Old Pasadena Expanding, Consuming Everything in Its Path
Pasadena's Old Town is getting a northern expansion, thanks to a massive one-million-square-foot mixed-use project slated for an underused site around the large, white Parsons tower off Fair Oaks. The Pasadena Star-News reports that the project will bring new restaurants, office space, and 475 housing units to the 22-acre site; the new development will also have designated parking for Old Town and the nearby Rose Bowl.
Examining Nepal's Architectural Legacy After the Earthquake
A sunset behind the temples of Durbar square in Kathmandu from 2010, which was heavily damaged during the quake last Saturday. Photo by Pietro Columba/Creative Commons.
As images of flattened buildings bounce across the Internet, the scale of the humanitarian tragedy left in the wake of the recent Nepal earthquake has begun to take hold. And while the loss of life and efforts to aid survivors, are paramount, another loss has also begun to reverberate. Nepal's unique position, perched on the roof of the world and at the crossroads of great civilizations, has left the country with an unrivaled and singular architectural heritage with seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites spread out across the Kathmandu Valley, many of which were severely damaged in the 'quake. "It's just aesthetically stunning," says David Gellner, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. "It's like going to Rome, history is built into every street corner. This kind of Hindu-Buddhist urban landscape was once much more pervasive. It stretched from Afghanistan to Bali, and now the Kathmandu Valley is where it is. It's like going back in a time machine to see what northern India was like in the first century AD."
What $1,350 Rents You in Los Angeles Right Now
Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, where we explore what you can rent or buy for a certain dollar amount in various LA 'hoods. Is one man's studio another man's townhouse? Let's find out! Our friends at Zumper have helped us out with five listings within $100 of today's price: $1,350.
↑ Sure, the photos for this North Hollywood apartment listing don't show the actual two-bedroom unit, but it sounds like they're not far off at least? The ground-floor, corner spot is in an older, gated complex with a pool, and has bedrooms described as "large." The bathroom, meanwhile, has "designer tiled walls." (We're imagining tiny Louis Vuitton tiles.) Wood floors and ceiling fans are part of the deal, and there's on-site laundry and gated parking, too. Rent is $1,299.
The Huge Gap Between How Students and Non-Students Live Around USC
The enormous socioeconomic differences between most USC students and the non-student residents who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools campus are not a secret, but USC's 2015 State of the Neighborhood report suggests that, at least where housing is concerned, the presence of students could be exacerbating the situation for locals, decreasing housing affordability and increasing crowding. USC drew on information from focus groups of local residents (English- and Spanish-speaking) as well as USC faculty and staff and staff from community-based organizations working in the area to compile the report. Locals who participated in the study's focus groups felt that "rent costs were influenced by local property owners seeking to increase profits from the student population."
Mapping LA's Long Tradition of State-Sanctioned Racial Violence, 1771-Present
This weekend, Heyday Books will launch LAtitudes: An Angeleno's Atlas, with 19 "maps" of Los Angeles (some literal, some impressionistic) accompanied by 19 essays on topics ranging from street grids to fish to missiles to radio DJs. We're exploring one map from the book every day this week.
[Mission San Gabriel via Michael Locke]
[Mission San Gabriel via Michael Locke]
Riots broke out in Baltimore this week after the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died mysteriously while in police custody, and as the usual suspects wring their hands over property destruction, Ta-Nehisi Coates points out the absurdity at The Atlantic: "When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con." You could focus on this particular outburst of anger and frustration in Baltimore (or on the LA Riots, which began 23 years ago today), but it's pretty meaningless outside the context of centuries of state-sanctioned racial violence perpetrated against the non-white citizens of that city or of Ferguson, Missouri, or of New York City or Los Angeles or anywhere in the US.
In her LAtitudes essay "Landscapes of Racial Violence," Laura Pulido surveys some of the bloodiest sites of state-sanctioned racial violence in Los Angeles, some long since turned into tourist attractions and some still in operation, doing what they do. (The map accompanying the piece, below, locates the toxic sites that have proliferated in non-white neighborhoods.)
23 Years Later, Fallow LA Riots Site in South LA Will Become a Flashy Shopping Center
Developer Sassony Properties is breaking ground today on a vacant site in the Vermont Knolls section of South LA that's been sitting empty for more than two decades. The fallow, blighty space housed a swap meet and some retail buildings many years ago, but they all burned down in the 1992 LA Riots, according to Streetsblog; since then, there have been many ideas and plans for the lots at Manchester Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, but no real forward movement. Now, finally, work is beginning to build on the site, but the development, called the Vermont Entertainment Village, is a weird one: a huge, flashy retail and entertainment center that will cover more than two blocks and, judging by renderings, look like a mashup of Universal City Walk and an outlet mall (or just another Grove?).
Mapped: The Case Study Houses That Made Los Angeles a Modernist Mecca
Los Angeles is full of fantastic residential architecture in styles running all over from Spanish Colonial Revival to Streamline Moderne. But the Modernist Case Study Houses, sponsored by Arts & Architecture and designed between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s, are both native to SoCal and particularly emblematic of the region (thanks in huge part to photographer Julius Shulman). The CSHes were intended to be relatively affordable, replicable houses for post-World War II family living, with an emphasis on "new materials and new techniques in house construction," as the magazine's program intro (pdf) put it. Architects involved included the still-widely-remembered (Charles Eames, Richard Neutra) and the known-only-to-archinerds (JR Davidson, Thornton Abell).
A&A ended up commissioning 36 houses and apartment buildings; a couple dozen were built and about 20 still stand in the greater Los Angeles area (there's also one in Northern California, a set near San Diego, and one in Phoenix), although some have been remodeled. Eleven were added to the National Register in 2013. Here's a guide to all the houses left to see (but keep in mind that, true to LA form, most are still private residences; the Eames and Stahl Houses—the two most famous Case Study Houses—are occasionally open to visitors).
As for the wonky house numbering, post-1962 A&A publisher David Travers writes that the explanation is "inexplicable, locked in the past."
Sean Penn Selling His Secluded Malibu Ranch House For $6.6M
Actor Sean Penn has come so far since playing weed-infused Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He's served time for and pled guilty to assaulting a stranger and his wife respectively, won a couple Oscars (Milk and Mystic River) without anyone ever mentioning those assaults, and gotten engaged to Charlize Theron. Along the way, he bought this Ranch-style Malibu pad not too far away from Gywneth Paltrow's underwhelming John Lautner house, which he now is selling, the LA Times reports.
Big Bear is Having a Multimillion-Dollar Real Estate Boom
With the economy on the mend, it's no surprise that billionaires are willing to drop top dollar in pricey ski towns like Aspen. But even in drought-stricken markets like Big Bear, CA, housing prices and the average price per square foot continue to rise. Bolstered by Mammoth Mountain's recent acquisition of Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, the Big Bear region is bracing for an influx of cash and development. First up? Connecting the two neighboring ski resorts. With a slew of luxury hotels and new restaurants predicted to follow, and cash-flush clientele from nearby Los Angeles looking to buy, the Big Bear real estate market is officially hot. According to listing agent Grant Gerhart, there were zero $2-million-and-above sales in 2013. In 2014, there were six, and 2015 looks to be even bigger. In honor of this nascent boom, Curbed Ski takes a photo tour of seven Big Bear properties currently on the market ranging from $2 million to just over $4.2 million.
POPULAR
Incredible Treehouse With Electricity (and Big House) Asking $1.65 Million in Hollywood
"A magical haven ripped straight from Pinterest," this 2,348-square-foot house in Hollywood certainly does have a lot of photogenic elements: a spiral staircase, a spacious treehouse, and dramatic, high ceilings. Pin away! There are also three bedrooms (not counting that loft area at the top of the stairs), two bathrooms, newly added wood floors, and a cozy backyard with a patio and space for a hammock, according to the listing. That backyard is where the lucky future residents of this place will find a treehouse that actually looks sturdy enough to safely support children (or adults—no judgment). The finished, roofed perch appears to have real windows with panes and everything, electricity, and security (some stickers on the entry hatch that say "Keep Out" and "Private"). The property is asking $1.649 million.
Thanks to Expensive Housing, 27 Percent of LA Lives in Poverty
When you factor in the high cost of housing, California has the highest percentage of people living in poverty in the nation and Los Angeles has the highest percentage of people living in poverty in California, according to a new report from the California Housing Partnership Corporation (via the LA Times). Since 2000, rents statewide have increased 21 percent, while renters' incomes have decreased by eight percent (LA has the worst rent/wage discrepancy in the country). One in four children lives in poverty in the state, which the CHPC takes care to note is the "nation's largest and richest." And while poverty is "moderately high" in Los Angeles in particular (at 18.2 percent), the housing crisis pushes that rate to 26.9 percent: "In other words, nearly 3 in 10 households in California's most populous county are in poverty with high housing costs being a primary cause."
Sneak a Peek at the New White House China Set Created By Michelle Obama
All photos via Apartment Therapy
On the heels of debuting a redecorated family dining room at the White House, Michelle Obama has unveiled the brand new Obama state china service, which will be deployed for the first time at the Japan State Dinner tomorrow night. The 11-piece place setting, which Apartment Therapy got to preview last week, consists of white china adorned with bands of a white relief pattern featuring pinwheels and palm fronds, matte gold, and a bright "Kailua blue" inspired by the waters seen in President Obama's home state of Hawaii.
LA City Councilmember Wants to Make Waze Useless
Just last week, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he'd launched a partnership with Waze that would let the navigation app and the city swap real-time data about street conditions, road closures, and traffic. That's all well and good, but it was not clear from the deal what Waze might do for the city—especially, perhaps, for Westsiders, who are mad about Waze sending cars through their neighborhoods (the app responds to real-time traffic and sends users on less congested paths). Councilmember Paul Krekorian wants to make sure that the issue doesn't get overlooked, and, according to a release from his office today, has introduced a motion that would make the app take steps to "reduce the impact of cut-through traffic that results from use of Waze and similar traffic apps." That kind of sounds like he wants the app to stop doing what it does.
Mapping Johnny Carson's Swank '70s and '80s Los Angeles
In Maps to the Stars, Curbed LA maps the lives of the most notable figures in Los Angeles history through the places that were important to them.
[Carson via Getty]
[Carson via Getty]
New York City may be the center of the late-night television universe today, but for 20 solid years, that distinction was held by beautifully boring Burbank, thanks to one guy: Johnny Carson. Carson hosted The Tonight Show from Studio 1 on NBC's Burbank lot from May 1, 1972, to May 22, 1992. Over the course of those two decades, he elevated the late-night talk show to an art form with his easygoing charm and nonthreatening humor. Carson made millions, made careers, and won a Peabody, and had a great time doing it—or looked like he did, anyway. Meanwhile, he left his stamp all over Los Angeles.
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