Highland Park, Los Angeles, California
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Highland Park is a district in on the East Side of Los Angeles. It includes the Garvanza neighborhood.
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[edit] Geography and Transportation
Highland Park is located along the Arroyo Seco. It is within the Rancho San Rafael of the Spanish / Mexican era. Its boundaries are roughly the Pasadena Freeway (CA-110) and the city limits of South Pasadena on the southeast, the city limits of Pasadena on the east, Oak Grove Drive on the north, and Avenue 50/51 on the west. The district's neighbors include Mt. Washington on the southwest, Montecito Heights on the south, Hermon and Monterey Hills on the southeast, South Pasadena on the east, Pasadena on the northeast, Eagle Rock on the north, and Glassell Park on the west. Primary thoroughfares include York Boulevard, Avenues 50, 54, and 64, Monte Vista Street, and Figueroa Street. Highland Park is served by the Gold Line, a light rail system that largely runs at street grade parallel to Figueroa Street until turning east into South Pasadena at Avenue 61. The district's ZIP code is 90042.
[edit] The Neighborhood
One of the oldest settled areas of Los Angeles, Highland Park is also one of the most scenic due to its architecture and location between the Mt. Washington hills, the San Rafael hills and the Monterey Hills, Los Angeles, California.There are large sprawling parks in the area, including the Arroyo Seco Park and the Ernest E. Debs Regional Park. The Southwest Museum (a collection of Native American artifacts) is located in adjacent Mt. Washington. The light rail Metro Gold Line from Union Station to Pasadena (traversing all of Highland Park) is one of the most enjoyable and dynamic public transportation journeys in the city, because of views offered by the parks, hills and valleys along the meandering route.
Despite these advantages, Highland Park experienced a migration or white flight with the development of Mid-Wilshire district beginning in the 1920s. By the mid 1960s, it was becoming a largely Latino enclave as the phenomenon of White Flight, coupled with relentless over-development, continued to create new housing opportunities. By the mid 1970s, it had emerged as a predominantly Latino area. But in keeping with its tradition of being a haven for immigrants, the shift in demographics never fully homogenized as it did in East L.A., leaving room for many races and ethnicities to find a place in Highland Park. Indeed, some residents find the mix of people to be one of the most appealing aspects of the community.
The upwardly mobile, including a burgeoning class of professional Chicanos tended to leave the district for the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire and Orange County, and thus created a social capital vacuum that was for a while, largely perceived to be filled by gangs, particularly the notoriously violent "The Avenues", (of which Jackson Browne wrote a song). Recently, however, that perceived vacuum has begun to be filled by new immigrants, entrepreneurs and young professionals searching for affordable homes. The result is that Highland Park is a community with pockets of poverty and crime, as well as upper middle-class wealth and style. This hasn't quite dispelled the myth that Highland Park is a dangerous place, which has been (until recently) perpetuated by an uncurious, uninspired press ( the L.A. Weekly and L.A. Times ). Because of bad press, Highland Park has been considered one of the rougher parts of Los Angeles, although it has never been as volatile as Pacoima, Watts, Downtown, or even Hollywood, and Echo Park.
During the 1950's and continuing into the 1960's, many of Highland Park's grandest and oldest homes were razed. Witness, for example, Heritage Square: a Highland Park museum started by local activists hoping to save some of the Victorian homes which were scheduled for demolition to make room for gas stations and parking lots. A hint of gentrification sprouted in Highland Park in 1984 when large tracts of the district were set aside for historic preservation under Los Angeles' pioneering Historic Preservation Overlay Zone ordinance.
Before the skyrocketing of Southern California housing prices from 2002 - 2005, many arrived to Highland Park to seek out, buy, and revitalize antique and Craftsman homes that had suffered neglect over the decades. Although this quiet movement continues, Highland Park has largely been spared the dramatic changes that Silver Lake, and Eagle Rock have experienced. The district's proximity to those neighborhoods (coupled with low rents), have made it increasingly popular among hipsters. Local bars have become fashionable nightclubs, including Mr. T's, a Highland Park bowling alley partially renovated as a performance venue and tavern, that has been host to local bands since the mid-90's. In another sign of neighborhood change, the Old LA Certified Farmers Market opened in 2006, operating adjacent to the Highland Park Gold Line Station and providing a new nexus of community activity. It remains to be seen whether gentrification in the area will continue, as it lacks the high-quality schools that have made Mt. Washington and Eagle Rock attractive destinations for upper middle-class to lower upper-class Angelenos seeking alternatives to suburbia.
[edit] Notable residents
- Ricardo Cruz, attorney, activist
- Daryl Gates, former LAPD chief
- Steve Sax, former Dodger baseball player
- Sharon Tay, newscaster
- Alan Arkin, Academy Award-winning actor
- Gene Roddenberry, writer and creator of Star Trek
- Bobby Riggs, athlete, tennis
- Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles City attorney
- Porntip Nakhirunkanok, 1988 Miss Universe (representing Thailand)
- Diane Keaton's family lives in the area.
- Mike Kelley, artist
- Jackson Browne, singer and songwriter
- Beck, performer song writer
- Zack de la Rocha, activist performer
- Carlos Almaraz, painter
- Quetzal, band, formerly of legendary folk label Vanguard Records
- Clyde Browne, grandfather of Jackson Browne and Arts and Crafts movement era printer who built the "Abbey San Encino," a smaller-scaled replica of a California Mission building, which still stands, serving as one of the Browne family homes.
- Edward Furlong, actor (was growing up in the San Pascual neighborhood of Highland Park when he was "discovered" by a casting agent searching for a boy to play John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day).
- Sonny Moore, vocalist for post-hardcore band From First to Last
[edit] Fire service
Los Angeles Fire Department Station 12 is in the area.
[edit] Education
Highland Park is zoned to schools in the Los Angeles USD [1].
Zoned elementary schools include:
- Aldama Elementary School
- Annandale Elementary School
- Buchanan Elementary School
- Bushnell Way Elementary School
- Garvanza Elementary School
- San Pascual Elementary School
- Yorkdale Elementary School
Residents are zoned to Burbank Middle School and Franklin High School.
[edit] External links
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Los Angeles Times, Real Estate section, Neighborly Advice column: "History hopes to repeat itself in Highland Park" (12 Oct 2003)
- History of Highland Park
- Audubon Center
- Judson Studios-
- The Arroyo Culture
- The Abbey San Encino
- Development History of Highland Park
- Southwest Museum
- Heritage Square Museum
- Lummis Home (El Alisal)
- Community News and Events in Historic Highland Park
- Northeast LA Arts Organization
- LA Weekly story on the Avenues gang
- Los Angeles Police Museum
- L.A. City Council District 1
- L.A. City Council District 14
- [2]
