Echo Lake

Wild animals and their habitats are favorite subjects for oil paintings and fine prints. Now, in a rising use of outdoorsy decorations for interiors, some artists have added another medium to their repertoire--wallpaper. "Wallpaper gives people in the urban world an opportunity to see wild animals the only way they can," wildlife artist Glen Loates of Maple, Ontario, said. "Wallpaper is also a way for me to get the word out to remind people that we have a very enjoyable planet."

Trout fishing in the city is on the upswing, thanks to the Department of Fish and Game's expanded Urban Lakes Program. Citing a positive public response to the program it started last year, the DFG plans to nearly double the number of urban lakes in Los Angeles and Orange counties to be regularly stocked with catchable trout in 1994.

Your photograph of that young lad fishing in Echo Park Lake ("Catch of the Day," by Jeremy Bogaisky, Palm Latitudes, Sept. 17) brought back some wonderful memories. That young fisherman could be me or any of my grade school buddies some 70-years ago--except that in those days, fishing in that lake was strictly forbidden. Whenever we could scrape a few pennies together for a fish hook and a length of string, we'd head for the lake after school to try our luck at catching a minnow or a goldfish, all the while keeping an eye out for the park warden.

A group of residents will again be cleaning up graffiti Saturday morning. Organized by the Echo Park Improvement Assn., the paint-outs are conducted every other month and target primarily Sunset Boulevard businesses, according to organizer Yeu-Wei Yee. About 30 Echo Park residents and 30 teen-agers from the Los Angeles Conservation Corps work for three hours, painting over graffiti with supplies provided by the city's Operation Clean Sweep program, Yee said.

Two area golfers qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur with their performances in a regional qualifier in Bakersfield. Darren Angel of Northridge and Brandon DiTullio of Thousand Oaks on Monday were among six players who earned berths in the Junior Amateur, to be held July 26-30 at Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield, N.J. Angel, 17, who will be a senior at Granada Hills High in the fall, blew away the field of 113 players with a five-under-par 137 over 36 holes at Stockdale Country Club.

Super heavyweight Lance Whitaker of Northridge soundly defeated Germany's Erik Fuhrmann, 21-3, Thursday in a semifinal bout at the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia. Whitaker (29-3), the country's top-ranked amateur super heavyweight who played football and basketball at San Fernando High, will fight Russia's Aleksei Lezin on Saturday for the gold medal. Lezin beat Edward Mahone of St. Louis, 17-5, in the other semifinal.

Terry Noe and Jin Park, both of Fullerton, qualified Wednesday for match play in the USGA Junior Amateur Championships at Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield, N.J. Noe shot 73 for a two-round total of 143, four strokes behind leader Michael Henderson of Raleigh, N.C., who shot a 69 to go with an opening 70. Park had 75 for a 146 total, seven under the cut at 153. Jimmy Lee of Irvine finished at 155. The tournament, for players under the age of 18, switches to match play today.

Motorists on the 2 Freeway for the last couple of months have noticed a shadowy figure or two gazing into the distance from the hills above. Cardboard cutouts of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Gene Autry, bearing labels that read "Glendale Public Art Project 2012," have been a mystery — something their creator says is intentional. Justin Stadel, the Glassell Park resident and artist behind the cowboy cutouts, said he created the works so viewers could draw a spiritual feeling, a sense of freedom, from L.A.'s varied landscape.

If Woodbury University architectural students had their way, they would build a youth hostel at Sunset and Glendale boulevards, start a farmers' market on Sunset and post large canvases around Echo Park Lake to encourage people to paint on them. These are some of the ideas proposed by a class of fourth-year architectural students taught by Echo Park resident Dennis Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth posed the question of "What is community?"