Etcetera

March Traffic Disruptions Too Much for USPS

By Eric Richardson — May 01, 2008 — 1 Comments

Out of Service Eric Richardson

Today's marches and the associated street closures were apparently too much for USPS, which decided to take a holiday from mail collection in at least one Historic Core building. This sign posted on the mail drop in the lobby of Premiere Towers says that there's no collection for May 1st, though the lack of accompanying signs on upper floors might make the warning less than effective.

Given the small turnout and lighter than expected traffic impacts, the collection holiday might not have even been all that necessary.


Bringing Back the Flags at Arcade Post Office

By Eric Richardson — April 28, 2008
1 Comments

Flags

Last week a small black pole outside the Security Lofts building on Spring street got a little more exciting, as the Post Office added two flags to the sidewalk scene. Below the American flag was hanging the POW / MIA flag, which Post Offices are required to display on a half dozen holidays throughout the year. The Post Office reopened in July of last year...


Unicycle Man, I Salute You

By Eric Richardson — April 24, 2008
2 Comments

Unicycle

Walking back to my apartment just now I was passed by this man on a unicycle. He headed west on 6th before turning north at Spring. I've never stopped to consider the unicycle's place in Downtown's mobility picture. I consider that a grave oversight.


A Moment of Nature in the Midst of It All

By Eric Richardson — April 04, 2008
4 Comments

Pershing Square Tree

Walking through Pershing Square just minutes ago, I caught a flit out of the corner of my eye. A tiny object in motion, alternately hovering in space and hitting bursts of motion. I stopped, and proceeded to spend the next five minutes standing in the middle of one of the least inviting parks I've seen, utterly captivated to watch a hummingbird moving about...


No Joking: Welcome to blogdowntown

By Eric Richardson — April 01, 2008
19 Comments

square_illustration

While the calendar may say April 1st, I'll gladly assure you that this isn't a joke. After months of work, the all-singing, all-dancing, new blogdowntown is ready for its public debut. First off, yes, it is quite different. That out of the way, I'm really excited to get to share a project that's taken large chunks of my time ever since last fall. The purpose...


Welcome Back

By Eric Richardson — March 28, 2008
6 Comments

I apologize for the rather too long outage this morning. A dirty little secret of mine is that blogdowntown runs out of my living room, and my building, Premiere Towers, lost power this morning at 7:30am. Service wasn't restored until after noon, so in the interim blogdowntown was in the dark. It's a nice testament to Downtown's power stability that this sort...


Extra Reading: South Parks, a Mural and One-Way Streets

By Eric Richardson — March 11, 2008

South Park

Today wraps up my Curbed stint, so things should return back to a more normal flow here tomorrow. In the meantime, here are the three stories I posted over there today. While Downtown's South Park neighborhood has all the hot development action, the real South Park has been minding its own business three miles south for almost 110 years. Oddly, I think that...


Extra Reading: Radio Hill and Cycleway Coffee

By Eric Richardson — March 10, 2008
5 Comments

Radio Hill Gardens

In all my rush today I never even got a chance to mention that today and tomorrow I'm doing some blogging over at Curbed LA. It's a funny change of pace for me to put an eye to non-Downtown stories. Inevitably, though, all my interests roll back here and both stories I wrote today had a Downtown connection. First, I took on Radio Hill Gardens and the need...


Yahoo Maps Won't Let Arts vs Artists Die

By Eric Richardson — March 05, 2008
3 Comments

Yahoo Maps recently added neighborhood names to its displayed data. Here in Downtown, though, they made an old mistake, calling the Arts District the Artists District. It's not exactly a new mistake, well past its first adventure in printing Artist District signs the city still has the name boldly emblazoned on maps around Downtown. You might be tempted...


We Have a Name, You Know

By Eric Richardson — February 24, 2008
3 Comments

Update (9pm): So a different article up tonight, about the Regional connector, quotes me and links to blogdowntown. With an actual link. I guess you win some, you lose some. The Times today pushed a late afternoon story on Downtown, titling it "L.A.'s upscale downtown delayed." The piece talks about how the uncertainty in the market is leading to groundbreaking...