Ask many Los Angeles natives (yes, there are some) about the north side of the Mount Washington neighborhood and you might say, “Huh? Where is that?”
But you will know them, it is insidious, as if it were a secret that you share only among yourselves.
Mount Washington is a neighborhood that lies halfway between Los Angeles and Pasadena. It is often called “Poor Man’s Laurel Canyon,” as it is near Echo Park. Even like Echo Park, Mount Washington is a very diverse middle-class neighborhood that is rising from the barrio like a phoenix.
Washington’s mountain neighborhood is a fabulously edgy mix of yuppies, hippies, punks, witches, new survivors, rednecks, gays, artists and middle-class Mexican families. Some celebrities have also lived in Mount Washington, like the current Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa and punk rockers Exene Cervenka and John Doe of “X.
When I lived in Mount Washington with my family in my eighties, I loved it. For a guy like me, the location was perfect, minutes from all my favorite authentic Asian, Mexican and other ethnic restaurants.
The towns of Mount Washington are an eclectic mix of Victorian mansions (Mount Washington was first developed in 1909), 20-odd bungalows (I lived in one of them), and 50-year-old architectural masterpieces by the likes of Bauhaus émigrés Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler.
Mount Washington’s first visitor attraction is the African American Museum, one of the largest and largest collections of Native American art and crafts in the world . In recent years, Gene Autry American Museum West in the operations of the African Museum.
When I lived in Mount Washington, one of my neighborhood’s favorite activities was a Halloween celebration held at the Hilltop World Headquarters of the Self-Realization Society. where they opened the doors of their heritage to the whole community. Intricately carved jack-o-lanterns were widespread everywhere. For me, this legendary parade and panoramic view of the city at night was always the highlight of their Halloween celebrations.
Back then, life was good. At night I’d sit on the back porch of my twenties rambunctious bungalow listening to northern ballads from a backyard brass band, or a porch full of cockroaches watching. I would walk into the yard in the morning and sometimes I would see the royal purple robes of the witches living behind us hanging to dry. In the lazy afternoon, I often tried to shake the wild canyon to spot a stray marijuana plant.
Almost twenty years have passed, and I still miss Mount Washington.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Washington, Los_Angeles, California
http://www.yogananda-srf.org/aboutsrf/index.html
http://www.erha.org/washington.htm
http://www.swmfuture.org/
