Last weekend was The Big Parade, the contest of calves/roving pedestrian party that roamed Los Angeles staircases and streets. I only did the second day, the 20-mile Silver Lake-to-Hollywood sign segment, so no epic recap this year, but I would like to pass along some highlights: six garages and six gardens that I spotted along the way.
Playing peek-a-boo in someone’s bougainvillea-buried driveway mirror in Silver Lake. (By the way, I was obsessed with Carol’s hat, left. She got it at Black Market/White Market.)
I don’t know if it was the slightly-gloomy morning or if May is peak season for blooms, but the bougainvillea was electric. There’s us taking some stairs over to the side in Franklin Hills.
A trippy wall of geraniums in Silver Lake.
Blue on blue in the hills above Los Feliz.
The mandevilla was also so bright it made your eyes bleed. This is outside LA Mill, one of the meeting places for the Silver Lake loop.
I loved how this new contemporary house in Franklin Hills was taking design cues from this sweet old butter-and-avocado garage. I can’t wait to see this finished.
Soft pink roses on the Silver Lake-Echo Park border.
Brake service on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. I have walked by this maybe a thousand times and never noticed it. It helps to be on the lookout for great garages.
Not a garden, you say? Well, in this cup from Gelato Bar on Hillhurst (where I had my famous Facebook gelato party last year) are two flavors: blood orange and rose. I chose them to commemorate the many oranges and roses I saw during the walk.
I loved how this garage had been converted into an apartment (I think) with that cute little portholed door in the middle.
See that little ridge of palm trees to the left? That’s a garden: Captain’s Roost, one of the community gardens destroyed by the Griffith Park fire in 2007. It’s slowly being restored. In the meantime, these sprays of Spanish broom against downtown will have to do.
Not a garage, or a garden, but about 50 happy hikers at the top of Mt. Lee. See the reversed-out letters of the Hollywood sign to the right, Griffith Observatory as a white and black dot on a ridge about mid-shot, and downtown out in the right-hand distance. We even got finished early enough to stop for a margarita on the way home.
Another perfect day in LA.
More Big Parade photos by me and everyone else.
