It’s Los Angeles’ first “open-street” celebration day. On Sunday, October 10^th, 2010, 7 ½ miles of streets, from Boyle Heights to East Hollywood, will be closed to motorized traffic, meaning car-free, from 10:00am until 3:00pm.

The reasoning behind it is not only to have a large swath of streets car free, it’s also encouraging more people to interact with one another.

Essentially, call it what you want, the CiCLAvia organizers are labeling it a “social integration.”

No one needs to worry about riding their bike on the road, or skateboarding, or even rollerblading, and especially walking.

You can sit in your favorite restaurant and not worry about a car parking right in front of your view. You can say hello to the person sitting next to you while your kids safely ride their bikes in the street.

Ciclovías started in Bogotá, Colombia, over thirty years ago as a response to the congestion and pollution of city streets. Now they happen throughout Latin America and the United States, connecting communities and giving people a break from the stress of car traffic. The health benefits are immense. Ciclovías bring families outside of their homes to enjoy the streets, our largest public space.

Just think about our fair city, with traffic brimming from east to west and north to south. On Sunday, you can get a little taste of what life might be like with no cars, even if it’s only for a few hours.

With your help, CicLAvia, could become a regular feature, if this first event is as successful as it can be. The shop owners and restaurateurs are waiting for you with open doors, so just for today, let’s leave the picnic at home and help our Mom and Pop shops.

Here’s the map for CicLAvia:

If you’d like to volunteer for this wonderful event, I’m sure they can find something for you to do.

See you there……………………

With Armenians, Mexicans, Russians, Filipinos, Koreans, Japanese, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, and Middle Eastern residents all calling East Hollywood home, you can turn any street corner and hear a myriad of languages, eat at numerous types of restaurants, and shop at varied stores, all having a different flavor, texture, and heritage of its own.

Another way to look at East Hollywood’s size is to compare it in square miles. LA encompasses a total of 4061 square miles, while East Hollywood is nothing but a veritable island, comprising only 1.8 square miles.

But, as this public art map demonstrates, it’s a gold mine of public murals celebrating life, culture, heritage, history, and storytelling.

The bursting and bold colors of East Hollywood evoke the imagination–from the known, to other places and cities. With its rich textural art structure of different shapes, lines, forms, images, and drawings; you could be anywhere, in any city, and as far as your imagination can take you.

Art and its aesthetic are both organic to its subject, and to its own symbolism. The other natural beauty of these murals and art, is based on their images and building blocks of design, wherein lay the beauty of the process itself—the mimesis.

East Hollywood has heart, and a lot of it.

I’m proud to call this small portion of Los Angeles “My Town,” and remain amazed at the depth of talent, color, design, and sheer number and quality of its public art and murals. Every time I turned a new corner, I saw an impressive new artist’s creation; which makes for this project.

Walking this route is easy—I’m not done documenting this small enclave—because the area that encloses East Hollywood is relatively small. Click on either the flag to see a larger version of the picture, or click on the picture to see where it’s located on the map.

The different murals were created both recently and from a few years back, but nonetheless, as they say, enjoy the show.

Most people enjoy and appreciate museums and art galleries; but there’s something very exciting and inexplicably unique in having that museum on the streets, so to speak. When that public “museum” comes to us in the form of public murals, drawings, sculptures, and statues– I often ponder and wonder how much work, effort, and techniques went into creating any particular piece of Public Art.

For the rest, hop on over to MLAPA.org.

]]> http://www.travelinlocal.com/creating-a-michael-jackson-mural/feed/ 2 http://www.travelinlocal.com/the-history-of-a-theater-and-the-of-creation-of-a-cinemiracle/ http://www.travelinlocal.com/the-history-of-a-theater-and-the-of-creation-of-a-cinemiracle/#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:07:31 +0000 Lisa Newton http://www.travelinlocal.com/?p=6814

Located in East Hollywood and built in 1924 by brick manufactures, Henry C. Jensen & Sons, the Jansen Melrose Theater was supposed to be “a better class” neighborhood movie theater.

The Melrose Theater had a 2 manual, 4 rank theater organ, and ten-piece orchestra, so I can safely assume that watching “silent movies, wasn’t that silent.

History was made at the Melrose during the early 50’s when, Russell McCullough, the Director of Research and Development for the National Theaters, conceived and developed Cinemiracle, a 3-strip wide-screen process for showing movies.

It was a cheaper and better projector and viewing movie system than its then competitor, the Cinerama companies. Cinemiracle, being the comet that blasted at warp speed through the sky, was alas, only to show one movie, “Windjammer.” It was produced and released, using the Cinemiracle system. The world premiere of both the movie “Windjammer;” and the introduction of the innovative Cinemiracle system, was unveiled at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on April 8, 1958.

Here’s what the camera system looked like next to its originator, Mr. McCullough:

As typical in business, upon Cinerama’s management having caught wind of their new competitor, Cinemiracle, they subsequently bought them out–of course, taking along its highly prized lucre–which included all of the patents that McCullough had received for the Cinemiracle projection system, only to “closet” and shutter it forever. Perhaps McCullough received an “offer to good to refuse.” We’ll never know. But its lore is the lore of movie and cinematic history. One often ponders how many times this has occurred in the highly competitive and cut-throat business’ of the IT and technology sectors.

I remember our local Cinerama theater near my house. I recall watching their movies, and the stunning way the projection was domed, its wrap-around technique, and the tremendous impact it had upon me– including watching the Exorcist, and 2001, a Space Odyssey, at the Cinerama Theater.

Closing in 1959, the Melrose Theater was bought by the Ukrainian Cultural Center, who transformed the building between 1959 and 1961 into their main Los Angeles headquarters. Although the main orchestra floor was taken out and the balcony and projection suite sealed off, the building currently retains most of its original decorative features, both inside and out.

When Travelin’ Local, all is not what it appears to be.

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