Photo Essay: This Fraternity Life

When I was in college, I never joined a sorority, but there's a special place in my heart for the Greek system. While most upperclassmen had moved on to their campus apartment complexes or downtown bars, I spent a lot of time at fraternity houses all four of my college years. Walking up and down the Row prepared me well for bar-hopping in New York City, and forced me out of my shell. Approaching a dimly-lit, bass-thumping frat party by myself trained me how to fly solo, something I've continued to do well into my adult, legal drinking years.

Last weekend, I returned to Fraternity Row - this time not at Colgate, but at USC.



The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity had been kicked off campus ten years ago (for undisclosed reasons) and leased their building - which they own - to another fraternity while they waited to regain their charter, which they did in 2012. In the meantime, their house had been reduced to a state of squalor by hard-partying frat brothers who hid their bongs in holes punched in the walls and slept on bunk beds broken by too many occupants, or too much activity.



Phi Sigma Kappa alumni oversaw a massive overhaul of the building which clocked in at over $900,000 in just two months' time, readying the building for its new residents by August of last year.

Almost a year later, the building has held up remarkably well, by design.



The front facade, which had once received a bad stucco job, has been returned to its original wood siding condition, though the wood itself is new, and now positioned horizontally instead of vertically.



Inside, cedar lines the stairwell and mezzanine of the upstairs level...


photo courtesy of MASS Architecture and Design



...bordering a Phi Sigma Kappa mural which has been pained directly onto the now-exposed brick walls (once covered in drywall).



The building's original mailboxes were also once drywalled over, and now have been exposed as a marker of the building's past, though they are no longer in use. (Not even to store bongs.)



The common areas of the ground floor were once dark and less-than-inviting...



...and now have been brightened...



...except for the game room in the rear of the building, with its wood-stained walls, mood lighting, and deep red billiard table.



In fact, nearly everything seems awash in red, the painted basketball court(yard) reflecting against the single-level annex...

...and into all the rooms.



Whenever possible, signage was painted on - like the room numbers - to prevent theft by souvenir-collecting graduates and vandalism by rival fraternities.



The rooms are set up motor lodge-style, each facing the outside...




...rather than long, dormitory hallways or Animal House-style common areas.



Upstairs, the vertical wood siding has been restored, using the original wood...



...allowing it to retain its mid-century feel...



...but also giving it a contemporary update.



There are many renovations that got cut from the budget (a garden! a pool!), and some plans are still pending (rooftop solar panels!)...



...while construction continues on the upper level...



...to build more rooms...



...that will be more durable...



...and hopefully stand the test of time (and finals).

We woke one summer-dwelling frat brother up so we could look inside his room, evicting the poor kid from the new steel-and-wood lofted bed that rises to just under a foot below the ceiling and requires him to climb like a monkey up into and down from it. The former closet door in his room (which had a habit of being torn off its hinges, which all closet doors did) has been replaced with a heavy-duty denim curtain. Worn carpets have given way to the underlying concrete floors. And the sinks are from IKEA, making it easily (and relatively cheaply) replaceable when they inevitably get torn out of the wall. We'll see how long those newly-installed windows last before shattering.

This building had to adapt to its residents, whose faces may change from year to year but behaviors remain the same. Fraternities are no different now they were 20 years ago when I first went to college, a shy first-year who'd never been to one high school party, who sought refuge and camaraderie in Greek Life.

Photo Essay: Dodger Stadium, A Brooklyn Team's LA Home

When you go to a baseball game, you actually get to see very little of the stadium you're in. You get ushered directly to your section, and even if you wander about looking for variety in the concessions, you probably never leave your own level.

And it's usually so crowded, you can't make much of the stadium out from the sea of people occupying it.

So it's nice to go take a tour on a sunny, game-free day.

Dodger Stadium in particular is interesting because it's the country's third-oldest major league baseball stadium (behind Fenway Park and Wrigley Field), and, in its 52nd season, is the oldest baseball stadium in the West. 

By seating capacity, it's also the largest extant ballpark in the world.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down - Part 2

On a recent cool afternoon, I decided to do some hike-exploring in Encino, near San Vicente Mountain Peak. Most of my new hikes now are intersecting hikes I've already done, helping me map out LA metro mentally, and understand how one place relates to another.

Most times, I kind of know what to expect.

Usually, in the Santa Monica Mountains, the trailhead is at a fire gate, sometimes yellow.



Signage confirms your location at the entrances and exits.



Watch for rattlesnakes...



...as a wide, dirt fire road winds around the mountain, overlooking a canyon, with a view of the city beyond.



In this case, it's Sullivan Canyon.



Day use trails lead wanderers up dusty knolls...



...while the fire road leads to a gate that marks the boundary of something long-gone...



...and the official end of the park, though the trail continues...



...until it abruptly ends at another fence, marking the start of a residential neighborhood.



And then a surprise: bright white blooming flowers inside the fence, a rarity in the middle of summer, though perhaps because of our record-wet July.



On the way back came the real surprise, which shouldn't have been a surprise at all: it was really uphill.



I didn't remember walking downhill so much on the way out, the path seeming unremarkably undulating with the usual amount of ups and downs that you get in these mountains.



But on the way back, the uphill climb seemed relentless.

Maybe I was just tired. Maybe the sun exposure of the shadeless trail finally got to me, the late afternoon rays beating down on my sweating forehead and tanktopped skin. Maybe I haven't been hiking enough, my calves still sore from climbing only partway up Mt. Washington (in non-athletic shoes).

I think we never really notice when things are easy, when the slope of our journey angles downward, just slightly enough to be comfortable (and not the extreme incline that sends me slipping and has me reaching for my hiking poles). Instead, we notice when things go wrong, when the elevation cuts our breath short, and the pangs of muscle fatigue set in.

We bemoan insomnia, but do not celebrate a good night's sleep.

I am guilty of this in particular. I am not satisfied when things are just "fine." I don't even really acknowledge those moments. Only that which is spectacular - or, spectacularly difficult, traumatic, challenging, heartbreaking - grabs my attention.

I need to learn how to appreciate the easy walks, embrace the expected, and relish in the reality of life's ups and downs, and everything in between.

Related Post:
What Goes Up, Must Come Down

Photo Essay: Climbing Mount Washington to Self-Realization

I find myself constantly and repeatedly drawn to Mt. Washington - perhaps because it's where I first learned how to live in LA, or perhaps because of it simply being a bit of a mountain, or perhaps because of its interesting cultural history. In the last year alone, I've visited the Lummis House, Judson Studios, Heritage Square Museum, Southwestern Museum, and Occidental College (twice), all of which are more or less in or around Mt. Washington and neighboring Highland Park.

But I recently discovered there was more to see: the path of the old, lost, decommissioned and dismantled incline railway that once connected Yellow Car passengers up Mt. Washington, to its vacant real estate lots, and to the Mt. Washington Hotel at the top.

I'd seen lots of photos of what it used to look like (which you can see here and here), but what did it look like now? Would it be more or less unrecognizable (like Corralitas Red Car Property)? Or would there be something still there to delight my inner urban explorer and industrial archaeologist?

I ventured to the corner of Marmion Way and Ave 43 and was greeted by the faint chug of a distant train - not the ghost of an old Yellow Car, but the current and active Metro Gold Line, which runs along more or less the same path (though now behind Marmion Way instead of down it).



Looking up from the tracks, I spotted the original terminus of the railway at the bottom of the mount, where patrons in 1909 would by their ticket for a ride up on either Florence or Virginia, the two funicular cars that ran up and down. The front façade has changed a bit, the signage removed, large front entrance covered up, but it's the same building, with Spanish tile roof and front-facing balcony.



The entire trip up the 3000 feet would take about eight minutes by train. At first, the road that has been built in its path doesn't seem so steep...



...though it does seem old, not having been repaved at least since 1930 (when the tracks were removed and the right of way was first paved, succumbing to the automobile)...



...but once you pass Glenalbyn Drive on foot, heading upwards...



...you reach a section that was deemed too steep for cars to pass, where Avenue 43 has turned into Glenmuir Ave, and it shifts sharply to the right...



...making a public staircase the only way to go straight up.



Glancing quickly behind me to look back down the hill, I climbed the stairs...



...and met up with a broken, disconnected section of Glenmuir Ave on the left, and Canyon Vista Drive straight ahead.



If I'd been feeling more ambitious, I could've walked all the way up Canyon Vista to the top of Mt. Washington, but instead I turned around, went back to my car, and made a crazy drive up narrow, winding roads to get to the peak...



...which was touted at the time as six times higher than the 12-story Union Trust Building. For reference.



The hotel is still there, though now it is the headquarters and administration office for the Self-Realization Fellowship...



...and these yogis do not take too kindly to a camera-wielding stranger poking around their backyard. I was kindly kicked out and pointed towards the gardens...



...which were an attraction of the original hotel in the early 1900s as well...



...though now they are far more meditative. Walking through the Temple of Leaves...



...along manicured pathways...



...the view eventually opened up, revealing the skyline of Downtown LA and beyond, which was most certainly not the original view.



Just in front of the fountain, tennis courts that are still viewable on Google satellite view have been covered with turf. It's kind of hard to believe people would take a train up here, but the grounds are still incredible, and worth a quiet visit if you're in the area.

Which, of course, I have been frequently.

And probably will be again soon.

Related Posts:
Up and Down Bunker Hill on Angels Flight
Photo Essay: Heartpounding Hike to a Lost City
Photo Essay: Mt. Lowe Railway's Rubio Canyon
Photo Essay: Lake Shrine