Category: Uncategorized

Photo: Fire Monkey Fish

The LA City Nerd has done an exhaustively thorough job concerning today’s 10am meeting of the LA City council in the Van Nuys Municipal Building. They will now begin to meet there the first Friday of the month.

LA Nerd has packaged a tour guide to the area, which almost makes Van Nuys sound like a tourist destination. “Beyond the government services, the surrounding blocks have countless restaurants – some unique to the area worth trying: Le Fun Cafe, Dr. Deli & the Sandwich Queen, and Ranch House BBQ being popular with government workers. Others, like Subway are always good, too. Branch out; within a few blocks, you’ll find Kabobs, great Chinese food, and Peruvian- all within walking distance!”

He also mentions a used book store, a nuts outlet shop, an ice skating rink and a tailor. For some reason he neglected to include a fascinating and educational visit to the Van Nuys branch of Washington Mutual across from the complex.

But on a more serious note, he suggests a visit to local government officials: “The Mayor’s & Councilman Cardenas’s field offices are on the second floor of the VMB. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky can be reached by crossing past the newly opened county childcare center to his field office in the former City Health Department building (from the days when LA City had its own Health department). The State building is just across Delano Street to the south; here you can visit State Senator Richard Alarcon or Assemblyman Lloyd Levine.”

Who are all these people? What is the job of the Councilman as opposed to the Assemblyman? What can Zev Yaroslavsky do for me? Who is Richard Alarcon and what does he do and where does he do it? Should I be embarassed for not knowing? Now that the City Council has decided to come to Van Nuys once a month….. who is going to attend their meetings?

Is it a public disservice to raise these questions?

Long before the word “environment” came into widespread use (around 1970), these homes in the Bear Brook area of Woodcliff Lake and Park Ridge, NJ embodied the ideal. They were sited to face the sun, nestled into the woods, angled along a creek or a road, built of indigenous materials like rock and stone. Many of them took advantage of the outdoors, with screened in porches and lawn chairs placed along the banks.

Yet, even with the enormous strides in understanding and protecting the natural world, this region has gone on building homes that ignore the outdoors. Air conditioned, with tinted windows, three car garages and vinyl siding, the newer homes look freakish next to the natural wonders of this Garden State.

One can see into the soul of a nation by what it builds.

These are views from the back of my parent’s deck in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. They show some of the woods on the cusp of spring.

These are the surroundings that make a possible move to Los Angeles difficult for my ailing father and mother. Yes, there are beautiful sections of LA, but they belong to those who move in the circles of George Clooney, Nick Lachey or (generationally appropriate)Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards. They aren’t for retired persons on fixed incomes.

As far as I know, the glories of this section of Northern NJ need no celebrity endorsements. If no famous people live nearby, this little town will still seem to me to be a thousand times more glorious than Beverly Hills or Brentwood.

When I lived in New York in the late 1980s and early 90s, I was scared of anything north of 96th St. Cautiously, I might walk up Broadway to Columbia…. but I remember standing on top of Morningside Park and looking across the valley of Harlem with dread.

This week I am visiting a relative who is hospitalized in Columbia Presbyterian at 168th St. I have to drive into the city every day and find a place to park around Washington Heights. To my surpise, this neighborhood, populated by many Dominicans, also has a beautiful collection of late 19th and early 20th Century architecture. There are those cliffs overlooking the Hudson and a view of the George Washington Bridge, many parks, statues, squares and ornate apartment houses. Broadway is full of small bodegas, street vendors, barbers, hardware and video stores. Street toughs hang out on the sidewalk, but they seem to exude more bark than bite. Music is playing and the city is full of life.

We took a ride, in the pouring rain, down to the new New Jersey development along the riverfront. As we descended down the escarpment, south of Ft. Lee, we passed once ramshackle piers and deceased factories that have been transformed into a new condo-land and light rail haven.

The Hudson-Bergen line is now running from Hoboken north to eventually tie Hudson and Bergen counties together and provide access to the waterfront transportation system. Imperatore’s ferry, once derided as a joke and a fad, is a vital and glorious way to travel across the river, by morning or night.

In Hoboken, we stopped for lunch at Margherita’s, one of those hole-in-the wall places with fantastic pizza and fresh brewed coffee. At Stevens Institute of Technology, there was raucous baseball game going on. Players born in the 1980’s played in the dense shadows of ornate 1890s brownstones.

Many young couples were strolling down the main drag in Hoboken on the street, the guys typically jocky with 3-day a week bench press physiques and skinny legs, and their pale complexioned girlfriends in tight jeans, straight hair and brightly colored belted wool coats.

The entire region, dare I say, seemed optimistic, prosperous and headed in the right direction of density and public transportation options.