Poll: Is Highland Park the New Echo Park?
Has Echo Park it lost its coolness crown to a nabe to the north?
Echo Park resident Kai Flanders detects an undercurrent of change in his neighborhood in a piece published Friday in the L.A. Weekly:
Lately, a lot of people have been ragging on this fair barrio of mine. Guys with unwashed hair and paint on their jeans complain about how Echo Park is becoming too gentrified. Too much like our now-grown-up neighbors in Silverlake. (Shocking to realize it's been more than a decade since Beck was couch-surfing his way to stardom.) Someone actually complained the Gold Room, where rumor has it you can buy coke in the bathroom, isn't "dangerous enough anymore."
Flanders goes on to suggest that with bi-weekly DJ parties hosted by Stones Throw at Mr. T's Bowl, Highland Park might just be the new Echo Park.
Read the full L.A. Weekly piece here.
Is Flanders right? Is Highland Park the new Echo Park?
Take our poll below.
And, if Highland Park is the New Echo Park, what does that make Echo Park? Tell us in comments.
Militant Angeleno
1:32 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
Does Highland Park have an American Apparel yet?
Anthea Raymond
2:04 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
@Militant -- Good question. I can't find one listed here: http://www.americanapparel.net/storelocations/metroareas.aspx?metroareaid=6 To be fair though, EP's has been there for a long while.
David Fonseca
4:14 pm on Saturday, February 4, 2012
We don't have an American Apparel-but we do have the original Forever 21 (known as Fashion 21). Highland Park is not the new Echo Park, it's the original Highland Park--forever and always.
EP K@
5:52 pm on Saturday, February 4, 2012
I've lived here in Echo Park for over 40 years. I was born and raised here and I've seen Echo Park go through its good times and bad times. With or without an American Apparel, new cafes and art galleries Echo Park will always be Echo Park.
carol van beek
8:43 pm on Saturday, February 4, 2012
Each neighborhood has its own uniqueness and it will always be that way. As for the renaissance that Highland Park is undergoing with a preponderance of creative types moving in, perhaps it'd be more accurate to call it the new Silverlake.
Ymar Solamo
9:52 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
Every area develops organically until actual developers step in and begin the process of true gentrification. Highland Park for now has not begun that process yet. We're still at the stage where people are naturally moving into the area; the same stage where small entrepreneurs are opening niche businesses in the area. What we must be wary of is a medium sized developer/development company acquiring several contiguous parcels along Figueroa Blvd; when that happens we might just have to face something like what happened to Glendale off Brand after they opened the Exchange project. It's one project after another until we've got the American or LA Live in our backyards.