The Brief

In a busy place like Los Angeles, sometimes it’s easy to drive or stroll right past important art and design.

That’s why for years now, urban planner James Rojas has led tours of L.A.’s Eastside, pointing out the murals, landmarks and architecture formed by Chicano and Latino culture.

“I think the stories of these spaces are really critical,” Rojas, who grew up in Boyle Heights, told LAist. “You want to create the awareness for people that, ‘Hey, these spaces aren’t just neutral. They have stories behind them.’”

The story of one building

Take, for example, the Pan American Bank building in Wellington Heights, which the L.A. Conservancy notes is the oldest Latinx-owned bank in California.

Founded by Romana Acosta Bañuelos in 1964, it served as a place where Mexicans and Mexican Americans could get financial services without discrimination.

Even though Acosta Bañuelos was born in Arizona, according to the New York Times, in the 1930s, “she and her mother and stepfather were deported to Mexico as part of an anti-immigrant backlash.” She would return about 10 years later at the age of 18.

The Pan American Bank building.

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InSapphoWeTrust via Wikimedia Commons

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A self-made entrepreneur, Acosta Bañuelos’s homemade tortilla business grew into a multi-million dollar food company. A Republican, she went on to serve as U.S. treasurer under President Richard Nixon.

Mexican artist José Reyes Meza’s five-panel ceramic tile mural, commissioned to celebrate the opening of the Pan American Bank, has adorned the front of the building since 1966. Called “Our Past, Our Present, and Our Future,” the L.A. Conservancy points out that it’s “one of the oldest existing murals in East Los Angeles,” and helped get the Chicano mural movement in the area going.

The Pan American Bank was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

But you might have missed all that if you weren’t on one of Rojas’s tours.

“When you know the stories behind it, you can understand the community in deeper ways, richer ways,” Rojas said.

A timely tour 

He said that’s particularly timely now, when immigrants are under attack from several angles, including ICE sweeps across the region.

“I think it’s really important to have the tour now, because you know, we’re not going to be intimidated by ICE,” Rojas said. “[We’re going to show] the contributions, the history of the community,” he added.

To learn more about the Pan American Bank and its mural — as well as several other landmarks shaped by Chicano and Latino Culture — you can tag along for one of Rojas’s tours this Saturday, Oct. 11.

Chicano Urban Design tour of LA's Eastside with James Rojas

Saturday, Oct. 11
10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Meet at Mariachi Plaza
1831 1st St. Los Angeles
More info here.

NOTE: The event page says sold out, but since it’s an open air walking tour, Rojas says all who show up will more than likely be accommodated. 

A long-awaited vision for Huntington Drive is finally coming into focus. In the future, the busy corridor will have dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, a thin median and wide sidewalks.

This was the plan chosen by the City for the Huntington Drive Multi-Modal Transportation Improvement Project, which runs on an approximately four-mile stretch of the street between North Mission Road near LAC+USC Medical Center and Alhambra/South Pasadena. This had much more public support than the competing alternative, which featured a wide median rather than wide sidewalks, according to Mary Nemick, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engineering.

Nemick said the next step is to hire a consultant to create design and engineering documents. This phase is expected to take about two years before groundbreaking can occur.

Currently, Huntington Drive has three vehicular lanes in each direction, the bike lanes are unprotected, and about 25% of the corridor lacks sidewalks. Though pedestrians and bicyclists account for only 1% of peak-hour trips, they account for 54% of severe or fatal injuries from traffic collisions, according to a project document.

The design budget is about $10.5 million, Nemick said, and the overall project cost will be determined after designs are completed.

The project is being funded by some of the money previously allocated for the construction of the 710 Freeway extension, which was abandoned in 2018 after decades of local opposition.

The Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a roughly 40,000-square-foot expansion that will include indoor and outdoor science learning areas and space for special exhibits.

The centerpiece of the buildout will include an interactive display of the Inspiration space shuttle mockup, where visitors can go inside the cargo bay.

Built in 1972, the 35-foot-tall model made of wood, plastic and aluminum functioned as a prototype and fitting tool for all of the orbiters that launched into space.

“We’re super excited to be able to put it on display for the public, really for the first time in forever,” Ben Dickow, president and executive director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center, told LAist.

The expansion will also allow for educational areas, where students can learn about the pioneering engineering and design work that went into building the model at Rockwell International in Downey.

The backstory

Last fall, after sitting in storage for more than a decade, the full-scale model was moved a few blocks to a temporary home.

The Inspiration space shuttle mockup was moved in sections to a temporary home last fall

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Courtesy Columbia Memorial Space Center

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The Space Center said renovation work on the mock up will take months and include rehabs of its 60-foot cargo bay and flight deck.

Dickow said Downey is where all of the Apollo capsules that went to the moon and all of the space shuttles were designed and built.

“This is part of the L.A. story as much as entertainment or anything like that,” Dickow said, adding that it’s a legacy he feels like Angelenos sometimes forget. “The space craft that took humanity to the moon, the space craft that brought humanity into lower earth orbit and built the international space station, these are human firsts... and they all happened right here.”

What’s next? 

The Space Center is looking to raise $50 million that would go toward building plans, special exhibits and more.

Dickow said the new building that will house the space shuttle mockup should be open to the public in about two years.

By early next year, he said the plan is to have the shuttle model available for bi-monthly public visits as it undergoes renovation.

Pacific Palisades homeowners looking to sell high-end properties after the January fires could escape the city’s “mansion tax” under a proposal advanced Monday by a key committee of the Los Angeles City Council.

Measure ULA is a voter-approved tax on real estate selling for $5.3 million or more. The city uses the revenue for rent relief, eviction defense and affordable housing construction efforts.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, said she has heard from hundreds of homeowners who say the tax is affecting their post-fire recovery plans.

“For some, recovery is going to mean leaving the Palisades,” Park said during Monday’s meeting of the Ad-Hoc Committee for L.A. Recovery. “In those instances — where a sale is by no means voluntary — I don't think we should impede that objective.”

Vote follows direction from mayor

Measure ULA levies a 4% tax on properties selling for more than $5.3 million, and a 5.5% tax on properties selling for more than $10.6 million.

Last month, Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter asking the City Council to pass an ordinance giving the city’s director of finance the power to exempt Palisades homeowners from Measure ULA within three years of the fire.

In her letter, Bass wrote: “After adoption of the ordinance, I will issue an executive directive instructing the Director of Finance to promulgate a temporary exemption that provides much needed relief for those Palisades residents who owned and occupied residential property in the Palisades at the time of the fire, avoids unintended loopholes, and furthers the purpose of ULA.”

Bass’ office said the letter was sent following a meeting she had with Rick Caruso, the billionaire real estate developer, former mayoral candidate and founder of Steadfast L.A., an organization focused on fire recovery.

How we got here

Any final tax exemption would still need further action from the City Council and Mayor’s Office to take effect.

The proposal cleared Monday’s committee in a 3-0 vote. But it needs further consideration by the full City Council before any ordinance is passed. Bass would then need to issue an executive directive with full details of the post-fire tax exemption.

This isn’t the first effort to cancel the “mansion tax” for Pacific Palisades homeowners. A state bill introduced days before the end of Sacramento’s legislative session would have carved out sales in the fire zone.

But the exemption would have only gone through if efforts to repeal the tax either failed to qualify for the ballot or were dropped by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-mansion tax group. The bill also would have sought to address concerns about depressed housing development in the city by lowering the tax on sales of recently constructed apartments.

Bass said she asked Sacramento lawmakers to shelve the bill so more amendments could be made in the upcoming legislative session.