Steps to Nowhere

I finally made it up the stairs built into the hillside above Interstate 5.  They lead to nowhere.  Next to them, are three cement structures; are they retaining walls or foundations?  They're curious, these stairs, mirroring their more popular sister structures across Fletcher Dr.  A rambling set of footings above the Arco station get all the attention.  Remnants of the Red Car trestle are repurposed into art instalations on a rotating schedule.  These steps,  along the freeway and Riverside Drive, above Home Restaurant, are for the most part dismissed.  They are abandoned on a stretch of road that serves as a thoroughfare, an alternative route, a bypass, a shortcut.

Another set of stairs down the road lead to another void.  This one, often lush with overgrown weeds and grasses catches the eye with a sensuous "s" curve.  I've visited many times since moving to Frogtown.

Frogtown is a sliver of a neighborhood delineated by Interstate 5 to the west and the banks of the L.A. River to the east.  Building the freeway meant tearing half the neighborhood out including a library and a grocery store.  Older residents still talk about the sacrifice they were submitted to.  The place was never the same.  Bicyclist in colorful Lycra gear, hunched over their handle bars try to claim the river path; a newer version of Angelinos who pass through Frogtown with the same blinders as the commuters.  Slow moving Chinese, white and Latino residents taking their walks along the river are brushed by and for the most part ignored.  This serves to make the analogy.

On this day, overcast, the city tucked under an atmospheric blanket, I am home.  I take the time to climb the hills.  What's left of the day on a dismissed piece of real estate becomes special and uniquely L.A.  This is what was abandoned when the freeways were built.  Part of me doesn't know the specifics, the other part accepts and embraces what it is now.  Where history crosses culture, where architecture meets kitch, where nationality is served curbside on a paper plate.  To be Angelino, to truly become a part of the city is to appreciate these disparate, random confluences.  If you tuck your head into the wind or drive to get to point B, you won't see the city.  If you can't tap into the Gestalt, you'll never belong.  Giving yourself over to it is the easiest thing you can imagine.