Category Archives: PEOPLE

Jan, 17, 2012 – Eagle Rock, CA – Allen Compton tells about the Colorado Boulevard Median Pilot Project at the Eagle Rock Historical Society Meeting

The January 17 meeting of the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society was an unusual one, as custom of looking at Eagle Rock’s past was foregone for the present, and future of Eagle Rock. The meeting  billed as  “What Now?” was a play on the “Then and Now” mantra of historians and featured presentations from the leaders of various efforts to improve the community, and “…continue our history of innovation and activism,” as the pre-meeting announcement read.

First up was Allen Compton, who is working on the Median Planting Committee sponsored by Councilman Huizar. They are working on a pilot project on Colorado Blvd. The Historical Society members got to hear and see what types of plants and landscaping design the committee has recommended for the Median between Hermosa Avenue and Argus Drive. They have suggested drought resistant plants and a oak and sycamore trees as well as well as special drainage strategies to make use of stormwater.

Bob Keith of Occidental College talked about the desire of Occidental College to develop relationships with the local Historical Societies, and talked about a couple of projects that they are working on. The preservation and digitization of the collection of old community newspapers from Eagle Rock and Highland Park is in progress. They had accepted the offer of Kirken Alanakian of the big ugly orange senior housing development to store these old newspapers and to work on converting them into an electronic format.

Another interesting effort already underway related to the “WayBack” machine, the Internet archive project that saves and provides access to everything that has been on the world wide web. They purchased a subscription that will search out and specifically archive everything relating to the local communities history on the internet and Occidental College’s as well. He also talked about a Google “History Pin,” which is a virtual place where people come together to share their historical pictures and stories and allows visitors to explore Google Maps through an extra dimension which is time. Locations show up on a google map going back into time. Fascinating. I need to look into that a bit more.

Next we heard from Bob Gotham, President of TERA, the Eagle Rock Association. He told about the progress of the Take Back the Boulevard effort, and invited all to come to the formal meeting on the subject this Thursday at 7:00 p.m., also at the Center for the Arts.

Finally, Carmen Castillo, who has accepted the responsibility of leading the organization founded by John Stillion, the Collaborative Eagle Rock Beautiful. She talked about their progress and latest plans for the beautification of Eagle Rock, including the median and parkway plantings on Eagle Rock Boulevard. Also given was an update of the 4.5 acres of wilderness that the Eagle Rock Canyon Trail is on. A fun video of the trail including the directions of how to reach it was shown as well.

Carmen finished with a plea for volunteers and donations from community members.

President Eric Warren finished the meeting by announcing the meetings to follow this week, the High Speed Rail presentation organized by the ERCPR group on Wednesday at Eagle Rock City Hall, and the Take Back the Boulevard workshops to be held Thursday right back at the Ce nter for the Arts Eagle Rock.