:
Mr. Lobster, November 2010
Last night, it’s obvious there are few appendages missing. Perhaps the work of vandals? I suppose noone appreciates true art…
Mr. Lobster, present day
Poor lobster…
While we’re pretty used to the Echo Park stereotypes by now, it’s still funny to read these breakdowns on how to spot an Echo Park hipster. And while I have been known to wear torn jeans and attend The Echo on occasion, I don’t necessarily subscribe to any specific “look.” Like my style, don’t take the following article too seriously.
LA Weekly takes a stab at the Echo Park “look” in an article titled, Six L.A. Neighborhoods With the Most Distinctive Fashion Styles. The purpose:
Why do we always see the same aviator shades on guys driving SUVs in Glendale or clusters of cupcake tattoos on pink-haired Culver City art tarts, for example? Is it the tipping-point effect? A subconscious monkey-see, monkey-do thing? And how does it evolve within certain places?
Here, we present some of these familiar neighborhood looks. Yes, some are stereotyped composites, but we’ve included a peppering of emerging trends that are moving these looks to new places.
On to our neighborhood stereotype, deemed the Echo Park Shagster (what happened to hipster?):
Uniform: Beards are for bears (big boys), but shadows and fuzz imply “I don’t care” best; retro-referencing T-shirts and tops in surfer, skateboarder or preppy style (Op, LaCoste shirts); pants cut off into Bermuda shorts; vintage white belt; street-beat black Chuck Taylor shoes; Ray-Bans with lenses punched out; script tattoo featuring words to favorite song or inspirational motto; beanie to cover up the greasy grow-out
Shops at: Origami Vinyl, Rose Bowl Flea Market, Salvation Army, legal marijuana dispensary
Hangs at: The Echo, Cha Cha Lounge, the Gold Room, Taix, Chango
Listens to/watches: Every band on the FYF Fest bill
Trending: Carry-alls of all kinds, from fanny packs (for the weed) to big manbags (to carry records or laptop for that DJ gig)
Fashion philosophy: Too cool to shampoo
Click here to read more LA neighborhood looks, including the “East L.A. Greaser/Goth” from LA Weekly.
Cat burrito.
This is the only event you’ll ever have to go to where admission requires that you’re holding a burrito.
Tonight at The Machine Project – Burritos n Beats (and not the other way around) starting at 8:00 pm in Echo Park.
Since LA is the city of burritos (remember this article?) bring a burrito from one of the many establishments just around the corner (El Flamin’ Taco, Taco Zone, Tacos Arizas, Burrito King, whatever floats your boat) and enjoy “cumbia, Nortec & LA-centric beats” from Julián of Culture Remixed.
And, just to drive this point home (from the event notice): Note: to be admitted to this event you must bring a burrito. Anyone with hamburgers or sandwiches will be turned away at the door.
Machine Project is located at 1200 D North Alvarado.