Blazing heat. And it was an eventful day in Echo Park. There was a morning bird count at Echo Park Lake. I was not lucky enough to attend, but am looking forward to learning the numbers. I've heard some distressing news about avian botulism in waterfowl down at the Los Angeles River, and I am wondering if any of the same has been seen at Echo Park Lake, where the lotus are so horribly sick this year.
In the early afternoon, I did finally make it to Echo Park Lake, briefly, for the Cuban Music Festival, which celebrates that nation's disengagement from Spain in 1902. We were there in time to hear the Echo Park Project shake their marimbas for the grannies in Orlando visors, the salsa dancers -- an all ages crowd, well-dressed, on the northwest edge of the park, near the Cuban poet Jose Marti's memorial. Lots of folding lawn chairs and a big crowd dancing down by the stage. We stumbled onto the scene by accident, and if we hadn't been set to visit the Kaprow exhibit at MOCA downtown I would have been happy as a healthy duck to stay all afternoon. Not to mention that beneath the huge trees, and with the grass and water, the heat was defanged in the park.
Four p.m. and it was time for the historic event of the day -- the dedication of Sunset and Echo Park Avenue as Leo Politi Square. We parked in what we now call the Walgreens lot. Except that there's a food market that just opened -- after the retail space was empty for what seems like three years (and probably is). And the lot where usually you could put your car horizontally across three designated vertical spaces and no one would notice was now creeping with cars looking to park.
A crowd had gathered in front of the Bank of America building at the corner where the sign would be unveiled. There were school children, who would do a well-rehearsed recitation as part of the ceremony. There was Council Member Ed Reyes. And there were community activists, including most of the board of directors for the Echo Park Historical Society as well as the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park (Elysian Park also has a Leo Politi designated area) and neighborhood council reps. There was also a big orange condor-like city truck with a couple of orange-vested burly guys and a cargo of all kinds of street signs. There were some speeches that I couldn't hear from the back where I stood. But I was glad to be there. Having been raised in a city (Wash DC) that is crammed with statues of military cult leaders, I love the fact that Echo Park's local historical hero is a children's book author and artist, an early observer and champion of the culture of Olvera Street.
Leo Politi's son delivered a short speech. It was all perfectly lovely until the ceremony's end -- which was when the burly guys released doves -- five metal crates full of domesticated birds that are not generally fit for survival on their own. The birds were not great at flying. They lumbered in the hot air and didn't seem sure where to go. Some of them resisted leaving the cages. A couple did not want to fly at all. One of the burly men picked them up and threw them in the air to get them to fly. One flew in through an open car window. One walked in the street. What were supposed ot be "Oohs and ahs" from the crowd became "Oh's" and cringes. I would have thought the symbolism of a permanent sign -- and some heartfelt applause -- would have been sufficient without the live-animals display. The dedication happened in tandem with the Angeleno Heights home tour/fund-raiser, Politi having been a longtime resident of that part of the neighborhood.
At six p.m. I was going to the excellent Elf Cafe, a vegeterian restaurant on Sunset. Two of the doves were still on the roof of the Bank of America building. I got ready to do my own special bird count, but I didn't see any other white doves, though certainly the hawks did. Hawks, of course, are famous for their good eyesight.
