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Lotus Festival 2010 is this weekend

Flickr Photo via citta-vita

While the Lotus Festival isn’t going to coincide with the blooming of the Lotus flowers in Echo Park Lake this year,  have to admit we are a little excited about its return this weekend. In 2009, the Lotus Festival was canceled due to budgetary cuts, and instead turned into the first Echo Park Community Festival. This year marks the 32nd celebration of the Festival, and is sponsored by L.A. Lotus Festival, Inc. and the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

For those of you who have never been to a Lotus Festival and are new to the area, it’s basically a medium-sized fair around the Lake with vendors selling clothing, jewelry, and other knick-knacks, along with a variety of festival-style food. There’s also a stage where entertainment takes place – we’ve seen some impressive taiko-style drumming, traditional dancing, and other great music.

All this is designed to promote an “atmosphere of understanding in which Asian and Pacific Islander communities in Southern California are brought together for two days of cultural sharing.”

Also in past years, there used to be a Dragon Boat race, where teams applied and paid to race each other in the lake. It seems due to some cutbacks, the races are canceled this year. From the Lotus Festival Dragon Boat Races website:

After much discussion and deliberation, HAP, Inc. has made this difficult decision to cancel the races. Since, we are a not-for profit organization, our primary goal is to provide scholarships to graduating high school students to further their higher education aspirations. Due to unforeseen complications and in the best interest for those most in need of our scholarships, this year races have been canceled.

Read more

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Share your skills at the Echo Park Share Fair

The Echo Park Share Fair takes place on Saturday, July 10, 2010 from 1- 5:00 pm at 1380 Echo Park Ave. (on the corner Echo Park Avenue and Montana).

Basically, the Echo Park Share Fair is a collective of people sharing their knowledge and services – artistic, entertainment, and other skills and services – so that community members can benefit from your knowledge. From the event organizers:

Join in giving and/or receiving goods, services, skill-sharing, meeting your neighbors, and FUN.

Free market, skill-share, potluck, community building…it’s in your hands.

Ideas for what to share: food, clothes, sewing, bike maintenance, cooking lessons, haircuts, massage, music, anything you imagine might be useful to someone else in the community.

If you would like to contribute a service, skill-trade, teach a workshop, or entertain, please contact the event organizers at ohjeepers@gmail.com. If you let them know ahead of time, they’ll make sure to save a space for you!

Check out the event website here.

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Cookbook to open on Echo Park Avenue this summer

Cookbook set to open at 1549 Echo Park Avenue

If you’re like me and don’t always make it to the Echo Park Farmers’ Market on Fridays (generally speaking, Fridays are often spent seeking out happy hour spots), a good alternative to the Market for good grocery shopping is opening up hopefully later this summer in Echo Park.

Located at 1549 Echo Park Avenue, near Chango and Chicken Corner, Cookbook is the creation of Echo Park residents Marta Teegan (author of Homegrown, gardener, trained chef, and teacher) and Robert Stelzner (who has experience working at green grocers in Southern California). Once open, you’ll be able to shop for seasonal fruits, vegetables, kitchen utensils and other basics like milk, butter, eggs, bread, as well as a small selection of prepared foods.

“Not only will we offer delicious ingredients to cook with, but we will also have a great selection of cookbooks to choose from, along with a beautiful selection of fresh cut flowers each day,” says Martha. “Organic herb and vegetable starts will be available each spring and fall. We will further offer a variety of events at cookbook, including classes, readings, and tastings throughout the year.”

Cookbook was offering a limited number of “subscriptions” through the end of last week. Contrary to an LA Magazine article and the LA Times/Daily Dish article today, the subscriptions will not solely fund the day-to-day operations of the store, but will more serve as an “opportunity for friends and neighbors to earn free groceries and to support a green grocer in our community,” she says.

So just to make sure the information is cleared up for anyone who had purchased subscriptions, here’s how it will work:

  • A $250 subscription will earn you a $300 tab at the store
  • A $500 subscription will earn you a $500 tab at the store
  • A $1000 subscription will earn you a $1200 tab at the store

The tabs have not set time limit, but are non-renewable once spent in full. Cookbook will email your balance at the end of each month, and it’s easy to sign up – just email them at info@cookbookla.com

Cookbook
1549 Echo Park Avenue
Open daily from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm
Everyone is welcome to shop at Cookbook

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Photo: Dodger Stadium Fireworks

Echo Park residents watch the Dodger Fireworks from afar

I was impressed to see how many neighbors came out last night seeking higher ground to watch the Dodger Stadium Independence Day fireworks. Last season the Stadium put on a fireworks show every Friday home game, this year the fireworks are minimal. The next show this season takes place on Labor Day weekend on Friday, September 3, 2010.

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Historic Echo Park Home Tours Returns

Flickr Photo by LA Addict (2006 Home Tour)

The Echo Park Historical Society will be reviving its Historic Echo Park Home Tours in November with “Eco Echo Park: Urban Sustainable Living.” The tour will feature properties that utilize “gray water systems, solar power, natural light and circulation as ways to reduce dependency on public utilities.” They will also be showcasing properties that use native and drought-tolerant plants, no-dig gardens and urban farmers that raise livestock and/or crops for personal consumption.

Holly Hampton, the Home Tour Chairperson, is currently looking for people to volunteer their time as project coordinators and researchers. They are still in the process of selecting homes and gardens for the tour, so they need some help scheduling site visits. They are also looking for individuals to do some research on the properties and take notes from the City Records. If you are interested in lending Holly a helping hand, you can email her at hhampton@mac.com.

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Photos: July 4th at the Lake

Cleanup at the Lake underway this morning
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Holiday Parking in Los Angeles

This gem of information popped up on LAist today about how the holiday parking enforcement is a little relaxed on holidays like Independence Day (today is an observed holiday).

Here are the details from the Department of Transportation:

Other holidays include New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Click on the screen capture above for the full PDF; call 311 if you have any questions.

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Tonight: Dodger Stadium Fireworks

The Dodgers were away last night at Arizona (we won 3-1) for 4th of July, but tonight the Stadium is putting on an Independence Day fireworks show when the team comes back to play the Florida Marlins. Here’s the low-down from Noel Pallias, Dodgers Neighborhood Relations Manager, from an email last week:

Please note that prior to the start of this upcoming Monday evening’s game against the Florida Marlins – which is scheduled for 6:10PM, there will be a flyover at approximately 6:00PM and a 15-20 minute fireworks show after the conclusion of the game. As always, the safety of those attending the event, our neighbors, the surrounding community and the firefighters themselves is of paramount concern to us. Therefore, as is our policy, should the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) request that we cancel the fireworks due to weather concerns, or any other concern for that matter, we will comply. Decisions on this will be made right up until the time of the show. Finally, LAFD personnel (including a water truck as is required by the fire safety code) and, as an added precaution, we will wet down the hillside closest to the demonstration area. Finally, Stadium management will be on site to manage the event.

…

Should you have any concerns relative to these events, please call our Neighborhood Focus Line at (323) 224-2636.

The Stadium did have tickets available for Echo/Elysian Park and Solano Canyon residents for the game, but all available tickets were claimed within an hour of the announcement.

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Independence Day in Echo Park

There are a couple of things going on in Echo Park for Independence Day tomorrow. Keep checking back, I’ll be updating events if we find more!

Echo Country Outpost
2:00 – 7:00 pm
Cost: $5 Door, $5 Cups, $1 Dogs, $2 Burgers

Lineup:
2:30 – Amy Blaschke, Jihan Lee and Spencer Lee (website)
3:45 – Fort King
5:00 – Eagle Winged Palace
6:15 – Verb the Adjective Noun

Now Showing new/old drawings by the Outpost”s own Brendan J. Missett. Also showing new photos by C. Hajek and E. Forneret.

Feeding Birds

30% off sale items. Click here for more info.

Closed

Masa, Allston Yacht Club and The Park restaurants are all closed on July 4th (AYC will be back on the 6th, Masa and The Park will reopen after July 6).

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Emergency Services in the Echo Park area

I’m not going to name any names, let’s just call her my friend. Well, during the U.S. vs. Ghana match, my friend may have gotten a bit too much into the spirit of things and may have imbibed a few too many alcoholic beverages. Then, once the game had ended and the barbecue begun, she promptly fell into a five-foot-deep ditch behind my house.

She was okay, but we still wanted to get her to an emergency room and get her looked at. That’s when I realized that, although I knew of several hospitals of various sorts in our area, I wasn’t sure where the closest emergency room was. A couple of places that I called requested that I hang up and call 911, but it wasn’t that sort of emergency requiring an ambulance.

I found some hospitals with walk-in emergency rooms, and I thought I’d share them with everyone:

Good Samaritan Hospital
1225 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 977-2121
www.goodsam.org

White Memorial Medical Center
1720 East Cesar E. Chavez Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90033
(323) 268-5000
whitememorial.com

USC University Hospital
1500 San Pablo St.
Los Angeles, CA 90033
(888) 700-5700
www.uscuniversityhospital.org

Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center
1526 N. Edgemont St.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 783-4079
www.kaiserpermanente.org

We have also posted this information in the Health Resources section of our Community Resources page.

Let us know in the comments section below if you have other suggestions or what your experience was like at any of the hospitals or emergency rooms (while no ER visit is a good one, some experiences might be different than others).

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Your Weekend Brunch Cravings

Flickr photo by mralenlin

Craving some eggs or some buttery potatoes after last nights shenanigans? Well, The Park Restaurant is closed today, and will be through July 6. But just down the road, you can get a great deal at Lot 1 Cafe on the corner of Sunset and Laveta Terrace. We don’t have full menu to post yet, but you can count on goodies like $6 all you can eat pancakes, eggs benedict ($4 for a la carte), and chorizo and cheese omelets.They are open from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm Saturday and Sunday.

Check out our menus section for other delicious ways to cure your cravings this fourth of July weekend.

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Sneak Peak: Echo Park Farmers’ Market

My cats and my Echo Park Farmers' Market Bounty

I met up with super awesome blogger Valentina of the newly published Eastside Food Bites tonight, and toured the Echo Park Farmers’ market for some tasty locally grown foods. As you can tell by the photo of my bounty (cats Niña, left, and Truck, right, couldn’t resist a sniff either), I’m on a vegetable kick. I also picked up an I Luv Echo Park sticker by local artist Bill Rangel at Beauty Box when I got my bangs trimmed recently (which they do for free when you get your hair done there).

Stay tuned for my article about the local foods at the Echo Park Farmers’ market! And check out Eastside Food Bites when you get a chance.

And yes, just in case you’re wondering, that is an enormous zucchini squash longer and fatter than my arm! Can’t wait to cook that one up (I’ll even share how!).

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A happy ending for one lost pet

Not the dog mentioned below, but gotta love that face! Flickr photo via rachel carr

Now this is a story I can get used to! A resident posted a nice story today on the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council Forum about a “Jindo” mix that she found late last month. Here’s her story:

I found a Jindo mix on the 19th and took her to Lacy Street [North Central Shelter]. The dog was scanned and no chip was found. I monitored the dog on line, but no one was coming to claim her. It didn’t add up to me, since the dog had an expensive collar, was in good shape, had been spayed, no fleas. I didn’t really want to foster Jindo mix.

I called after her available date to check her status and found out that her owner had come to pull her out, (let’s call the owner Laura), but they couldn’t release to Laura because when they took her in the back to microchip her, a chip was actually found with a completely different persons information on it. Apparently Laura had found the dog a month ago, but did not take her to the pound. The info on the chip was outdated, a letter was sent to the person on the microchip, they did not come for the dog, so now this girl has been pulled and is happily home with Laura.

Yea!!!! A happy outcome! The microchip is now updated and this girl is back with the person who really loves her. And I’m writing all this just to say that sometimes taking a dog to the pound does have a happy ending.

Of course, the question of why the chip wasn’t found on the first scan is concerning.

Thank you for your story! It’s also a reminder that it’s really important if you do have to take an animal to the shelter, you take time out of your busy schedule to make sure it gets to a home as we certainly don’t want any pets euthanized unnecessarily. A little personal time and effort goes a long way! But always remember – if you can hold on to the pet and find its owner, that’s always a safer bet.

I had an experience recently taking a dog I found wandering the Echo Park streets late at night to the same North Central Shelter, and things turned out great for him too. You can read about that experience here.

And, as always, support your four-legged friends in Echo Park by adopting through, donating to, fostering for, or volunteering at the Echo Park Animal Alliance!

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A hundred-year-old murder in Elysian Heights

This week’s Flashback Friday comes to us courtesy of L.A. Creek Freak, an incredibly informative and unique blog that addresses both the ancient and the modern history of Los Angeles’ rios and arroyos, many of which are currently “degraded and forgotten.” The writers speak out and seek to educate readers on L.A.’s ecology, believing that “our rivers and creeks are vital to our communities and our planet.”

A few months ago, Jessica Hall of the Creek Freak website posted a fantastically creepy story about a murder that occurred in Elysian Heights over one hundred years ago. The story came from an old L.A. Times article, found by reader David Kimbrough. Here’s the story, as summarized by Jessica:

On the evening of December 27, 1904, Columbus C. Champion, 67, committed fratricide, shooting down his brother Thomas in a “deadly fusillade…in front of the Elysian Springs bottling plant,” for whom Thomas worked as a water delivery man. Columbus, called “Lum,” lived on property next to the bottling company.

Lum had already been abandoned by his wife, son and father several months previously, and neighbors believed it was “worth almost any effort to keep on good terms. It is said he has terrorized the neighborhood on numerous occasions…” Earlier in the day, he fired BB shot at his niece, threatening to kill the entire family, which precipitated the deadly confrontation with his brother.

Thomas, returning to the Elysian Springs Bottling Company, rode his wagon with his son Sam past Lum’s property:

“At once the old man rushed out of the house and began to abuse his brother. Sam Champion, fearing for his father’s safety, secured a revolver from the home, and started up to where his father and uncle were quarreling.  The younger brother (Thomas) was trying to ward off the attacks of Lum, and just as Sam arrived his father told Lum to go back into his own lot and leave him alone, or he would knock him down.  With an oath, Lum started toward the cottage, crying out that he would kill the whole outfit. He quickly reappeared with his gun, and when within twenty feet of this brother fired the load of shot into his breast. Thomas sank to the ground and expired almost immediately.”

The villain was unrepentant and actually joking with the police who carried him away.

Creepy! So if you’re ever wondering about possible hauntings in Elsyian Heights, this might be a good place to start.

Also, how cool is it that there was a bottling plant in Elysian Heights?

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Echo Park Crime Updates

At last night’s Echo Park Improvement Association’s Town Hall meeting, we had a rep from both the Northeast and Rampart Divisions to provide us with an update on crime in the Echo Park area. Some notes worthy of mention are:

  • Officer Hill says the Yankee Game weekend enforcement went well, that they were citing people for public drinking as early as 10:00 am in Elysian Park. Northeast also had a DUI task force in place near stadium exits for drunk drivers.
  • Two significant arrests were made Wednesday in relation to recent burglaries (one on Clifford by the elementary school). Approximately four or five people retrieved their stolen property from that bust.
  • From the Rampart Division, there are no new updates on the robbery at the Higher Path Dispensary last week.
  • July 4th is on Sunday, and we were reminded that fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles. Anyone who has lived in Echo Park during a 4th of July knows the havoc that goes on at the Lake. Officers will be responding to calls if residents notify 311 (or 911 if it’s an emergency) of any illegal activity.
  • Update on the shooting at the Echo a couple of weeks ago: the Rampart officer at the meeting last night says apparently someone had been denied entry into the club, so he came back and shot at a security guard.

And from Captain Bill Murphy, we have some information to share from the Northeast Division E-Policing Newsletter we received yesterday:

National Night Out will take place in Echo Park at the Walgreens on Tuesday, August 3 from 5-8:00 pm. “National Night Out is a fun and informative event with entertainment provided at each site.”

Dodger Night: “On Wednesday July 28, 2010, from 6-9:00 pm at the Dodger Stadium Stadium Club overlooking the right field and first base lines. The Dodgers recently renovation the Stadium Club and it now has an overhang deck with a spectacular view of the ballpark. Everyone is invited to this event and free parking will be provided in lot L. Come hear from your Captains, SLOs, and elected officials regarding the ‘State of Northeast Area.’ Make sure you get there early as last year several hundred people attended this event.”

Neighborhood Crime Update:

Echo Park

Over the last week the crime looks good. Over the past 28 days there are some property crimes occuring along the Sunset corridor mostly from late PM hours through daybreak (a few car break-in and GTAs). We had a bad burglary problem that I spoke about in the last newsletter. This has been cleaned up tremendously with several arrests of burglars over the past four weeks.

Elysian Valley

Very clear over the past week – only a few property crimes over the past 28 days.

You can contact Captain Murphy at 26152@lapd.lacity.org. To sign up for the E-Policing Newsletter, go to lapdonline.org. Then click on E-Policing in the navigation. All you have to do is provide your email address and you’re set!

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