Everyone has a series of New Year’s Resolutions – weight loss, healthier eating habits, quitting smoking, saying “I love you” more often. Ours aren’t that different, but we really want to get out and do more locally. That brings us to our Echo Park resolutions, perhaps you’ll join in:

Read The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse

The author grew up in the neighborhood and witnessed a much different Echo Park in the ’70s and ’80s. Everyone says it’s amazing. It’s on Oprah’s list, so it’s on ours.

Support local produce and sign up for the CSA

Community Supported Agriculture is a subscription service for locally grown produce. CSA came to Echo Park in fall 2010, but moved to nearby Silver Lake Natural Foods Market when Mooi, where CSA was delivering to, cut back its hours. Or you can also just shop at the Friday Farmers’ Market in Echo Park (closed today for the holiday but coming back January 7).

Climb all the stairs in Charles Flemings’ book

“Secret Stairs” is a great guide for finding hidden stairways in Echo Park and beyond. Of the six Echo Park stairway loops he offers up in the book, the toughest one looks to be Walk #15 : Avalon-Baxter Loop. With almost 700 steps and a difficulty level of 4.5 (that’s out of 5!), we will have to work our way up to this one.

Spend more time at Echo Park Lake

The lake rehab project is bittersweet – it needs to be cleaned and updated (though we wish they’d keep the historic qualities of the lake), but the two years it will take to clean things up will be horrible. Starting in April, they will dredge the lake and rebuild, so we don’t have long to enjoy its beauty, and it will never be the same.

Go to Stories more often

Stories in Echo Park is a really cool bookstore – free wi-fi, $5 mac-n-cheese Mondays, and a great atmosphere, I’ve really got to start spending more time there.

Publish more articles

With a full-time job and a wedding coming up, things are getting pretty crazy around here! But if you’re interested in joining in on the fun, send us an email with your information and what sort of stuff you’d like to write about. We’d love to bring more contributors in to Echo Park Now in 2011!