The Montrose Japanese Gardens The hype surrounding Montrose was pretty brazen in 1913 as lots were first going up for sale, and I’ve outlined several broken promises in my last two columns. Here’s another plan promoted by the developers at the beginning of Montrose: a beautiful Japanese garden was to be built. A Los Angeles […]
The Montrose Country Club Continuing my mini-series on some of the promised (but never delivered) features of Montrose 100 years ago, we’ll take a look at the country club that was to be a feature of the new community. Recreational facilities are a common feature of upscale large developments today. The Oakmont development that spreads […]
Coffee Perqs I remember studying something in a history or social studies class (do they even teach that subject anymore?) back in the day about couples begetting many multiples of children so that their immediate family would have a plentiful source of laborers for its farms, or whatever industry the parents were involved in. It’s […]
Worth Repeating: Honored to Serve You, Always Glad to Hear from You As a result of a government-reform effort, an independent commission re-drew California’s Legislative boundaries that were used in last year’s elections. The new lines are much more logical. Gone are the squiggly lines at which we all used to chuckle. The new, more […]
Hucksterism in the Birth of Montrose As we run up to the 100th anniversary of Montrose next month, we’ll see a fair amount of flowery talk about its founding and growth. Robert Newcombe’s new book “Montrose” (on the shelves in just a couple of weeks) covers all that and more. But I’m a guy who […]
Happy New Laws With each new calendar year come a slew of new laws regulating an already over-legislated populace. Last year I incurred the wrath of more than a few readers by merely mentioning a handful of the thousands of new laws that had just been enacted. So heck, let’s have some fun and […]
Shares Her Shopping Experience I was saddened to read about Daniel Allard’s experience [“Disappointed at Vons,” Letters, Nov. 29] at Vons located at Foothill and Pennsylvania. I’m a regular shopper of Vons since we moved to the area in 2007. Vons is my favorite store and I shop there almost every week. I haven’t experienced […]
Resolved: It Will Be A New Year Since the Mayan calendar makers were prophetically dead wrong about 2012 (the Republican National Committee and conservative talk radio blew the call too, but I have no desire to pick at that scab), it seems as though we’ve all been given the blank slate of a new year […]
Council Members: Take Responsibility for Past Actions [Glendale City] Councilman Ara Najarian recently said the following: “As the city budget reaches its limit, the community many times steps in and helps with many of these programs.” In the past, former mayor Laura Freidman (April 2011-April 2012) expressed those same words. Both of these council members […]
El Camino Real Bells The early tourism industry in California was built partially on the romanticized legends of the California Missions. Starting in the late 1880s and peaking in the teens and ’20s, tourists were treated to a story of benevolent mission fathers bestowing the benefits of civilization on the wild California Indians, who then […]