The La Crescenta Hotel Disaster of 1887, Part 3 Last week we heard of the collapse of the Crescenta Hotel just after midnight during a fierce windstorm in December 1887. Residents nearby heard the crash, saw the lights go out and came running with lanterns. Lantern light revealed the sight of a confused pile […]
The House is Taking Action to Lower Prescription Drug Prices Americans pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world, and it’s not even close. Millions of Americans who rely on prescription drugs to stay healthy, or even to stay alive, struggle to afford the life-saving drugs they need. One in four Americans report […]
Grateful for Operation Christmas Child Participants I am writing to thank La Crescenta residents for sharing the true meaning of Christmas with children in need this past holiday season. Because of the generosity of donors in La Crescenta and across the United States, Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse, collected more than 8.9 […]
The La Crescenta Hotel Disaster of 1887, Part 2 Last week we covered the setup for this terrible hotel collapse that happened in December 1887. The two-story hotel had just been built, dangerously tall and narrow, and with a flimsy foundation. A major Santa Ana had been blowing for three days, and many in the […]
New Year, New Budget, New Priorities January 2020 Just six days after we rang in both a new year and a new decade, we returned to the hustle and bustle of Sacramento getting right to work on the year ahead. One of the first orders of business was the state’s 2020-21 annual budget. […]
The La Crescenta Hotel Disaster of 1887 – Part 1 Dr. Benjamin Briggs, the founder of La Crescenta, was a community builder. He came to the valley in the early 1880s with the dual idea of creating a health resort and a town. He purchased the western half of the Cañada Valley, renamed it the […]
Happy New Year, La Crescenta! First off, Happy New Year! May 2020 bring you joy and prosperity. We are the community that cares, and may we live up to these words. After a well-deserved break in December, the Crescenta Valley Town Council resumes its monthly general meetings on Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. in the […]
Goal is to Enlighten, Not Upset I do apologize if what I said upset anyone. My intention was to enlighten, not to upset. Only fully informed voters can cause true change. If your main source of information is only CNN, ABC, CBS, the LA Times, etc., then you are only getting a very biased one […]
Whiting Woods’ First Residents Were Prostitutes I’ve written before about the lurid origins of Whiting Woods. For such a beautiful and placid neighborhood, it has a very dark history. The wealthy LA businessman Perry Whiting first bought the canyon known today as Whiting Woods around 1918 after it was seized by the County of Los […]
The Man Who Would Become Google-Able Every community has them, the town characters. People who, for whatever reason, dress a little differently and act a little differently than others. They add texture to the fabric of our lives while they are here and we remember them fondly when they are gone. I met one such […]