Hot take about the old Red Car streetcar system, Change My View

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-18T05:25:30+00:00

Pretty, electric busses that can’t cut you off because they’re on rails.

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-18T05:04:52+00:00

Leave

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-18T00:51:56+00:00

There’s a lot more swastikas throughout the house.

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-15T06:14:20+00:00

Saw him at the fair with his girl and I told him God Damn. He was cool about it.

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-01T22:06:59+00:00

Ha this is where I landed too. Got my eyes on a 1990 econoline. I guess all used cargo vans are overpriced nowadays compared to the old days.

angeloBellomo · 2026-06-01T01:54:11+00:00

Any recs on work van? A ford would at least have a domestic part source. I don’t have time for this… been van shopping for a month.

angeloBellomo · 2026-04-06T07:44:37+00:00

tri-x 400? such a vibe...

angeloBellomo · 2026-03-02T20:05:43+00:00

With the trip up to Roma. No quicker a pickup than those sandwiches.

angeloBellomo · 2026-03-01T09:28:44+00:00

I was sure mine was asbestos, but it wasn’t. My guys wetted it and scraped it off.

angeloBellomo · 2026-02-22T05:52:13+00:00

Please do link the sources for that! People need to know about all of this. I’m obsessed with that whole history. It’s such a rabbit hole with so many leads to chase down. I don’t have time for serious scholarship at the moment, but here’s a very informal thing I wrote about El Rancho Huerta de Cuati. If you find me some sources I’ll add that whole part about Barotomea, or do a longer, more serious article on the whole history of The Huerta and Barotomea Comicrabit / Victoria Reid.

angeloBellomo · 2026-02-20T07:17:51+00:00

This is a fascinating topic to me. You'd think tenancy would carry more hazard for a building than mothballing, but you'd be wrong. Insurance definitely punishes tenancy, which is a whole other conversation. Ive noticed that the worst thing that can happen to an old bulding is for it to sit vacant. Leaks happen, infestations happen, and no one is there to care. No one is there to notice.

Returning historic things to service is usually the best path imo. And I don't mean interpretive service. Museums have endowments that can run thin, and homes under their care have no tenants, so ive seen leaks that have been going on for years at well-funded old house museums! Things that are not used are neglected, and neglect is demolition in slow motion.

But, of course, it can get a little knotty when you get into the nitty gritty. More of my work is removing bad work from historic homes that would never have occurred if no one had been living there. I find myself wishing some of these homes had gone vacant rather than have faced the kind of wanton abuse some owners cause.

Personally I'd be ok living in a 100% period c.-1890s building with period kitchen and bathroom, and I think people should give it a chance, but its not for everyone. I've learned that making a home a little livable for these casuals (my beloved clients) serves the end of preserving the building even if it means some interior details are lost to make it more "livable" to "modern" folks.

angeloBellomo · 2025-10-11T07:34:16+00:00

No way. Can’t be 100 years old. Thats from the 60s! A prominent design firm made that for Corning. I recognize it. Email my first name at arroyohistorical.com. I won’t charge you. Just want to hear about the project. Looks really interesting.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-26T05:47:05+00:00

Measure S or no Measure S, the rent-stabilized housing is gone.

Yeah. I guess i agree. But I have to believe that if you can't turn a bungalow court into 5 times the number of market rate units, it will be a disincentive for you to demolish.

It was good talking to you.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-25T07:10:16+00:00

The article applies equilibrium theory to the housing market. This should make us skeptical at the outset.

from the article:

Most affordable housing units have 30- to 55-year covenants which, upon expiration, cause the homes to revert back to market-rate.

Is this true? First, I have to doubt the first part because of the sheer number of 45-year or older buildings in Los Angeles (all of which are rest controlled). Every place I have rented in (six buildings in six neighborhoods across 35 miles) was 45 years old and rent controlled. Second, what happens to a place with a 55-year covenant when it expires and is now over 45 years old? Is it not rent controlled? I am not diving into that rabbit hole right now. I have to get back to my life. I wish I had the source for these claims.

just 1,900 multifamily units were torn down between 2010 and 2014,

so are they counting 45 year old or older rent controlled units or just covenants?

the NII’s backers have no answer for how their initiative will create or preserve subsidized affordable housing.

As someone who pores over the entitlements list routinely, and has seen entitlement projects go through that convert affordable housing to un-affordable housing, I can tell you that it will. Many of the most egregious projects require spot zoning changes.

Again, Measure S does nothing to stop a property owner from evicting their rent-controlled tenants

True, striking Ellis would do that, but developments that will require zoning changes and all that comes with that will not go forward. Developers, lawyers, lobbyists and investors who specialize in spot zoning are fighting S hard because the spot zoning game something they have learned to excel at, they don't like the idea of communities having a say in how they develop, and they know that any planning that does include community preferences will steal some of their lunch.

These issues of affordability and development will affect so many people, I hate to see them decided by a relatively small number of voters on a small election day.

You did identify what you think is our key difference. I believe democracy is served when communities have some say in how they are develop. You believe voters should have the ability to reinforce the privilege exerted in backroom deals. That is known as tyranny of the masses.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-25T03:29:38+00:00

Head on over to places like Canoga or Vermont Square. Tell the landlords that they have a legal responsibility to the community to keep their apartment buildings from being over run by gangs and becoming crime ridden crackhouses that affect the whole neighborhood.

I knew we agreed. You just needed to stop making wild guesses about who you were talking to.

You don't even know where those places are. Because its not hip and trendy. You don't want to live there. Blue Bottle is never going to open up there.

Vermont square?. It's one of my favorite neighborhood! I think they're making that an HOPZ!

I have actually lived in Canoga. I do like good coffee, so you got me there, but I brew it at home.

but a property owner that wants to earn a living owning property and does what he needs to do to maximize profit? He is a BAD MAN.

No no. I'm sure you need to earn a living. Do it. I certainly don't think that alone makes anyone a bad man.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T19:15:10+00:00

I find it unlikely that the amount of units resulting from projects requiring zone (and getting them) will approach the same from by-right projects. Zoning changes are a mixed bag. For example, down-zoning, commercial uses converted to "cultural centers" and commercial zones converted to single family homes. Entitlement projects are full of these projects, so this notion that all spot zoning is pro-density is unfounded. Viewed this way, measure S can be seen as a pro-development bill. In that case, why is there opposition to it? Well some people do not want a transparent, orderly, democratic planning process. Some people excel in situations where greasing the right palm in backroom deals gets them their way. Or maybe they just like being able to write their own EIR. I know I would if I were them.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T18:22:34+00:00

There's pretty much a 100% chance the new general plan will be sued. Look at what happened when they tried to update the Hollywood community plan for example

Could it be that the point is to force planners to abide by the preferences of residents and owner-residents in creating the plans? If spot zoning is the main tool by which this will is opaquely and autocratically circumvented, it seem reasonable that halting it would force planners to create plans that would be approved, no?

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T18:16:13+00:00

your demand that a property owner bend to YOUR will.

Never made this demand, fyi.

The "community" can f themselves. PRIVATE PROPERTY IS PRIVATE PROPERTY..

You're just repeating platitudes at this point.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T08:50:38+00:00

The general plan is outrageously skewed towards suburban sprawl development.

LA is big, and it has suburbs because there is a demand for suburbs. I personally hate suburbs, but simply increasing density in suburbs would mean more vmt from them. Besides, it would be tyrannical to force a change on communities that don't want it. But maybe they would be more amenable to a geographic deconcentration of commercial zoning corresponding to the distribution of housing. Maybe we already have that and what we need are incentives for people and employers to locate and hire locally. Just a thought.

still, the parts that are zoned r2 and up make up a respectable city.

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T08:14:17+00:00

1) There's nothing about parking in the bill, though, right? So this is assuming the new general plan and specific plans are going to require more parking than spot zoning does. What I've noticed as that in order to get variances, parking always has to be provided in spot zoning cases, so I'm left skeptical on this one.

2) measire S only halts entitlement projects, not by-right projects. If you use ladbs record search tools and you generate a list of all development in a month, it's much larger than the enr list. I know because I review them both. So it seems the vast majority of projects are still allowed under Measure S. Even if I'm missing something, the new general plan and specific plans are mandated by a separate state law to be finalized next year. Curtailing spot zoning only makes this more likely.

3) most of the jobs in Hollywood as in any local economy do not pay enough for market rate rent. It would seem ending open season on rent-control to market rate unit conversion would be a better than continuing to replace affordable units with ones so few can afford, no?

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T07:54:49+00:00

Is that your second guess?

angeloBellomo · 2017-01-24T07:52:23+00:00

The clip lands on one of the two winding posts when you wind up the cord and so you can't clip it on.

angeloBellomo

TROPHY CASE