Boyle Heights

(This is the second part in a series on how police actions can make people feel unsafe in their own communities.  After all, if one can't be outside in their own space without fear of harassment, be it from the police or gangs, then how can a street be Livable?  Read part one, here. - DN)

(This is the first in a series of regular news updates on Boyle Heights Streetsblog will publish.  For those not familiar with this slice of the city, we hope this news round-up will help provide more flavor and background for our Boyle Heights writing.)

Un Solo Sol Kitchen, a Boyle Heights restaurant that specializes in Pan-American dishes, but adds an eclectic and healthy twist, is offering a 25 percent discount Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays to people that arrive to the restaurant by bike, public transportation, or on foot. Basically, if you want the best deal at Un Solo Sol Kitchen don't bring a car.

Cinco de Mayo is often celebrated in bars, with people donning red, green and white apparel, and drinking tequila. While people miss out the meaning of Cinco de Mayo - the Battle of Puebla anyone?- the best party this Cinco de Mayo can be found tomorrow night on a bike, and looking up at the sky.

For CicLAvia, figuring out how, when and where to expand has been its biggest challenge.  While CicLAvia is free to attend, it costs a lot of money to push past the current 10-mile route, closing streets to cars, providing police support and re-routing car drivers who find entrences and exits from the freeway blocked.  Despite CicLAvia's success, money to expand has been hard to find.

In Boyle Heights, CicLAvia is sometimes the first chance for people in the neighborhood to venture off the sidewalk and onto the streets on a bicycle, or provides local businesses an opportunity to get creative in the way they get involved in the ten and a half mile "open street" block party.

Though Hollenbeck Park is the jumping off point for many people in the Eastside to experience CicLavia, there are organized bike rides starting out on the eastside, and parties in the street itself, and intersections that will be teeming with activities both on and off the route. At the park itself, CicLAvia has a merchandise booth  and REI Los Angles hosts a rocking climbing wall.  Whether starting at the park, joining a group ride, or just planning a day in the sun by yourself, the eastside has a lot to offer.  Check it out:

When Rey Veitia works on people's bicycles at Bici Libre, he's used to the sounds of traffic outside the co-op.  Volunteering at last Saturday's ResuWRENCHion at Proyecto Jardin in Boyle Heights was a nice change of pace.  The car horns of Downtown Los Angeles were replaced by the sounds of children laughing and bouncing a ball at each other.  Veitia compared the atmosphere to a backyard barbecue.  "I'm just waiting for the drunk uncle to get into a fight," Veitia said.

At the press conference to announce the fourth CicLAvia, a Spanish-language Public Service Announcement for bicycle safety, the first of its kind in L.A., was also introduced.