echo park news – Page 8

While you were sleeping: Weekend shootings keep Rampart busy

This went under the radar for us, but police need your tips so we thought we’d pass it along anyways.

Last Saturday night just before 2:00 am, Rampart officers responded to a call about a shooting along the 400 block of North Westlake Avenue and found a man with a gunshot wound in his leg (he told them it came from a car driving by). The man was taken to the hospital where he was treated.

Minutes later, another shooting on the radio at Glendale Boulevard and Park Avenue. Officers found an abandoned tan colored Mercury van on the southeast corner. Then, minutes after that, another shooting victim was reported to be at a hospital on the 1700 blog of West Temple Street. Unfortunately, that person died.

64-Unit Sunset Flats to replace site of old community garden

It seems all the Echo Park news these days can be summed up in just one controversial word: Development. We’ve got a 70+ unit senior housing center going up on Glendale Blvd. and Park Avenue, a battle with Barlow Hospital over selling land for a potential 888-unit complex, a rotting structure left behind by developers at Chicken Corner, and a 64-unit complex planned for Sunset and Rosemont Avenue. Those plans plus a lot of promises, promises, promises, and if the Durbin Project on Chicken Corner is an example of how things will go in the future, Echo Park residents will have to start getting involved, well, yesterday.

Sunset Flats, the 64-unit complex planned for Sunset Blvd. and Rosemont Avenue, was (unfortunately) approved by the neighborhood council late last month despite opposition from residents. The site will be where the former Community Garden was located (remnants of the planting still exist) and will destroy 6 existing structures (11 units) in order to build. The whole structure well stretch along 2223-2235 Sunset Blvd, and back to the residential neighborhood of 2216-2218 Elsinore Street.

Architect Jay Vanos has been a regular at Neighborhood Council meetings (attending eight meetings in the past 2.5 years), but did not accept invitations from the Echo Park Improvement Association, which also regularly deals with land-use issues, to meet with other community members and address additional concerns.

Despite the destruction of 11 units of housing to build the complex, the project would include 10 units for low-income residents. The most recent design change proposed at a Neighborhood Council meeting included stepping back the tallest parts of the two buildings so that, on street level, the height of the project won’t overshadow the sidewalk and seem, well, too big. There is also now parking as part of the project, but with access along Elsinore Street.

Mooi needs some new investors to stay open

Flickr photo via Pat/EatingLA

Daily Dish (LA Times online) tells us today that Mooi in Echo Park, which just opened up last May, may have run into some investment issues. Owner Stephen Hauptfuhr has told the online publication that he’s looking for some new investors, as the raw-vegan venture’s current ones are parting ways after November.

We recently reported that the restaurant had cut back its hours pretty severely, opening only once per week for a prix fixe multi-course dinner service and catering for the holidays. This week’s menu is a six-course Asian prix fixe dinner collaboration with LifeFood Organic on Wednesday, and later this month will host a special Thanksgiving meal on November 19.

But after this month, the restaurant could close for good if it doesn’t find some new source of cash.

Keep an eye out on Mooi’s Facebook page, or email stephen@mooifood.com with questions or for reservations.

November 9, 2010/5 Comments/by Kelly

Tag Archive for: echo park news