CicLAvia

Several years ago, I spent a week photographing a stretch of 37th St. as part of a neighborhood documentation project of the area around USC. Where other photographers had diligently snapped structures and streets, I had cajoled residents into participating in the project and later gave them copies of the photos so they could see the final product. The soul of a neighborhood is its people, I had argued in defending my approach at the time. Without them, the structures are just a shell.

It seems as though each CicLAvia is attracting more and more people to the carfree festival that connects ten neighborhoods bordering and including Downtown.  After past CicLAvia's, we've asked where's next? But as CicLAvia has become such a powerful symbol of what Los Angeles can be, the chorus calling for a local CicLAvia is growing.

Just a quick thought before I turn it over. It amazes me that CicLAvia is so big that I miss seeing so many of my friends and Streetsblog personalities that I know were out there. Hope everyone had a safe day on the streets!

On Sunday morning, thousands of families will get together in Los Angeles to celebrate the temporary liberation of ten miles of city streets we call CicLAvia. Since this isn't the typical pack the kids in the car and go to the park sort of event, we thought we'd post our own family guide to the big event.

The relationship between "Occupy L.A." and the City of Los Angeles has been a relatively smooth one, at least compared to the one in New York City.  Protesters have peacefully assembled on the City Hall Lawn, some sleep on the concrete pathways at night as sleeping on the grass is technically illegal, and arrests have been few and far between.  The City Council has even passed resolutions supporting the protesters with somewhat better conditions and verbal encouragement.  Some of the Councilmen, first Dennis Zine, Bill Rosendahl and Richard Alarcon, and then others have even wandered "I know its common for protests to happen at Ciclovias?down the steps to talk with Occupy L.A.

Tonight, a series of Veggie Grill restaurants is hosting a series of fundraisers for CicLAvia at seven locations around L.A. County and Orange County. A 50% of all meals bought after 5:00 P.M. goes to the CicLAvia coffers which is a pretty sweet deal. Joe Linton, Joel Epstein and myself are all going to be co-hosting the one in Santa Monica tomorrow night. In addition our Smackdown Conversations on different issues, we'll also have some grab bag prizes including some CicLAvia schwag, a Streetsblog t-shirt and some Streetfilms DVD's.