L.A.’s East Hollywood ArtCycle & Block Party
The bike scene in Los Angeles is alive and well - and growing every day.
Streetfilms rode along with one of two ArtCycle tours of local studio spaces sponsored by the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. Afterwards, we joined a block party in progress, arriving just in time to hear solid words of encouragement and promises of a brighter bicycling future from L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti, himself a bike rider. Dancing, art, food, and general chillaxing in the streets continued until 10 pm.
Sure L.A. has a bigger hill to climb than most major U.S. cities, but it could also benefit the most from a livable streets agenda. Once the seeds are planted, there's no going back.
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Elson Trinidad: Welcome
to the East Hollywood Artcycle. We’re going to go on a tour
of the galleries and show a lot of points of interest around the neighbourhood.
It’s really historically and culturally rich. So come on, join
on. [00:30]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Damien Newton: This is
LA bike culture. We’re famous for our group rides out here.
You know anytime there’s an excuse to get together with a group of
people you know, do it, it’s a good time to go for a ride. </font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: Once a month
everybody gets together and just rides to different galleries and enjoys
art and community. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: It shows that
there’s a lot more going on in this street in LA than people think.
I used to live in this neighbourhood, so we’re going to places that
I didn’t even know existed, which is pretty exciting. [01:00]</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: Oh, oh, it’s
Karen. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: I can see lots
of the city that I haven’t seen yet.</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: And what do you
think about bicycling here so far?</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: I think it’s
great. It’s my only form of transportation. </font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Eric Garcetti: Who’s
streets?</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">All: Our streets.</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Eric Garcetti: Who’s
streets?</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">All: Our streets. </font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Eric Garcetti: These
are shared streets and you’re part of transforming the culture of
Los Angeles so they’re not just car streets, but they’re bike streets,
and they’re pedestrian streets. [01:30] And every single
time you make that small act of revolution of getting on your bike in
what is said is a car city, we make sure that people know this is a
bicycle city as well. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Speaker: The big issue I’m
thinking about is the sort of social stigma of riding a bike instead
of driving a car and how it’s expected of you as an adult to have
a car and how that’s sort of going to change.</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Alfredo A. Hernandez:
You want to have a sense of community and what better way to have a
sense of community than the block party. It’s a bicycle friendly
community. Most people here walked. [02:00] I walked.
Some people bike. Most people bike and, you know, it’s… that’s
the kind of community that we want to see in this city. </font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Jennifer Moran: There’s
no way to know how this thing got to be as big as it is because a lot
of people participated in making this event happen, and a lot of people
from this neighbourhood really like pushed for it, like they wanted
it to happen, they thought… they were like oh that sounds like a great
idea. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Elson Trinidad: It’s
ironic [02:30] because the LA riots of 1992 was this really tragic event,
but I think that the beauty of it was afterwards it made people realise
the value of communities and that we shouldn’t let communities fall
in decay, we should really make communities more people oriented, get
to know each other, you know, on a personal basis and I think people
are more proud of communities now, and it’s kind of the evolution
of how cities work and I think it’s something, you know, it’s a
sign of things to come.</font> <br> <br> <br></p>
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