Streetsblog Los Angeles

Riders in South Gate give the CicLAvia Southeast event a big thumbs up. (photo: sahra)

Over the next week, you’ve got four opportunities to participate in promoting more livable streets in South L.A.

From 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday morning, Community Services Unlimited will be working with the USC Volunteer Center at two of their urban farm sites. It’ll likely be hot, so have a hat, sunblock, and some water and be prepared to work hard at creating an edible green space in South L.A. RSVP to LD@csuinc.org for more information.

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Because Community Coalition believes that successful civic engagement is cause for excitement, they have pulled together a fantastic line-up of musicians for their South L.A. Summer Power Festival this Saturday, from 4 – 9 pm. The sweet sounds of artists such as Aloe Blacc and Las Cafeteras will serenade you as register to vote and learn about the initiatives on the November ballot. Also on hand will be The Red Cross, CHIRLA, and L.A. Care Health Plan to offer workshops on disaster preparedness, deferred action for DREAMers, and health care reform (respectively). Bienestar, New Way of Life, and the CLEAN Carwash campaign will be among some of the other organizations present offering health screenings and information on a variety of services available to community members.

So, come, learn, and dance at Martin Luther King Recreation Center at 39th and Western.

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On Sunday, the 26th, grab your bike and a friend and head to Watts to participate in the Second CicLAvia Southeast ride. Building on the momentum of the first ride, which had over 300 participants, the committee seeks to continue expanding the horizons for residents of communities in the area.

“Now we know that [CicLAvia] is something that the community does want,” said organizer Mayra Aguilar. So, the next steps include continuing to create routes that cross through several of the Southeast cities at once and engaging local officials in the process. In doing so, she said, they hope residents and elected officials will see themselves as part of a larger community and want to work together to bring CicLAvia to the Southeast in 2013. Read more…

The Space Shuttle Endeavour. Photo courtesy of the California Science Center.

Maybe watching Curiosity land on Mars reminded you how cool space exploration was. Or maybe it was Mohawk Guy. Either way, all you long-time and newly-minted nerds out there will be thrilled to know that that will be neither a bird nor a mere plane you see overhead on September 20th. That will the Space Shuttle Endeavor hitching a ride on a NASA Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier on its way to LAX. Once it arrives, writes The Source:

It then will be transferred to a United Airlines hangar where it will stay until final preparations are made for its move on the morning of Oct. 12. The move to the Science Center will take two days, as the 58-foot-tall shuttle is transported under raised transmissions lines and across the 405 Freeway to Inglewood City Hall for an official launch ceremony Oct. 13. It then will be transported to the intersection of Martin Luther King and Crenshaw boulevards for a celebration of Mission 26. The shuttle is expected to reach the California Science Center in Exposition Park that evening.

The Shuttle will not be open for viewing until October 30, and viewing will require a timed ticket, according to the Science Center website. If you think that the 20 minutes you will get to cozy up to the Endeavour won’t be enough to get your nerd on, the Science Center is looking for volunteers to help welcome and manage crowds as well as answer guests’ questions about the exhibit. You will be able to tell visitors fun Shuttle facts like the Endeavour has orbited the earth 4,671 times and traveled a total of 122,883,151 miles. Just make sure you are 18 years old and can commit to taking one four-hour shift a week for a six-month period.

The map of the route for “Mission 26: The Big Endeavour” can be found here.

Help us spread the gospel of CicLAvia to Southeast L.A. this weekend. Photo: sahra.

It’s going to be hot this weekend.

If, like me, you live in an apartment, it is probably even hotter inside than outside. Which means you might as well get out and about.

Tonight, you could cool off with the Friday Night Ride to Hawthorne with the East Side Riders. Meet up with them around 6:30 pm at Ted Watkins Park (off Success St., near 102nd) in Watts, where they will be fixing up bikes for youth as part of the Parks After Dark program before they ride out.

Sunday, you have your choice of two events.

In the morning, join me and some of the South L.A. bike clubs as we support the push to bring CicLAvia to the Southeast Los Angeles area. The exploratory ride will begin from La Curacao Plaza, located at 5980 Pacific Blvd., Huntington Park, CA 90255. It’s a short ride — only about 5 miles to South Gate Park — but the presence of cyclists in significant numbers along the route helps organizers determine the viability of route and generate excitement for the event within the community. And it’s just plain fun. If you’d like to be part of that process, join us at La Curacao at 10 am. Want to go but not sure how to get there? I’ll be riding to the site from the Los Feliz area around 9 am from the polka dot plaza thingy and always welcome company; let me know if you want to come along (sahra@streetsblog.org)! More about the event is here. Read more…

Yesterday, the Peace, Love, and Family Ride rolled through South L.A., ably led by the Real Rydaz.

The first inclination after any major ride involving more than 100 riders is to post tons of photos of the happy cyclists. And while it was wonderful to see so many folks of all shapes and sizes rolling slowly, joyfully, and peacefully along major thoroughfares Vermont and Figueroa Aves., the best reward had to be the surprised looks of the spectators crowding in windows and doorways, waving, smiling, shouting greetings, and taking photos.

So, I started photographing them. They are not the best photos I have ever taken, by a long shot. But they are striking for the extent to which they illustrate the physical barriers to recreation that many of the residents face. The need for safety and security means bars and gates are prominent features on the landscape. Poor planning in these communities means that tall gates sometimes stand right outside people’s doors, limiting their ability to move around or experience the outdoors at their own residences as open and inviting. True, much of L.A. is gated and walled — this is nothing new. But the prevalence of such high gates ringing residences so tightly set me thinking about the mental barriers to community building and communication that the physical ones can create.

As discussed in my preview article on the event, we all are aware that a bike ride can’t solve everything. But, hopefully, more frequent group rides through such neighborhoods can inspire neighbors to see more recreational possibilities in their communities. If nothing else, residents’ sheer delight at seeing the riders certainly seems a powerful vote in favor of more such events.

Thanks to all that rode yesterday, and especially the Real Rydaz for their able shepherding of the group. For those that participated in the ride, photos of riders are posted on my facebook page. Read more…

Summer is officially here and South L.A. is celebrating in style.

Tonight, the East Side Riders will host their Friday Night Ride. The low-key ride starts in the Watts area and heads in a different direction every week. Check out their event page for more details and look here for my story on the night ride we did to Long Beach a few weeks ago.

Get your hands dirty on Saturday with not one but TWO awesome gardening extravaganzas.

First up, Community Services Unlimited is holding its last Garden Gateway to Community Health workshop of the summer. They plan to celebrate by sharing a pot-luck of dishes featuring recipes from the workshop series as well as making dishes together with participants that feature summer produce. While munching away, you will learn about crop rotation, why it works, and ways that you can use it in your home garden. You will be offered seedlings for your own summer garden. CSU asks that you come prepared to attend the entire workshop, which runs from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at their Urban Farm. You are welcome to bring a dish to share at the pot-luck. Please RSVP to Neelam@csuinc.org. The EXPO Center/CSU Urban Farm is located at the corner of King Blvd. and Bill Robertson Ln. (formerly Menlo Ave).

L.A. Green Grounds, a cool group of folks that garden out of the sheer goodness of their hearts, will be holding their monthly dig-in on Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. They will dig up neighbors Roberto and Sandra’s front yard and re-sow it with edible herbs, vegetables, and fruit tree seedlings. They break mid-day for a pot-luck lunch, so bring something to share if you can. Meet up at 3820 S. Harvard Blvd. and come prepared to work hard (in a fun way, that is) with hat, sunscreen, and water bottle. Find more information about the event here.

Don’t want to root around in the dirt on Saturday? Activists from SCOPE (Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education), the League of Young Voters Education Fund, and Cashmere Agency will be hosting Ignite L.A.: Uprising Remixed from 1 to 4 p.m. at Mercado La Paloma. The event seeks to highlight the innovative work of community youth organizers, cultural workers, and unsung civic heroes throughout the LA area. With an eye to the elections in the fall, the organizers will take stock of the issues facing South L.A. 20 years after the riots and engage area youth and residents on the role that L.A. can play in influencing national trends. If you can’t make it in person, you can watch the livestream at YoungVoterLive.com.

If you’ve had your fill of politics this week, head farther South to Watts where several organizations are reaching out to communities with messages of peace and wellness.

The East Side Riders (ESR) will be helping the Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) with the Vibes for Peace event. Held at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), located at 10950 S. Central Ave., the event will feature a dog show, barbeque, skate competition at the skate park there, and water gun/water balloon fight. Members of the ESR will be on hand to help fix bikes for the community. The event begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, the Watts Men’s Health Fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Watts Healthcare Corp. (10300 Compton Ave.) Get screened for cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, STDs, and other fun things. OK, maybe getting your prostate screened is not so fun but, hey, it’s all FREE. After making sure your parts are all in working order, check out the car, motorcycle, and bike show.

Sunday, tour South L.A. with the Real Rydaz. Then stick around for the South L.A. Peace, Love and Family event at 86th and Vermont. Shuntain Thomas of the Rydaz and other members of the group We Are Responsible People (WARP) are shutting down the block for a party focused on health, community, and peace. Registration for the ride (which is free) begins at 8:30 a.m. in Exposition Park. Riders will roll out around 10 a.m. and head south on Vermont to El Segundo Blvd., before heading back up to the event site via Figueroa. More details on the event are here. More information on how Thomas hopes the event can inject hope and investment into the community is in my story here.

Shuntain Thomas of the Real Rydaz and Francois Bar of USC and RideSouthLA talk about the possibility of working together on a mapping effort of the area. photo: sahra

“Every day, I’m learning,” Shuntain Thomas, one of the core members of the Real Rydaz, tells me each time I talk to him.

Learning how to harness momentum, he means.

The Real Rydaz have enjoyed a lot of attention this year. They were one of the first bike clubs that I met up with when I began covering South L.A., they helped the mayor celebrate CicLAvia, and they star in a video produced by Ashton Kutcher’s Subculture Club.

Their visibility (and work with infrastructure advocate extraordinare, Joe Linton) has been helpful in pushing the city to finally make good on its long-standing plans to stripe bike lanes in South L.A.

Thomas has bigger plans than just bike lanes, however. He hopes that the momentum the Rydaz have built over the year can be channeled into positive and sustainable change for the area.

For the past several months, he’s been working to put together this Sunday’s South L.A. Peace, Love, Family Ride, & Community Fair, a riding tour of historic South L.A. and community event complete with health screenings, activities for kids, live music, and food and arts vendors. Although the ride begins in Exposition Park (as a way to reach out to those outside South L.A.), it will pass through and eventually end up at the event site — the Universal College of Beauty, Inc. at 86th and Vermont — an integral part of the business corridor along that section of Vermont. Read more…

Urban Chicken on the Run. photo: sahra

As always, there is much happening in the streets of South L.A. this weekend.

First up tonight, a meeting in Huntington Park with the Ciclavia SouthEast Host Committee. If you love CicLAvia and want to support its expansion to other parts of Los Angeles, lend your voice at the meeting tonight and be a part of the movement. The meeting is from 6 – 8 p.m. at 6325 Pacific Blvd #300, Huntington Park, CA 90255.

At the CicLAvia expansion meeting tonight, you can meet up with the East Side Riders and join with them for their Friday night ride, which will take place after the meeting. I rode with them to Long Beach a few weeks ago, but the destinations change every week. Tonight, they are headed to Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey.

Saturday, check out Community Services Unlimited’s workshop, Intro to Backyard Chickens and How to Preserve Summer Vegetables. They will convince you that raising chickens is much easier and more fun than you might think and teach you the basics so you can try it out yourself. They will also offer some simple home canning techniques for preserving your garden’s summer harvest. For more information or to RSVP contact CSU by phone at 323.299.7075. The workshop runs from 9 a.m. to noon at their Mini Urban Farm at the Expo Center (at Bill Robertson Ln. and King Blvd).

On Saturday, If you’re in the Watts area, stop by the YO! Watts youth center (at 1513 103rd St.) to meet the YO Watts Rydaz. The new group, launched by Javier Partida, will take an exploratory ride through Watts. The ride comes at a critical time — just a few blocks east of the youth center, a one-year old child was shot and killed in his father’s arms on June 4 by a teen on a bicycle. Authorities believe the shooting was gang-related, owing to the recent escalation in tension between African-American and Latino gangs in the area. The more folks that can make it out to support the Rydaz can help to show solidarity with those in Watts who are affected by violence and help youth take back the streets for recreation. The Rydaz will meet up at 10 a.m. and should return to the youth center by 1 p.m.

Things to look forward to:

June 12 and 13: Learn more about State Regulations and Fracking. Does the word “fracking” give you the heebie jeebies? It should, given that there no regulation in place that protects us from any potential harmful effects of the practice. The more I learned about the practice in the Baldwin Hills (see here and here), the more disturbed I became. Get involved in holding corporations accountable for the drilling practices in the Baldwin Hills area by attending one of the upcoming workshops and helping shape future regulation. The Department and the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) will be on hand to listen to concerns and take recommendations. The workshops will be held Tuesday, June 12, 7:00 pm: City Council Chambers, 9770 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 and Wednesday, June 13, 7:00 pm: Cal State University Long Beach – Student Union Building, 1212 N. Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90815

Stop by TRUST South L.A.‘s office Tuesday, June 12 at 10 a.m. to talk about how to improve life for residents in the area of the Figueroa Corridor in South L.A. Did I mention the free coffee and cool folks? You can have that, too.

On June 17, the East Side Riders and USC’s ParTour team will be reprising their 10-mile ride through Watts starting at Augustus Hawkins Nature Park. You may have run into them at the Hammer last night and been handed one of the Ride South L.A. maps. Hang on to it and join us on June 17th! Event information is here.

July 1, the Real Rydaz will be holding a their South L.A. Peace, Love, and Family Ride and Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 86th and Vermont. The day will begin with a riding tour of South L.A. leaving from Exposition Park and led in style by the Real Rydaz themselves. And while it may be too early for you to be thinking about events in July, it is a great excuse for me to offer up a link to a new video from the Subculture Club about the group.

Have a great weekend!

Participants in the 5-mile walk & skateboard ride at the City Lites Inner City Sports Festival and Health Fair. Photo courtesy of Mark Johnson.

If you’re looking for things to do this Memorial Day Weekend that do not involve driving, you’re in luck.

Critical Minimum: A South L.A. Night Ride
Friday night, join the East Side Riders on their Friday Night Ride. It’s fun. Trust me. You want to try it. Read about my experience with the ESR on last week’s ride from Watts to Long Beach here.

Participate in Launching an Urban Farm on South Vermont
If you’ve got time Friday afternoon (from 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M.) before the night ride, learn about a new Urban Farm space being created near Community Build and help Community Services Unlimited (CSU) spread the word about it in the S. Vermont neighborhood.

Or, stop by the site Saturday morning from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. and join CSU apprentices and volunteers as they work with Community Build to create the new farm space in between a skate park and the Community Build offices.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend either event. For the Saturday event, bring water to drink, dress appropriately, and be prepared to work hard. CSU will bring fruit to share.

Where: 8730 South Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles 90044
RSVP: abhai@csuinc.org

Join City Lites to Celebrate Unity and Health in South L.A. Read more…