Assets and Risks

While eating at Antigua Bread, a bakery and café that has been in the neighborhood for about a year. They serve coffee, a variety of pastries, and breakfast and lunch dishes. Inside this restaurant, we located a resource shelf, which consisted of a bookshelf with information about Highland Park, advertisements, flyers, and brochures regarding parenting classes, counseling, and job training, among other things.

We walked into a local skateboard shop and spoke with the owner of Transport who provided us with some insight in regards to the youth in Highland Park. The owner informed the group that 50% of his business comes from youth in the Highland Park area. In addition, the owner of Transport stated that youth who are active skateboarders “truly want to belong to something. If not, then they just give into drugs.” He informed us that there is a local skate park in Highland Park, but that he believed it would be very beneficial to build another one for the youth in the community. The shop has been in Highland Park for about three years and is pretty successful in the local community, as local skateboarders remain loyal to local shops.

The most interesting building conversion we saw was that of the City of LA Department of Recreation & Parks LA YOUTH ATHLETIC CLUB, which is located in a building that once was a county jail. Although we consider this an asset, it is located in an isolated area next to the LA River.

In addition, when traveling through Eagle Rock Blvd, we noticed homes which had been converted into law, nursing, and insurance offices.

Some risks we encountered include the following:
Abandoned businesses
Liquor stores
Graffiti
Residential homes in between factories
Auto junk yards
Check-cashing businesses (open 24 hours)
Lack of police presence.