The Brief

It’s been a year since the most destructive fires in L.A. County history killed at least 31 people, reduced neighborhoods to ash and instantly changed the lives of tens of thousands of Angelenos.

Most survivors remain displaced. Temporary housing insurance funds are dwindling. Many whose homes still stand continue to fight to get the structures properly cleaned. And the majority of residents, underinsured or not insured at all, face a wide gap in the funds needed to rebuild. Survivors are digging into savings and taking out new loans.

At the same time, the grief, trauma and emotional devastation wrought by the Eaton and Palisades fires remain at times overwhelmingly present.

Every survivor’s situation is unique yet connected by loss, obstacles to recovery and a deep sense of connection to the places they called home.

To understand how residents are continuing to pick up the pieces, LAist spoke with six survivors — some families, some individuals — a year after the L.A. fires.

The barber

Barber Geoff Cathcart smiles as Jason Fulton inspects his haircut at Lawrence and Colbert in Altadena.

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It was a typical day at Altadena’s oldest salon, Lawrence and Colbert, a Black-owned business that has served the community for some 46 years.

Well, it was a typical day after the Eaton Fire.

Geoff Cathcart expertly styled the hair of longtime client Jason Fulton, the buzz of the shaver the backdrop to their conversation — also typical for the barbershop, yet all its own, about men and their mental health.

But the rest of the barber chairs were empty.

A year after the Eaton Fire, they’re empty much of the time.

Lawrence and Colbert salon in Altadena is pretty quiet these days. But barber Geoff Cathcart says he is seeing slow progress in the area's rebirth.

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The barbers and stylists here have seen their business plummet. The majority of their clients — mostly elders in Altadena’s tightknit Black community — lost their homes in the fire.

Cathcart, who grew up in Altadena, lost his rental and now commutes from Glendora.

“ I used to walk to my shop ... didn't have to worry about gas or commute or traffic or any of those things,” Cathcart said. “And now it's just different, just adjusting. But I still want to show up and be here for the community. This is where I made my roots.”

He plans to return to Altadena permanently, eventually. But finding an affordable rental in the area has proved impossible — prices have shot up since the fire. So he’s waiting for prices to go down or for his own family members to rebuild — three homes his extended family owned burned down.

Cathcart says most of his clientele have had to relocate to Glendale, Pasadena, Lancaster or even out of state. Half of the salon’s stylists have been forced to move on because of the lack of business. Cathcart, who has been barbering for more than 25 years, says he’s applied for other jobs to supplement his income.

“When you come up to Altadena, there's not a lot here at the moment, and so it's very depressing,” Cathcart said. “I've had clients who don't want to come back until things are built back. It's heartbreaking to see. I've kind of become desensitized to some extent because I witness this every day coming to work.”

A year later, though, he sees the community starting to come back.

“It's slow, definitely slow,” Cathcart said. “But I do see progress. I do have hope.”

Meanwhile, he’ll keep cutting hair and having the conversations he’s always had with his clients — often intimate and personal, though the tune of them now is dominated by the fire’s aftermath.

“Every conversation is, 'Where are you at in the rebuild? and, 'Do you need help?' 'What stage are you at?' And I find, at least for my clients and the people I've run across, there are some people making great progress, but there's some people that are just completely lost still,” Cathcart said. “ Every conversation is really a psychological and emotional evaluation of how everyone is doing.”

That’s something the fire couldn’t change, he said — the role of the Black barbershop, long a sanctuary for the community, a hub of information sharing and support. The shop may have physically survived the fire, but the loss of business since is an ongoing threat.

“If we lose this, then it's just one less place for us to go as a community, as a people and as a culture,” Cathcart said. " We've been trying to rebuild the community one step at a time by just showing up and coming to work.”

A mobile home paradise lost

Donna and Howard Burkons at their rental in Woodland Hills.

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Donna and Howard Burkons have lived out of four suitcases since January 2025. The longest they’ve stayed in one place is a few months — a friend’s condo in Redondo Beach, a six-week road trip to Colorado and Arizona, a couple of furnished rentals in Woodland Hills they found on a website for traveling nurses.

Only recently did Donna Burkons buy linens for the carousel of beds they’ve been sleeping in, plus a skillet and some utensils of their own.

The only thing from their home that survived the Palisades Fire was a 100-year-old iron skillet that Donna Burkons’ great-grandmother used to cook on a chuckwagon back in Indiana. They’re reluctant to buy much of anything — their constant moves since the fire have become something like momentum to keep up until they rebuild.

The Burkonses lived on a rented lot in the Tahitian Terraces mobile home park overlooking the Pacific — one of the few middle-class havens in the Palisades. Their deck was bigger than their home. Donna would watch the sunset every evening with a glass of wine. Howard would watch her watching it. They’d keep an eye out for the “green flash” to light up the horizon just before the sun dipped below it.

“We’d see cars parked along the ocean just to see the sunset, and we had it every day,” Donna Burkons said.

“And we didn’t ever take it for granted,” Howard Burkons said, finishing the thought — a common occurrence for the couple who have been together since they were 18, just two hippie kids from Scottsdale, Ariz., who fell in love, moved to L.A. to work in film and TV and built this dream life by the ocean.

One of the Burkonses' grandchildren drew their former home in the Palisades.

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That is until all but one of the 158 mobile homes in Tahitian Terraces burned in the Palisades Fire. One of their neighbors died. The mobile home park next door, home to another 150 or so residents, also burned.

Now in their 70s, the Burkonses are caught in a waiting game. They owned their mobile home but not the land it sat on. So they have to wait for their landlord to complete the necessary infrastructure and permitting before they can start to rebuild. On top of that, like most survivors, they’re deeply underinsured.

It’s not the fire, or the controversy about how it started, or Small Business Administration loan applications or the 55 pages of inventory they had to put together for insurance that are their biggest enemies. Right now, Howard Burkons says, their enemy is time. They estimate it could be years before they rebuild. Yet their temporary housing insurance will run out this summer.

“At our age, it felt like the pandemic stole a couple of years of our life, and now the fire is stealing another four or more years of our life,” Howard Burkons said.

Before the fire, a typical day was spent with their four grandchildren, babysitting or helping with carpooling. Donna Burkons loved to play pickleball with friends. Howard Burkons would swim in the mobile home park pool every morning. They’d go out dancing the two-step together — a hobby they fell in love with in their 50s and one they’ve kept up since the fire to hold on to something normal and joyful. Their grandkids help with that too.

The Burkonses thought about moving back to Arizona, where they own some rental units. But they couldn’t be so far from the kids and grandkids. And they can’t afford to buy a “stick-built” house elsewhere. So for now, they’re taking it day by day, waiting to get back to their mobile home paradise, their little lots overlooking the grand Pacific.

The family who never left

Ana Martinez at home.

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There’s an old water well outside of Ana Martinez’s house in west Altadena. At first glance, the spiraling metal design, charred and rusted, seems intentional, evoking a country charm.

But the metal was blackened by the Eaton Fire.

“ It's just a reminder of what we went through,” Martinez said. “We did lose a lot of pieces that melted, but it's there. Just like us, you know? We survived.”

The Martinez family home still stands — Ana, her husband, Carlos, and their sons fought the flames throughout that terrifying night a year ago. As the wooden fence and tree in front of their house caught fire, they hacked them apart with a chainsaw. Their neighbor’s house burned to the ground.

In the time since and in the absence of sufficient insurance, Ana said the family has spent down their savings and maxed out credit cards to repair the house — putting up a concrete fence, replacing the melted windows and singed roof, cleaning smoke and ash and installing new insulation, rebuilding the carport that was reduced to ash.

“We got less than $70,000 from the insurance, and we've spent almost $200,000 with everything that needed to be done,” Ana said. “So we're starting at zero again, but at least we have a home.”

The family’s determination to protect their property — a place Ana and Carlos Martinez raised their three children, where one of their sons lives with his own children now, in the front house — brought them all together, closer than ever.

But over the months following, as funds dwindled, as Carlos Martinez, an electrician, and their sons worked around the clock to make ends meet, as Ana Martinez, who is in charge of the bills, watched the costs pile up, tension grew.

“We've never had money, but we've never had problems paying our bills,” Ana Martinez said. “At the beginning, it brought us together. Now, it's been a lot of problems because it doesn't matter how much work gets done, there's not enough money. There’s been a lot of arguing.”

They’re giving themselves at least five years “before we could say, hopefully, that we’ll be back to normal.” The money will come back, Ana Martinez is sure.

She’s not as sure about their health — the Martinezes never left their home, breathing in the smoke of the fire, then the dust of the debris cleanup and construction surrounding them since.

She and her husband developed asthma — they now use nebulizers and carry inhalers. Both of them have started losing their hair from all the stress. Ana Martinez had a cancerous growth removed.

“There's days that I wake up and I feel like I've been punched in the stomach,” Ana Martinez said. “My throat always hurts ... this burning sensation in my throat.”

Then there are the less tangible reminders: like when a neighbor recently had a barbecue and Ana ran outside, smelling smoke, frantically scanning for flames. Or the spike of terror she feels when the Santa Ana winds start up, or when the sun sets, its orange glow reminding her of the fire’s apocalyptic days. The apparently random moments of grief that well up, painful in her chest.

“ I've never been a person that would cry for no reason,” Ana Martinez said. “It's changed me.”

Parts of the well melted, but like the Martinezes, it survived.

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The lemon tree is putting out fruit.

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A year on, those emotions are lessening, or at least, she’s finding ways to let them move through her more easily. Ana says she feels more present, she notices the little things more. The lemon trees in her yard that somehow returned, that have borne fruit despite the flames. The beauty of the massive surviving oak that continues to shade their home. She says she’s less inclined to grow angry when someone cuts her off in traffic or is rude at the grocery store.

“We don't know what people are carrying around, you know? If we lash out for no reason, it's because we have so much internally that sometimes we just don't know how to control our emotions,” Ana Martinez said.

Despite the stress of it all, and the survivor’s guilt she continues to feel, watching neighbors sell their lots or struggle through the process of rebuilding, she finds solace in gratefulness.

“ That's what I've learned so far because there's been days that I'm just grateful that I'm able to get out of bed,” she said. “It's made me very mindful to appreciate what we have. ... We have life, and that's all that matters.”

The Holocaust survivor

Rachel Schwartz's home after the Palisades Fire.

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Rachel Schwartz lived in a house way up on a hill, where she could see the ocean. She loved clear days when Catalina Island emerged from the haze on the horizon, its rugged silhouette vivid on a glittering sea.

Schwartz called the Pacific Palisades home for nearly three decades, and all she wants to do is get back. In the meantime, the 94-year-old is living in an apartment off a busy road in Westwood.

“It left me, I'm afraid, with a severe depression,” Schwartz said. “The doctor said this is part of losing everything.”

She said she’s no longer the person she used to be — upbeat, always ready to try new things.

“Right now, nothing interests me except my wish to rebuild my home,” Schwartz said.

This is not the first time Schwartz has lost everything.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931, she and her older sister were the sole members of her immediate family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, the two girls landed in Detroit, where they had some relatives. Schwartz was just 15.

Eventually, Schwartz, her husband and their two young children moved to L.A. She and her husband divorced, and Schwartz built a career as an accountant, then real estate agent — she still works to this day. She eventually remarried. In 1997, she and her future second husband were able to purchase a townhouse in the Palisades, a dream. It was the house she planned to stay in the rest of her life.

Then came the fire.

“ I told my mother, ‘Mom, you've been through three concentration camps and a three-week march,’” said Bruce, Schwartz’s son. “You can survive this fire if you survived that.”

“This fire is like a  second Holocaust. Everything gone, everything burned,” Rachel Schwartz said. “If not for Bruce, I wouldn’t have made it.”

But now, Rachel and Bruce Schwartz, who lived with her, are racing against a seemingly stuck clock. They haven’t been able to start the rebuilding process because of complications with the rules of their homeowners association — 17 units burned; eight didn’t. The HOA requires 75% of the members to approve a rebuild in the case of calamity, and the majority of residents voted against it.

“There are many unanswered questions as to what is going to happen to us,” Bruce Schwartz said. “ We're stuck in limbo, and I think it's going to be three to five years before we have a clear picture.”

Not only are there complications with the HOA, but they’re also severely underinsured — just a few months before the fire, State Farm dropped them, and residents had to instead get on the California FAIR plan.

Meanwhile, their temporary housing insurance is running out. And anger about the cause of the fire — a reignition of a fire that started a week before and wasn’t completely put out — and the ongoing lack of accountability remains a constant.

“I feel that it was a great negligence why the fire was not put out,” Rachel Schwartz said.

But a year on, they are both growing tired of the anger and the grief like a constant cloud hanging over them.

“We just have to move on from it because there's been so much sorrow and so much feeling bad, that it's time to start feeling good,” Bruce Schwartz said. “It's time to move forward and rebuild our community.”

Rachel Schwartz nodded as her son spoke. She still can get her nails and hair done, she joked, so things can’t be all that bad.

“ I came from Europe as a small girl, and even in this tragedy, we still have enough to eat. We have comfortable beds to sleep,” she said. “I look out and the sun is shining. And I still feel very grateful to be in America.”

A prefab symbol of hope

Charlotte and Steve Gibson hosted a construction-viewing party for their neighbors.

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On a quiet street of mostly empty lots in Altadena, a celebration recently took place. Steve and Charlotte Gibson’s new home is nearly finished — they expect to move in at the end of this month.

“It seemed like nothing was happening for a long time. ... We didn’t see any movement for months and months,” Steve Gibson said. “And now it feels really rapid.”

The couple had lived in their 1923 wood-framed house for 22 years before it was reduced to ash by the Eaton Fire. Their new house is dramatically different — a 900-square-foot, hyper modern, steel-framed prefabricated home. It’s all electric, with solar panels and a battery. The Gibsons plan to landscape with mostly California native plants, as well.

They had concerns about being one of the first to rebuild. Would their old neighbors return? Would they be alone and surrounded by construction for years to come?

But on a recent day, as they looked at the modern, rectangular boxes that will become their new home, “the hope, the promise, the future outweigh those concerns by a mile,” Charlotte Gibson said.

It’s why they hosted a “construction viewing party” in December — to show their neighbors rebuilding is possible.

Another couple from up the street stopped by to say they were going with the same Gardena-based prefab housing company, called Cover.

“ We're nowhere near this yet, but we’re very excited,” the wife said as a toddler gripped her hand. “We came to stalk your house to see what it's going to look like, so thanks for doing this.”

The Gibsons are in for a big change. The home they lost was built in the 1920s. Their new home is prefabricated and modern.

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Plans show what the Gibsons' new home will look like when complete.

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The Gibsons still face a several-hundred-thousand-dollar gap in how much their insurance paid out and how much they’ve had to spend on their rebuild. They hope the Small Business Association disaster loan they applied for will cover that.

Despite the uncertainty and the grief of all that’s been lost, their determination and stamina to rebuild and return has remained in large part due to community ties made long before the fire.

“Thankfully our neighbors on this block ... the ones that are closest to us and that we're closest to, they're all rebuilding,” Charlotte Gibson said. “ And that was a huge lift.”

The family next door, the Pattersons, are among those neighbors. They hope to move in by summer.

“ I feel so hopeful for the future and for Altadena,” said 22-year-old Mona Patterson. “It's just nice knowing that our community's coming back and that the Altadena that I knew and grew up with is still here.”

The block may end up looking very different. But as long as the people who made it what it was come back, the Gibsons are sure it will once again feel like home.

“We’ve heard from people who were here today, the progress they've made, so that's encouraging,” Steve Gibson said. “That makes me think, 'Hey, we're not going to be here all alone for long.'”

Rebuilding side-by-side

The Horusickys, left, with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren (and Roxy the dog) at one of their homes under construction.

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The sound of construction is a constant on a formerly quiet street in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.

A foundation is being laid on one lot. Next door, the new wood framing of a single-story house is getting finishing touches. When they’re done, three generations will live side by side. Again.

The sound of hammers and drills is a welcome symphony as Andrea Horusicky Heindel, her husband, Jason Heindel, and their teenagers, Misha and Jakob, enter the partially built home.

Andrea Horusicky Heindel grew up in the house that stood here before, a place that encompassed the family’s history — her father, Michael Horusicky Sr., and mother, Jana, landed in the Palisades after escaping from Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Soviet invasion. Andrea was born soon after.

In 2012, Andrea and her husband were able to purchase the house right next door. They built a little gate in the fence between them so the kids could easily visit their grandparents.

“We’ll try to bring that back again,” Andrea said.

Michael Horusicky Sr., now in his 80s, built a successful construction company for over 40 years in the Palisades — a reason he has the know-how to move so swiftly on his rebuild today, as well as the friends to get it done, electricians and contractors, many of whom lost their own homes in the fire.

Jana and Michael Horusicky Sr. can see the progress on their daughter's home next door from their own home under construction.

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Michael Horusicky Sr.'s construction experience has helped jump-start the families' rebuilds.

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He hopes he and Jana can move in by May, but he knows it won’t be the same. His daughter and her family hope to be in their house by late fall.

“ I don't have a problem building a house, but I have problem with losing the house — it’s going to be empty,” Michael Horusicky Sr. said. “And my age is another problem. So I have to do it quick.”

Meanwhile, the family of six and one dog are living in a rental nearby. The kids are rotating paying for Ubers to see displaced friends whose houses they used to bike to. The parents are navigating insurance and contractors as they both work full-time jobs. Their temporary housing insurance is running out, and the family is having to take out loans to afford the rebuild.

“We’re determined to make it work, but it’s stressful, and there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Jason Heindel said.

A year after the fire, the timeline to recover seems to be getting longer — permitting is moving slowly, the rains have caused delays, and they say there’s little guidance from the city about connecting to new infrastructure.

“ We have to just keep going, it seems like, at a marathon's pace since Day 1,” Andrea Horusicky Heindel said. “The list of things to do is endless.”

Being back in the Palisades, despite being surrounded by destruction, feels more comfortable. The family doesn’t have to explain themselves. Everyone they run into here lost something.

The family is sure the jacaranda tree out front, though a bit charred, will bloom again. Despite their love-hate relationship with the tree’s sticky purple flowers, they can’t wait for spring this year.

“We're saving our tree because that was the only thing we had left,” Andrea Horusicky Heindel said. “We decided if it survived, it deserves to stay.”

LAist partnerships producer David Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Topline:

About the chick: The chick hatched March 14. The zoo opened its Cape vulture enclosure in February 2025 after years of planning to encourage the birds to roost and nest, welcoming a new breeding pair that year. When it grows to be an adult, it’ll have a wingspan of 8 1/2 feet.

About the enclosure: The L.A. Zoo said it spent years developing the vulture habitat, which was designed to mimic the vultures’ natural environment in South Africa. Dominick Dorsa II, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in a statement the successful hatching is “a testament to the design and construction” of the habitat.

How to see the chick: You can’t for the time being. Zoo officials are keeping it away from visitors until the chick matures, though you can still see adult Cape vultures at the zoo’s enclosure.

Though visitors will have to wait until the chick matures to see it in the enclosure, you can still take in the impressive eight and a half foot wingspan of the adult Cape vultures.

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What zoo officials are saying: “Welcoming a Cape vulture chick is a thrilling moment for our team and a beacon of hope for African vultures,” the L.A. Zoo’s curator of birds Rose Legato said in a statement. “Vultures are one of nature's most misunderstood marvels, and I cannot wait for our guests to eventually watch this chick grow and learn just how vital they are to our ecosystems.”

About the species: Cape vultures are listed as a vulnerable species due to human activities and encroachment. According to the L.A. Zoo, African vultures are more closely related to eagles and hawks than vultures native to the Americas, like the California condors that just hatched last year at the L.A. Zoo.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

What should have been a celebration for formerly incarcerated youth completing a reentry program at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) last week instead ended with seven students and two staff members detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses. 

Now, nearly a week later, BHAC staff and city officials are demanding answers from the LAPD, with some accusing officers of racial profiling. 

According to the LAPD, officers observed a large group gathered on the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Mott Street around 4:16 p.m. on March 26. Authorities then requested backup for what they described as “a large group surrounding officers,” LAPD Public Information Officer Tony Im said. 

The group, classified by police as an “aggressive gang group,” consisted of seven 18-year-old students from the BHAC’s Bridge Academy Movement (BAM) program and two BHAC staff members.

The BAM program pays formerly incarcerated youth to complete 200-250 hours in media and visual arts training to prepare them for creative careers. That day, students were set to showcase their work at the BAM program graduation for families and community members. 

Rene Weber, a teaching artist at the BHAC, had been with the students setting up for the ceremony minutes before the incident occurred. 

According to Weber, the students had gone to coffee across the street at Milpa Kitchen as they often did, when staff were alerted that they were being detained. 

Weber said he arrived to find students and a staff member pressed against the wall in handcuffs. 

Video from the scene, taken by a staff member at the BHAC, shows multiple officers surrounding the group. At one point, an officer orders a person to “get on the wall” and displays a stun gun.  

“No, none of that, these are kids right here,” the staff member replies.

Another staff member, Teotl Veliz, recorded a large police response.  

“I counted 12 cop cars, that’s at least 25 cops, and they had a helicopter,” Veliz said. “It was just so comedic, tragically comedic, that it was on their graduation day too.”

Officers established a perimeter with yellow tape along the side of Ashley’s Beauty Salon as local business owners and witnesses gathered around the students. 

“I was just incredibly disappointed in LAPD… because it became so apparent to everybody, all at the same time, that it was racial profiling and nothing else,” Veliz said.

Weber said officers gave shifting explanations for the stop at the scene, including blocking the sidewalk and possible underage vaping. After Weber told the officers that all of the students were 18, they said they would investigate whether the group had any gang affiliation. 

Police have not responded to questions about what led officers to believe that the group was gang-affiliated. 

Weber recalled pleading with the officers to let the group go and explaining to them that they worked across the street. Community members and local business owners also stepped in to vouch for the students. 

“Our job is to help them gain a new perspective on life,” Weber said. “They’re coming out of juvenile detention and they’re turning their lives around. We can do our part in keeping them off the streets and keeping them doing better but what does it mean if they’re going to be profiled and treated exactly the same way?” 

In total, seven 18-year-old students and two staff members were detained. BHAC staff said one student and one staff member were taken to Hollenbeck Community Police Station and released less than two hours later after advocacy from community members and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.

The incident ultimately resulted in an infraction for smoking a cannabis e-vape on a public sidewalk, according to a photo of the infraction shared with the Beat. LAPD did not provide details about the people taken to Hollenbeck Station or the infraction. 

The graduation ceremony was cancelled that night and is expected to be rescheduled in April. 

“Graduation should be a moment of pride and possibility — not fear,” Jurado said in a statement. “I’m seeking answers about what occurred, and this underscores the need for stronger relationships between law enforcement and community organizations so moments like these are protected, not disrupted.”

Carmelita Ramirez‑Sanchez, the conservatory’s executive director, said she was grateful to the community and Jurado for advocating for the students’ release. Jurado met her at Hollenbeck Station within 20 minutes of being alerted to the incident, she said. 

“They had store owners, señoras, barbers, that ran out and were trying to explain to the police who our kids were,” Ramirez‑Sanchez said. 

Still, she said the incident tarnished what should have been a joyous celebration.

“I imagine that what this does is derail this entire idea that you can be an active participant in your own restorative growth,” she said.

Angelenos crowned the region’s worst intersection Thursday in a social media competition — a tangle of streets on the border of Los Feliz and Sunset Junctions.

The intersection is at Virgil Avenue and Sunset and Hollywood boulevards near the Vista Theater.

“It took me so long to go to the Vons to the Vista and nothing was happening. It wasn’t like it was constant traffic,” said Mr. Glen Dale, the anonymous account holder of Americana at Brand Memes and the mastermind behind the competition. "There is something wrong here that this is so disorganized.”

After a month of voting across about 30 rounds, the Beverly Hills six-way stop came in second place, which seemed to upset some of the account’s more than 115,000 followers.

“I was shocked at the amount of comments each day,” Mr. Glen Dale told LAist. “It felt like a therapy session in the comment section of people complaining about each intersection and really diving into which one is worse.”

This year’s basketball-less twist on March Madness, the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket, pitted dozens of infamous intersections against each other with rounds divided by general geographic area: “East Side-ish,” “West Side-ish,” “Central LA-ish” and the “Valley-ish.”

Mr. Glen Dale said he designed it to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all. The results are more based on bad vibes and voters’ personal experiences rather than traffic volume and accident data.

To celebrate the winners Thursday, Americana at Brand Memes shared some of what the account does best — curated L.A. memes.

Mr. Glen Dale also drove to each of the final intersections with numbered balloons to represent their rankings, including third place’s Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards and Lankershim Boulevard / Vineland Avenue / Camarillo Street in fourth.

Angelenos voted the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border as the region's worst intersection in a competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram.

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Mr. Glen Dale

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The Beverly Hills six-way stop came in a close second. Mr. Glen Dale celebrated each of the top winners with balloons.

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Courtesy Americana at Brand Memes

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Mr. Glen Dale

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Third place for the region's worst intersection went to Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards from the "Central LA-ish" round.

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Mr. Glen Dale

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About the finalists

One Instagram user wrote that they’ve been waiting at the winner “the entire duration of this competition,” with another adding that their “years of suffering at this intersection are finally seen.”

But the six-way stop didn’t go down easily, with a user arguing that it’s the real “essence of chaos” with “no lights, no order, no sanity.”

“EVERYONE IS HONKING,” the user wrote. “Pedestrians are running to cross because there is ALWAYS a car coming at you with a wide-eyed driver white knuckling it while somebody else screams at them.”

The memes took on a voting theme, elections and the Oscars included.

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Courtesy Americana at Brand Memes

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Mr. Glen Dale

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To celebrate the infamous intersection winners, Americana at Brand Memes shared some of what the account does best — curated L.A. memes.

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Mr. Glen Dale

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But after spending more than four hours visiting the final contenders on Wednesday, Mr. Glen Dale said the Beverly Hills stop felt pretty breezy and easy compared to the others.

“I think it goes Fairfax 1, Lankershim 2, Virgil 3, Beverly Hills 4,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “So, I'm very different on this one, but I think after going to each one yesterday and having to deal with it, that's my official ranking.”

‘No matter who wins, it's all bad’

On LAist’s AirTalk program last month, Brian in Hollywood nominated Highland and Franklin avenues for the region’s worst intersection, saying it's actually two combined.

Brian said the intersection is affected by Hollywood Boulevard closures and Live Nation events that bring in thousands of people into the area while commuters are trying to get through the Cahuenga Pass.

“It actually has people stopped and blocked in the intersection, not allowing others to go through because of this,” Brian said, who described being hit by a vehicle while walking nearby. “That intersection is a domino effect to all the other intersections surrounding it in the radius.”

Gina in Glendale told AirTalk that the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and Olympic Boulevard is a “horror show.”

“Whoever designed it — if there was a design — a monster,” Gina wrote. “It's always backed up and confusing.”

Rana in Pasadena told AirTalk the Academy Road and Stadium Way intersection in Elysian Park during the morning commute is both “terribly dangerous” and “extremely inefficient”

As with any election, not every voter is happy with the results.

At least one Instagram user wrote that they’re “still pissed that Koreatown beat out Silverlake Trader Joe’s” in last year’s March Madness competition.

For that bracket, Americana at Brand Memes pitted the region’s worst parking against each other, with the dense L.A. neighborhood sweeping the competition after multiple submissions in the comments.

Will LA’s twist on March Madness be returning next year? 

Mr. Glen Dale said he felt the heat from his followers as the results were revealed, but he knows it’s all in good fun.

“You talk to me now, I'm like so exhausted and tired of it that I'm like, I can't imagine doing this again,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “But … you forget, and I'm sure next year I'll want to do it.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Emma Lopez, a mother of two in Koreatown, can picture a new green space in the vacant, dirt lot in her neighborhood.

The lot Kingsley Drive and 4th Street is expected to become a new pocket park through a deal between the city and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. The deal has not been finalized yet. But Lopez has her concerns.

Lopez, 44, said many of the parks built in recent years have not been consistently cleaned, making them difficult for families like hers to use.

“I have to take my children outside of the city for clean playgrounds,” she said. “If they’re not going to have regular cleaning and disinfecting of them, then I would be against it.”

The roughly 7,400-square-foot corner parcel would be transferred to the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, which would oversee its conversion into green space.

The proposal is scheduled to be discussed Thursday morning during a meeting of the Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners. The meeting will take place at the Westchester Recreation Center with a Zoom option also available to the public. 

Emma Lopez, a mother of two in Koreatown, can picture a new green space in the vacant, dirt lot in her neighborhood.

Commissioners are expected to consider final authorization to acquire the property for park use along with a commitment of park fees, environmental clearance under the California Environmental Quality Act, and acceptance of Measure A technical assistance funds.

Up to $2 million in park fees collected from nearby developments could be used to purchase the site, according to city records, though additional funding and planning approvals would still be needed before construction can begin.

Some Koreatown neighbors say they welcome the addition of a park, especially since the area  lacks accessible green space.

Andy Rider, who for seven years has lived about a block from the site, said there are few nearby places where residents can spend time outdoors.

“It’d be nice to have a small park for kids here locally that maybe aren’t able to get bikes or drive there,” he said. “I just like something other than looking at a dirt hill every time I pass by there.”

The property has long been eyed for development, with previous plans for a five-story building with 19 residential units.

Now, city officials are looking to preserve it as green space in a part of Los Angeles that has limited park access.

The Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust has led efforts on the site since 2024 and is expected to hand it over to the city if the plan moves forward, according to a staff report from the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

Still, not everyone agrees that a park is the best use for the land.

Chance Morgan, who lives about five blocks from the site, said he would prefer to see the space used for housing. 

“Nothing against it, but personally I would always love more housing above all,” Morgan said. “This is a very cramped area and there’s a lot of people who don’t have a place to live.”

While he acknowledged that a park could benefit some residents, especially those with kids and dogs, Morgan said the need for housing outweighs it.

Others are also thinking about how the space would be used — and who it would serve.

“Hopefully it’s a safe place for homeless people to spend the night,” said Olivia Yoon, who previously experienced homelessness and is now living close to the vacant lot. 

Yoon emphasized that unhoused people are often misunderstood and should not be excluded from public spaces.

“Homeless individuals… they’re very nice people,” she said. “Just because they’re struggling does not mean they use illegal drugs.”

She added that basic resources like water would be critical if the park is built.

“Hopefully there’s a water fountain so they can get water and it’s a safe place for us all, ” she said.

Councilmember Heather Hutt, who represents the district, has voiced support for adding green space in Koreatown.

Spokesperson Devyn Bakewell said Hutt is working with the Recreation and Parks Department to move the project forward more quickly, and that they will soon launch community meetings so residents can help shape what the park will look like and how it will serve the neighborhood.

There are no firm dates for any meetings. 

Tori Kjer, executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, said in an interview earlier this year that Koreatown is so “thoroughly developed” compared to other neighborhoods in LA that there is very little available property for new parks.

The site on Kingsley Drive was the property the land trust ended up buying after nearly two decades of trying to understand and identify different sites in the area, she said. 

Steve Kang, president of the city’s Board of Public Works and a Koreatown resident, said the project — similar to the Pio Pico Library Pocket Park — is part of a broader push to bring more green space into one of the densest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

“This is a partnership between the city of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department and the community,” Kang said, noting the site is in an area with many families and seniors.

Kang added that additional funding will be needed to build out the park, and that neighbors will play a key role in shaping what amenities are included.

Based on conversations he’s had, Kang said there is broad support for the project, though some residents have raised concerns about how the space will be used. 

“When you activate a site like this into a beautiful community space, that actually is more of a deterrent for any types of encampments,” Kang said, addressing those concerns.

He said the commission is expected to approve the proposal, which would allow the city to take control of the site and move into the next phase of planning — gathering community input.