When Ukrainian couple Artur and Iryna Yuzvik opened their first U.S. coffee shop in late January in Lincoln Park, they tried to moderate their expectations. Their brand, Soloway Coffee, was a new entrant in Chicago’s dense and competitive coffee scene, and they weren’t sure if local caffeine aficionados would embrace their approach.
Whatever fears the couple — also behind roastery and cafe chain Karma Kava in their hometown of Ternopil, Ukraine — harbored were put to rest almost immediately after the doors swung open at 2275 N. Lincoln Avenue. “We learned about long lines in Ukraine, but that’s nothing like here,” says Artur Yuzvik. “It was crazy, six or seven hours of a nonstop line.”
Soloway Coffee owners Artur (left) and Iryna Yuzvik.Soloway Coffee
Chicagoans aren’t the only ones beating a path to Soloway. One woman drove to Lincoln Park from Pennsylvania to get her hands on a Dotyk dripper, a sculptural ceramic brewing device sold at the cafe that’s made with clay from the city of Slovyansk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, an area decimated by Russian military actions over the past two years. Ukrainian Americans are visiting the cafe from states like Wisconsin, Connecticut, and New York, with some “driving for five or six hours to refresh their memories of home [in Ukraine],” Artur Yuzvik says.
The Chicago area is home to the second-largest Ukrainian American population in the U.S., with 54,000 people identifying as having Ukrainian ancestry. The community has dwelled in Chicago for more than a century, and recently, a fresh crop of Ukrainian American chefs has brought new attention to the country’s cuisine at spots like Anelya in Avondale and Pierogi Kitchen in Bucktown. On the East Coast, another Ukrainian coffee entrepreneur is putting down roots. Maks Isakov owned a coffee company in Vinnytsya, Ukraine, but was forced to abandon his business and flee the country when the Russian military invaded. He’s since founded Kavka Coffee in Camden, Maine.
In Chicago, the enormity of the response from customers has prompted the Yuzviks to accelerate their expansion. They plan to soon sign a lease for a second location but aren’t yet ready to announce the address or neighborhood, divulging only that it will be “nearby” the original. They also say that it will be an all-day affair that transitions from morning to evening and will feature a large selection of sweets.
Soloway now only allows computers at two tables near the windows.Soloway Coffee
At the original cafe, the couple has partnered with Chicago carb whiz Dan “the Baker” Koester on a menu of pastries like chewy cinnamon knots, flakey croissants (strawberry, lemon, and almond), and impossibly creamy burnt Basque cheesecake (“ugly outside but pretty inside,” Artur Yuzvik says). There’s also a selection of savory items including sandwiches and avocado burrata toast, though they plan to expand that lineup significantly and add more fresh produce. An outdoor patio, which the owners call “summer seating,” will open in May or June with more than two dozen seats. It’ll kick off with a borscht pop-up that aims to evoke memories of the traditional Ukrainian soup with a contemporary culinary flair. They’ve held numerous pop-ups in Ukraine and hope to continue that practice in Chicago.
The first few months have been instructive for the Yuzviks, who say they were surprised to discover that their American customers tend to avoid sugary treats in the morning, instead ordering croissants and cheesecake around 2 p.m. They also hadn’t expected demand for iced drinks in the winter, but say they’ve seen entire families order cold brew on some of the chilliest days of the year.
The cafe’s design is sleek and minimalistic. Soloway Coffee
Iryna Yuzvik designs and sells coffee-themed jewelry.Soloway Coffee
The most significant lesson since the cafe’s debut, however, emerged from a conversation the couple overheard among customers waiting in line. The group mentioned that employees at Chicago’s lauded Metric Coffee had praised Soloway and encouraged them to visit. The Yuzviks are friendly with Metric founders Xavier Alexander and Darko Arandjelovic and leaned on them for beans when they unexpectedly sold out weeks before the next shipment was due to arrive. Still, the idea of a coffee shop directing their customers elsewhere was entirely unexpected.
“We were shocked and surprised,” Iryna Yuzvik says in Ukrainian, which her husband translates into English. “In Ukraine, it’s a bit different. In the U.S., it’s more about good relations and more friendly business.”
Soloway Coffee, 2275 N. Lincoln Avenue, Open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m daily.
Yosemite National Park partly reopened on Sunday after a blizzard that brought as much as 45 inches of snow in some areas and high winds that toppled trees.
The park reopened around noon, with officials urging visitors to certain campsites: “Be prepared for winter camping (bring a shovel!).” Weather officials say the likelihood of another closure in the next week is low.
Although officials expected that 6 to 12 inches of snow could fall in Yosemite Valley — the most popular part of Yosemite National Park — the total turned out to be twice that, at about 25 inches, according to the National Weather Service office in Hanford.
Typically, with some of the more common storms that move through the area, Yosemite sees somewhere between 6 inches and, at the higher end, 18 inches of snow, according to meteorologist Carlos Molina, with the Hanford office.
“This actually was more like two times to almost four times what they would normally get with a more normal storm,” Molina said.
Toward the entrance of the park, 33 inches of snow fell, the meteorologist said. Toward the east entrance, Tuolumne Meadows received 45 inches of snow.
But the closure of the park, Molina said, had more to do with the high winds than the heavy snowfall. Winds hit between 50 and 60 mph during the storm, and visibility “was maybe 10 to 100 feet.”
“A 50- to 60-mile-an-hour wind was actually strong enough to knock down some of the dead trees that Yosemite has right now,” Molina said. “The public was kept out because, as the storm was moving through … they didn’t want anyone in the park to get hurt.”
Although weather officials are expecting clearer conditions on Monday, they are also anticipating more precipitation on Tuesday.
From 3 to 6 inches of additional snow is expected that day.
“It’s going to be the more typical, the more normal, storm that’s going to be passing through Yosemite,” Molina said. “Definitely less than what this storm produced.”
Another storm is forecast to arrive in California closer to Wednesday, Molina said, but that one may affect Southern California more than the northern or central parts of the state.
Clear conditions are expected by Thursday and Friday. Molina said the likelihood of the park closing again “is very low.”
The Ahwahnee on Sunday posted on Facebook that the partial reopening of the park included the historic hotel and “all lodging, dining and retail locations throughout Yosemite Valley.”
Hotel officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Visitors to Yosemite should enter the park via Highway 41/Wawona Road and Highway 140/El Portal Road. Officials said to expect snowy conditions.
Depending on the weather conditions, Big Oak Flat Road, Badger Pass Road and ski area, and Hetch Hetchy Road will reopen on Monday at noon, Yosemite National Park posted on Facebook, along with the Hodgdon Meadow Campground.
UC Berkeley spent $7.8 million to deploy its own forces to wall off and secure People’s Park, the storied 2.8-acre green space that activists seized in the ’60s to serve as open space for freethinkers.
That multimillion-dollar total is expected to grow substantially as outside police agencies submit their bills to the university.
And the cost of keeping people out of the park continues to be high: The university pays nearly $1 million a month to station private security guards outside the park, 24 hours a day.
The massive dead-of-night operation to clear the park and surround it with a double-high stack of 160 steel cargo containers was executed in early January, in anticipation of the Berkeley campus being cleared to build a new housing complex.
Litigation continues to block the construction of 1,100 units of student housing, 125 units of supportive housing for homeless people and a memorial to the park south of the Berkeley campus.
University officials hope that the state Supreme Court will hear a case about the future of the park this spring, potentially ruling by summer whether to allow construction on the property, first seized and turned into open space by activists in 1969.
In response to a public records request, Berkeley campus officials revealed Wednesday that they spent $2.85 million to build the 17-foot-high perimeter around the park. Those funds went to pay for the shipping containers (at a cost of $972,000), for gates, lighting, other equipment and supervision ($1.27 million) and for engineering and surveying ($515,000.)
An additional $3.77 million went to pay, house and feed the police officers and sheriff’s deputies who cleared and surrounded the park in early January. Nearly $1.5 million of that money went to pay overtime to officers from the University of California Police Department.
The $7.8-million tally also includes $1.16 million that UC spent to move homeless people from the park to a Quality Inn, where they receive meals and other services.
Still remaining to be submitted and/or totaled are bills from the California Highway Patrol, sheriff’s departments for Alameda and San Francisco counties and from nine other UC and Cal State University police departments. A UC spokesman said “it could take several more months” for those IOUs to arrive. It’s expected that they will add millions of dollars to the cost of the park clearance.
In a letter accompanying the figures, UC Berkeley spokesman Kyle Gibson explained in a statement that the extraordinary operation, cloaked in secrecy, was designed to avoid the sort of conflict that had prevented the university from developing People’s Park for more than half a century.
“Our highest priorities for the closure were safety, avoidance/deterrence of conflict, and the minimization of disruption for students and neighboring residents,” the statement said.
The letter described the “vandalism, violence and other unlawful activities” that occurred when the university tried, and failed, to take control of the park in August 2022. That prior experience “necessitated extraordinary measures, precautions and expenditures” when UC moved in January to secure the park, Gibson’s letter said.
Activists who fought for years to keep the park said they were outraged but not surprised at the high cost of the university’s takeover.
“The recklessness with which UC spends the public’s money is well known to this community,” said Andrea Prichett, a member of the People’s Park Council and Berkeley Copwatch. “Think of other things that could have been done with that money. It’s a tragic waste.”
Park activists have complained, in particular, that the university disrupted a community of homeless people who were supporting one another on the property, which lies just steps to the east of Telegraph Avenue.
But university officials insist that the unhoused residents are better off in the Quality Inn, with food and services provided by community groups and removed from the crime that at times went unchecked in the park.
Although opponents call the steel barricade a “monstrosity,” university officials said it had helped keep the park clear — and ready for construction — for the first time since community members planted flowers and trees there, in 1969.
While the ownership of the Field House — a home away from home for Cleveland Browns fans for more than three decades — announced the sports bar would be closing on Wednesday, February 28, the Lincoln Park dive won’t be shutting down.
The co-owner of HVAC Pub in Wrigleyville, Nick Ivey, has bought the bar at 2455 N. Clark Street from Field House’s longtime owner Patrick Maykut. Ivey — who took over as co-owner and operator of HVAC in April 2022, partnering with 8 Hospitality Group (Hubbard Inn, Joy District) — says he won’t mess with the sports bar’s “essence” when he remodels the bar; it will stay closed for a bit while crews work. Ivey says he was looking to buy a new bar to give his employees at HVAC new opportunities.
One of his bartenders at HVAC, Savanna Haugse, will be a partner in Field House, as will 8 Hospitality founder Carmen Rossi. Ivey calls Rossi a mentor — they met while Ivey was a bartender at Hubbard Inn. Ivey says he was looking for more of a management and ownership track.
Ivey plans on keeping the bar closed until St. Patrick’s Day when they’ll open just for the holiday. Workers will then swap out the front door for a garage door and spruce up the space. They’ll also serve new cocktails. Ivey isn’t sure how long he’ll close the bar, but he’s not going to rush anything.
“It’s a dive bar — we’re not going to turn it into a nightclub or anything like that,” Ivey says.
The Field House had its quirks, as it would serve shelled peanuts, encouraging customers to drop shells on the floor. This was before society had a clearer understanding of peanut allergies. The bar adopted the slogan “cold beers and crunchy floors.” As Lincoln Park and neighboring Lakeview draw many recent college grads from Michigan and Ohio dying to meet people from the same state after moving to the big city, the Field House seemed inoculated from that scene while carving out a niche as a divey sports bar.
The bar’s workers reportedly tried to buy the bar from Maykut. Maykut rebuffed their efforts, they say. These workers were blindsided by the news that the bar was sold. Staff was reportedly told of the sale over the weekend. An Instagram post called the news “a mix of sadness and surprise.”
Meanwhile, Ivey calls the Field House a community meeting place and he wants to keep the momentum going. Taking over a dive is a complicated matter, and it’s easy to alienate regular customers. SmallBar in Logan Square was recently sold to Footman Hospitality, and Skylark in Pilsen was purchased by a group of the bar’s workers. So far, Ivey has been pleased by the response.
“HVAC Pub is a late-night music venue,” Ivey says. “What we’re looking to do is totally the opposite.”
Look for more news about Ivey’s plans for the Field House in the coming weeks.
When Shonya Williams, better known as Chef Royce, received a call from her daughter Tot in winter of 2022, she thought her prayers had been answered. Williams had suffered a stroke in 2019, which led her to close her two-and-a-half-year-old restaurant, Kiss My Dish in suburban Oswego. A veteran restaurateur who has opened four restaurants, Royce was taking time to heal while working as a caterer when she received her daughter’s call about a restaurant location that was being advertised as a turnkey rental at the corner of Armitage Avenue and Halsted Street in Lincoln Park.
Williams was already looking to open a new restaurant on the city’s West Side in Austin, but her daughter’s call was a sign: “I really wanted to be back on the scene again. [Cooking] is what I love. So I asked God, ‘When is it gonna be my turn again? I want to do this again.”
Williams signed a lease in Lincoln Park on March 15, 2023 across the street from where Chicago’s largest hospitality group, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, has three restaurants and a fourth on its way. She spent two months renovating the former Taco Bar space, opening Soul Prime, a soul food restaurant with fried chicken, fried catfish, and lobster on the menu, in time for Mother’s Day. But just four months later with a monthly rent of $14,338.51 and sales of less than $1,000 a day, she was thinking of closing.
Shonya Williams is better known as Chef Royce.Chef Royce of Soul Prime stands in front of her restaurant smiling wearing an apron.
Mac and cheese is one of the specialties.
“I didn’t have loans or grants,” Williams says. “I have money that I have saved on my own. And I used every single dollar getting the place to a beautiful look inside, so that I can match this amazing community. I needed support from this actual community that I sit in, which I didn’t know a whole lot about. Unfortunately, I did not spend any money on marketing. I felt like people knew [me and my work], and it didn’t work like that.”
Williams remains in business thanks, in part, to a visit from Keith Lee, an MMA fighter and popular food reviewer on TikTok. Lee reviewed Soul Prime in September 2023. In the video, he swoons over the collard green dip, fried chicken dipped in hot honey sauce, and peach lemonade while sitting curbside. He enters the restaurant after his meal is complete (something he says he’s never done before) to talk to chef Williams, who shares her struggle in bringing her vision to life and keeping it afloat.
The video is uplifting, finishing off with Lee asking Williams to ring him up for $2,200 — matching her sales for that day. But it’s Williams’s comments on the neighborhood that tell the true story of her struggle: A Black woman in a predominantly white area of Chicago trying to serve food that’s often misunderstood by the wider American culture outside of Black neighborhoods.
“I’m not getting a whole lot of reception from the community, but I need them because I’m in their community,” Williams says to Lee in the video. This is one of the few times she breaks eye contact with him and looks out the window, referring to the Lincoln Park area. “I haven’t got it.”
Soul food cooks often have to battle outside perception.
According to a 2023 Chicago Metropolitan Agency for City Planning report, Lincoln Park is a predominantly white community where 80 percent of people are white in the neighborhood even though white people comprise only 33 percent of Chicago’s population. The median household income level in the 60614 zip code is $123,044, well above the city’s median of $65,781. Soul Prime is the neighborhood’s only soul food restaurant. Soul food in Chicago is concentrated on the South and West sides.
“Soul food is one of the African heritage cuisines in the United States, bringing together the culinary ingredients, traditions, and techniques of West Africa, Western Europe, and the Americas,” says Adrian Miller, James Beard Award-winning author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. “More importantly, it’s really the food that Black migrants took out of the South and transplanted in other parts of the country during the Great Migration. It is socially stigmatized because it’s associated with slavery and poverty food.”
From catfish and grits to short rib, Soul Prime’s menu has something for everyone.
Before Lee’s visit one acquaintance advised Williams to lower her prices, add salads, and bundle sides in the cost and presentation of her main dishes, instead of selling them separately. But that’s not how soul food works, Williams says. “I don’t know how to cook any other cuisines,” Williams says. “I make no salads because that’s not what I am. That’s not where I come from. That’s not what soul food is.”
Miller says this is a situation that speaks to the larger issue of a restaurateur considered an outsider, having to legitimize itself outside of her own community, while simultaneously having to educate those unfamiliar with the traditions and prep of her cuisine. Today, it’s disproportionately falling on Black influencers and celebrities like Lee to seek out, sample, and celebrate Black-owned restaurants. Just look at Ayo Edebiri: The prominent Black Golden actress and star of The Bear, who won a Golden Globe this past January for her role in the culinary drama, used her platform after the awards gala to shout out Oooh Wee It Is in Hyde Park as “some of the best food [she’s] had in her life.” These spotlights are often a boon for the business, but they highlight a seemingly ever-present segregation between communities and cuisines and how they’re valued.
Chef Williams has opened four restaurants and brought soul food to Lincoln Park’s toney community.
“People don’t want to pay a lot of money for that, so that’s why it doesn’t surprise me at all,” that someone without the understanding of soul food’s history and complexities would suggest lowering prices, Miller says. “If [Soul Prime] were just to call themselves a Southern restaurant, they could charge a lot more money. It’s really more about class and place than it is about race. People in the same socioeconomic class are usually eating the same kind of food.”
Chef Erick Williams faced a similar conundrum with Virtue in Hyde Park before he won his James Beard Award in 2022. Soul food and Southern food may look similar, but they are not the same. Miller says that soul food tends to be sweeter, more heavily spiced, and higher in fat. Soul food gets its name from the cadre of Black jazz musicians who were miffed by white jazz musicians making the most money from the musical genre that they created, says Miller. “They decided to take the music to a place where they thought white musicians could not mimic the sound. That was the sound of the Black church in the rural South. This gospel-tinged jazz sound emerged and the jazz artists themselves started calling it ‘soul’ and ‘funky’ soul. It was really ‘soul music’ first and then ‘soul’ just caught on in the culture: soul music, soul brothers, soul sister, soul food.”
The term is most typically associated with the Black Power movement of the 1960s but its usage was floating around in Black culture well before that, Miller adds. The sentiment is echoed in the 1983 book Bricktop, by Ada “Bricktop” Smith and Jim Haskins.
“I learned about soul food [in 1910], only they didn’t call it soul food then,” shares Smith, the Chicago woman and entrepreneur who became a legend overseas for playing nightlife host during Paris’ 1920s. Her clientele included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker, John Steinbeck, Duke Ellington, and Elizabeth Taylor. “Soul was something you didn’t talk about except in church. Soul food was Southern food. There weren’t all that many Negroes in Chicago when I was growing up, so it wasn’t until I went to places like Louisville and Cincinnati that I met up with Southerners and ate things like spare ribs and biscuits, sweet potatoes, and cornbread, chitlins, and fried chicken.”
Chef Royce is very proud of her team of mostly Black women.
Miller’s work is an effort to dispel misconceived notions around soul food and destigmatize years of history that have relegated it to lowbrow cuisine, synonymous with Black communities, instead of acknowledging its cultural significance that carries years of history within each bite of meat and three.
“The other main critique is that [soul food] is unhealthy,” says Miller. “There are people who think that by making soul food and serving it to our community. You’re literally digesting white supremacy because you’re celebrating stuff from slavery. There are others that say ‘Why are you serving us this food? It’s killing us because they’re looking at the health outcomes in Black communities and directly tying it to soul food. If you actually look at what enslaved people were eating, it’s very close to what we call vegan today.”
He explains how an enslaved person rose before sunrise and was fed “a trough filled with crumbled cornbread and buttermilk.” Their midday meal included seasonal vegetables, which might include meat to flavor the veggies but usually, it was only vegetables. Supper was whatever was leftover from lunch. “Only on the weekends, when work either stopped or slowed down did enslaved people get access to white flour, white sugar, meat and have cakes and desserts. That was special occasion food.”
“Like any other immigrant cuisine, soul food is the food Black people took out of the South and transplanted in other places,” says Miller. “There’s certain signatures [dishes] that show up in celebrations. If you look at any immigrant cuisine in the U.S., typically an immigrant restaurateur is serving the celebration food of their culture, because they want to show off the very best of their culture. They don’t highlight the day-in and day-out stuff. And that’s the way to think about soul food. So these things like fried chicken, barbecue, fried catfish — people are not eating that every day.”
TikTokker Keith Lee was very excited about this place.
In Lincoln Park, Williams says she’s hopeful her restaurant can find a niche: “We shouldn’t have to go through ups and downs because of our skin color and I am glad to help break that barrier with food,” she says.
Miller says there are lessons to be learned from the barbecue world where the genre was once also considered “working class, cheap food, and now people are paying $36 a pound for brisket and $20 a pound for ribs. A lot has to do with barbecue being seen as cool and hip.” That’s essentially what these influencers are doing — spreading the word about something great that other traditional arbiters of value and attention may have ignored.
To date, the September TikTok video at Soul Prime has 9 million views, 1.2 million likes, and more than 23,000 comments. Lee recapped 2023 by ranking his top cities for food (ranking Chicago in his top three) and re-mentioning Soul Prime. Today, Soul Prime is still in business, which Williams credits to Lee’s visit.
“The Keith Lee community is my local community,” says Williams. “They come and say they were sent by Keith Lee. My community is Black people. I know that we don’t live in Lincoln Park. Some of them follow me from the South Side, the South Suburbs, the West Side. The ones who I see who are non-Black, walking up and down the street, those are the ones that I really wanted to reach. They’re coming in now, I love them. I’m grateful.”
The nine-race programs on Saturday and Sunday will go ahead as scheduled, with good weather predicted and first post time each day at 12:30 p.m., track officials said.
Additionally, Santa Anita will be open on Monday for simulcast wagering in the Grandstand Paddock Room, beginning at 10 a.m. Free parking and admission are offered.
The races that had been offered for Monday will now be offered as extra races Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 23-25.
In the late 1990s, my family got a basement tenant: my grandmother. After years of aging largely alone in Los Angeles, she came north to join us in Petaluma. My mother moved out her sewing machines from the downstairs space she used as an art studio and moved in her fire-haired mother.
A year or so later, my grandmother — her trademark scoff robust as ever, my mom’s patience less so — moved into her own place. Housing options for elderly people in California were slim then, as now. For those with little to fall back on, such as retired public school teachers — my grandmother taught art — it was particularly tough. Lacking the nest egg of a home whose value had skyrocketed, or much savings at all, she ended up in that often-mocked American community: a trailer park.
The Leisure Lake Mobile Home Park was my grandmother’s final home before she went into a care facility. She died in 2006, but I’ve been thinking about her final years lately, and about the ways we can age.
The park was, and still appears to be, a nicely landscaped warren of narrow roads lined with trailers, and a faux lake running through the middle. Her neighbors were pleasant, or at least private.
What sticks in my mind is the location on a suburban island. On one side ran the highway out of town, on the other a high-speed country road. The hum of cars was a constant low vibration, the pollution a hazy scourge. The other sides gave way to a driving range and a seasonal pumpkin patch and corn maze.
You could not safely walk to or away from the park. The two-lane country road that provided an outlet was favored by diesel pickups and tractor-trailers. Walking beside it would have been a terrifying sensory assault — if there was a walkway. But there was no sidewalk or dirt path, just a narrow shoulder sloping into a ditch.
In short, if you could not drive, you were trapped. In my uncharitable moments, I wondered if that was the point: Put your car-less parents here. They will not escape.
I left the Bay Area in 2019. Walking my dog in my current home of Barcelona, Spain, I often remember my grandmother. A few blocks away from me is the Residència Pare Batllori, an elder home. On a recent morning, two old men sitting out front reached over to pet my dog. Bon dia, we said to each other. I turned the corner, passed the popular nightclub and concert venue Teatre Apolo, and looked into the ground-floor windows of Residència Colisée Paral·lel,an assisted care facility. Through the glass I spotted a few senior women chatting in the rec room.
The park next door features bocce courts and a Saturday farmers market. A few blocks away is one of the city’s outdoor jewels, the Montjuic park, which still holds amenities from the 1980 Olympics. Within a couple blocks there’s a gym, bakery, yoga studio and several supermarkets. There’s a subway entrance a few paces from the door of one residence. Locals here not only have the basics within walking distance; they can go clubbing, too.
Density debates in the United States tend to focus on topics such as the climate emergency and the housing crisis — critical issues, of course. Yet I now see that those discussions are also about how we want to age. We are debating whether our future selves can live as part of society, and what it will take for families to come visit grandparents, parents and others.
There are walkable communities for older people in the U.S., and challenges to aging in Barcelona; too often money determines your comfort level. But my neighborhood reminds me daily that the options we give our elders are a choice. We can build for them to age near us and walk our streets. We’re just going to need enough housing to do so: more apartments, more density, more people in less space. In California especially, we need to rethink our single-family mandates, zoning restrictions and tendency to build out, not up, all of which foster isolation.
For about a year in my late teens, I spent most Saturday mornings ferrying my grandmother around town in her 1980s Toyota Celica, after her eyesight became too poor for driving. We went to Trader Joe’s to pick up port and eggnog, whenever they had it (she drank it yearround), to the library for movies and audio books (never Hemingway: “I cannot stand that man”), to the pharmacy for dye (to keep her hair aflame).
She would get all dressed up for each outing — lipstick, blush, silk blouse. It was clear she looked forward to it all week. That was probably in part about spending time with me. But it was also about getting off the island.
My dream is that by the time I am her age, living in the U.S. again and no longer driving, we will have fewer islands. I don’t want to be marooned — and I hope to still go dancing.
Under the cover of darkness, law enforcement officers converged on People’s Park and cleared activists from the green space early Thursday in preparation for construction of a housing complex for students.
Some resisters holed up for hours in a makeshift treehouse and on the roof of a single-story building in the park.
Police were met by protesters, chanting “Long live People’s Park” along with shouts of “Fight back!”
Activists protesting the clearing of People’s Park refused for hours to come down from a treehouse in the park but finally relented.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
A law enforcement officer points a weapon into a kitchen where activists were holed up at People’s Park.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Some protesters retreated to the roof of a building in the park before later agreeing to come down.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Authorities made multiple arrests as they cleared People’s Park in Berkeley.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
UC Berkeley police and other authorities clear People’s Park.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
At one point during the operation early Thursday morning, protesters ripped down police barriers and confrontations with law enforcement intensified.
A massive contingent of law enforcement officers converged on People’s Park in the wee hours of Thursday morning, intent on clearing the way for crews to wall off the storied green space near the UC Berkeley campus in preparation for construction of a much-contested housing complex for students.
The university launched the extraordinary operation — designed to double-stack metal cargo containers around the entire park perimeter — around 12 a.m.
On their arrival, police surrounded the park. Inside, they were met by several dozen protesters, chanting “Long live People’s Park” along with shouts of “Fight back!” Some were holed up in a makeshift treehouse and on the roof of a single-story building in the park.
By starting the exercise under the cover of darkness and during students’ winter break, university leaders hoped to minimize a conflict with activists adamant the park should remain open space, a living tribute to free speech and student activism. The university planned to install the cargo containers over several days, banking on the massive metal structures to provide a more formidable barrier than the fences protesters have easily breached in the past.
The university acknowledged that construction of the housing, ensnared in a legal dispute, cannot begin unless the state Supreme Court agrees that the Berkeley campus has completed an adequate environmental review of the project. The proposed development would create a dormitory with space for 1,100 students in a college town with a dire shortage of affordable housing. In addition, it would include permanent supportive housing for 125 people living homeless. About 60% of the site would remain green space, with commemorative exhibits about the park’s history.
“Given that the existing legal issues will inevitably be resolved, we decided to take this necessary step now in order to minimize the possibility of disorder and disruption for the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction,” Chancellor Carol Christ said in a prepared statement.
The university said it intended to keep streets around the park, and at least one block to the north and east, closed for three or four days.
“Unfortunately, our planning and actions must take into account that some of the project’s opponents have previously resorted to violence and vandalism,” Christ said, adding that this was “despite strong support for the project on the part of students, community members, advocates for unhoused people, the elected leadership of the City of Berkeley, as well as the legislature and governor of the state of California.”
Activists intent on preserving the park were tipped off several days in advance that the university would try to cordon off the site while students were on break. They called the incursion by law enforcement and work crews an “attack” that would destroy a legacy to people-powered activism.
Nicholas Alexander was among the activists standing watch over People’s Park on Wednesday evening, prepared to protest efforts to wall off the site.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Nicholas Alexander was among a small group standing watch over the park Wednesday evening around sunset. Alexander, once unhoused, praised the park as a place that needy people have been able to go for decades to find assistance. He said he was part of the group that helped tear down a university-erected fence in 2022. “This park has always helped the counterculture and the disenfranchised,” he said, “and it’d be a shame if it was taken from us now, because where else will we go?”
Another member of the group watching the park, Sylvia Tree, said she had graduated from Berkeley in 2021. She described the conflict as “a struggle based on the land.”
“It’s about a place where people who don’t own any land can have a little piece of it, a piece that you can grow things on, that you can have sunshine on, that you can meet your friends on,” said Tree, 25. “There’s nobody who controls it. There’s nobody who’s selling you something.”
Such passionate advocacy has become a perennial rite at the small patch of green just south of the campus and a few paces east of Telegraph Avenue.
It began more than half a century ago, in 1969, when the UC system’s founding campus announced its plan for development on what was then an empty lot. Hundreds of students and community activists had another idea, dragging sod, trees and flowers to the lot and proclaiming it People’s Park. The university responded by erecting a fence.
The student newspaper, the Daily Californian, urged students to “take back the park.” More than 6,000 people marched down Telegraph, where they were confronted by law enforcement. In the clash that followed, one man died and scores were injured.
In the decades since, the university has made repeated efforts to reclaim the property, once attempting to construct a parking lot on the edge of the park. A new generation of demonstrators arrived, with shovels and picks, to uproot the asphalt and restore plant life.
In the early 1990s, a young machete-wielding activist infuriated by the university’s construction of volleyball courts at the park was shot and killed by police after she broke into the campus residence of then-Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. Police said they found a note in the teenager’s bag. It read: “We are willing to die for this piece of land. Are you?”
The push for the university to develop the property gained new life after Christ became chancellor in 2017 amid a student housing crisis. With Berkeley providing housing to a lower percentage of its students than any other UC campus, Christ promised to double the number of beds within a decade. She made it clear that she considered People’s Park — long a “third rail” that campus leaders avoided — a good location for housing.
The tensions over UC Berkeley’s efforts to develop People’s Park have spawned more than half a century of activism and debate.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Opponents of the housing development contend that UC Berkeley has not done enough to study alternative sites. Their cause got a boost in December, when a unit of the National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote a letter calling for “exploring all possible opportunities” for preservation of the park.
The university counters that its plan does acknowledge the historic nature of the park while also trying to resolve problems that have plagued the site and nearby streets in recent years, including homeless encampments, open drug use, petty theft and violence. UC Police Chief Yogananda Pittman characterized this week’s action as necessary to provide members of the community with “the safety and security they need and deserve.”
The university released results of a survey in 2021 that showed students favor the project by 56% to 31%. More recently, in an effort to address complaints that the proposed development would displace unhoused people living in the park, the university hired a full-time social worker and said most park denizens had been relocated to a Quality Inn and offered support services.
But the project suffered a setback early last year when a state appellate court ruled that UC had not properly complied with the California Environmental Quality Act, a decades-old lawknown as CEQA, whichrequires state and local governments to consider the environmental impacts of certain construction and housing projects. The court found the university had not properly addressed the issue of noise — specifically the noise generated by students who might drink and hold “unruly parties,” as some neighbors asserted in documents submitted to the court.
The court also ruled that the campus had not properly justified its decision not to consider alternative locations for the housing development. UC attorneys have said that because the project’s aim is to repurpose the park, no alternative would suffice.
The university appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court and also turned to the Legislature. Lawmakers passed a law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, designed to make it easier for universities to build housing and overcome lawsuits from residents who raise noise concerns as a potential problem.
All parties in the dispute await a decision by the high court, and the new law presumably will factor into its deliberations.
The last concerted effort by UC to take control of the park for construction came in August 2022. Just hours after an Alameda County judge issued a tentative ruling that the university could begin clearing the park, construction machinery moved into place. But the 2 a.m. operation soon drew protesters who confronted construction crews, toppling a newly erected chain-link fence and streaming into the park, where they were tackled by California Highway Patrol officers.
By day’s end, the university ended the standoff by suspending its effort to take control of the park.
Berkeley City Councilmember Kate Harrison issued a public letter this week calling on police involved in any new go-round with protesters to “follow the City of Berkeley’s rules concerning use of ‘less-lethal’ weapons and tactics,” which include a ban on the use of pepper spray and tear gas. Harrison added: “These rules, established to protect human life and people’s first amendment rights, are core to our City’s value.”
Staff photographer Jason Armond contributed to this report.
A new California law barring licensed gun holders from carrying their firearms into an array of public places took effect Monday despite an ongoing legal challenge to its legitimacy.
A federal district judge last month rejected major portions of the law as unconstitutional and issued an injunction blocking it from taking effect while gun holders challenge it in court. But a federal appeals court put a temporary hold on that injunction Saturday.
Whether the law will ultimately survive the court challenge and remain in place in the long run remains uncertain — but for now the state’s licensed gun holders must abide by it.
The law, known as Senate Bill 2, precludes licensed gun carriers from having their firearms at public gatherings and special events, in parks and playgrounds, in stadiums, arenas and casinos, in medical facilities, religious institutions and financial institutions, on public transportation and in many parking areas, among other spaces.
It also stops them from carrying their firearms anywhere that liquor is sold and consumed and in any other private commercial spaces where the owners have not explicitly posted a sign to the contrary.
The law applies to concealed-carry permit holders in major metropolitan centers such as Los Angeles. But it also affects open-carry permit holders in rural, less populated parts of the state.
State leaders and advocates for greater gun control say the restrictions are just common sense and only apply to “sensitive places” where guns have no business being. Many gun holders, including the plaintiffs in the case, allege the law is so onerous — the list of restricted spaces so long — that it essentially makes it impossible for them to carry their firearms outside their homes.
The law was passed by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year in response to several mass shootings, including in Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 that reined in gun control measures nationally.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen held that strict limits on concealed carry permits in states like New York and California amounted to unconstitutional restraints on people’s right to self-defense, and that gun laws that aren’t deeply rooted in American history, or analogous to some historical law, are generally unconstitutional.
It also said that certain laws, including those that bar guns in sensitive places such as court rooms and schools, remained valid.
In response, California and other liberal states scrambled to devise new gun laws that comported with Bruen enough to survive new legal challenges. State Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank) introduced SB 2 as a means of extending the list of “sensitive places” under California law. Gun holders sued in protest.
On Dec. 20, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney sided with the gun holders, writing that the law’s “coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”
Rather than a clever workaround to Bruen, Carney, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said the new law clearly clashed with it. He said an injunction blocking it was warranted because those suing the state were likely to win their case and would suffer “irreparable harm” if they weren’t allowed to carry their firearms in the meantime.
But on Dec. 22, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt or “stay” Carney’s decision pending an appeal.
“A stay is necessary to allow the State to enforce the enjoined provisions of this statute, which the Legislature has determined will reduce gun violence in certain sensitive locations involving the exercise of other constitutional rights or that draw particularly vulnerable populations, like children,” Bonta’s office wrote.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit — comprised of judges Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Jay S. Bybee and Andrew D. Hurwitz — granted Bonta’s request, but noted the stay was administrative only and held no sway over another, forthcoming decision from the appellate court on the merits of the issue.
Rawlinson was appointed by President Clinton, Bybee by President George W. Bush, and Hurwitz by President Obama.
Newsom issued a statement praising the appellate panel’s temporary order and calling Carney’s ruling in the lower court “dangerous.”
“Californians overwhelmingly support efforts to ensure that places like hospitals, libraries and children’s playgrounds remain safe and free from guns,” Newsom said.
Chuck Michel, an attorney for the gun holders in the case, said Monday that he will be asking the appellate court for an expedited decision on the merits. He said he believes that decision will again block the new state law as an illegitimate “ruse” to get around Bruen.
He said every day the law is in effect harms his permit-holding clients.
“The people who have these licenses have them for a reason,” he said. “Some of them are in direct threat, and now they are limited in their ability to protect themselves and their families.”
After a years-long neighborhood battle against an oil drilling site in South Los Angeles, a local nonprofit has purchased the now-demolished facility and plans to transform it into a park, community center and affordable housing.
The Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust recently bought the 1.86-acre dirt lot on Jefferson Boulevard for nearly $10 million from Sentinel Peak Resources. The nonprofit and its partners are now seeking grants and other funding sources to pay for planning, remediation and project execution.
“It’s what we hoped for,” Richard Parks, president of the South L.A. nonprofit Redeemer Community Partnership, said of the purchase. “It’s just so amazing to see our community receiving beauty for ashes. It’s overwhelming and feels like such a blessing.”
The sale marks a new chapter in a persistent and community-led fight against the oil drilling site, which residents argued for years was noisy and spewed foul odors. It also comes at a time of growing concerns about the risks and inequities of urban drilling in neighborhoods. L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky recently introduced legislation aiming to address public health and environmental threats posed by a drill site near the Pico-Robertson area.
Oil wells are known to emit carcinogens such as benzene and formaldehyde, and living near wells is associated with health problems such as respiratory issues and preterm births, studies have found.
Community leaders hope the purchase serves as a model for how to repurpose shuttered fossil fuel facilities as the city phases out existing oil and gas wells, a historic move approved last year by the L.A. City Council that also bans new oil and gas extraction.
Tori Kjer, executive director of the L.A. Neighborhood Land Trust, believes it is critical that these sites are transformed into uses that benefit communities historically affected by oil drilling. “It’s an environmental justice issue,” she said. It’s also imperative that planned site uses won’t displace residents through gentrification, she added.
“It’s so important, this idea of joint development, where you’re layering in affordable housing, community space and a park together,” she said. “For us, it’s really the ideal approach to equitable development in communities. … This is a rare opportunity, and an important opportunity, as we think bigger scale about future types of development in Los Angeles.”
Kjer estimates they will need three to six months and about $600,000 for remediation planning, and an additional year and $2 million to $3 million for cleanup. They are seeking state grants. The park’s budget will be about $6 million.
Lori R. Gay, president and chief executive of the Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County, said their target is to build 70 affordable housing units. They are also considering creating a community land trust to preserve the neighborhood and produce new homeowners.
After a years-long neighborhood battle against an oil drilling site in South L.A., a local nonprofit has purchased the now-demolished facility and plans to transform it into a park, community center and affordable housing.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
“The Jefferson site is in a homeownership community, so we wanted to maintain both the integrity and culture of the community with affordable homeownership,” she said. “It is too easy to just build affordable housing focused on tenancy and not provide the opportunity to build generational wealth. This development provides the opportunity to build wealth for generations to come.”
But the grand visions for the property won’t come without hurdles.
Finding land trust lenders will be challenging, Gay said, as will plan reviews and significant market changes that could hinder the speed of development. Having multiple partners involved in a large project could also further complicate it, Kjer added. Planning, remediation and raising and finding finances will also be tricky.
“The housing kind of funds itself, and we have some really good prospects for funding the park through different grants, but the community center I think will be a very big challenge,” Parks said. “How do we raise the several million dollars to be able to build that out for the community?”
First approved nearly 60 years ago, the South L.A. oil site on West Jefferson Boulevard and Van Buren Place was situated closer to homes than any other city drilling facility, according to the nonprofit Community Health Councils.
In 2013, environmental justice advocates with Redeemer Community Partnership began organizing after the oil company requested permits by the city of Los Angeles to drill three new wells.
Parks remembered knocking on residents’ doors and hearing concerning stories about the nearby oil facility: One woman was sprayed with oil while she watered her front lawn. The noxious smells of diesel exhaust and petroleum fumes permeated through a toddler’s room even with the windows closed. Others complained of headaches and nosebleeds, and miscarriages were commonplace, he recalled.
A report by a petroleum administrator, who was hired in 2016 to oversee oil and gas operations in the city, noted that the Jefferson Boulevard facility was classified as having hydrogen sulfide gas, which can give off a rotten-eggs odor and cause smell loss, and that chemicals such as benzene have also been emitted from the site.
A group of community members who were involved in the fight against the Jefferson Boulevard oil drilling site stand on the demolished facility.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
In 2017, after persistent demands from community activists to enclose the site, L.A. City Council members issued a set of stringent rules that oil companies must follow if they wanted to continue operating drilling sites next to homes in South L.A.
The requirements included, among other things, that drilling equipment be permanently closed off by a 45-foot-tall structure to reduce noise, odors and block glaring lights. It was a big victory for community activists, who had argued that the site exemplified the toxic outcomes of oil drilling in urban neighborhoods.
Officials at the time described the requirements as the toughest ever imposed on a drill site in L.A.
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Sentinel Peak Resources spurned the commands and filed a lawsuit. The company argued that the new mandates were “unduly oppressive” and would force it to reduce or stop its operations.
Nearly a year later, the company announced it would shutter the site for good.
While it removed all oil operating equipment and capped the 36 wells on site, the community began working on a shared vision for the site’s future.
“Because we knew if we did not do that, that the toxic violence of oil extraction would be replaced by the violence of displacement,” Parks said. “Developers are coming in, they’re tearing down homes, they’re building up student housing, they’re driving out longtime residents, and we didn’t want to see that happen.”
With help from California Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), who is running for L.A. City Council District 10, they secured a $10-million state grant for those efforts.
“I’m really excited,” Jones-Sawyer said. “This will be the blueprint for how you can effectively make changes.”
When Redeemer Community Partnership contacted him about their vision for the land, “it seemed like the perfect combination of dealing with our housing crisis and dealing with our crisis with having no open space. And so when I had the opportunity to provide the $10 million … it seemed like a wonderful opportunity,” Jones-Sawyer said.
For residents such as Corissa Pacillas, who fought for years for more stringent protections from the Jefferson Boulevard site, the purchase exemplifies the power of organizing.
“It was encouraging to see that when people really intentionally organize and speak up, and are persistent … passionate and have good leadership … that change can happen,” said Pacillas, who spent years documenting the facility’s activities from the porch of her second-floor apartment. “I’m just so excited that the property … is going to go toward really benefiting the community.”
Two beloved giant sequoias that were scorched in a prescribed burn at Calaveras Big Trees State Park last year now appear likely to recover.
The damage to the ancient trees — named the Orphans — had drawn outrage from some members of the Northern California mountain communities that surround the park, who accused staff of failing to adequately prepare the forest before setting it alight. Officials said they took the proper precautions but that the trees appeared to have been weakened by years of drought, making them more susceptible to a pulse of heat that roasted their massive trunks and killed much of their canopies.
In October, a team of experts hiked to the Orphans to examine them. Both had plenty of green in their crowns and had regrown foliage since the fire,said Kristen Shive, a fire ecologist and assistant professor at UC Berkeley who has studied how much crown damage giant sequoias can sustain.
“I saw two very happy living trees,” she said. “I expect both of them to survive.”
The Orphans, which are at least 500 years old, got their names because they are set apart from other sequoias in the grove. The broccoli-topped giants have long towered over the smaller trees that surround them.
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But the burn that took place last October and November, which was intended to cull vegetation that could fuel a damaging wildfire, blackened their enormous copper-colored trunks and turned most of their green tops brown.
Still, the burn achieved a key goal: regeneration, said Danielle Gerhart, district superintendent of California State Parks’ Central Valley District. Giant sequoias rely on fire to reproduce — their cones open and release seeds only in response to bursts of heat, and flames expose mineral soil in which those seeds can germinate.
People hike to the Orphans in Calaveras Big Trees State Park to pray for their survival.
(Dominique Williams / Modesto Bee)
As a result of the prescribed burn, thousands of sequoia seedlings are growing beneath the Orphans, Gerhart said. Many will eventually perish as they compete for sunlight and water, but a few might grow into the next crop of monarchs.
“We have to have fire that’s hot enough to be able to create that regeneration, and that to me is really exciting,” she said. “It literally is a carpet of green underneath and they’re all little babies.”
Calaveras Big Trees is a haven for local residents, who describe a spiritual connection to the park’s cathedral-like sequoia groves. As the state’s longest continually running tourist attraction, it also serves as the area’s economic engine.
Marcie Powers, former board member of the Calaveras Big Trees Assn., a nonprofit that raises funds for the park’s educational and interpretive programs, said she was thrilled to see new growth. She described the contrast between the trees’ baked crowns and fresh greenery as “stark and stunning.”
After the Orphans were damaged, Powers resigned from the board to found Save Calaveras Big Trees with her husband. The group’s goal is to get the park to do more thinning, mastication and biomass removal, which they hope will reduce the risk of sequoias dying in both prescribed burns and wildfires.
Powers pointed out that the long-term survival of the Orphans is not certain, as the fire weakened the trees and could still result in them succumbing to drought or beetle attacks in the years to come. She said the burn also killed some juvenile giant sequoias between 10 and 40 years old.
“I still feel that had they been more vigilant, they might not have had such severe damage to the Orphans or to the dozen adolescent giant sequoias around them that were outright killed,” she said. “Only a few seedlings will make it to become monarchs, which is why it’s important to protect the ones we have.”
Before the burn, crews raked leaves and needles away from the Orphans’ roots and cleared heavy vegetation and downed limbs within a 20-foot radius of their trunks, Gerhart said. Still, she said, it’s impossible to prepare the forest to the point where a prescribed fire carries no risk of mortality.
“As much as none of us want that to happen, it is still a possibility,” she said. “Fire is not an exact science.”
Even so, when any tree dies — including a giant sequoia — that reduces competition for resources, allowing other trees to thrive, she said.
“I think the key is we have to start thinking about these as dynamic ecosystems again, rather than as museum pieces, where we naively think we can keep every single one of them around forever,” Shive said.
She and other giant sequoia experts have watched the debate playing out between local residents and park officials with trepidation, fearing the backlash to the burn could jeopardize efforts to safeguard other ancient groves.
Giant sequoias grow naturally only in a 60-mile band of forest on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Though they need fire to thrive, they are no match for the massive, high-severity wildfires that have become more common over the last decade, scientists say. Nearly 20% of the giants’ population are estimated to have died in just three fires in the southern Sierra in 2020 and 2021.
Experts blame a combination of climate change, the dispossession of Indigenous people who once stewarded the land and management decisions like aggressive fire suppression and industrial logging for creating denser, more flammable forests in the Sierra.
These conditions are capable of stoking hotter, faster-moving fires that can race up into the crowns of sequoias, incinerating the massive trees. Without action to restore these lands to something more closely resembling their precolonial conditions, many more sequoias will be lost, the experts fear.
“Part of how these forests evolved is with fire. By us excluding it all this time, we’ve created such a horrendous problem that a lot of trees are dying,” said Brent Skaggs, a contractor with the nonprofit Fire Restoration group.
“We need to own up to that and take steps to restore fire back in these ecosystems,” said Skaggs, a retired Forest Service fire management officer for the Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument.
He acknowledged that even the most careful prescribed fire could kill some mature giant sequoias. But on balance, the practice is key to protecting the trees that remain from catastrophic wildfires that will wipe out much larger numbers, he said.
“Folks love the Orphans,” he said. “I understand that — I love sequoias myself. There’s a worry, though, that if you don’t allow the natural process to occur because you love them so much, you’re going to love them to death.”
Since the controversy, Calaveras Big Trees State Park has moved ahead with more prescribed burns, including a 39-acre one in the park’s North Grove last month that appears to have gone as planned, Gerhart said. A much larger, 1,300-acre burn is planned for the South Grove this fall. Officials had hoped to ignite it this week, but the area is still too wet from recent rains.
Crews have been preparing for over a year by clearing vegetation away from the bases of giant sequoias, thinning and masticating smaller trees, hauling off large logs and reducing the amount of vegetation around a road that surrounds the burn area, Gerhart said.
The uproar has redoubled the park’s commitment to transparency and public education, she added.
“I think it just reminded us that the community cares so much and we are responsible for what’s going on in the park and we want to share that with people,” she said. “We’re all here together. We all live in this community.”
The famously flat and dry Badwater Basin now is home to a sprawling but temporary lake, visible from water’s edge and 5,575 feet above at Dante’s View.
Dante’s View, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Between sand dunes at Mesquite Flat, you might stumble on a puddle or a pond. In Mosaic and Golden canyons, where floodwaters surged in August, scattered boulders and silt have reshaped the narrow passages, hinting at violence just concluded. Across the plains and slopes, you see more green than usual and sometimes yellow and orange wildflowers, apparently blooming out of seasonal confusion.
Rangers say they can’t be sure how long the lake will last, and it’s unclear when the park’s many still-closed roads and other areas will reopen. But those travelers on the scene in recent days — some savvy, some lucky and most, it seems, from abroad — have half a dozen striking spectacles to choose from. They also have a few challenges to reckon with, including $8 gas at Furnace Creek. (Don’t worry. Stovepipe Wells is more than $2 cheaper.)
“We were very lucky,” said Todd Robertson, 35, of London, walking the Badwater shoreline in the aftermath of a spectacular sunset.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Klaus Meyer, 32, of Germany’s Black Forest region, hiking through Mosaic Canyon.
Golden Canyon, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
“Twelve-hour days. Six days a week. Good money,” said Jorge Santiago, 30, of Reno. He was working as a flagman near Zabriskie Point, where road repairs require traffic control.
Crucial stretches of State Route 190 and Badwater Road, which connect many of the park’s most popular sites, are open. Still, drivers from Southern California must enter the park by way of Lone Pine, using highways 395 and 136, and will face two road-repair stops on the way to Furnace Creek, with delays of up to 30 minutes each. There’s a third checkpoint between Furnace Creek and Dante’s View. (Check the park website before visiting.)
Once you’re in the park, trails are uncrowded, traffic is scant, roads are freshly scraped (through gravel patches remain) and occupancy is low in hotels and campgrounds at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells Village. Many campgrounds are open. High temperatures are expected to dip from about 100 Friday to the high 80s for most of the next week.
A surprise lake at Badwater Basin
Badwater is the lowest spot in the continental U.S., 282 feet below sea level, and it’s usually a vast flat expanse of salty, crusty playa that was once a lakebed.
Sometimes there’s a little water near the boardwalk that the National Park Service has built near the parking lot, but usually there’s nothing you could call a lake. Now there’s more water than rangers have seen in 18 years, and the result is a glassy surprise that ripples in the breeze.
Todd Robertson and Karina Shah, both from London, were there shortly after sunset Monday, watching the sky darken and the lake’s colors change.
British visitors Todd Robertson and Karina Shah at Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
“We’ve been waiting 10 years to come and do the national parks,” Robertson said. “We were in Zion yesterday and the Valley of Fire en route to here. We were praying all the way that this would be open.”
And then, he said, “Last night when we checked in [at the Ranch at Death Valley in Furnace Creek], they let us know it was wet.”
Bill Altman, 68, was present for the same sunset, because he’d done plenty of homework.
“I’m from Maine and I’m doing a national park tour. Started at the Badlands in South Dakota. Been driving around for a month and a half already. I knew about the rain, knew about the closure, knew about the water,” he said. “I come every year and I’ve never seen the lake. … Pretty wonderful.”
Park ranger Matthew Lamar said rangers haven’t measured the depth of the lake, but “a little over 2 feet [at its deepest point] is what we think. That’s what it was in 2005, the last time there was a significant lake there.” Lamar noted that the park, besides being the hottest place in the world, also has the highest evaporation rate, so the lake may dry up within a few weeks. “It depends in part on temperatures.” In the meantime, he said, rangers in the Visitor Center are stressing to visitors that “this is really special.”
Mesquite Flat: ‘The flowers are really confused’
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
For those willing to rise before dawn, it’s always been a treat to see the sun rise above the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, casting golden light on all that sand and the surrounding mountains. In recent days, that panorama has been punctuated by at least a few enduring puddles and one pond, which I found about half a mile from the Mesquite Flat parking lot.
More than once, I spotted a faint, flitting motion on the pond’s surface. A mosquito? In Death Valley? Maybe so. Ranger Shelby McClintock later told me that since the summer rain of 2022, “There’s been an uptick in insects.” And in some spots, she added, “The flowers are really confused, and they’re in bloom.”
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Meanwhile, on the dunes, the sun rose and colored the mountains. The temperature, about 70 at 7 a.m., began its climb to the 90s. On a neighboring dune, Klaus Meyer, 32, and girlfriend Leo Fischer, 33, were taking their time.
Meyer had just finished his last segment of the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra near Mammoth. Fischer had come from Germany to join him. As they roamed the dunes, Fischer spotted a set of sidewinder tracks, a repeating pattern that they would never have expected a rattlesnake to leave in its wake. Later they hiked Mosaic Canyon, where mud flows and flung stones have raised and rearranged the canyon floor, scraping and polishing walls that were always famed for their striations and markings.
“I’m an environmental scientist and all this geological stuff is great for me. So it was sort of an obvious step to come here,” Meyer said. Still, “It was definitely a surprise,” he said.
“Now,” added Fischer, “we have five days until your visa expires.”
Mystery spectacles at Zabriskie Point
From Zabriskie Point, visitors can survey a wonderland of rock formations and alluvial flow, and it’s just about impossible to tell what happened last week from what happened last century. Visitor Michaela Reichel, 33, from near Frankfurt, Germany, had come with a friend on a San-Francisco-to-Las Vegas-and-back itinerary they’d planned in spring.
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
“We didn’t know about the closure and reopening,” Reichel said. Looking into the distance from the point, they could see shimmering along the desert floor at Badwater. But was it a mirage or real water? They debated until a third party settled the question.
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Dante’s View, a spot to take in the park’s recent transformation
“We expected it to be really crowded up here,” said Fredy Koepf, puzzled.
He and his wife, Karin Koepf, had little company as they stood atop the ridge at Dante’s View, looking down at the floor of Death Valley more than a mile below.
The centerpiece of that view was a blue-green blob that stretched for miles — the lake at Badwater. When the sun dipped beneath the mountains and the glare subsided, the lake’s colors deepened and the unlikeliness of it all seemed to double.
“We’re from Switzerland,” Fredy Koepf said. “We’ve been visiting U.S. national parks for decades.” But they had never come to Death Valley because they were traveling with kids in summer, he said, and wanted no part of that profound desert heat. Now, with their kids grown, the Koepfs had taken an extended autumn vacation to see the West, including Yosemite.
Travelers Fredy and Karin Koepf admire Dante’s View, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
They knew Death Valley had been closed but saw that it was likely to reopen, so they spent a few days exploring the lakes and early autumn colors of the Eastern Sierra — a happy surprise, said Karin Koepf, because “we didn’t know fall is like this here!”
Once Death Valley opened on Sunday, Fredy Koepf said, “We were here Monday. It was perfect. … It’s amazing.” And in the narrow canyons, “You can really imagine the force of the water. … We have friends in San Diego. They’re too busy. We keep sending them pictures.”
It’s a spectacular time to visit Death Valley
The Monday sunset at Badwater had been so spectacular that I wanted to see it in reverse. So I went back for Wednesday sunrise.
Arriving in the predawn moments, I found John Osborn, 61, from outside Portland, Ore., pointing his camera across the water, along the water’s edge, then across the water again.
“This trip was planned two years ago,” he said, then paused to explain: “I went through cancer treatment two years ago.”
Traveler John Osborn at Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Since those days, he said, “I’ve got a long list” of places to see. When he got word of the park’s reopening, he started driving south, stopping along the way in Inyo County’s White Mountains to see the bristlecone pines, some of the oldest living organisms on Earth. He checked into the hotel at Furnace Creek, got up early and drove 18 miles to Badwater to watch and snap the sun come up over the slowly vanishing lake.
“I lived in Southern California for 18 years and never came here,” he said.
Travel tips: hotels, food and, yes, those gas prices
Death Valley National Park includes lodgings and restaurants at Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells and Panamint Springs, with hotel prices starting between $100 and $200 nightly.
Since the park’s partial reopening Oct. 15, many services have been limited, in part because of staffing shortages.
Gas station, Furnace Creek, Death Valley.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The largest number of visitor accommodations can be found at a complex in Furnace Creek known as the Oasis at Death Valley and run by the Xanterra management company. The Oasis, which is relatively close to Zabriskie Point and Badwater Basin, includes the Ranch at Death Valley hotel and the more upscale Inn at Death Valley. The breakfast buffet at Furnace Creek’s 1849 Restaurant costs $21 for adults.
The park’s Stovepipe Wells Village, which includes lodging, restaurant, store and gas station about 25 miles northwest of Furnace Creek, is close to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and Mosaic Canyon. The breakfast buffet price is $9.50.
The Furnace Creek gas station, managed by Xanterra, was charging $8.20 per gallon of regular gas when I arrived — a number so high that I saw a motorcyclist pull out his phone to take a photo after gassing up.
When I asked the attendant about the price, he said that because of the road closures, “Our fuel delivery company has to drive an extra five hours to get here. So most of (the high prices) is extra fuel delivery cost.”
Meanwhile, at the park’s Stovepipe Wells Village gas station 25 miles away (and under different management), the price was $5.79 for regular.
Melbourne’s city centre could see a major revamp to its car parking in a bid to ease traffic congestion.
Key points:
Clearer parking signs, changes to loading zones and widened streets are hoped to improve parking in Melbourne’s CBD
Up to 30 per cent of traffic in the CBD is made up of motorists cruising to find a park
There are no planned changes to the maximum hourly rate of $7 in the city
The City of Melbourne plans to introduce measures to make parking in the CBD simpler and fairer after a recent survey found more than 80 per cent of motorists struggled to find an on-street parking space during their last visit.
Simplified signage, changes to loading zones and more consistent layouts and durations for parking spaces are among the proposed changes in the draft Park and Kerbside Management Plan.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said the council did not intend to increase the current maximum $7 hourly parking rate in the CBD.
“There are no plans to increase the rate at all but there are some propositions to reduce the rate at lower peak times to encourage people to come into the city at those times when there are more car parks available,” she said.
“If lowering the price would help with that, then that’s something we are certainly willing to consider.”
Ms Capp said she hoped proposed changes would alleviate “parking anxiety” and congestion because motorists cruising to find a park made up about 30 per cent of traffic in the CBD.
California Skateparks-designed Aljada Skatepark hosts world’s best on their road to Paris.
Press Release –
Feb 3, 2023 05:15 PST
VISTA, Calif., February 3, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– The world’s best skateboarders are performing their newest tricks this week at the massive Aljada Skatepark in Sharjah, UAE. Designed and built by California Skateparks, Aljada is hosting the World Skate 2022 World Championships for both Street and Park disciplines. After the new Champions are named next week, Aljada will remain as a permanent skatepark serving local youth.
“The facility is unique and has beginner, intermediate, and elite competition-level Street and Park courses and covers almost 90,000 square feet (8,360 square meters),” said California Skateparks VP Bill Minadeo. “This is an amazing opportunity for local youth to interact with the world’s best skaters and host incredible events, like the World Championships.”
The World Skate 2022 World Championships is a key qualifying event for the Paris 2024 Olympics. While the Street skaters have already competed in one qualifier in Rome last Summer, Sharjah will be the first chance for the Park skaters to earn important points to qualify for Paris.
This weekend the Street skaters have their chance to earn the World title, with the Finals in the Men’s and Women’s competition taking place. The Street course at Aljada features a mirrored core section, with identical elements such as stairs and rails providing equal opportunity for both goofy- and regular-stance skaters to perform. The outer perimeter of the course includes more free-form features, allowing skaters to explore opportunities for unique tricks and combinations.
Next week, the Park competitors have their turn and attention will shift to the massive bowl, which differs from recent competition bowl designs. The traditional single deep end is replaced by two nearly 10-foot (3-meter) deep ends on opposite sides of the bowl. To take full advantage of that, a long, sloping channel flows into the bowl from the deck, allowing skaters to begin their routines with maximum speed. The volcano flyover feature included in the Olympic Park course has been replaced by a hip/transfer section extending into the bowl from the side, instead of being the bowl’s centerpiece.
Both the street course and competition bowl are the result of the California Skateparks design team’s nearly two-decades experience creating elite competition courses. In consultation with many athletes competing in Sharjah, the designers modified traditional contest elements and complemented them with new features that match the skaters’ growing level of competitiveness and evolving style of tricks. From early practice footage seen from Sharjah, evidence suggests that the California Skateparks design team got it right, including social-media posts showing how much fun visiting pros are having at Aljada. Which is great news for Sharjah’s local skaters.
Travel App Visited Compiles Over 1 Million Users’ Data to Determine the Most Popular National Parks in the U.S.
Press Release –
Sep 20, 2022
TORONTO, September 20, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The travel app Visited by Arriving In High Heels Corporation has published a list of the top 10 most visited U.S. National Parks.
Visited, available on iOS or Android, allows users to check off where they’ve been and where they’d like to go. Travelers can also set travel goals, see personalized travel stats, and discover new destinations using the app. The app features over 50 different bucket list including: popular hiking destinations, list of wonders of the world, popular cruise ports and beer destinations to name a few.
The top 10 most visited U.S. National Parks include:
Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona is the most visited park, offering the splendor of the Grand Canyon’s red rock ravines which date back millions of years.
Washington Monument in Washington, DC, attracts tourists for the purpose of seeing the nation’s iconic capital landmark that commemorates the first U.S. president.
President’s Park (White House) in Washington, DC, is the third most visited park, which includes the White House, where every U.S. president after George Washington has lived.
National Mall in Washington, D.C., includes the iconic Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
Golden Gate National Recreation Area surrounds the San Francisco Bay area and features over 82,000 acres of natural areas that include 19 distinct ecosystems.
Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California attracts visitors who come to see its majestic sequoia trees, granite cliffs, and breathtaking waterfalls.
Zion National Park in southwest Utah features stunning red cliffs, waterfalls, forests, and the Emerald Pools.
Boston National Historical Park in Boston, Massachusetts, includes eight historic sites highlighting Boston’s role in the Revolutionary War.
Everglades National Park in south Florida has 1.5 million acres of wetlands in the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S.
Yellowstone National Park spans Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho and features majestic canyons, alpine rivers, hot springs, and numerous wildlife species.
To see the full list of the most visited National Parksand over 50 bucket lists of the most popular experiences and destinations in the world, download Visited on iOS or Android.
SHREVEPORT, La., September 9, 2019 (Newswire.com)
– Southland Printing Company, Inc. today announced that it has acquired substantially all the business assets of Digital Printing Systems, Inc., a leading provider of printed parking and transit products. Digital Printing Systems, founded in 1971 by Don Nores and based in Azusa, California, serves more than 500 customers in over 30 countries and is known for high-quality products and personalized customer service.
“It’s such an honor to be entrusted by the Nores family to continue building on the legacy of their business,” said John Manno, Jr., President and CEO of Southland Printing Company. “To assure a smooth transition, we will be offering employment to many of Digital’s key personnel and we will transfer their customers’ order history, pricing, artwork and dies to Southland. Southland, as a family owned and operated business, is dedicated to providing our customers, new and old, the best products, service and value.”
“This acquisition ensures that our customers will continue to receive exceptional service and quality U.S.-made products,” said Peter Young, Digital’s President. “Our shared family-business values align perfectly and we know we can rely on Southland’s continued commitment to the parking and transit customers we both have served for decades.”
With this acquisition, Southland Printing Company cements its position as the market leader in printed parking and transit products.
In the months to come, customers can continue to place orders directly with Digital Printing Systems and Southland Printing. As the companies work to consolidate the operations into Shreveport, Louisiana, customers and vendors will receive regular updates.
This transaction was facilitated by Strategic Growth, Inc., a private investment banker for the parking and event ticket markets. Southland was advised by Kean Miller LLP (legal advisor) and KPMG (financial and accounting advisor). Digital Printing Systems was advised by Hahn & Hahn, LLP (legal advisor) and Lucas Horsfall (accounting and tax advisor).
About Southland Printing Company, Inc.
Founded in 1960 by John Manno, Sr. and currently under the leadership of John Manno, Jr., Southland Printing Company, Inc. delivers high-quality printed parking and transit products that meet the ever-changing needs of its customers. This commitment is evident through Southland’s market leadership and strong customer relationships. With its broad range of print-based solutions, Southland is trusted by more than 1,000 organizations in the United States and abroad, including parking operators, transit authorities, municipalities, universities, hospitals, and airports. Southland Printing is headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana. For additional information about Southland’s products and services, visit www.SouthlandPrinting.com.
About Digital Printing Systems, Inc.
Digital Printing Systems, Inc. was founded by Donald J. Nores in 1971. Since then, Digital, with the commitment of its owners, the Nores family, and under the leadership of its President, Peter Young, has grown to become a leader in printed products for the transit and parking markets. Headquartered in Azusa, California, Digital serves customers around the world. For additional information about Digital Printing Systems, visit www.DPStickets.com.
Contact: Jean Nixon Administrative Assistant to Mr. John Manno, Jr. Southland Printing Company, Inc. (318) 221-8662 jean@southlandprinting.com
Professors from Baruch College, Columbia University, and Queens College praise PAL as providing unmatched opportunities for students
Press Release –
updated: Oct 17, 2017
New York, NY, October 17, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– The Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA) today announced the official launch of its Park-as-Lab (“PAL”) initiative, an integral part of its growing Waterfront Stewardship Program.
The PAL program is geared toward connecting local graduate, undergraduate and high school students, researchers and citizen scientists with Randall’s Island Park, as an ideal site for the study of urban ecology. As part of its longstanding Waterfront Stewardship Program, RIPA offers free hands-on environmental education to over 4500 local K-12 students annually, maintains the Island’s waterfront, and monitors the Island’s water quality and biodiversity, including avian species, vegetation, and marine life. The PAL initiative, an exciting expansion, will help further foster on-site research, toward protecting our local urban ecology, improving community understanding, and promoting sustainability and climate resilience in New York City and beyond. A key element of the PAL mission is to facilitate supervised student scientific research at Randall’s Island Park.
The PAL program is geared toward connecting local graduate, undergraduate and high school students, researchers and citizen scientists with Randall’s Island Park, as an ideal site for the study of urban ecology.
The PAL program is receiving tremendous feedback from participating professors and students:
“As a STEM professor for a diverse public university, I am excited and encouraged by the unparalleled opportunities for urban studies that the PAL program can provide to our students. RIPA’s support for project development and implementation are indispensable resources for conducting local research in the city.” – José D. Anadón, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Queens College, CUNY
“Having worked with RIPA’s team collecting data on Randall’s Island for several years now, we’ve found their support to be invaluable in ensuring regular collection of samples, coordinating research, and providing access to the unique restored habitats found at the Park.” – Chester B. Zarnoch, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Natural Science, Baruch College, CUNY
“RIPA’s PAL initiative has been an asset to my students. They have provided materials, access, and guidance for a range of research projects, from oyster health to avian research. Their local insight and facilitation have enabled students to explore new possibilities in urban ecology.” – David C. Lahti, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Queens College, CUNY
“Over many summers, my Urban Ecology students have gained from visiting Randall’s Island Park and learning from the excellent RIPA staff about their research and education programs, and their long-term planning process. The Island is ideally situated to serve as a site for research and education for New York City students and researchers. RIPA’s new PAL initiative will build upon their years of successful environmental education programs to facilitate increased opportunities and partnerships for the study of urban ecology.” – Matthew I. Palmer, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University
RIPA is committed to fostering a better understanding of the ecology of Randall’s Island Park, of New York City, and of our world as a whole. For nearly 25 years, RIPA has worked to restore, maintain, and develop programming along the Randall’s Island waterfront. The Park’s 20 acres of restored natural areas, ten acres of wetlands and nearly five miles of scenic waterfront offer a unique opportunity for environmental education. RIPA’s Waterfront Stewardship Program was created to take advantage of this resource and offers free hands-on STEM education to children of various grade levels. The PAL initiative is an exciting expansion, geared toward connecting local students, researchers and citizen scientists with Randall’s Island Park – an ideal site for the study of urban ecology. For more information, or to participate in PAL, please visit, https://randallsisland.org/things-to-see-do/park-as-lab/.
About the Randall’s Island Park Alliance
The Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA), founded in 1992, is a public-private partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. Celebrating 25 years as the dedicated steward of Randall’s Island Park, the Alliance works with the City and local communities to sustain, maintain, develop and program the Island to support the wellbeing of all New Yorkers. The Park offers miles of waterfront pathways, 20 acres of natural areas and wetlands, an urban farm, a track and field stadium, a golf center, a 20-court tennis center and dozens of new playing fields, as well as the Harlem River Event Site.
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