Sunset Junction ~ Silver Lake
With proceeds benefiting community-based charities, the 26th Annual Sunset Junction Street Fair is taking place this weekend in the Silver Lake District of Los Angeles, between Fountain and Edgecliff Avenues (3600 – 4200 blocks of Sunset Blvd.). If you want to cover it for TACO, please leave a message in the comments!
SUNSET JUNCTION
Formed in december of 1979, the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance was created to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity that exists in the neighborhoods of Silver Lake, Echo Park and Los Feliz. This area of Los Angeles has long been recognized as an area where artists, gen x, gen y, latinos, gays, lesbians, students and entertainment moguls strive to live in harmony through mutual acceptance and respect for each other’s way of life.
SUNSET JUNCTION AREA YOUTH PROGRAMS
Sunset Junction’s youth program was created as a result of the community being pulled apart. People want their communities to be livable again, free of gangs, drugs and violance. The youth program has been a success getting neighborhood youth involved in taking action in the community. Organized by the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance, the program involves youth from the community who are under-served and at risk. They work in a summer six-week program learning horticulture, ecology, mural painting and environmental beautification while strengthening work values. Year-round the alliance provides tutoring and computer skills, mural painting, art classes, the summer program, support services to the community, job training, and after school programs.
- Sunset Junction ~ This Weekend
- Tazo Zone Benefit Tonight ~ Silver Lake
- Maxxfemm LIVE at Spaceland ~ Silver Lake
- Judah Johnson LIVE at Spaceland ~ Silver Lake
- Electrocute at the Hyperion Tavern ~ Silver Lake ~ Tonight
- Bomb It! Premiere & After-Party ~ This Friday @ Laemmle Sunset 5 & Vine Bar
- Halloween ~ Toluca Lake
(1 tacos)
dino dinco wrote:
I sent this email to the organizers of SJ Street Fair and a bunch of friends. Most have written the organizers in disgust of this year’s admission charge. Not to mention, the embarrassing idea of the VIP lounge
– dino dinco
Feel free to forward it:
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Shame on the organizers (and the sponsors) of Sunset Junction for continuing to use the motto: “To live in harmony with our neighbors,” while charging a mandatory $ 12 – 15 admission fee.
From the festival’s launch, the Street Fair for many years was a true community event, open to all, regardless of income, and a noble attempt to bring harmony between the gentrifying neighbhorhood with the long established Latino community, including the gangsters who resided there. The gays, the gangsters, the gay gangsters, the hipsters, and plenty of stroller-pushing family units let their collective hair down, ate some grilled corn, got drunk on draft beer, rode carny-staffed rides and listened to indie bands or danced in one of the several dance areas. The admission was typically a “suggested donation” usually around $ 5 – 8, yet a donation still. It was the event where you saw friends you’ve had for over a decade – or met new friends, and their friends. It was the annual event you didn’t think was really possible – gays & heteros of all colors, the poor, the monied, junkies, trannies, 12-steppers, lawyers, couples, the waitresses from Millies, singles, nuns, your ex-boyfriend, your new wife, homegirls making out with nerds, rock stars, kids, gangsters trying to still flex some muscle, movie stars, the guy who hung out in front of Cafe Tropical with the fucked up guitar, people visibly ill from HIV / AIDS, the Silver Lake Walker, that guy who was in the movie you just saw at the Vista….They were all there and you thought, “This is why I’m in Silverlake.”
Smells like this $ 12 – 15 admission fee is an accurate reflection of how Silver Lake is headed and the organizers of the festival should be looking for another motto. Something like “To live in harmony ONLY with our neighbors who can afford it. But definitely not the rest of you. This is the new Silver Lake. Another ‘hood of exclusion.”
I’m sending this to the organizers of Sunset Junction. If anyone feels the same, feel free to write them at:
SunsetJunction@SunsetJunction.org
Dino Dinco
A resident of Silver Lake for 13 years
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Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 5:35 pm | Permalink