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.

After its two-year, $45-million makeover, Echo Park Lake will soon shed the green tarp-covered fence that lines its circumference, revealing to the public a similar-but-spruced-up version of the neighborhood's landmark. "Welcome to 29 acres of paradise," L.A. City Engineer Gary Moore said at a news conference Friday, where officials announced the lake would reopen June 15. Before it was refilled and restocked with plants, the lake was completely drained and cleaned. During the cleanup, Moore said, workers found two guns, one toilet, 20 Frisbees and a pay telephone.

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.

A girl with a guitar, a roommate without a job and a drummer with a crush make up the boho trio at the center of "The Crumbles," writer-director Akira Boch's low-key multiethnic rock 'n' roll doodle about the ups and downs of Echo Park artistic strivers. Darla (Katie Hipol) works at a bookstore and dreams of rock glory, so when flighty keyboardist friend Elisa (Teresa Michelle Lee) crashes on her couch after a bad breakup, the pair start the titular band. That's about it, really, save for Elisa's party-hearty flakiness irritating Darla, flirtations between the gals and Jeff Torres' lanky, sad-eyed drummer, and occasional visits with the neighbors making a microbudget sci-fi movie.

Santiago Perez and his neighbors went straight to Councilman Eric Garcetti when they heard that a developer planned to build a 62-unit housing and retail development on their quiet street in Echo Park. Worried that the four-story complex would tower over homes and bring excess traffic, the group emerged from their meeting at Los Angeles City Hall feeling relieved. "He told us that, yes, he's with us and he will do everything possible to reject the plan," Perez said. But months later in front of the citywide Planning Commission, a Garcetti representative offered the lawmaker's tacit support for the project, saying it was "designed well" and would bring needed jobs and housing to the area.

Raymond Taix, who owned one of the oldest restaurants in Los Angeles, the French establishment Taix that his family has run since 1927, has died. He was 85. Taix died Oct. 10 of leukemia at his Pasadena home, said his son, Michael. The restaurant owes its beginnings to an act of capriciousness at the height of Prohibition when Raymond was 2 years old. After his French-immigrant grandfather built a hotel in 1912 in a French enclave downtown, he leased space to a restaurant.

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.

Richard Garcia was busy ticketing a Scion for blocking the street sweeper's path when a neighbor broke in with a question. "Are you allowed to paint your own curb red?" Edsel Ortiz said. Of course not, but Ortiz would have to take it up with headquarters. Another neighbor on Mountain View Street in L.A.'s Westlake neighborhood, however, wouldn't let it go. "She said she's the homeowner and we're just renters," said Tony See, dressed in slip-on rubber sandals and shorts, pointing to a driveway flanked by telltale red. "She's a bad neighbor!

EVENTS The young Echo Park Rising festival — cobbled together in the wake of Sunset Junction's demise — features top-shelf locals No, Black Apples, Gothic Tropic, Hands and Dante Vs. Zombies among its many attractions in its second year. Various times and venues in Echo Park, Sat. Free. echoparkrising.com.

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.

The leafy and historic neighborhoods just north of downtown Los Angeles feature bungalows perched on steep hillsides, businesses huddled on commercial streets and an iconic baseball stadium. But all are dominated by Elysian Park, the 600-acre expanse that makes up the city's oldest and second-largest park and serves as a backyard for many neighborhoods around it. And near the edge of that park sits the venerable Barlow Respiratory Hospital, a clutch of historic cottages and buildings on a pastoral 25 acres.

Things have been done in the bathrooms of Little Joy that would make even Keith Richards' skin crawl. The Echo Park dive bar was also notorious for the amount of times drunk, scrappy rockers got beat up outside of it. (Nobody likes a drunk, scrappy rocker. Not even other drunk, scrappy rockers.) And for more than 40 years, Little Joy was home to them all as well as a completely bent assortment of neighborhood characters, bums and druggies. In short, it was the Enabler's favorite dive for a couple of years.

Richard Garcia was busy ticketing a Scion for blocking the street sweeper's path when a neighbor broke in with a question. "Are you allowed to paint your own curb red?" Edsel Ortiz said. Of course not, but Ortiz would have to take it up with headquarters. Another neighbor on Mountain View Street in L.A.'s Westlake neighborhood, however, wouldn't let it go. "She said she's the homeowner and we're just renters," said Tony See, dressed in slip-on rubber sandals and shorts, pointing to a driveway flanked by telltale red. "She's a bad neighbor!

In Echo Park on Tuesday morning, Sean Stentz was among those expressing support for gay marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on California's Proposition 8. Marriage is a fundamental individual right that should be available to everyone, Stentz said. “The rights and benefits that come with marriage are nice, but I mean, I don't know anybody that says, 'Oh, it sucks that we can't get married because I have this great severance package,'” said Stentz, 34, a record store owner.

Santiago Perez and his neighbors went straight to Councilman Eric Garcetti when they heard that a developer planned to build a 62-unit housing and retail development on their quiet street in Echo Park. Worried that the four-story complex would tower over homes and bring excess traffic, the group emerged from their meeting at Los Angeles City Hall feeling relieved. "He told us that, yes, he's with us and he will do everything possible to reject the plan," Perez said. But months later in front of the citywide Planning Commission, a Garcetti representative offered the lawmaker's tacit support for the project, saying it was "designed well" and would bring needed jobs and housing to the area.

Barnyard: Opening on Friday in Venice is the new Barnyard , helmed by Tasting Kitchen alum Jesse Barber. Barber, who also worked at Thomas Keller's French Laundry and Bouchon , succeeds chef Jeremy Fox after he split with the owners this summer. The Pacific Avenue restaurant's menu focuses on local ingredients but skews Mediterranean: olive-oil-poached baby octopus with fresh chickpeas; French fries with harissa and creme fraiche; honey-glazed ribs; clams with white beans and fennel; prawns with olives and romesco; braised sausage and cabbage; kale with sunchokes and marcona almonds; lamb and seared escarole; risotto allo pilota (Italian fried rice)

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.

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.

Cortez An Echo Park eatery where small plates are taken to an extreme. LOCATION 1356 Allison Ave., Echo Park, (213) 481-8015, restaurantcortez.com PRICES Snacks, $6-$7; vegetables, $8; small plates, $9-$15; desserts, $5-$6 DETAILS Noon to 3 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. nightly; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Credit cards accepted. Beer and wine. Street parking only. Reservations not accepted.

Fans of the Echo Park Craft Fair's local, artisan-made goods will find them in a new location this weekend when the twice-a-year event moves to the downtown L.A. Arts District. Founded in 2009 by shoe designer Beatrice Valenzuela, the Echo Park Craft Fair has expanded to include more than 40 exhibitors, said co-organizer Rachel Craven, who had hosted the event at her home. "We live in such a rich, artistic community," said Craven, who will be selling her hand-block-printed linen napkins and placemats.