Neighborhood's Next $100,000 Car Not Such a Gas Hog

IF YOU SPEND ANY TIME around the corner from our new Starbucks, you see them - the Bentley, the Escalade, the Humvee - parked along Glenfeliz Blvd. While Atwater Village must have its fair share of residents who can afford to leave six-figure vehicles on city streets, the more likely culprits are visitors to the recording studio on the block. And one of them has a new car to pay off. The New York Times automotive blog reveals that Black Eyed Peas member Will.I.Am spent "roughly $100,000 with options" for a Tesla Roadster, the all-electric sports car that zooms to 130 MPH, and zero to 60 MPH in four seconds. He's slated for the 59th Roadster from Tesla's factory, behind George Clooney (8th) and Governor Schwarzenegger (10th). Start ducking into your driveways this fall, as the first round of customers take delivery in October. All Amped Up [nytimes.com] Tesla Roadster [wikipedia.org] ABC News: No Gasoline, Plenty of Juice [freerepublic.com]

Neighborhood Skeez Rate Drops in First Month of 2007

Statistics at the end of January show a major decline in skeez in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village. A prominent landmark at Glendale Boulevard and Glenhurst Avenue - given worldwide notoriety last May when the Washington Post profiled it as "dilapidated," "drab" and "skeezy" - has completed a renovation. The formerly drab exterior is now a rich chocolate brown, with red-orange accents. Invitations to revisit the infamous structure - and perhaps attend the grand opening of the adjacent Starbucks - are forthcoming to Post reporter J. Freedom du Lac. UPDATE! Exclusive "after" photo:

Welcome New Readers

Happy new year and welcome to Atwater Village Newbie, a nominee for LA City Nerd's 2006 Blogger, a proud member of the blog-LA-sphere and, in the words of our esteemed blogging colleagues at LAist, "quite a good neighborhood blog." What is Atwater Village? A banana-shaped Los Angeles neighborhood, just inside northeast city limits, with about 8,000 residents. In ways a microcosm of LA: average housing prices (for LA), a mix of people and languages, palm trees and graffiti, struggles between tradition and progress. Unlike some LA hoods, though, a distinct village feel: outdoor movies, well-heeled sidewalks, holiday trees, mom-and-pop shops, farmers markets, and bickering about Starbucks. Where is Atwater Village? Between I-5 and the Los Angeles River to the west, highway 134 to the north, railroad tracks and Glendale to the east, and highway 2 and the Elysian Valley neighborhood to the south. Is Atwater Village on the east side of LA? Depends. It's east of the LA River, so yes. And it's 20 miles from the nearest beach. But it's north of downtown LA, and it's not adjacent to Latino-dominated East LA. Plus it's next to Glendale. And Burbank. Which might, to some, make Atwater Village part of the San Fernando Valley. (Definitely not the east side). To keep people from getting itchy, it's best not to say, "Atwater Village is eastside." Try instead, "Atwater Village is on the east side." Get the difference? No? Me neither. Who Is the Newbie? In 2006 Mrs. Newbie and I migrated from Colorado to California. In March, when we reach our one-year anniversary here, we will no longer be newbies and will be, according to the LA Times, LA veterans. (Subject to approval by other members of the blog-LA-sphere.) Looking for more? Perhaps these previous posts will help answer recent requests: Is the new Canele bistro on Glendale Blvd. any good? Do the Black Eyed Peas have a recording studio in Atwater Village? Didn't the Beastie Boys have one too? Sad about Atwater resident Matthew Merrill. What happened? Any giant new housing developments in the neighborhood? Or college campuses? What post, if any, riles up the most people? (See here for most recent riling) Is this blog really the #1 Google result for trendy red wine? Speaking of trendy, isn't Atwater Village one of those up-and-coming hipster hoods? Latte, anyone?

Nonhistoric Very Little Filipinotown

A throwaway song, "Bebot," from a year-old Black Eyed Peas album, becomes an anthem for California's Filipino American community. From the LA Times: So begins the story of Allan Pineda, a member of the hip-hop band the Black Eyed Peas, who two years ago wrote a song about his journey from a poverty-stricken district in the Philippines to Los Angeles' Atwater Village... The Filipino American community... the second-largest Asian group in California behind the Chinese... have never established set 'Filipino' neighborhoods - the equivalent of Monterey Park for Chinese Americans or Little Saigon for Vietnamese Americans. There is a historic Filipinotown west of downtown LA, but the U.S. census found that less than 15% of its residents are actually Filipino... Hudgens was living in the Wilshire district at the time but decided to look for a neighborhood where there were mostly Filipinos. The best he could find was a block in Atwater Village, a diverse section of northeast LA that included some Filipinos... He wanted to pen a song about his roots that people could dance to. It took him about two days in the band's sound studio in Atwater Village. UPDATE: A stat to back "Bebot." According to the 2000 Los Angeles Almanac, of Atwater Village's 8,042 neighborhood residents, 1,028 are Filipino. That's about 13 percent.

Best of Atwater Village Forums

Technically the plural of forum is fora, but I don't want anyone to think flora and expect to see a gallery of pretty gardens. Leave that to Flickr.

• YEAH! STARBUCKS! My house just went up in value! [What's Happening at the Ranch Market?]
• I still haven't been able to get a straight answer out of anyone as to what all this UNDERGROUND MUSIC STUDIO jibber jabber is all about. [Beastie Boys? Black-eyed peas? In Atwater?]
• STOP TRYING TO SCARE PEOPLE IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD YOU DOUCHE [Car Burglary & Theft on Finch Street]
• Is there a way to make it impossible to flatten a 900 square foot home to put up these horrible 2500 square foot 2 story eyesores? [Can we stop building HUGE houses...?] *
• I appologize for the douche comment [Car Burglary & Theft on Finch Street]

* Some "2 story eyesores" have been in Atwater Village as long as any single-family home, some 70 or 80 years. Stroll the sidewalks. You'll see at least one or two duplexes (maybe even three- and four-plexes) per block, not necessarily McMansions, but some well over 2,000 square feet.

Welcome to Gentrification Village

Interesting LA Weekly article about re-births of neighborhoods across Los Angeles:

Like most weather patterns that sweep across Southern California, gentrification primarily moved from west to east throughout the late 1990s... As the 20th century drew to a close, the weather pattern kept driving east, making its way into Silver Lake... [Then] north and northeast, into middle-class neighborhoods like Atwater Village and Eagle Rock.

David Zahniser writes as if entire neighborhoods jump on the improvement bandwagon all at once. But as someone new to LA, and new to this little corner called Atwater Village, I can report property pride often rises house by house, block by block. You get $90,000 landscape improvements across from people who still park on the lawn. Fancy Asian bistros down the block from shuttered dives. Coffee Beans next to Black Eyed Peas.

Scratch that. The old Atwater Ranch Market will house a Starbucks after all. A flier at the Los Feliz Blvd. store announces SBUX is hiring for its new location at Glendale & Glenfeliz.

Atwater Chatter

In and around the Village today:

• Bevy of bodyguards and big black Hummer - license plate TABOOH - spending today outside House of Peas
• Campus real estate porn: New rendering (PDF) of LACC Northeast, San Fernando Road; construction starts October
• AV croons through Curbed LA's R&B
• Boi from Troy confirms that even beyond "best of" lists, West Hollywood and Los Angeles are, in fact, two different cites
• A vote for Angela Brown is a vote for attractive criss-cross grill marks on tomato slices
• What becomes of the Satellite when Griffith Observatory re-opens? (last item here)

Where.In.AV?

Anyone know where to find this "dilapidated," "drab," "skeezy" spot? It's the "creative command post" for Will.I.Am Adams from the Black Eyed Peas. So sayeth the Washington Post: "The dilapidated brown building sits on a grungy corner in Los Feliz [Ahem, Atwater Village], wedged between the Los Angeles River and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, a few car lengths east of the interstate. "It's a drab, two-story stucco structure that looks as though its tenants ought to include a bail bondsman, a disbarred attorney and a private investigator. "Apparently, the building's exterior is skeezy and unremarkable by design, so as to avoid advertising the building's As-Seen-on-MTV occupants. "Think Ciara would be coming to this grungy corner near I-5? No. Way." All this from a Washington Post reporter named "J. Freedom du Lac," who apparently doesn't get out much back east. Unless Washington DC has been suddenly purged of all skeez.