I got back to Echo Park yesterday in time to see the site of the future "townhomes" where the nursing home and Chicken Corner ranch used to be. The low-slung brick nursing home is now so gone that it seems less than a memory. Seems like it was never there at all. Certainly it won't be remembered by the people who lived there briefly and then died. A number of homeless people were said to be camping at the nursing home -- when they could. They may have moved to Elysian Park. If they left any forwarding addresses those have been bulldozed and hosed. This morning at 8 a.m. I watched workers scooping up an old pile of bricks -- what a waste -- the man with the hose rushing in front of the dozer, thick pillows of dust everywhere nonetheless. A truck waited at the sideline with a pile of chain-link rolls ready to be unfurled around the construction site.

They say in-fill is the responsible approach to urban growth, but so is preservation -- look at Portland, Oregon.

I had mixed feelings about posting the developers' info -- not wanting to assist in advertising. But it seems there's a lot of confusion about what is actually planned for Delta/Echo Park Ave. -- on my part, too, as the lots have changed hands three times in three years. So...for a sketch of what the Angeles Group have in mind, click here.

I agree with Kim Pesenti, who just emailed me her comment that "Chicken Corner could have been a great little park."