Chicken Corner: Stadium called public resource*

Stadium called public resource*

Jenny Burman • Bio • Email

Not everyone in Echo Park thinks the Scott Avenue gate should remain closed. One reader, Chris Peiffer, who says he moved to EP to be near Dodger Stadium, calls for the gates to open:

Dodgers Stadium is a national and a municipal treasure whose existence in Echo Park predates the vast majority of the residents. They knew it was there when they moved in. I myself moved to Echo Park last year to be as close to it as possible.

I think it's a shame that the Scott gate is closed, and that the only pedestrian entrance is on Elysian.

This is a public resource, and these are public streets. Are you also sympathetic to the Malibu homeowners who put up fences and do their best to thwart beach access? Do you rejoice when you see a gated community?

Your huffy provincial homeowner's hysteria is disheartening and hypocritical, given your past views on the blog. A vibrant public ceremony where 50,000 Angelenos from all neighborhoods and walks of life come together in common interest 80 times a year in a public space? We should be proud and happy it exists at all, let alone within walking distance.

Well, without getting my feathers in a ruffle, I'd like to point out that I am not suggesting that the Dodgers fly away to Chicago. Just that tens of thousands of drivers not pour through a residential, two-lane street that has been closed for over a decade. As for homeowner's hysteria: I felt this much MORE strongly about Scott Avenue traffic when I was RENTING a home on Sargent Place off of Scott. Also, the Scott Avenue resident who sent me the note I posted earlier today, says she also is a renter. Renters have the right to a livable neighborhood, too. The push to close the Scott Avenue gates happened before the big gentrification of Echo Park.

Peiffer calls the stadium a public resource, and I call it one, too. But safe neighborhoods and informed communities are a public resource also.

All auto traffic said and hopfeully moved, I think it's cool that Peiffer moved to the neighborhood to be near the Dodgers. Echo Park has always attracted people of passion.

6:55 PM Tuesday, April 17 2007 • Link •

2:07 PM Sat | Lessons on digitizing the LAT newsroom

8:33 PM Fri | Eli Broad offers $30 million to save MOCA

4:10 PM Fri | Villaraigosa wants 'emergency' cuts

3:57 PM Fri | Crest Theatre put up for sale

3:38 PM Fri | Reading 'The Maltese Falcon'

RIP - Downey, PFF

9:21 AM Sat | The new owner is Minneapolis-based US Bancorp, which suddenly becomes a much bigger player in California and Arizona.

Two words: Retail liquidators

4:49 PM Fri | Forget plastics, the real action these days is arranging going-out-of-business sales.

Going through 'The Changes'

TJ Sullivan | Without referencing its recent layoff, the Ventura County Star's editor says the suburban LA paper is now "more streamlined and, in many ways, much more efficient."

Lost thunder: BLM preparing to execute 30,000 wild horses

Deanne Stillman | We stripped the Indians of their ponies, and now we're doing it to ourselves.

LA's fire-orange sun

TJ Sullivan | When the sun looks like that, there's a big fire somewhere regardless of whether we see or smell smoke.

Contributors • RSS feed

Innovation chief Abrams not too impressed with Times

Lee Abrams, Tribune Company's chief innovation officer, doesn’t seem too impressed with the Los Angeles Times. That’s the feeling I got when he appeared at the Los Angeles Press Club.