in collaboration with Really Awesome Great Experiments and their “8 1/2 x 11 Experiment”, Bruce’s Buddies threw a supper social, pancake brunch edition. We really wanted to take over the sidewalk, redefine Occidental Blvd. as one that has the possibility for more than something pedestrian and static: Occupy Sidewalk.
I love Los Angeles. Bags of oranges, all year round for fresh squeezed O.J.
photo by Jamilah Welch.
As some of you might know, I’m a huge proponent of livable streets, and improving the landscape and beauty of our greatest community asset and public space - sidewalks. I even took part in Mulching trees up and down Sunset Blvd in Echo Park. I found this really great project in Toronto that I would love to meld into our own little project here in LA. “Public planter boxes are great in theory. They’re a refuge for nature in the city. A way of cleaning our air and beautifying our streets. But in practice, many public planters are untended or empty, too big or too small for the plants they’re meant to contain, or simply falling apart. Last month, Sean Martindale decided to do something about it in his home city of Toronto. With a grant from the arts organization Toronto FEAST, Martindale organized a project called Outside the Planter Boxes. He rounded up a group of local “artists, designers, gardeners and urbanites” to execute “planter interventions” in sites across the city. In the end, 17 participants made more than 30 projects in a single 24-hour period during the weekend of May 20.” Beer Box Origami Flowers by Karen Abel Grass Spills by Sean Martindale. Snake Tail by Hyein Lee Airport planter by Martin Reis. “We all have stakes in our shared environments, and this public project directly engages with Toronto’s urban fabric. One of the primary intents of the Outside the Planter Boxes project is to encourage more direct participation and interest in our shared public spaces – to demonstrate that the public can play a more consciously active role in how our city is shaped. Hopefully you will find the project reveals possibilities for alternatives and perhaps more biodiversity, creative gestures, and better city infrastructure.” - Sean Martindale
some trees up and down Sunset Blvd. in echo park received some lovin - MULCH!
sources have told me that the Echo Park Time Bank & the Micheltorena Elementary Community Garden might have been involved. highly unlikely.
Steve Duncan of Undercity led Andrew Wonder, a director, on one of his urban excursions.
I recall being captivated by Paris during my residency there, mainly because of the mole-like metro tunnels which connected the city. The subterranean world, which doesn’t necessarily reflect or mirror the infrastructure above ground, has these nodes of interface which requires some sort of coordination, yet can dive under a city without anyone knowing, invisible. The marvel of modern engineering to accommodate human existence and convenience. Pipes, sewers, subways, wires, all running under our feet. can you hear it?
Really inspiring and beautiful video from Monocle re: urban farming. The video follows Prinzessinnengarten (Princess Garden) in the middle of Berlin, which took an empty lot and made it into a garden, complete with beehives and a cafe. The only difference from other urban gardens is that this one is mobile. Nothing is planted into the ground; rather everything is farmed in crates and above-ground planters. The idea: at anytime that the landlord want to sell the land, they are able to. It’s a symbiotic relationship between the gardeners and the landlords, increasing property and neighborhood values by [temporarily] transforming a vacant lot with greenery.
It got me thinking about implementing the practice of mobile gardens here in Silver Lake and Echo Park, on sites we pass everyday, and forget about. Such as:
Sunset & Alvarado
Wide Traffic Islands on Glendale Blvd., North of Sunset
Glendale Blvd. & the 2 Freeway
Bellevue & Occidental
Sunset & Micheltorena
Sunset & Hyperion
Sunset & Sanborn
Sunset next to El Cid
