One of the things that has made Echo Park such a rich place to live is that is was poor for such a long time: no one tore down old gas stations and old houses in an effort to cash in. As I said before, the place felt like a small town that had been overlooked – in fact, forgotten -- in the midst of a big city. Buildings were readapted by economic necessity, not for environmental politics (not that there is anything wrong with readaptation by choice).

So the old art deco style gas station at 1901 Echo Park Avenue never was torn down. It has been many things, including, recently, a gang hangout/dwelling. It appeared to be older gang members, and they were quiet. For the past couple of years it was surrounded by mobile homes and canvas-covered chain link. A high-end tile-makers’ studio was built behind it about four years ago. The artists create both modish modern designs and re-creations of Batchelder-type arts-and-crafts tiles, beautiful and in-sync with one layer of Echo Park: the bungalows of the 20s and 30s. Recently the tile-makers – one who was planning to move to London, the other who comes from Germany – sold their studio and the former gas station to a developer, who plans to build condos.

In the meantime, this week I started seeing changes. The cotton weeds were chopped down. A sofa appeared and then disappeared. Then there was a sky blue Mercedes maybe five or six years old. Today, I met a guy named Depak (he says his parents were into Depak Chopra) who was getting set up in the space, which is now to provide vegetable oil for diesel engines.

Depak says he came from Lovecraft Biofuels, the Silver Lake purveyor of vegetable-oil for diesel. Where the sofa had sat there was a giant plastic tub with wire mesh. I said I couldn’t be happier than to have a business like his in the vicinity, and he replied that a lot of neighbors had been stopping by saying exactly the same thing. A neighborhood that prefers a vegetable-oil gas station to upscale housing. I wish I could stop the churning of the neighborhood right here…before the bulldozers come.

Depak gestured at the gas station and said that even though he was setting up shop all of this would be gone. “They are going to build townhomes,” he said. He is on a month-to-month lease.

Photo: 1901 Echo Park Avenue, September 2006
By Martin Cox