Palms Is the Bomb

No Cold Winters. No Hot Summers. No Saloons at The Palms. Dedicated to the Palms neighborhood in Los Angeles. @PalmsIsTheBomb on Twitter. #PalmsLA

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Does Venice Boulevard suck for bicycling or something?

Source: “LeBron James likes to bike to work. We tested his route — and it’s dangerous,” Los Angeles Times

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Palms Pizza Problems

Anyone else ever experienced the emotional rollercoaster of craving pizza while riding the Expo Line, spotting this dude, and then realizing that it's Tuesday and The Coop is closed?

Apparently a lot of people are familiar with this emotional rollercoaster.

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Put Some Birds on It

Some Birds are just waiting to make friends at the Palms Expo Line Station.

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I'm a Park Planner Now

I don't know who owns this piece of land on Overland, but can we turn it into a park with hillside benches for Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel to sit on?

By the way:

1. I could not find a bench emoji so I am using a couch emoji.

2. I am sorry I only seem to have white people emojis. These emojis do not represent Palms.

3. Nothing compares to Angel's Knoll in Downtown LA, and I'm sad that it is practically a construction site now.

4. Can we all plan public space using emojis from now on?

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You could drive down Venice Boulevard a million times and have no idea what even is on the street.

Then one day you walk down it, decide to get a gyro wrap from Shawarma Land, and run into this hookah-smoking camel.

Palms is full of surprises.

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Palms Community Day is coming up this Saturday, May 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Palms Expo Station.

See you there!

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Happy Caturday from Palms!

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Is this a #BoycottLAWeekly statement or just a coincidence?

I honestly can’t tell.

Found in Palms, of course.

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Palms Cycle was founded in 1930 on Main Street in Culver City and then moved to its current brick building on Motor Avenue. I have read that it is the oldest bike shop in Los Angeles.

Palms Cycle has been mostly closed recently for a remodel, but I am happy to see that this classic neon sign is still on every night.

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Herbs and Spices

The building at 9850 Exposition Blvd in Palms (top photo) has been abandoned since I’ve moved here, but a question I posed to Twitter gave me even better results than I could have imagined when Hugh Fitzgerald sent me to the Kind for Cures Wikipedia page. (Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald!)

Kind for Cures was a marijuana dispensary that opened in 2009 in a building previously occupied by a Kentucky Fried Chicken. The store owners kept the KFC acronym and the exterior looking like Colonel Sander’s restaurant (but were forced to paint the roof green), leading the building to became a bit of a national sensation.

South Park’s “Medicinal Fried Chicken” episode spoofed Kind for Cures in 2010 with a South Park’s own pot dispensary in a former KFC (bottom screenshot).

Kind for Cures was shut down by the City of L.A. in 2010 but came back, only to get shut down for good in 2015.

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It’s no coincidence that Palms became one of the most affordable areas on the Westside, and one of the most diverse neighborhoods in LA. Palms isn’t a destination; it’s just an ordinary dense urban neighborhood that gets the job done for its residents – a vale of humility among hills of conceit. It’s the kind of place that politicians and planners should facilitate more development of, rather than trying to create headline destination districts.

Let’s Go LA, “A Farewell to Palms”

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A Conversation about Palms

Me: I have another fun fact about Palms to share with you.

Non-Palms friend:

Me: TOO LATE! WE’RE ALREADY HAPPENING!!!

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Can you spot the difference? I took a photo of the Palms Bank Building at 3343 Motor Avenue in Palms last Monday (top photo), asked Twitter what was up with that building on Wednesday morning, and then saw a “For Lease” sign in the window on Wednesday evening (bottom photo).

Someone, please lease this piece of Palms history, and do something great with this space!

Also, the property brochure is a fun read with a 1924 Palms film location map! Shout-out to CBRE for creating a brochure that even I, a person who can’t afford any of their properties, enjoys reading.

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Once upon a time, I used to regularly pass by a Thai Food stand on the corner of Hollywood and Western that had a giant hot dog on top of it from its former days as a hot dog stand. That stand is no more and has been replaced with a Marshall’s and Petco.

When I moved to Palms and spotted this hot dog at the Northeast corner of Overland Ave and Palms Blvd, I thought it was so weird that there were so many giant hot dogs in L.A. While learning about the Crapi Apartments this week, Ellen Bloom’s blog post revealed that this hot dog in Palms was actually moved from that Hollywood and Western location.

I’ve somehow followed the hot dog to Palms!

Alchemy Media, an outdoor advertising agency formerly known as National Promotions & Advertising (NPA), keeps this hot dog on their west coast headquarter’s roof here in Palms. Alchemy Media is also responsible for the naming of the Crapi Apartments and the Chee Zee Apartments, making them responsible for some of Palms’s best inside jokes.

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Around the corner from the Crapi Apartments on Overland are the cousin Chee Zee Apartments on Woodbine Street, also the joke of Alchemy Media, formerly known as National Promotions & Advertising (NPA). Find these apartments in Palms, Los Angeles!

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Last night I went down an internet rabbit hole in search of information on and reactions to the Crapi Apartments on Overland Avenue in Palms. I suggest you do this, too, but this 2015 search result from Ellen Bloom is especially illuminating.

According to Ellen, Crapi Apartments (and the Chee-Zee Apartments around the corner) are both jokes of the owner of National Promotions and Advertising, now known as Alchemy Media, which specializes in outdoor advertising. Alchemy’s office is also located down the block on Overland in the building with the giant hot dog on it. What a bunch of jokesters.

Thank you, Ellen Bloom! Thank you, Alchemy Media!

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Public Art Ideas for Palms

The Palms Neighborhood Council is looking for suggestions of public art you'd like to see in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Palms. You can share your creative ideas for murals, sculptures, signs, and more by taking this survey: https://t.co/4eKk1rdNa0

I am instead going to share my #PalmsLA public art ideas here and on Twitter (because I don’t follow directions):

A giant Palms sign to hang above National Blvd where it meets with Motor in honor of the original sign.

A Free Little Library created in the Palms Depot’s likeness at Palms Station to encourage people to read on public transportation.

A sculpture (or several) in honor of the Chippendales original location on Overland.

Signage with Palms’s original slogan, “No Cold Winters. No Hot Summers. No Saloons at The Palms.” Place it by a bar if we’re being extra cheeky.

Commission the Museum of Jurassic Technology to create a public art piece modeled after its “Tell the Bees... Belief, Knowledge and Hypersymbolic Cognition” exhibit. Soviet Space Dogs are cool, too.

A “Palms Walk of Fame” on the sidewalk borders of Palms so that we can quickly determine whether your business/home is in Palms or Culver City.

A #PalmsLA flag or decal for businesses that say they are in Palms to proudly display.

Planters and street furniture on the outer edges of the bike lanes on Venice Blvd. Is that a protected bike lane, you say? No, it’s art.

Sidewalks painted onto the sections of Venice Blvd that don’t have them.

Ramps for ALL of Palms’s curbs, but painted in a fun Palm leaf pattern to make it art. #PutAPalmTreeOnIt

If there is money leftover in the public art budget and we’re feeling generous: add “Greater Palms” signage throughout Culver City.