Echo Park

Sylbrian Calimpusan learned to sleep through the late-night foot-stomping, tambourine-shaking and speaking in tongues. He got used to the unexpected visitors, such as the woman from Montana who showed up before dawn with kids in tow, asking for permission to come in and pray. "They drove so far," Calimpusan recalls. "We couldn't say 'no.' " If growing up in the little house brought inconveniences, they were small prices to pay for the privilege of dwelling in a holy place that helped stoke his faith.

A bleary-eyed Chui Hom tripped down her apartment stairs at 8 a.m. sharp and started her car. She didn't get far. The vehicle inched across Riverside Terrace, a narrow one-way lane in Echo Park, and stopped on the other side. Hom is part of Los Angeles' Great Street-Sweeping Do-Si-Do. Twice a week, residents of Koreatown, Pico-Union and other neighborhoods with more apartments than parking spaces race to their cars, hoping to move them before parking enforcement officers arrive and ticket them for blocking street sweepers.

Suddenly glasses seem to be all the rage. Scenesters are wearing oversized frames at the club, Tina Fey flaunts sexy librarian-style specs, and Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z have launched remarkable collections of Clark Kent-style eyewear. And, sure, you can go to LensCrafters to buy a serviceable pair in a cafeteria-type setting, or to Oliver Peoples for some high-class panache. But if funky boutique is more your style, a couple of independent spots in town are definitely not from the cookie-cutter.

Most of us are too plump and are overly fond of snacks, fast food - and food in general. So why did two lean young women who dine on smoothies and organic fruits and vegetables (how unimpeachable does that sound) seek help cleaning up their act? May Haduong, 33, and Frances Motiwalla, 34, just had this sense they were slaves to each passing fad (greens! organic! flaxseed! gluten-free!) and were building up their eating rules in a haphazard, unscientific way. "We've sort of made it up in our heads," Haduong says: whirring up slurries of kale, beet greens, frozen fruits and celery in the blender in their pint-sized kitchen twice a day (down to once a day when Motiwalla couldn't take it anymore)

Much of the real estate market is still stuck in deep winter, but Highland Park is showing signs of spring. Investors have descended on this and other communities in Northeast Los Angeles, snatching up bargain-priced Craftsman homes located within an easy distance of downtown. It's an echo of the housing boom, only this time speculators are drawn by the crash in prices. Attracted by an abundance of foreclosures and aided by interest rates near record lows, renovators are giving distressed properties a makeover.

Humberto Galvez was searching for a spot to test his new idea for a fast-food restaurant. After his El Pollo Loco charbroiled chicken chain had been bought out by Denny's Inc., he decided to market brochetas, a kind of Latino shish kebab of fish, beef, pork or chicken. He knew he wanted to start out in a lively, relatively safe neighborhood with a big Latino population, a lot of pedestrian traffic and plenty of nearby shopping. And he did not want to be in a mall.

Barney's Beanery Santa Monica . A newer outpost of an old L.A. standby that packs in a die-hard Lakers crowd at game time. 1351 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica. (310) 656-5777. Capitol City . A classed-up Hollywood take on your typical sports bar, with sleek design, an extensive beer list and an impossibly large projection screen. 1615 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 465-1750. The Draft Bar & Grill . For Lakers fans in the Valley, the Draft is an oasis of big TVs, beer pong tables, pinball machines, draft beers and $1 Budweisers during the game.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals did a few things right when it opened its new West Coast headquarters in Echo Park last month. First, PETA spent $7.4 million buying and renovating its 82-year-old building, equipping it with such eco-industrial flourishes as a restored Art Deco facade, exposed ducts, vintage glass casement windows and cork flooring. Next, the animal rights group brought in 60 jobs - mostly transfers from its main office in Norfolk, Va. - but some local hires as well.

Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't find a way to get porn and hunger into the same column. But when you fish for a living, you never know what you might catch. The story begins with my neighbor Hilda working out one morning at Curves, where her buddy Gloria from Echo Park tells her about a mysterious problem she's having with gay sex magazines.

Echo Park is at least a half-hipster hipster neighborhood now, but what it was when Brando Skyhorse was growing up there was quite different: one of the working-class parts of town ringing Dodger Stadium, home to a lot of Latinos, among them Skyhorse's family. I talked to him a while back about his novel "The Madonnas of Echo Park," and just popped off an email to him this week to congratulate him on the news that HBO is working on making "Madonnas" into a dramatic series.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, 16 students ages 12 to 19 gathered around three fold-out tables in an Echo Park storefront on Alvarado Street. Shelves of film canisters, movie journals and how-to guides lined the bright red and teal walls of the 900-square-foot space. Three teachers and a guest speaker instructed the kids to use an array of wooden blocks, plastic figurines and other knickknacks to build miniature models of their ideal cities. The brainstorming session will eventually culminate in a 16-millimeter student-made film that focuses on urban planning.

First published on March 20, 2011. Revised and expanded in January 2012. It's not easy being the lungs of Los Angeles. But Griffith Park, the foremost green space in a city notorious for meager parkland and abundant smog, endures bravely, maybe even heroically. Venture into the park, or nearby Elysian Park, or one of the creative neighborhoods in between, and you'll find not only beloved landmarks such as Griffith Observatory and Dodger Stadium, but also happy surprises, such as the time-travel supply shop, or the cafe where cops dine daily to the sound of echoing gunfire, or the Korean greetings that echo at dawn every day atop Mt. Hollywood.

Echo Park is at least a half-hipster hipster neighborhood now, but what it was when Brando Skyhorse was growing up there was quite different: one of the working-class parts of town ringing Dodger Stadium, home to a lot of Latinos, among them Skyhorse's family. I talked to him a while back about his novel "The Madonnas of Echo Park," and just popped off an email to him this week to congratulate him on the news that HBO is working on making "Madonnas" into a dramatic series.

Much of the real estate market is still stuck in deep winter, but Highland Park is showing signs of spring. Investors have descended on this and other communities in Northeast Los Angeles, snatching up bargain-priced Craftsman homes located within an easy distance of downtown. It's an echo of the housing boom, only this time speculators are drawn by the crash in prices. Attracted by an abundance of foreclosures and aided by interest rates near record lows, renovators are giving distressed properties a makeover.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals did a few things right when it opened its new West Coast headquarters in Echo Park last month. First, PETA spent $7.4 million buying and renovating its 82-year-old building, equipping it with such eco-industrial flourishes as a restored Art Deco facade, exposed ducts, vintage glass casement windows and cork flooring. Next, the animal rights group brought in 60 jobs - mostly transfers from its main office in Norfolk, Va. - but some local hires as well.

Miriam Jones doesn't waste time analyzing how an Amish girl in long skirts and bonnets went on to become the owner of a salon in the heart of Echo Park's hipster enclave. In her first 30 years, in addition to starting a business, she's butchered large farm animals, killed snapping turtles with a crossbow, sewn her own clothes, grown and canned her food, learned to fly a helicopter and raised a 12-year-old daughter. Clearly, she's been busy. But one moonlit night earlier this year — as Jones stood at a lookout off Mulholland Drive, dressed in drag to perform in a gender-bending art film by actor James Franco — she said she had to take a breath and wonder, what am I doing here?

A raw, vegan and organic restaurant called Mooi is being built in the corner space of the Jensen Rec Center at Sunset Boulevard and Logan Street in Echo Park. Party promoter Stephen Hauptführ began a raw, vegan catering company after hosting dinner parties and realizing that his talents were in demand. It wasn't long before he began contemplating opening a restaurant. Mooi is set to open by the holidays. The ground floor and main dining room (there will be private dining on the mezzanine)

Over the last decade, Echo Park has morphed from a largely ethnic neighborhood populated by mom-and-pop shops and small restaurants serving simple Mexican and Central American fare to one of the hottest bar-hopping neighborhoods in town. With more than a dozen bars and restaurants within walking distance along Sunset Boulevard and more on the horizon, the neighborhood is changing into the "it" place to be at night. 1. Mohawk Bend Tentatively scheduled to open in mid-February, this 10,000-square-foot full-service bar and restaurant is being built in the nearly 100-year-old Ramona theater next door to the vegetarian hot spot Elf Cafe.

When Kristen Christian learned that Bank of America Corp. planned to charge her a $5 monthly debit card fee, she did what many people do these days when they get mad: She ranted on Facebook. What followed was an illustration of the power of social media. Her Facebook post urging friends to abandon big banks unwittingly blossomed into a national campaign. More than 75,000 people have pledged to participate in "Bank Transfer Day" by moving their money from large U.S. banks to nonprofit credit unions by Saturday, Christian said.

For those without an airline ticket to some far off land this weekend, the international sounds have come to Echo Park with Filter Magazine's Culture Collide Festival, a multi-day super-eclectic music event that features 80 artists from 24 countries and is taking over a two-block stretch of clubs and venues. Now in its second year, the festival is a rare opportunity to see the catchy Danish pop band the Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Australia's Cameras -- or even recently reformed East Coast indie band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.