The Ghost Neighborhood of Surfridge

When taking off from Los Angeles, I looked out the window on the right hand side where I was sitting, and, once again, saw these patterns on the ground, right at the end of the runways on the west side of the airport.  I had seen them before and wondered about them.  This time, when I got home, I looked really carefully at the "streets" on Google Earth, and they did really look like streets.  So I went to one of my favorite places on the web, "Quora," which is an American question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, followed, and edited by Internet users.  I asked: "What are the cement "roads" in the land off the west end of the the runways at Los Angeles International Airport?"  Within a few hours I received this reply from a pilot named Mike: "Once upon a time there was an area sort of out in the country near a much smaller Los Angeles called “Mines Field”. As aviation seemed to be the next big thing, it opened as an airport in 1930, and in 1937, the City of Los Angeles purchased the airport to serve as their municipal airport. Aircraft were much smaller, and jet engines were not yet in existence. A community grew up around the airport - businesses, and residences as well. A developer had the wonderful idea that the neighborhood between the end of the runways, and the ocean, would be a great place for a community - and it probably was, for a while. With the introduction of larger and louder aircraft, and then the jet-engine powered Boeing 707, the residents of this wonderful community began to complain about the noise of departing aircraft right over their homes. The friction between community and airport became so great that the City of Los Angeles was forced to “buy” all the homes, and tear them down to end the squabble. The roads you see are from yesterday’s community."  Wow, how amazing is that!  Then I got another reply from Robert: That used to be the neighborhood of Surfridge. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Los Angeles bought all those homes (and a number along the north side of the airport), to make room for runway expansion. About 800 homes in total, and the land is now a butterfly sanctuary."  What an astounding story!  And all this from a view of some puzzling markings on the landscape as seen from an airplane!

 

Decorations

 

We were going to drive from Liz & Sarah's house over to Amy's for the afternoon.  I was driving separately to meet Liz and Kathy at a fabric store.  Kathy was riding with Liz and they had another errand.  So I got there first.  Imagine my surprise to see the entire side of the building painted like this!  This is only half the drawing.  I am not into Smurfs, but I love that they brightened up the whole parking lot with this colorful cartoon.  It brightened my day, and gave me a blog post for you!

Family Portrait

I forgot how everyone ended up on the porch, but the light was so nice that I decided to take a group photograph.  The light is really beautiful, because it is "north light."  I love that everyone looks so great!

 

What's Wrong With Venice?

This is what is wrong with Venice.  See the tiny cottage in the center of the photograph?  (Click on the photograph to see it larger...). In some areas, those cottages were the heart and soul of Venice since it began.  When Amy & Gus moved in to the cottage they are in, there were small cottages on either side of this one, and even more up and down the street.  The small cottages were filled with families, and you could hear children laughing an the voices of mothers talking to their children in Spanish.  They would wave and say "hello" when Amy and Gus first moved in.  Since then, the lots and cottages sell for a million dollars and up, and the rich people come in and tear down the cottages and build three story monster homes.  It appears that there are no zoning laws in Venice - I guess that's good for the city because monster homes pay monster taxes.

The Silver Tree

We decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to walk the dog and get some exercise.  There are a lot of interesting homes, some large and some small.  I will show you one of them in another post.  But this tree fascinated me.  It is actually silver-colored, even when you look at the bark closely.  But it was actually the shape of the trunk that attracted me at first.  So strange that the tree does not just grow straight up.  It is interesting to see how different the trees and flowers and other plants are in California.  The gardens in the front of homes are so different than what we see here on the east coast.

 

Look What I Did!

Look what I did!  All by myself!  Aren't you impressed?  Oh, what is this?  Liz asked if I could install the new numbers she bought for their new house.  Sure!  Easy Peasy, right? Well, not exactly...  Their house is stucco on the outside, and it is like cement.  So I went to the hardware store and bought a small masonry bit and some plastic anchors, and some small screws.  So I started by drilling one hole for the "3" to start.  Well, it took forever, drilling into cement.  So then we decided to fasten the numbers not with screws, but with Silicone adhesive.  It is really strong and waterproof.  So first I cut a piece of cardboard and held it with a level while Liz taped it to the column with masking tape.  She had letter-spaced the numbers on a piece of paper so I marked the cardboard to know where the letters went.  then I filled the back of the hollow letters with the silicone adhesive, and stood them on the cardboard, and THEN I used some red duct tape to hold them in place overnight!  And it worked perfectly!  Except here it looks like some Egyptian hieroglyphics in red!

 

Big Hand Little Hands

 

It was so much fun to see how curious Vivian is.  She would pull herself up to a standing position from sitting on the floor, and then hold on to the edge of the coffee table.  She would reach out for anything in sight - a glass of soda, a pair of glasses, a bag of chips.  So one time I put my hand out in hopes that she would be curious and reach for it.  Which she did.  It was so amazing to see the size of her tiny hand and her small fingers as she felt the fingers of my hand.  

(Photograph by Amy Spencer)