Highland Park

Obsession of the moment: Hasami porcelain plates and bowls released in a new matte black finish by the Japanese design importer TGS, or Tortoise General Store, in Venice. The Hasami porcelain is beautiful in its spare simplicity and smart function. The pieces nest nicely for storage. Optional oak lids pair well with the stone bowls and can be used separately as serving trays. TGS co-owner Keiko Shinomoto says  the collection has a nice back story too: It's part of a project in the southern Japanese town of Hasami, where a pottery tradition that dates to 1599 is ailing because of -- can you guess?

Even seasoned drinkers have mothers. This is certainly the case with the Enabler, who despite an ongoing penchant for brooding over a stiff bourbon also enjoys the simple pleasures of taking her mother out for a scoop of gelato. With Mother's Day approaching, the Enabler's thoughts have turned to her provenance, and the many sacrifices her mother made to ensure that she was well-swaddled as a child. In her early years, the Enabler was raised on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona.

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Re "Woman, 78, could lose home," April 27 Your article about the Highland Park woman whose home will be auctioned off because the county claims she is delinquent on her property taxes should bring outrage to residents of Los Angeles County. Whether Marianne Blend's taxes were paid is immaterial. What is material is that some civil servants didn't do their job and, worse, they didn't do what was right: They pushed their papers, arranged for an auction, sent people to put up a sign but did nothing to look out for the welfare of the 78-year-old woman who has lived in the house for decades.

Some kids don't want to look back when they turn 19 and find themselves released - "emancipated" - from foster homes they were placed in because of family problems or brushes with the law. But not Arturo Flores. Flores was so grateful for his 2005 and 2006 stay at a Highland Park group home operated by Optimist Youth Homes and Family Services that he returned to become a counselor. "I wasn't planning to work here. I just wanted to give back for what this place did for me," said Flores, now 24. "This place did a lot. " Flores said he was 16 when his life spiraled out of control.

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.

On his dead-end street of Section 8 apartments and slumping clapboard bungalows, Christopher Bowser cut an audacious figure for a young black man who had just arrived on the turf of a Latino gang with a record of killing going back half a century. Whenever Bowser left the Highland Park apartment he shared with his mother, he cruised the streets with a boombox thundering rap music, acting as if "the neighborhood was his neighborhood," in the words of one gang member.

When we first blogged on woodworker Yo Takimoto's DIY class in Venice, the headline read: "Where carving wood is a sellout event. " Students would show up by the dozens and devote an afternoon to chiseling sticks of manzanita, juniper, black persimmon or plum wood into artful abstractions. The novice students left with a piece of sculpture, but more important, they found a measure of peace in the contemplative process. Now the class that has been filling the courtyard at Tortoise General Store will be staged on the closest thing the Eastside has to an Abbot Kinney: York Boulevard in Highland Park.

It's fitting that Hillary Danner is raising her son and daughter in a century-old Arts and Crafts home in the Sycamore Grove area of Highland Park. Built in 1904, the timber-and-stone residence has a grand staircase, a huge covered porch and a curious pedigree, a hint of which comes in the giant "La Boheme" inscription on the wood panel of the living room fireplace. PHOTO GALLERY: Hillary Danner's "La Boheme" house The inscription has special meaning to Danner, who grew up in a 1869 Victorian home in Englewood, N.J., that was restored by her parents, actor Harry Danner and opera director Dorothy Danner.

Nestled on a hilltop, the three-bedroom ranch house was once a warren of illegal structures -- occupied by as many as 15 people before the place descended into disrepair and skidded close to foreclosure. The surrounding neighborhood once had a reputation for gang violence. But on a recent Sunday, eager couples -- Asian, caucasian, Latino -- were touring the home. Gone were the moldy walls, the piles of abandoned bedroom junk and the broken-down cars, car parts and washing machines littering the lawn.

Marianne Blend learned she was in trouble about three weeks ago when she looked out the window of her Highland Park home and saw strangers placing a large sign in her frontyard. "They were two big men, so I didn't go out there until they were gone," said the 78-year-old widow. "But when I did go out and looked at it, I couldn't believe it. " The sign announced that her 92-year-old clapboard cottage was being sold in a Superior Court probate auction scheduled for Saturday. For Blend, it was stunning news.

Shopclass, the latest home decor store on York Boulevard in Highland Park, opened this month with floor-to-ceiling stacks of vintage Dutch Modernism, furniture reupholstered with an eclectic touch, thrift store art and enough oddities to please flea market junkies. The emporium is the vision of interior designer Sally Breer, vintage dealer and Texas transplant Jeff Garbs and furniture importer Ellen LeCompte of Amsterdam Modern . The partners considered downtown L.A. and Echo Park, Breer said, but ultimately chose Highland Park for its “community vibe.” Workshops on rewiring lamps, making your own headboard and other DIY endeavors will be part of the draw - a strategy that has worked well for the Pop-Hop bookstore, Platform design boutique and other businesses on the ever-evolving stretch of York between Aldama Street and Avenue 50. (If you missed it, check out our home-centric look at York Boulevard published a year ago.)

The Scout, our feature on reinvigorated or overlooked shopping desinations, bounced from Long Beach to Claremont to Santa Ana this year. We walked a developing stretch of Pico Boulevard and checked out what's new on La Brea Avenue. But the two destinations that arguably stood out the most: Costa Mesa and the Highland Park neighborhood of northeast L.A. A photo essay on Highland Park's York Boulevard mentioned that new home furnishings shops and restaurants were changing the vibe of a once-gritty thoroughfare and that more newcomers were on the way. Indeed, shortly after the article was published, the Pop-Hop, a bookstore that hosts printmaking and other DIY workshops, and the Highland Cafe opened their doors.

It's fitting that Hillary Danner is raising her son and daughter in a century-old Arts and Crafts home in the Sycamore Grove area of Highland Park. Built in 1904, the timber-and-stone residence has a grand staircase, a huge covered porch and a curious pedigree, a hint of which comes in the giant "La Boheme" inscription on the wood panel of the living room fireplace. PHOTO GALLERY: Hillary Danner's "La Boheme" house The inscription has special meaning to Danner, who grew up in a 1869 Victorian home in Englewood, N.J., that was restored by her parents, actor Harry Danner and opera director Dorothy Danner.

When he died in 1974, George Abraham Simmons left a bulky legacy: boxes and boxes of drugstore pills, salves and potions - enough to fill multiple cargo containers. What to do with it all? His family was stumped. Pharmaceuticals and botanicals, rouges, deodorants and still-sealed packs of cigarettes - he'd accumulated around 85,000 items. Photos: New life for old corner drugstore To label Simmons a hoarder, though, would be oversimplifying. Take a moment to understand his world.

When we first blogged on woodworker Yo Takimoto's DIY class in Venice, the headline read: "Where carving wood is a sellout event. " Students would show up by the dozens and devote an afternoon to chiseling sticks of manzanita, juniper, black persimmon or plum wood into artful abstractions. The novice students left with a piece of sculpture, but more important, they found a measure of peace in the contemplative process. Now the class that has been filling the courtyard at Tortoise General Store will be staged on the closest thing the Eastside has to an Abbot Kinney: York Boulevard in Highland Park.

Shopclass, the latest home decor store on York Boulevard in Highland Park, opened this month with floor-to-ceiling stacks of vintage Dutch Modernism, furniture reupholstered with an eclectic touch, thrift store art and enough oddities to please flea market junkies. The emporium is the vision of interior designer Sally Breer, vintage dealer and Texas transplant Jeff Garbs and furniture importer Ellen LeCompte of Amsterdam Modern . The partners considered downtown L.A. and Echo Park, Breer said, but ultimately chose Highland Park for its “community vibe.” Workshops on rewiring lamps, making your own headboard and other DIY endeavors will be part of the draw - a strategy that has worked well for the Pop-Hop bookstore, Platform design boutique and other businesses on the ever-evolving stretch of York between Aldama Street and Avenue 50. (If you missed it, check out our home-centric look at York Boulevard published a year ago.)

What terrific news that Highland Park will be the focus of a revitalization and redevelopment effort ["Highland Park Comeback May Be Model of Urban Revival," March 22]. As a longtime resident of Highland Park and the surrounding communities, however, I strenuously object to the characterization of our neighborhood as "moribund," "scuffed," "sorry" and "depressed." Leave it to The Times to look for and find the worst in a community. Maybe a fresh look from the outside, Chicago perhaps, will help.

Jesse Gomez leans over the railing of the mezzanine level of his new Santa Monica Mexican restaurant, Mercado, looking down on the buzzing scene below. It's early on a Wednesday night and already every table in the sleek, white room is full, as is every seat at the bar where mixologist Gilbert Marquez shakes up a storm of Latin-influenced craft cocktails. "It's like this every night," Gomez says of the restaurant, which is in the same 4th Street block as the famed Border Grill. "And on Friday and Saturday nights it fills upstairs too. " The high-octane hustle and bustle in the dining room is the realization of a third-generation immigrant success story.

In the latest attempt to cultivate a pedestrian lifestyle in Los Angeles, the City Council has approved plans to temporarily block off a few street parking spaces at four locations so they can be turned into tiny public plazas big enough to hold a bench or two. These pocket parks, or parklets, will use parallel parking spots to provide bike racks, a little greenery and a place to sit. Two parklets were approved Friday for downtown on Spring Street,...