The spirit of sharing is growing at Long Beach Community Garden. Jeff Spurrier reports:
At Long Beach Community Garden, known for its stunningly high yields, all gardeners dedicate 10% of their harvest to one of five local charitable organizations. (Other community gardens also donate to food banks, but at Long Beach the giving seems to be on an entirely different level.) The biggest recipient is the Long Beach Rescue Mission, which provides three meals a day to 250 people.
Imagine sitting in traffic during your daily commute and instead of seeing the clutter of countless billboard advertisements you see gardens floating in the sky. That’s the kind of green experience Los Angeles-based artist Stephen Glassman wants us to have as we travel through our urban landscape. His Urban Air project hopes to transform the steel and wood frames that hold billboard advertising into suspended bamboo gardens.
Glassman’s been creating large-scale bamboo installations across Los Angeles since the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. He came up with Urban Air because—like many of us who live in congested cities—he saw a need for more fresh, green space, and a greater connection to humanity. The idea won the 2011 London International Creativity Award and proved so inspiring that Summit Media, a billboard company based in Los Angeles actually offered to donate billboards along major streets and freeways.
As you can see in the video above, to create the garden billboards, Glassman and his team simply remove the commercial facade and modify the existing structure by installing planters, filling them with live bamboo, hooking up a water misting system and connecting them to a wifi network that monitors the environment. Then, says Glassman, “when people are stuck in traffic” on the 10 Freeway instead of seeing advertisements, they “look up and they see an open space of fresh air.”
The project’s hoping to raise $100,000 through Kickstarter to structurally retrofit the first prototype billboard, secure licenses, permits, and insurance, and pay for cranes to help install everything. They hope to spread the idea across the globe so they’re also producing “a system ‘kit’ that enables any standard billboard to be easily transformed to a green, linked, urban forest.” While it can be argued that that’s a hefty sum for just one billboard and a toolkit, seeing a beautiful garden suspended in air sure beats having to look at another advertisement, right?
This is one of the most interesting online interactive campaigns we’ve seen that aims to protect our planet Earth. Check out how The Climate Reality Project is creatively engaging people to sign petitions on whatilove.org.
With the joy of Carmageddon behind us (tell us how you celebrated!), it’s time to start thinking about the future. A future which, in Los Angeles, will hopefully include some better transit options. But L.A., as we all know, was built for cars, from the country’s first freeway to the extra-wide side streets. To move this city forward, we first have to consider what Los Angeles would be like with fewer cars. We’re partnering with Rethink LA: Perspectives on a Future City, an exhibition which opens at the A+D Museum in August, to imagine the city when it has moved beyond cars.
Walking is a “magic app” that builds a healthier, safer, more vibrant city. Plus, walking connects us to our communities, puts us in contact with our neighbors, builds social capital and raises civic awareness. Plus, it’s fun.
We’re organizing a campaign to get more Angelenos walking and make L.A. more walkable. If you sign up on our site at losangeleswalks.org, you can join walks and community events around L.A. throughout the year! Get involved with us and start walking!
Summer is back in Los Angeles, where a heat wave this weekend reminded us locals how hot things in the big city can get. Before you head to the beach to cool off, however, allow GOOD to hip you to LA’s six best (but often forgotten) public pools. They’re cheap, clean, fun, and, most importantly, nearby. An aquatic respite need not require a lengthy drive to Malibu!
Earlier this week, Los Angeles’ seasonal pools opened for the summer, and for a steal: Most city-run pools are accessible for the low, low price of $2.50 per swim ($2 with a Los Angeles library card). Just be sure to check the schedules ahead of time for when pools are open—you won’t want to arrive to find yourself left high and dry.
Last week, GOOD LA and Hidden Los Angeles partnered up to ask you, Los Angeles, to show us your favorite vintage signs. You delivered, with almost 250 submissions from all over the city, from strip clubs to Scientology headquarters, Broadway theaters to Valley motels. There were crowd favorites like Felix the Cat and oddballs like Asthma Vapinese. Restaurants like Canter’s, Mel’s, and Randy’s were all well-represented, as were both French dip rivals Philippe’s and Cole’s.
Now it’s time to vote for a winner who will win two tickets to the Los Angeles Conservancy’s “Last Remaining Seats” film series. Please cast your vote by noon on Friday, June 17. We’ll announce the winner Monday morning. Thanks to all who submitted!
Photo: Griffith Observatory: To Telescope by Jorge Cazarez Jr.
An early version of a food truck sells fruit in Los Angeles. This photo was published Aug. 7, 1921, in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Rotogravure Section with the caption, “The fruit vendor never lacks for customers.”
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