Departures is KCET's hyper-local web documentary, community engagement tool and digital literacy program about the cultural history of Los Angeles' neighborhoods.
Browse the mural by clicking on a thumbnail above. Then, click on the Departures "D" in the mural to view its related content below.
flickr.com/kcetdepartures
departures@kcet.org
YouTube.com/Webstories Reinterpreting Highland Park Mural
As we settle into the new millennium, Highland Park’s residents are actively embracing all the twists, turns and contradictions that history has presented to them and their neighborhood. Evoking the first area rail lines, a new Gold Metro line traverses the area; a master plan in place that aims to revitalize the Arroyo and return it to its natural state; a new and improved completely Audubon Park takes post-urban parkland back to natural basics; and a slew of young artists, galleries and coffee shops together are making Highland Park shine, mixing a neo-hippie culture reminisecent of Charles Lummis with conceptual post-Chicano art.
Index
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
When architectural historian Robert Winter coined the term "Arroyo Culture," he was referring a bohemian cultural explosion that had occurred Highland Park and Garvanza in the early 20th Century. Yet the same conditions that allowed the area to emerge as one of the most important cultural centers of the city exist in the region today, including a celebration of nature, community and culture, an a strong affirmation of multiculturalism.
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The Full Dollar Collection of Contemporary Art is an initiative that aims to reconsider the tradition of public art through a collaboration between artists, sign painters, and business owners. Originated in Ecuador by artist and anthropologist X. Andrade, the project examines how the fine art tradition intersects with the tradition of commercial hand-painted signs.
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Outpost for Contemporary Art is part of the burgeoning scene of galleries and artist-run spaces popping up throughout Northeast Los Angeles. Founded by Julie Deemer in 2004, this cultural outpost produces cross-cultural exchanges and interdisciplinary projects that blur the boundaries between art, social practice, and public life.
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Family owned and operated for over 100 years, Galco's Soda Pop Stop sets the standard for iconoclastic mom & pop shops everywhere. The store and its owner John Nese have become a symbol of longevity and success for both Highland Park and small business owners throughout Northeast L.A.
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The Flying Pigeon speciality bike shop has established Highland Park as a central locale for advocacy, education, and overall two-wheeled sophistication in the greater Los Angeles bicycle community.
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
With Good Girl Dinette, Diep Tran has opened a restaurant that reflects the sort of culinary hybridity that you'd expect to find in the polyglot tapestry of Southern California - an American diner serving chicken curry pot pie with buttermilk biscuit crust, grandpa's porridge (that cures all ailments!) and grandma's Pho.
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The York owner Ryan Ballinger works with neighboring businesses to support transportation initiatives and, as a future Highland Park homeowner, looks forward to a growth in the area's social amenities. With an eye on growing the neighborhood's historically vibrant business district, he strives to service the needs of the locals first and not rely on the often unreliable business of outsiders.
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Connecting the areas between East L.A. and Pasadena, the Gold Line has created a shared experience among the residents of varied areas, emphasizing the need for residents to coexist in public spaces, regardless of income or race.
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
The Dual Language Immersion Program at Aldama Elementary School is providing a useful bridge for the parents, staff and children in Highland Park during a time of cultural and social transition. It is enriching the academic and cultural lives of the students and creating a space where the adults can have a thoughtful and positive conversation about the demographic and economic changes taking place in their community
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
Throughout its hundred year history, Benjamin Franklin High School has reflected the character and people of Highland Park. It has changed and grown from a majority middle class Anglo school to a predominately working class Latino student body. Much like the larger community, the school has struggled to meet the needs of its growing population with limited support and resources from the District and State. Recently it experimented with breaking up into smaller academies that provide instruction for smaller groups of students in specific disciplines.
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After the 1992 civil uprising in L.A., artist Tricia Ward was given an opportunity to initiate a community arts workshop in Highland Park designed to engage local youth in the development and on-going implementation of community programs.
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
Many musicians have been inspired by Highland Park - Jackson Browne with "Lawless Avenues" and Eleanor Friedberger's "Inn of the Seventh Ray" comes to mind - but local band Artichoke and main songwriter Timothy Sellers are the first - and perhaps only - musicians to devote an entire album to it.
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
As Lummis, Percival and others celebrated community and experimentation in the age of industrialization, today's artists and thinkers are digging their hands into the dirt to create conceptual art, using yarn to mark territories - real or imagined, claiming city streets for pop-up gardens and parks, and painting - plein-air - the effects of industrialization on our built environment.
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Urban homesteading loosely refers to the formal pursuit of local sustainable living, urban agriculture, and a general awareness of DIY household consumption and recycling practices. This concept is nothing new to Highland Park and to many communities in Northeast Los Angeles.
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At the turn of the last century, Highland Park was distinguished by its unique natural beauty and winding Arroyo Seco. After WWII, as urbanization increased and the Arroyo was channelized, the community's ties to nature were almost completely covered by...
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
In a dense city lacking in public space, the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River open up the possibility for the creation of a unique "central park" that could knit together communities along the river's length, providing pocket parks at the edges, art projects to adorn the cement walls.
7 Reinterpreting Highland Park:
Just as the Highline in New York City was re-purposed as a city park once it had outlived its usefulness, infrastructure such as the Arroyo Seco Parkway could potentially be re-imagined to respond to changing needs and behaviors in the city.
Funders and Partners
Support for the Departures is provided through these funders as well as local community partners and viewers like you.
