Sipping coffee along a river may conjure up thoughts of a café along the Thames River in London or the Seine River in Paris. For Angelenos, coffee along the L.A. River is now a reality as RAC Design Build and Cafecito Orgánico have teamed up to hold a pop-up coffee shop along the river's pedestrian and bike path in Elysian Valley.

Named after the 24.7 mile marker along the river bike trail (between Coolidge and Denby Avenues) where RAC Design Build's back patio opens up to, the 24.7 River Café will be open from 7 a.m.-1 p.m. this Saturday, September 14.

The pop-up coffee shop's first test run took place August 24 during the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative's (NELA RC) planning and mobility workshop, and was a big success. In addition to workshop participants, pleasantly surprised bicyclists and walkers along the trail stopped by to indulge in expertly roasted artisan coffee.

The NELA Riverfront Collaborative is an interdisciplinary project that builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. KCET Departures is the media partner of the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. For more information visit the website www.mylariver.org

Most people driving on Riverside Drive have noticed the flashy "Prada" sign, as a kind of kitschy landmark on their commuting route. But if you actually dare to go take a look inside, it turns out that this ritzy sign belies what's found inside: a thriving local business that seeks to combine a mix of quality customer service, eco-friendly sales, and curious knick knacks, all tended to by an eccentric staff.

Coco's Variety Store began in 2005, and started dealing with bikes in 2007. The store benefits from being in Elysian Valley, a convenient location next to the L.A. River bike path. The owner of the store, Mister Jalopy, has gained notoriety for his support of the Maker Movement. This movement aims to enhance DIY culture, focusing on bringing back creativity and encouraging practical imagination, in a world where machines or smartphones can fix everything for you. Thinking out of the box seems to be the driving force behind Mister Jalopy's actions, and this reflects on the ways he does business.

Coco's is a type of full service shop that encourages such practices. Mister Jalopy explains, "we sell and rent new and used bikes, fix any kinds of bikes, build from used bikes, we buy or trade used bikes, we collect scrap metal, we sell snacks and water, we loan tools, sell used parts." According to their website, there's a little bit more, like "vintage French flags, Japanese figural pencil erasers, old toolboxes, books worth owning, bicycle tools, wicker bike baskets and bicycle cargo bags for the carting of fresh produce, the transportation of books of French poetry, and the rescuing of kittens."

The great thing about Coco's, and bike shops in general, is that this kind of diversity of services offered to the customers brings the community together by attracting different types of people to the shop, each with different sets of purposes.

With the summer coming to a close, the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative (NELA RC) summer intern cohort ended their internships with a celebration at Home Restaurant on Riverside Drive in the Silver Lake/ Elysian Valley area. Among those present at the end of summer celebration were Ryan Carpio from the Mayor's office and Mary Rodriguez from Council District 13, to award the interns city certificates that thanked them for their contributions to the NELA RC project.

The interns were recruited from local colleges and universities; some also represented universities as far away as UC Berkeley, MIT, Manchester in the United Kingdom, and Sciences Po Lyon in France. Their summer work in partnership with the NELA RC resulted in surveying close to 700 residents, 75 small businesses, helping coordinate community workshops, monitoring local media, and writing media stories to tell the story of their intern experiences in the field.

The community input they gathered through the multiple forms of engagement will inform the NELA RC partner work, which will result in sustainable economic development recommendations, a vision plan, civic engagement strategies, and neighborhood stories for the NELA RC project.

See links below for articles by NELA RC summer interns:

The NELA River Collaborative project builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. For more information visit www.mylariver.org



The L.A. River Revitalization Corporation (LARRC) is a non-profit organization that works to catalyze sustainable land use development along the L.A. River. The LARRC will establish an educational and community-based campaign that engages residents and business leaders in the creation of a thriving riverfront district.

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My name is Omar Brownson. I am the Executive Director of the L.A. River Revitalization Corporation.

The L.A. River Revitalization Corporation was created by the city of Los Angeles as part of the master plan that was adopted in 2007. So in 2007 the city spent 18 months to really reimagine what the L.A. River could mean for Los Angeles from a social, environmental, economic, and ecological perspective. And they created a couple of entities to then help implement that master plan. One was the River Cooperation Committee which was a group that is made of the city, the county, and the Army Corps of Engineers. So that was a governmental coordinating body. Then they created the L.A. River Corporation as a nonprofit entity to be a little bit more entrepreneurial and nimble to help implement the city's master plan.

So I think that the way the River Corporation looks at the L.A. River is how do we take an ambitious initiative and make it as real as possible for people today. So while we lay the groundwork for the ultimate transformation, we need to continue to show wins along the way. And so we have been doing that in three ways. One is pushing what we call Proof of Concept projects. So an example is our first major project which is a bicycle/equestrian/pedestrian bridge in North Atwater. This is iconic in design. It is the first cable stay bridge built in the 21st century in Los Angeles. It is an example of a public/private partnership. We have raised significant philanthropic dollars. This would be the first major philanthropic venture in the L.A. River while we have also leveraged public funds.

So the second piece of the strategy is aligning public policy around the L.A. River. The L.A. River has multiple jurisdictions and so how do we align those jurisdictions and align the public policy to really address the L.A. River in a more comprehensive way. An example of that as it relates to our work is the launch of Greenway 2020. Which is a movement to bring together Angelenos to reimagine what the L.A. River could be by the year 2020. That we could walk, bike the entire 51 miles of the L.A. River by the year 2020. The third area that we are pushing is to really strategically market the L.A. River. It is really helping to brand a point of view. And we want to have a point of view of the LAL.A.River which is about fun, it is a resource that we can use today. An example of how we are marketing the river is our Regatta Club. And we have been throwing parties with a purpose every month now. And so as we push out on the social media front and are engaging people in the online world, we are also engaging people very much in creating opportunity for people to come together.

No one can create the transformation of the L.A. River alone if we want to make the transformation happen. We have to make a bigger pie. And a bigger pie means we have to bring new people to the table to really make the investment. That's not just financial, that's in ideas, and that's in relationships, and that's in really activating the whole array of social change that is needed to get something that is as ambitious as this.

I look at the River Corporation's principle role within the NELA Collaborative as really taking the ideas from a planning stage to an implementation stage. The example is the Rio Vistas project. The Rio Vistas project is basically working with local high school students and engaging them in the transformation of their neighborhood through these cul-de-sacs. In the Frogtown neighborhood there are 27 streets that dead end into the L.A. River. Instead of these being cul de sacs with a fence that say "dead end", these should be new beginnings. These should be river views. And the Rio Vistas project is engaging the local youth as part of this. And not just planning, but creating shovel ready prototypes. We hired a landscape designer to work with us side by side so not only could we flesh out ideas and get the youth excited but also create ideas that are executable.

It is about intentionality. And that is essential in something as ambitious as this where you have people that care both locally as well as regionally, and even nationally. President Obama has funding for the L.A. River in his budget. So how can the NELA Collaborative bring a range of stakeholders together to intentionally bring the change along the river in a way that aligns not just local interests but national resources and interests as well.

So I think that we are in a unique space where while there may be a range of ideas there is a common interest that the investment matters and that the L.A. River is no longer a liability but an asset to the region. And so how do we be creative in that process to really bring forth those range of ideas into something that is tangible that we can touch. That leaves a legacy for future generations. That is the beauty of transforming Los Angeles, that's the beauty of real estate. That's the beauty of community development.

Part of what the River Corporation has been doing is taking a branding perspective, market oriented perspective, towards what change can look like. So a lot of how the LA River has been thought of historically is what are the water benefits, or what are the flood control implications. It wasn't about what is the human experience and how do people in the neighborhood, whether they are local youth or a commuter going down on a bike, what are they experiencing? And based on those experiences, we interviewed a whole range of people. One of the key themes that came out of that process was understanding the recreational benefits. There are very few places in Los Angeles that public space is really centered around public space. We have public space, often times in Los Angeles at the Grove, or the Promenade, or LA Live, and that's really where the public can come together but it is really built around commercial space. But with the L.A. River we can really bring people together around a public space in a very significant way. So what is the user looking for? If they are bringing their family, they want a place they can have lemonade, they want a place where they can use the restroom? Now with the kayaking, how do they rent a kayak? Bicycling is becoming more and more popular in Los Angeles so how do I rent a bicycle? Thinking about this L.A. River as a connector -- one out of every three Metro stops in Los Angeles is within one mile of the L.A. River. So we can literally reimagine how we move Los Angeles by using the L.A. River to connect to our major transit stops throughout Los Angeles.

The Frogtown neighborhood has been historically isolated because of the 5 Freeway and the L.A. River. In many ways, it is an island in Los Angeles and so as an island there is an opportunity to really get to know who lives there, what are they interested in, what would they like to see? We know the local businesses. We know the local residents. So it really has that granular level of attention to really understand what people want to see and how can we bring that to fruition. And that is really where I think the Frogtown Elysian Valley neighborhood is special because it is really where all the activity is already happening in many ways and it is representative and is maybe the leading edge of what the L.A. River can mean for a lot of other communities.

The NELA River Collaborative project builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. For more information visit www.mylariver.org



The USC Metamorphosis project researches the transformation of urban community under the forces of globalization, new communication technologies, and population diversity in order to inform practice and policy. Metamorphosis will develop and coordinate civic engagement activities that incorporate community-based research, popular education, media/technology, and evaluation:

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My name is George Villanueva. I am a co-investigator for the Metamorphosis Project at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. We are a research center that focuses on social media and communication research that analyzes the transformation of urban neighborhoods and cities due to population diversity and new media technologies. Our site of study is the neighborhoods and communities within Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and the Southern California region.

The USC Metamorphosis Project originally helped research and write the grant in 2009 for the HUD Partnership for Sustainable Communities. We were mainly brought in to help figure out some of the civic engagement research and practices that should go into this sustainable community plan.

So HUD was very interested in our collaborative model because we were not only working with the City but also pulling in the private sector, pulling in the non-profit sector, pulling in the media sector, the university sector, because most people when they apply for grants just want to focus on their own organization and at this moment right now with the changing administrations within the City of Los Angeles and with the loss of the Community Redevelopment Agency and the creation of a new economic development department, the city is looking at our planning grant and planning collaborative as a possible model to think about place based approaches towards and collaborative approaches towards planning.

It's really post 2000 where a lot of these more collaborative approaches towards planning are taking shape. It's still a challenge within the city and within the government because there is an inclination to work within their own fields but again, as budgets are shrinking especially at the federal, city and state level, city agencies are trying to find partners outside of the city to also focus on planning and implementing grants.

I think what we're doing with the Northeast Los Angeles River Collaborative is really putting forth and prioritizing listening to the neighborhoods that live around the northeast section of the river, listening to the small businesses in the area in terms of what type of river developments can actually benefit their existing businesses in the area.

The first goal is to really focus on the exploration of a riverfront district in Northeast L.A. The second goal is to take a comprehensive approach to planning and looking at not just land use in the area, but also looking at workforce development. A third goal, which is really making this planning effort very civic engagement based, in creating different types of popular education workshops and events that really try to bring in residents and local stakeholders to become educated and participate in the planning process so they can give input in these policy goals. Lastly, to look at a model of public media that can be locally based, very kind of hyper-local to think about how to involve the residents and local stakeholders again and in talking about the area and how to harness new media and technology toward sustainable community planning.

Most cities are cutting back on funds, public funds, so city departments are losing staff and there has been a problem where a lot of city departments within the city just work within their silos or within their own fields so it's important to think about not only getting those departments to collaborate together but to use resources and share resources toward a project but also thinking about public and private partnerships and partnerships outside the city that will bring in resources to focus on a planning grant such as the Northeast Los Angeles River Collaborative. That includes bringing in the non-profit sector, the private sector, universities and college and also public media, to really think about and actually plan an area and engage the community so they are involved.

I think the Riverfront district is important to L.A. first to really give L.A. its own sense of history, that the river does exist as not only a concrete channel but also something where you can also recreate, navigate, play at, but also realizing that it connects so many different neighborhoods and communities and really serves as a backbone for that connection.

As Benedict Anderson wrote in his very famous book Imagined Communities, even before a community or a nation becomes physical, it is first represented within the collective imaginary and is really represented within the collective psyche of folks so that's why really communication and media is really important because it provides the representations and the images and the sounds and everything that really feed into the imaginary of whatever we consider a physical community. So I'm really happy to see this collaborative really lead with communication, media and civic engagement because most planning and policy grants lead with heavy handed policy and physical development. We are leading with not only very social scientific ways to media and communication but also kind of humanistic and soft approaches to media and communication that can really build that imaginary for the northeast, river and also the northeast neighborhoods.

The NELA River Collaborative project builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. For more information visit www.mylariver.org

The Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative is comprised of a diverse group of partners from nonprofits and educational institutes, to private and public agencies from the city, county and federal government. However, the inner workings of this complex collaborative can easily be misunderstood as roles overlap and approaches conflict. With agencies and organizations that are at times so different from one another, it's a wonder how these partners have been matched.

New methods for urban planning are taking form through collaboration in community workshops, evaluations of land use and workforce, placemaking, and business surveys, to name a few. Partners are utilizing each others' strengths and supporting each other through shared resources. Community engagement has been embraced as key to the process, providing otherwise unattainable data about the communities within the study.

Below, each of the partners share what they bring to the table, objectives for study, and the insights gathered through the collaborative process:

George Villanueva, USC Metamorphosis

Gerardo Ruvalcaba, City of Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department

John Yonai, Tierra West Advisors

Christine Saponara, City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning

Juan Devis, KCETLink

Omar Brownson, Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation

Bruce Saito, Los Angeles Conservation Corps

Christine Cooper, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation

Sharon Cech, Occidental College Urban Environmental Policy Institute

Anne Dove, United States National Park Service

The NELA Riverfront Collaborative is an interdisciplinary project that builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. KCET Departures is the media partner of the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. For more information visit the website www.mylariver.org

"The accordions just find me ... if we left the door open we probably would not be able to walk through the room," Dave Caballero, the owner of Dave's Accordion School in Atwater Village, jokingly says.

Caballero opened Dave's Accordion School in 1971, and has stayed in the same storefront on Glendale Boulevard for over four decades. In the time since Caballero opened his shop, Atwater Village has changed quite a bit -- from a neighborhood with a high crime rate and gang violence, to one with thriving art galleries, hip coffee shops, and busy yoga studios.

"It's changed for the better I think. People come in regularly. I know almost everybody in the neighborhood and we all get along," Caballero says.

Remembering the early years of the store and when Atwater Village was a rougher neighborhood, he quips that he has luckily never been robbed.

Dave's Accordion School offers music lessons and dance lessons for children, in addition to being the only shop in Los Angeles that does in-house accordion repairs. In fact Caballero says that he now gets at least one phone call a day asking about a repair.

The NELA Riverfront Collaborative is an interdisciplinary project that builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. KCET Departures is the media partner of the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. For more information visit the website www.mylariver.org

The Kruegermann family's Gourmet Pickles and Sauerkraut business has been active in the Northeast Los Angeles area since 1965, and nowadays they have a broad customer base across the country who have a taste for their Old World delicacies. But the roots of the enterprise run deeper -- the business was first established in 1896 in the small German town of Luebbenau, about 60 miles south of Berlin.

In the aftermath of the post-WWII communist takeover in East Germany and the creation of the DDR, the well-reputed Kruegermann business was put in jeopardy and eventually shut down by the government, according to Greg Kruegermann, who currently runs the company along with his brother. This pushed the family to look out for new opportunities in the United States.

When the Kruegermanns arrived in Los Angeles the German community that was already established was critical in its help to ensure early financing to re-open the Pickles and Sauerkraut factory, as regular banks or financial institutions would deny them loans. They found their new home in Elysian Valley, where they did not have to travel far for familiar amenities: Kruegermann remembers the German language church on Figueroa Street, and the Saturday German school on Eagle Rock Boulevard.

The NELA Riverfront Collaborative is an interdisciplinary project that builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. KCET Departures is the media partner of the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. For more information visit the website www.mylariver.org

Last Saturday, the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative held its second community engagement workshop at the Elysian Valley community garden, a part of a summer series of workshops revolving around economic and workforce development and sustainability. The day's activities and discussions with the community approached food access within the study area, such as where and how far residents go to shop for food.

We spoke with Sharon Cech of Occidental College's Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) who led the day's events:

Justin: What is the UEPI?

Sharon: The Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College (UEPI) is a research and advocacy organization dedicated to creating a more just, livable, and green society through program work in food systems, the built environment, and transportation. I work on the Regional Food Systems program, which explores strategies to "scale up" the operations of small farmers in the region, and also focuses on building connections that will bring quality affordable foods to retailers and institutions in underserved communities.

Can you tell us about the food engagement meeting last Saturday?

UEPI wanted to hold an event that would actively engage community members and bring attention to their food environment, from how fruits and vegetables are grown in the garden, to how they taste, to where residents typically shop for fresh healthy foods.

In the Elysian Valley Community Garden, we set up three activity stations for attendees to cycle through. The first was a "garden learning" station, providing a gardening demonstration and lesson on the connections between an urban garden plot and the larger food system. The second was a "taste test" station, where attendees could taste and compare six different varieties of garden-fresh tomatoes to learn about the diversity of varieties and hopefully try something new. And finally, the third was a "food mapping" station where attendees plotted the types and locations of the places that they purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. This exercise was designed to both collect data and create a visual food map of the NELA area.

The NELA Riverfront Collaborative is an interdisciplinary project that builds upon the growing momentum of efforts already underway to transform the Los Angeles River into a "riverfront district" and to create a focal point of community revitalization. KCET Departures is the media partner of the Northeast Los Angeles Riverfront Collaborative. For more information visit the website www.mylariver.org

Behind the rows of unsuspecting middle class homes in Atwater Village resides a different kind of community, filled not with Spanish bungalows and apartment homes -- but with barns, stables, and horses.

The Atwater Village equestrian community is home to private horse stables and riding clubs, the LAPD Mounted Platoon, and Taking the Reins, a nonprofit that teaches "life skills to middle and high-school girls primarily through horse care and riding," according to their website. They also have an urban farming program, where the girls learn how to grow and cook their own vegetables.

"The ultimate goal is to get the girls that come through this program to emerge as leaders in their community and beyond," says Janiene Langford, Taking the Reins' program director. "A big piece of that is having an ownership of this area, an ownership of this land."

Unlike many equestrian or youth-focused nonprofits that teach independence through the environment and animals, Taking the Reins has one unique feature -- they are located right on the L.A. River.