Skid Row History Museum and Archive

07/01/2021

Come to the parking lot tonight at 6:30pm!

Join us at The Box Thursday, July 1 at 6:30 PM for a public conversation with the Los Angeles Poverty Department @lapovertydepartment

'Compassion & Self-Deception' features speakers Pastor Cue Jn-Marie, Aryen Cohen, Matt Harper, and Robby Herbst, moderated by Michael Alexander.

Thursday July 1, 2021, 6:30-8:00 PM PST
Outdoor event in The Box's parking lot: 822 E. Third Street, LA, CA 90013
The conversation will also be live-streamed to Facebook.

Link in bio for more details!

#lapovertydept #losangelespovertydepartment #lapovertydepartment #lapd #skidrowlosangeles #skidrowhistorymuseumandarchive #theboxla #pastorcue #aryencohen #mattharper #robbyherbst #michaelalexander

06/15/2021

Skid Row Now and 2040

Skid Row Now and 2040

In response to the DTLA2040 Community Plan, a coalition of Skid Row community members and groups have created a coalition: Skid Row Now & 2040. Over the past 5 years, the coalition engaged with the Department of City Planning and created a Vision Paper for the Skid Row community, and additional...

06/08/2021

Los Angeles Poverty Department
Hi everyone, we had a wonderful time performing our new performance The New Compassionate Downtown during WeRise at the Geffen-MOCA in downtown LA on June 14 and 15, 2021. Here are some performance pictures, taken by Monica Nouwens and rehearsal pictures by Diane Prozeller. You can still watch the live-stream of the performance here: May 15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4tl_7FBr0

06/04/2021

The 'Blue Book" - a brief history of Skid Row

https://vimeo.com/558400978

In the wake of the clear-cutting of historic Bunker Hill in 1955, Skid Row was headed for a similar “redevelopment,” under a proposed general development plan known as the “Silver Book.” Community advocates from The Catholic Worker, The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and The Community Design Center, frustrated by the wholesale displacement of Bunker Hill residents, organized and presented an alternative plan, one that saved the single room occupancy hotels and committed resources to renovating and augmenting this housing and locating social services in the area.

This plan, known as “The Blue Book,” was adopted by the City Council, with a majority of votes, some concerned with providing housing and others simply concerned with keeping displaced Skid Row people from coming to their neighborhoods. The framers of the plan argued that it was cheaper to save and renovate Skid Row housing than to try to build it elsewhere, as new construction would be more costly and face local resistance. In order to garner the requisite majority vote in City Council, proponents argued that enhanced housing and services would keep Skid Row residents from straying to other neighborhoods and that it would “contain” poor people in one part of downtown. Thus, it passed City Council and became law –with a coalition of housing advocates and with additional votes of Council members who cynically only wanted to keep poor people out of their districts.

Significantly, the Blue Book plan prohibited market rate development within Skid Row. The Blue Book Plan saved the housing in Skid Row. So, while every other Skid Row in America was disappeared, in Los Angeles the area’s primary stakeholders remain its low-income residents, and their interests are increasingly prioritized as the community works to create a vibrant, viable neighborhood.

In the wake of the clear-cutting of historic Bunker Hill in 1955, Skid Row was headed for a similar “redevelopment,” under a proposed general development…

05/04/2021

Timeline Photos

WEBINAR: Creating the Compassionate City
With Karen Mack, Charles Porter, and Jeremy Liu.
Thursday, May 6, 4pm PST
To join, RSVP Here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZB9x3DoWQBOJ1FkQt7ecAQ
When you have registered, you get an email with the event link, and another reminder email an hour before the event starts.

Creating the Compassionate City is a conversation among arts and social change practitioners produced in conjunction with Los Angeles Poverty Department’s Art Rise performance, organized by MOCA.

The performance, The New Compassionate Downtown, imagines an inclusive downtown that people are proud to be a part of because of the ethos and practices of concern for the well-being of everyone and a commitment to prevent and alleviate everyone’s suffering.

While this seems to fly in the face of a reality distinguished by gross inequities, there are innumerable people in communities throughout the city who have been working for decades to embrace the generative capacities of every single Angelino in order to realize a City everyone can be proud to be a part of. This webinar is a conversation among three deeply committed and experienced arts and social change practitioners: Karen Mack, Charles Porter, and Jeremy Liu. The conversation will be introduced by MOCA Assistant Curator Rebecca Lowery and moderated by John Malpede of Los Angeles Poverty Department.

Panelists:

Karen Mack
Karen Mack is the founding director of LA Commons. Karen holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University, where she studied the role of culture in community building. LA Commons leverages art and cultural approaches to create positive change. LA Commons projects are motivated by the belief that all communities possess local knowledge and local assets, that ordinary people have the power to meet the challenges facing their neighborhoods, through their sense of connectedness with place and each other. And that culture is an essential community resource for elevating these assets and affecting change.

Charles Porter
Charles Porter has worked for 20-plus years in Skid Row with United Coalition East Prevention Project to challenge systemic conditions and social disparities that threaten a healthy environment. Charles, a poet and drummer with deep understanding of Pan-African artistic and healing traditions, believes in the power of culture to build communities. Time and again he has worked with a coalition of residents to identify and bring about needed change. The Skid Row Improvement Coalition collectively envisioned a neighborhood hygiene center, The ReFresh Spot, that was realized with the support of the city, and that now serves more than 1,000 residents a day, providing showers, and laundry facilities as well as 24-hour bathroom access. And it employs a Skid Row resident staff.

Jeremy Liu
Jeremy Liu, artist and social impact strategist, with a successful track record of developing “Community Benefits by Design” real estate projects will join the conversation from Oakland. As the Senior Fellow for Arts, Culture and Equitable Development at PolicyLink, Jeremy has shaped and is guiding an initiative that integrates arts and culture into the work of equitable development.

Our community conversations are made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit calhum.org

04/02/2021

Photos from Los Angeles Poverty Department's post

03/16/2021

Can you spare a minute to help Henriette Brouwers?

Skid Row Now & 2040 has a vision for the future of our community: you can help us to get there by signing this petition.

94 signatures are still needed! Protect Skid Row

02/25/2021

Timeline Photos

#TBT about this time last year the Institute on Inequality and Democracy hosted friends & colleagues from The Right to Remain, Union de Vecinos, Ktown for All, and the Los Angeles Poverty Department. Not surprising, it was packed with standing room only - so much organizing power in one room💪!

Enjoy listening👂to the entire program here >> https://soundcloud.com/challengeinequality/the-right-to-remain

01/14/2021

If you are part of the Skid Row Community, we want to hear from YOU!
If you have received the Skid Row Arts Zine, we'd love to hear your feedback.
- Let us know what you liked and would like to see more of!
- Have art you'd like to get published in the next Zine? Submit your work!
- Don't know about the Zine? Let us know and we'll get you connected!
EMAIL OR LEAVE A VOICEMAIL
[email protected]
(323) 412-9770

If you are part of the Skid Row Community, we want to hear from YOU!
If you have received the Skid Row Arts Zine, we'd love to hear your feedback.
- Let us know what you liked and would like to see more of!
- Have art you'd like to get published in the next Zine? Submit your work!
- Don't know about the Zine? Let us know and we'll get you connected!
EMAIL OR LEAVE A VOICEMAIL
[email protected]
(323) 412-9770

01/14/2021

Public Comments at DCP's Virtual Public Hearing for the DTLA2040 draft.

Watch the Public Comments we submitted at the Public Hearing for the DTLA 2040 Community Plan draft.
https://youtu.be/wx-aZN0IdRw
In response to the DTLA2040 Community Plan, a coalition of Skid Row community members and groups have created “Skid Row Now & 2040”. The coalition created a vision paper for the Skid Row community and additional ideas for funding housing that will get people off the streets and into housing.
As a result, the Department of City Planning created a special zone where only affordable housing with extremely low and deeply low-income levels, can be built: the i X 1 zone.
But the zone doesn’t cover all of Skid Row, it squeezes affordable housing into the blocks East of San Pedro: between Alameda and 5th and 7th street. We want the expansion of the i X 1 zone to the existing Skid Row neighborhood boundaries: from Main to Alameda, and from 3rd to 7th street.

In response to the DTLA2040 Community Plan, a coalition of Skid Row community members and groups have created “Skid Row Now & 2040”. The coalition created a ...

01/12/2021

Finding a Place (for art) in Skid Row - Artillery Magazine

LA Poverty Department and the BOX gallery started collaborating in 2008, initiating the Skid Row History Museum, and we're planning a new performance this year in the BOX parking lot. Stay tuned!

The Skid Row neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles remains emblematic of the city’s ongoing epidemic of housing deprivation. More than 66,400 people were

12/04/2020

Los Angeles Poverty Department

Make a Public Comment at the Virtual Public Hearing for DTLA 2040 drafts on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 4-7pm
Zoom Meeting
Password: 497626
https://planning-lacity-org.zoom.us/j/89015073209
Or dial (213) 338-8477. Meeting ID: 890 1507 3209, password: 497626.

The Department of City Planning created a special zone where only affordable housing with extremely low and deeply low-income levels, can be built: the i X 1 zone. But the zone doesn’t cover all of Skid Row, it squeezes affordable housing into the blocks East of San Pedro: between Alameda and 5th and 7th street. We want the expansion of the i X 1 zone to the existing, legal Skid Row neighborhood boundaries: from Main to Alameda, and from 3rd to 7th street.

Make a Public Comment at the Virtual Public Hearing for DTLA 2040 drafts
Tuesday, December 8 from 4-7pm

Zoom Meeting
Password: 497626
https://planning-lacity-org.zoom.us/j/89015073209

To join by phone, dial (213) 338-8477. The meeting ID is 890 1507 3209, and the password is 497626.

11/30/2020

Vijay Gupta and Los Angeles Poverty Department, with Kronos Quartet - CAP UCLA On Demand - UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance

Vijay Gupta and Kronos quartet with LA Poverty Dept. Streaming for free until the end of this week.
From the Skid Row community Walk The Talk archive https://app.reduct.video/lapd/walk-the-talk/,
https://online.cap.ucla.edu/cap-ucla-on-demand/videos/vijay-gupta-and-los-angeles-poverty-department-with-kronos-quartet?fbclid=IwAR3k1F6ZGxKuhzLC38s-P0r6V4Ce0D5EuIKou2yFeSITEbDoKuSEVKxgY6k

Vijay Gupta and Los Angeles Poverty Department, with Kronos Quartet This program was prerecorded at Royce Hall and streamed as part of The Tune In Festival on this channel on Sat, Oct 31. To view the house program visit: https://cap.ucla.edu/SingOut Donate now to ensure the vitality of CAP UCLA a...

11/20/2020

'How to House 7000 People In Skid Row' exhibition walk through

Here is Rosten Woo walking and talking through our exhibition "How to House 7,000 People in Skid Row" at the Skid Row History Museum and Archive. If you haven't been able to see the exhibition, this is your chance to experience it and get ready for your Public comment at the Department of City Planning about the Downtown Community Plan Update on December 8 from 4-7pm.
https://vimeo.com/481505119

How to House 7000 People In Skid Row. Exhibition created by Rosten Woo with Anna Kobara, Henriëtte Brouwers, John Malpede. Opening on March 7, 2020 We’re…

11/08/2020

Vijay Gupta and Los Angeles Poverty Department, with Kronos Quartet - The Tune In Festival On Demand - By Artist - UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance

Today is the last day you can watch this beautiful performance! Tune in here the CAP UCLA to hear Vijay Gupta and Kronos Quartet respond to the voices and performances in our Walk The Talk archive (on video).

Vijay Gupta and Los Angeles Poverty Department, with Kronos Quartet This program was prerecorded at Royce Hall and streamed as part of The Tune In Festival on this channel on Sat, Oct 31.

11/08/2020

Misunderstood 2.0

Project Blue Bridge

To bring fringe dwellers, the disenfranchised, middle America, those feeling depression, and all who love America and things American to a place of reckoning.

Think of something you can do today and the rest of the week to bridge the gap, to make somebody feel better, to provide hope and healing to your community, workplace or group.

Once you have done this ask or help the person you bring over the bridge to help someone else.

Let's see how many people we can help to heal to move forward.

10/31/2020

Misunderstood 2.0

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A Magnitude of Thanks and Reverence

10/29/2020

CAP UCLA

Excerpts of our Walk the Talk archive inspired Vijay Gupta of Street Symphony and the Kronos quartet.
Free online performance on Sat, Oct. 31 at 8:30pm.

"As artists, we hold up mirrors to society. The public discourse, the vitality of it, the ugliness of it, the beauty of it, the chaos of it, it reflects within us in a way that allows us to take in that grief and metabolize it into something that nourishes the world beyond."

Vijay Gupta - Violinist shares inspiring words about his practice and the importance of community and connection.

Join us for his project with Kronos Quartet, spotlighting the community of Skid Row and the Los Angeles Poverty Department, on Sat, Oct 31 🎻 >> bit.ly/2FOehyU

10/27/2020

Henriëtte

Henriëtte

Here is the cleaned up movie of our 11th FESTIVAL FOR ALL SKID ROW ARTISTS. Check it out!

10/23/2020

CAP UCLA

Excerpts of our Walk the Talk archive inspired Vijay Gupta of Street Symphony and the Kronos quartet.
Free online performance on Sat, Oct. 31 at 8:30pm.

"As artists, we hold up mirrors to society. The public discourse, the vitality of it, the ugliness of it, the beauty of it, the chaos of it, it reflects within us in a way that allows us to take in that grief and metabolize it into something that nourishes the world beyond."

Vijay Gupta - Violinist shares inspiring words about his practice and the importance of community and connection.

Join us for his project with Kronos Quartet, spotlighting the community of Skid Row and the Los Angeles Poverty Department, on Sat, Oct 31 🎻 >> bit.ly/2FOehyU

09/18/2020

Amy Fogerson. Director of Street Symphony Chamber Singers and of the Daniel Chaney Fellows Program, Responds to the Archive #StreetSymphony accompanied by Vijay Gupta - Violinist See more here: https://app.reduct.video/lapd/walk-the-talk/#

08/31/2020

Honoring Clancy Imislund, interviewed by KevinMichael Key. Two giants of/in recovery!
Watch the entire interview here: https://app.reduct.video/lapd/walk-the-talk/#/i/0cd57d6b-Clancy_Imislund/bio

08/27/2020

Clancy Imislund, a Towering Figure of L.A.'s Recovery Movement, Has Died at 93

Clancy Imislund, long time director of the Midnight Mission has died.

Imislund was known for his work at the Midnight Mission on Skid Row and the Brentwood-based addiction recovery organization Pacific Group

08/25/2020

A “People’s History” of Los Angeles’s Skid Row

Read the article about the Walk the Talk archive and website in Hyperallergic.

Artists and activists have a long history in the Skid Row neighborhood. An online archive documents their stories and influence.

08/18/2020

Visit KevinMichael Key in the walk The Talk archive: https://app.reduct.video/lapd/walk-the-talk/

08/14/2020

Please, join us on FB live this Monday 8/17, 10am LA time. And there is no zoom. You just have to get on Carolina’s FB live.

07/22/2020

‘Walk the Talk’ archival website honors Skid Row

Read about the WALK THE TALK WEBSITE, interview with Robert Ochshorn and John Malpede. And check out the site and the beautiful people here: https://app.reduct.video/lapd/walk-the-talk/

The legacy of Skid Row’s unsung heroes is being honored with a people’s history website that was created in efforts to challenge the stigma that surrounds the widely misunderstood community.