RAIN!!!

Rain!!! Decemeber 7th 2008. Rain!!! invades Playa Del Rey. Mother nature begins to flex her natural muscle sweeping the scum from our gutters, not to mention she's giving us all a free car wash!!!

Today, bewildered drivers screeched and skidded down Manchester Avenue awestruck and confused by the phenomenon. Can they drive... no!!! They drive off to their sad jobs in a state of complete debilitating fear. Fear that the steady sun may never return.

This fear causes accidents. Child killing accidents.

One subscriber related me his fear of how he believes the rain will bring German scientists who produce weapons of mass devastation. Now in my opinion that is an absurd notion however in regards to safety I took to action. This very morning I wrote a letter to the President of Neighborhood Council for Westchester and Playa Del Rey, Cindi Hench, and urged her to look into the matter.

You can find any of your local community leaders at the following website:
http://www.ncwpdr.org

In my letter to them I advised that they form a committee on the safety of residents in the neighborhood for days like today. These drivers must be stopped at all costs, because this whole thing can snowball like Germany invading Poland in 1939 which could plunge the locals into a state of chaos and confusion.

Over the last year I have counted 10 accidents at the corner of Manchester and Tuscany. My girlfriends car was totalled in one of these accidents. Less than one month ago someone was going so fast he flipped his car and totaled two parked vehicles. To make things worse, not one day goes by where I do not hear someone blaring their horn at a speeding motorist. Long story short we need some more stop lights along Manchester. One of these days a kid is going to get hit by one of these speeding jackasses and people are going to be up in arms on the state of this stretch of road. I say it once more, we need a stop light before a child dies. A child will die if we don't do something now.

I urge you all to write to Cyndi Hench and request more stop lights in PDR, especially along Manchester. I have seen too many accidents on days like today and I believe they can prevented. I spoke with officer Downey about why there are certain spots along Manchester where stop lights could be placed. He told me the reason we lack stop lights is due to lack of local interest. If we the people speak up we can put up more stop lights and stop these drivers from ruining our lives and cars. I implore you all to write Cyndi Hench and make her aware of our issues because if we don't speak up who will... I know the rain won't

Playa's Past!!! Awesome Subscriber Pics...

To move forward we have to know where we have been. Truer words have never been spoken and on that note I give you today's little entry.

After posting my first entry /mission statement yesterday I received an email from a good friend of mine who lives down in the jungle. He sent me some pictures of Playa Del Rey in the past. It took me a while tofigure out where a few of the pics were from but I think if you look long enough at them you will be able to figure it out.









The person who can give me the locations of all the pictures below will be bought a pint by yours truly, The Prince Of Playa...

Enjoy the Images---

Playa Del Rey Press Mission Statement

Hello all.

I am writing this blog to specifically report all things occurring in Playa Del Rey, CA. Here's a bit of History on this fantastic neighborhood.

I have lived here for over 5 years now and I think it is hands down Los Angeles best kept secret. It's the last of California's sleepy beach towns. It's sad watching them(the old school Cali beachtowns) all go away so I want to report as much on this neighborhood before it too is corrupted by California's real estate developers.

Here's a bit of history as reported by Wikipedia.

History

Overlooking the entrance to the marina and Ballona Creek, with the tightly-packed area known as The Jungle in the foreground.

The community's proximity to LAX has made airport expansion a hot button issue to residents.

Playa del Rey as seen from Ballona Creek.

The northern part was originally wetlands, but the natural flooding was halted by the concrete channel which contains Ballona Creek. Before 1824, the harbor was the mouth of the Los Angeles River, before its course shifted to its current outlet at San Pedro. A bridge between Playa Del Rey and the jetty between Ballona Creek and the Marina is accessible to foot traffic and bicycle traffic, but not to automobiles. Bikers, skaters and joggers probably have the best chance of traversing the sidewalks of the beaches north to Santa Monica, and to the South Bay, here at this bridge. Both UCLA and LMU have crew teams that practice on the Ballona Creek channel.

In the 1870s, Playa Del Rey was the location of the first attempt at a dredged harbor in Santa Monica Bay. Under contract with the Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, Moye Wicks' syndicate spent $300,000 to dredge "Ballona Harbor," for shipping to the Orient. Within three years, wicked winter waves brought flooding and failure, but what remained of man's early efforts became the Playa Del Rey Lagoon, now a regional public park.

Development of Playa del Rey surged in 1928 with the building of the Del Rey Hills neighborhood in what is now the southern part of the community and move of then Loyola University to nearby Westchester. The area was the last stretch of coastal land in the city of Los Angeles to be developed.^[2]

A large portion of Playa del Rey is now vacant, and homes were destroyed, after the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) brought increased flight traffic. The noise from the flights made it less desirable to live on the dunes above the ocean under the LAX flight path. LAX bought the southern section of Playa del Rey under the power of eminent domain, eventually numbering 4,400 homes.^[3] Today one can see only barbed-wire fences protecting vacant land and old streets where houses once sat. Recent LAX rejuvenation plans call for the city to finally remove the old streets that still line the empty neighborhood once known as Palisades del Rey. The condemned areas of the community are now a protected habitat of the endangered El Segundo blue butterfly.

Playa del Rey in the 1950s and early 1960s was known as a great Los Angeles area "surfing spot," but due to the many rock jetties that were built to prevent beach erosion, the good surf is mostly gone. The beach at the northermost end of Playa del Rey is still known as "Toes Over Beach", "Toes Beach" or just "Toes" by the local surfing community, a name derived from the toes over or Hang Ten surfing maneuver. Most surfers now flock south of Dockweiler Beach, to "El Porto", the most northern part of beach in the city of Manhattan Beach. The lifeguard and park services are uniform across the entire twenty mile stretch of beach.

One danger for beachgoers is the uncontrolled water runoff from the creek, and the occasional overflow from the giant Hyperion treatment plant to the south.

Locals refer to the small area of housing south of Culver Boulevard and closest to the beach as The Jungle, a nickname given to a group of closely-built apartments built in 1956, within the bounding streets Trolley Place and Trolleyway Street on its east and west respectively, and including the streets Fowling, Rees, Sunridge and Surf. The small sidewalks between homes had/have deep green overgrowth, which added to the name.

This post was basically cut and paste from the wikipedia article. More things to come in the upcoming weeks.

Yours,

The Prince of Playa Del Rey