Moving into the neighborhood three years ago, I was at first mildly intrigued by this old shell of a gas station along Echo Park Avenue (left).

Over time, I came to view it as just another languishing eyesore and wondered when gentrification would finally rid us of its ugliness.

Only now that it’s “finally” being torn down (below) have I learned that it actually boasts a unique claim to fame: On this spot in 1956, the go-kart phenomenon was born.

According to a former property owner (who still lives and works in the neighborhood), the lot once belonged to Art Ingels, who built his prototype “little car” in a shop behind the station. A 2006 Los Angeles Times article picks up the story from there:

“Ingels invented ‘the little car,’ which he dubbed the Caretta kart, but it was Duffy Livingstone who popularized the ‘go-kart’… According to Livingstone, Ingels told him that lawn mower manufacturer McCullough had recalled many of its lawn mowers because of a patent infringement. ‘So they had piles of engines sitting around for $25 apiece,’ said Livingston, who had the machinery to shape the metal tubing to build a frame. ‘Art put one on this little car. I thought that was right up my alley.’

Livingstone then teamed with other backers to build and promote Ingels’ clever contraptions for racing at the Rose Bowl and other venues. Today it’s estimated that there are more than 125,000 competitive go-kart racers across America and a million worldwide.

The Legacy Lives On

In recent years, a new off-road variant known as the Trophy Kart has also hit the market. Replicas of fullsize dessert-racing trucks, the Trophy Karts have become a popular way of introducing kids to off-road motorsports — so much so that sanctioning bodies like SCORE International have formed a competitive class around them.

And to think that it all began right here at a humble service station just a few blocks from my house.

Nowhere near a busy intersection, this quiet residential corner is among the last places you’d even expect to find a service station. Still, when a 1953 fire burned down the first structure that occupied the lot, the current shack was brought here from Venice as a replacement. It continued to serve the Echo Park community through the 1970s.

Thankfully, while it’s about to say goodbye to Echo Park, the station is by no means disappearing forever. Workers are painstakingly labeling its bits and pieces for reassembly at the San Diego Automotive Museum, where it will be fully restored as part of a historical display.

Now that I’m aware of its past, I’m going to miss the old relic. To me it’s become a reminder that you just never know the history behind even the most mundane of structures in your neighborhood.

Loathe as most bloggers may be to admit it, blogging is a passion, not a profession. The vast majority of us pound our prose out in relative obscurity. If we’re lucky, we’ll manage to attract a small but loyal following of readers who enjoy our wordsmithing. If we’re really lucky, someone in the traditional media will stumble across us, like what they see, and hand us that elusive Big Break: Exposure to a mass audience.

Well, Rebecca has indeed landed such a golden opportunity in the form of a guest spot on a new CBS TV daytime talk show, The Doctors, to premiere September 2008. According to network officials, the show aims to present viewers “reliable and fascinating medical and health advice, dispensed daily by a distinguished panel of five professionals. Rebecca will appear in a segment focusing on the pros and cons of early potty training.

My single male readers are likely smirking right now. Young mothers, on the other hand, are probably nodding to themselves with knowing approval. Weening a kid off diapers is no easy task — and no small achievement for either a kid or a parent. Not only is successful potty training an important developmental milestone, it’s the cornerstone of polite society. Without it, civilization would come to a screeching halt, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

OK, I exaggerate, but you get the idea. Parenting is important stuff, and if anyone can speak to the joy and fulfillment that comes from doing the “world’s toughest job,” it’s Ms. Lacko.

Rebecca has been a trusted friend and colleague ever since we first worked together in the trenches of Advanstar Communications. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of her parenting essays. She manages to personalize what she writes, balancing research, conviction and humor without appearing dull, preachy or contrived.

So much of what you read in parenting magazines nowadays seems fired by the narcissistic drive to prove oneself a good mommy or daddy. By contrast, Rebecca’s family-oriented pieces celebrate the child and the “little things in life” that make their world truly wonderful, happy and empowering. It was only a matter of time before the media discovered her.

Hopefully, this Big Break will lead many more to discover and enjoy her work as well.

Searching: Daily Motion
Keywords: “Los Angeles + History”

The Result: Daily Motion’s search engine must be broken. As noted above, I entered “Los Angeles + History” and this is what popped up. Do they mean to imply that this is a traditional Angeleno pastime? Likely not, since there’s no mention of the City of Angels anywhere in the video. (Although I personally maintain that L.A. bars do serve up the world’s best Margaritas.)

Whatever the case, it’s a fun change of pace — and an especially appropriate suggestion for Friday happy-houring after a very long week. Salud!

Originally part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles’ common lands, the 600-acre tract was officially established as the city’s first public park in April 1886. Today the green space offers stunning city views and is home to the Police Academy, Dodger Stadium, Grace Simons Lodge, and a former Navy / Marine Armory now used as an LAFD training center. Yet long before their appearance, the locale had already witnessed plenty of history and lore.

You might even say that Los Angeles owes its very existence to this place.

The historic Portola Expedition encamped near the park’s present-day Broadway entrance in 1769. Greatly impressed by the area’s natural beauty, they recommended it as the ideal site for the future City of Angels.

The town’s first Zanja Madre was also fed by a massive wooden water wheel situated along the L.A. riverbank nearby, and eventually by a small reservoir constructed in the park’s canyons.

Moreover, for decades treasure-seekers have believed that early pobladores like the Avilas and Picos buried their valuables in the park to safeguard them from raiding privateers and advancing American troops. No one has yet been able to prove the legend, which may also be connected to the story of a shrieking White Lady said to haunt the trails and hillsides. Some assert she keeps a lonely vigil over the lost belongings, while others claim she was the victim of a brutal post-World War II murder.

Then again, perhaps she’s an errant spirit from L.A.’s first Jewish cemetery, which once stood somewhere near Chavez Ravine.

Unfortunately, there were no signs of treasure, ghosts or gravestones when I snapped this photo with my trusty Nikon D70s just around sunset the other evening [1/50 sec. @ f10, 18-70mm lens]. With darkness — and the park’s curfew — closing in, I reluctantly hopped back in my Jeep and put it in gear, leaving exploration of these unsolved Elysian Mysteries for another day.

So here’s this week’s question: Why the change in monikers? How did modern Hollywood get its name? Click the continuation link for the answer…

The Answer…

Hollywood was named by its husband and wife founders, Harvey and Daeida Wilcox. They arrived from Kansas in 1883 with dreams of leveraging Los Angeles’ explosive land boom. After losing an infant son, they consoled themselves with carriage trips through the rural areas that still enveloped L.A. at the time. On one such drive they came across a 120-acre orchard near present-day Ivar and Hollywood Blvd., snatched it and some surrounding acreage up for a song, and began mapping out their new planned community.

The Woman, The Legend

Daeida is generally credited for naming not only the town, but its streets, and is said to have put a great deal of thought into choosing appellations that exuded charm. One legend says she named the community for the “Holy Wood” of a cross erected by Fr. Junipero Serra on a nearby Cahuenga hilltop in 1769. Others believe she was inspired by the wild Toyon “holly” growing in the area, or possibly the traditional, non-native Christmas holly that she tried to transplant to Southern California.

However, the most commonly accepted story is that she “borrowed” the name from a woman she met while visiting the Midwest. Sharing a train ride together, Daeida listened intently as her travel companion spoke glowingly of her own estate back in Chicago, which she called Hollywood. Completely enthralled, Daeida couldn’t resist adopting the whimsical moniker for her and the hubby’s real estate venture.

An Odd Twist of Fate

Ironically, the Wilcoxes founded Hollywood as a temperance town, offering free land to any congregation that would establish a church there. By the time it was annexed by Los Angeles in 1910, the community boasted a population of roughly 4,000.

Harvey would not live to see that growth, however. He died in 1891, after which Daeida went on to marry Philo J. Beveridge, remaining a prime mover in Hollywood’s cultural development until her death in 1914. Within a decade of her passing, the film industry was horning in on the district and radically transforming the landscape, much to the chagrin of residents.

Both Harvey and Daeida are buried at Hollywood Forever Memorial Park and, thankfully, appear to be resting peacefully… There have been no reports of any spinning sounds coming from their graves, despite what their “dry community” has become today.

Other Sources

• Los Angeles A-Z
• Ken Schessler’s This Is Hollywood
• Wikipedia

One of the downsides of blogging is posting an item you’re really proud of, only to watch it slowly creep down your homepage and eventually disappear into the Twilight Zone of your site’s archives, never to be seen again.

So why not resurrect a few oldies but goodies every now and then? (Especially during a busy week that makes researching and writing fresh content extra difficult?) The posts below rank among my personal all-time favorites and coincidentally all appeared a year ago this month.

If you’re a return visitor who caught them the last time around, enjoy reliving the adventure. If you’re part of a newer audience viewing them for the first time, all the better…

• Tarts and Misdemeanors — A glimpse at a deliciously sordid tidbit of history surrounding L.A.’s Hall of Justice.
• No Bull, The Ring Was Here — Uncovering a buried piece of L.A.’s Spanish-Mexican heritage in modern-day Chinatown — a post that will have you shouting Olé!
  
• Things to See and Tear Down in L.A. — Believe it or not, some readers missed the tongue-in-cheek tone of this post and thought I was really suggesting we bulldoze these landmarks.
• Parker Mystery House — Site of a particularly gruesome episode in our region’s history of sensational crime, murder and scandal.
• History, Murder and Intrigue in the 90201 — More murder and grave scandal, this time from the wood-paneled halls of Beverly Hills’ famous Greystone (aka Doheny) Mansion.

Next, I’ve finally completed the first chapter in my new book on the Feliz Curse. (Who knew that spewing 3,000 words could be so laborious?) Now it’s onto the next, which I figure I’ll have to tackle in two weeks’ time to stay on schedule.

Finally, I’m also wrapping up a few assignments for the off-roading section of Styling and Performance magazine, an automotive trade publication. (Something’s gotta pay the bills while I write and blog my little heart out…)

Meanwhile, all this comes in a week that Dateline>City of Angels has been accepted by BlogBurst for feed to newsrooms and media outlets across the U.S. This post isn’t exactly the auspicious, attention-grabbing first impression I’d hoped to make, but I guess that’s life in the blogosphere…

Searching: YouTube!
Keywords: “Los Angeles + Landmarks”

The Result: How times have changed! Modern downtowners fret about hailing a cab to get from place to place. Nineteenth century Angelenos had to hoof it in every sense of the phrase, as evidenced in the above 28-second clip captured by Edison’s newly invented Kinetoscope.

The Backstory…

During the 1880s and 1890s, L.A.’s population swelled rapidly to more than 50,000, severely taxing its cowtown-era infrastructure. In his online book, Letters From the People, former history professor Ralph E. Shaffer describes the hue and cry over downtown shabbiness routinely found in the city’s editorial pages during this period:

“Throughout the 1880s letter writers, many of them acknowledging that they were recent arrivals in the city, decried traffic congestion, unpaved streets, roadways blocked by piles of building supplies, inadequate street lighting, the lack of sidewalks or of clutter on those that did exist, the need for bridges across the river and for roads to neighboring cities.”

Shaffer adds that these “intolerable” conditions continued well into the early 1900s, with frequent accidents involving horses, trains and streetcars.

Hmmm. On second thought, maybe times haven’t changed all that much.

And in Other News…

… I may have been too hasty recently in branding East Coast transplants as a bunch of whiners. Here’s one who actually has found good things to say about his newly adopted City of Angels.

… Meanwhile, the OC’s Coast magazine has been caught red-handed mimicking (perhaps parodying?) an Easterner publication. Did Coast’s editors think New York is so far away that such blatant copy-catting would go unnoticed?

… Don’t you just love celebrities continually reinforcing La La Land stereotypes? This time it’s Anne Hathaway, star of the new Get Smart movie, placing herself into the gentle, guiding hands of a “psychic masseuse.” Still, she insists she’s just your typical girl next door in every other way.

… I can’t stand Starbucks coffee. And I especially can’t stomach the chain’s snooty baristas who inevitably respond to requests for a simple “small coffee” with a smug, “We don’t have small, medium or large. We have tall, vente and grande.” Apparently I’m not not alone in my disdain. Turns out a whole lot of people are expressing glee in the company’s brewing financial woes.

… Looking for unusual summer vacation destinations that save on gas? Consider Nevada, where you can take advantage of this rather novel pump promotion, courtesy the Shady Lady Ranch, which is offering $50 toward your next fill-up.

… Of course, many are opting to stay at home, fix up the garden, and maybe even add that new deck they’ve been contemplating for summer entertaining. Not a bad idea, as long as you don’t wake the dead…

The Scene: After leading two repo men on a high-speed car chase along a winding stretch of Sunset Blvd., down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis (Holden) ditches them with a quick turn into an old, rundown estate. Mistaken for a “pet mortician” by the mansion’s bizarre owner (Swanson), Gillis tries to explain his intrusion into her reclusive world as her identity begins to dawn on him…

“You’re Norma Desmond… You used to be in silent pictures… You used to be big.”

“I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!”

The Question: What was the address for this legendary exchange, (a) in the film, and (b) in real life? (Again, no fair Googling up hints.) Click the Read More link to see the answer…

The Answer: Norma Desmond’s fictional address was 10086 Sunset Blvd., which would put her dark lair in the vicinity of the L.A. Country Club and UCLA. The street number has even inspired a blog.

However, the actual mansion (and pool) used in the film stood at 641 S. Irving Blvd., and belonged to the second wife of millionaire J. Paul Getty. Originally built in 1924 by William Jenkins at a cost of $250,000, the estate was torn down in 1957 and replaced by what is now the Harbor Building (photo inset), formerly the Getty headquarters. Incidentally, the Alto Nido apartments that Gillis called home still grace the Hollywood landscape.

As a dark, satirical indictment of Tinseltown, Sunset Blvd. has won a treasured place in American cinema. For an indepth look at its legacy, see the Wikipedia entry. Additional background, quotes and trivia can be found at the IMDB website and the Noir of the Week blog.

Better yet, buy or rent the collector’s DVD and (re)discover for yourself why “no one ever leaves a star.”

• First off, I’ve added a detailed archive page that supports expanded views of post titles, dates and comment stats. (Take a browse… Even I’d forgotten some of the interesting stuff that’s been filed away and lost to time.)

• Regular visitors will also notice a new “Tag Index” to the right. Bloggers like to use tags in different ways, but here the plan is to complement my Categories. Think of the Categories as big file drawers and the tags as flags to help zero in on specific types of content within those drawers. As the week goes forward, I’ll be refining and expanding the index while adding visible tag coding to posts.

• The blogroll will also soon relocate from the sidebar to a page of its own. This will leave the right column looking a little barren in the short term, but will free it up for new items to be added down the line.

All these changes are the first steps in making Dateline>City of Angels content and navigation more accessible (and intelligible) from the homepage. This in turn will support new features and a broader redesign planned for later this year. In the meantime, thanks for your patience with any quirks and annoyances that pop up during the “construction phase.”

With Team Blue in San Francisco this holiday — and their 50th Birthday pyrotechnics being relegated to the Hollywood Bowl — I’m left searching for substitutes. In past years, there were some impressive illegal (I prefer the term “undocumented”) fireworks in the surrounding canyon that rivaled the official displays, but with gentrification and LAFD crackdowns, I’m not counting on any home-grown “shock and awe” to wow my backyard BBQ guests this time around.

So where to go? While living in Silver Lake, my annual tradition was to join a small but intrepid band of hikers to the Mt. Hollywood peak above the Griffith Observatory. That vista offered birds-eye views of practically every aerial display in the L.A. basin. However, since the 2007 fire (which, I should again point out had nothing to do with BBQs or fireworks), access and hours have been greatly curtailed.

Of course, there are similar sights to be had from certain stretches of Mulholland Drive, but the crowd factor can make finding the perfect vantage point tough.

And then there’s always this extensive list of official fireworks shows around the Southland.

Decisions, decisions.

One thing I do know… You won’t be finding me anywhere near a display like this.

Happy 4th!

The plan, which would allow taxis to pull over and pick up fares outside of currently specified zones, sounds like a good idea on paper — and downtowners are probably justified in their impatience to see it implemented. Still, I don’t begrudge city leaders for taking their time to fully consider the plan’s longterm effects on safety and congestion.

No matter how much urban boosters may wish for it, L.A. is not like any other city, nor can we merely snap our fingers and make it so. Taxis and public transportation may reign supreme in Chicago, New York, Boston or even San Francisco, but those cities have always been more geographically compact and were never built for and around the automobile as this place was. (Freeways, “Miracle Miles,” big, street-front department store windows and backlot parking malls were, after all, Angeleno innovations.)

Rushing to copy other metropolitan templates isn’t necessarily “farsighted.” Our region’s transit woes call for distinct, imaginative solutions that honor our unique character — not to mention the creativity and “out of the box” thinking that have traditionally demarcated the Angeleno “sense of place.”

That said, I’m not against the plan, except that judging from most of the comments on the local blogosphere, its biggest proponents seem to be: (a) cabbies who stand to make a profit, (b) tourism officials, and (c) transplants who come to L.A. to live its dream and then do nothing but complain about how it’s not the place they escaped from.

The cabbies and visitor bureaus I can get behind. The transplant whining is just getting old.

Answer: Next time you’re struggling for some useless cocktail banter, reach for this factoid… Echo Park’s Fargo, Ewing, Duane and Baxter Streets all boast grades of 32 percent. Of the four, Baxter is the longest and possibly scariest, with a roller coaster-like drop as it crests over Alvarado. (Trust me — I drive it daily.) In fact, according to the Echo Park Historical Society, early automobile manufacturers once tested the gearing of their latest models on Fargo and Baxter. Officially, however, California’s top clutch burner is Eldred, in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood, which city surveyors say is a 33-percent grade.