Shraga Agam
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Our Lost Vitality
Housing, it seems, is everything these days, the foremost topic on the minds of Angelenos. Those who can afford it fear those who cannot. Fearsome, it seems, is our ragtag army of many thousands of un-housed vagrants who have established anti-communities out of shopping carts and tents, and made bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms out…
“Councilwoman Nury Martinez”, Architecture, Architizer, Atelier TEKUTO, Brady Bunch, California, Christopher Hawthorne, Development, Dick Platkin, HGTV, Homeless, I Dream of Jeannie, Japan, LAMetro, Leave it to Beaver, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Metro, San Fernando Valley, SB50, Shraga Agam, Shulamit Agam, Sitcoms, Slumlords, Television, The Brady Bunch, Vagrancy, Van Nuys and the Valley, Van Nuys Boulevard, Woodley Park
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Looking East For Ideas.
On these torrid July days, when the temperature is 105 degrees, and a walk down Van Nuys Boulevard near the Orange Line Metro stop brings you face-to-face with people sprawled out on the sidewalk, living in tents, sleeping on dirt, it is instructive and bracing to think of other civilizations, such as Japan, where…
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Option A: That First Email.
Some six weeks ago, I went to MacLeod Ale and learned about an impending “slum clearance” in Van Nuys. I was shown a sheet of paper in the owners’ office, laying out the destruction of the industrial neighborhood, just to the south of the brewery. “Option A”, by Metro, planned to demolish 33 acres, stretching…
“Councilwoman Nury Martinez”, “Immigration” “Los Angeles”, “MacLeod Ale”, “San Fernando Valley” LAPD, 1980s, 1990s, 1993, AAHS, Aetna, Bargain Books, Bel Air, Bessemer, Black Tower, Brass, Bronze, BVN, Calvert, Catholics, Custom Hardware, Delano, enjambment, Ford Bronco, Frank Gehry, Friar, Friar St., Gangs, Gumbies 13, guns, Hispanics, Immigration, industry, INS, Just Dashes, Kester, La Palateria, LA Riots, LAPD, light rail, MCA, Metal work, Metro, Nicole Brown Simpson, Northridge Earthquake, OJ Simpson, Option A, Orange Line, Pacoima, Pashupatina, Richard Taylor, Rodney King, Ronald Goldman, Salvation Army, sepulveda, shooting, Shraga Agam, Shulamit Agam, Sylvan, Tarzana, Tim Monaghan, TOWER RECORDS, Universal City, Van Nuys and the Valley, victory, violence, West Adams, Wilbur Avenue Elementary School, Zero Corporation
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Before it Changes…….
Curbed LA recently published a photo essay by Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, “An Ode to the Valley Before it Changes” featuring images of grass growing through concrete and defunct gas stations in parts of the San Fernando Valley. It’s a type of setting I have long adored and sought out. Mr. Boyd-Bouldin writes, “The Valley neighborhoods I encounter still…
Here in Van Nuys 
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