Stretching from north of Franklin to 108th Street and the edge of Willowbrook, St. Andrews accommodates both the great garden homes of the well-to-do, and the cramped apartments of the gardeners who tend them.
Named for the fisher of men, a great preacher, St. Andrew is constantly interrupted – by stop signs, freeways, speed bumps and more. But it’s at Venice Boulevard, around Country Club Drive, that communication finally breaks down: here the neighbors put up an iron gate to separate their fine homes from their cramped neighbors to the south.
St Andrew tries to say something, but that gate drowns him out. What’s that gate trying to say?
'}, {'street': 'San Blas Avenue', 'latitude': 34.15195, 'longitude': -118.59938, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmBlas.jpg', 'width': '179', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Blas Avenue - A wolf in shepherd\'s clothing', 'bodytext': 'Two priests named for San Blas – Blas Raho and Blas Ordaz – served the people of the San Fernando Valley in the mid-19th century. While Father Raho worked to bring people together in positive ways, Father Ordaz brought some people together in ways that seem questionable at best. For, whether he was working at San Fernando, Santa Ynez, or San Gabriel Mission, rumors circulated that he was a little too close to some of the women in his parish. Indeed, records indicate he fathered at least two children with a certain María Soledad.
A legend about San Blas tells how the saint restored a beloved pig to a poor widow after a wolf made off with it. It is tempting to imagine San Blas restoring the good name of the Church, the woman, and her children in much the same way – after castigating the lecherous wolf in shepherd\'s clothing, Blas Ordaz.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Catalina View', 'latitude': 34.055254, 'longitude': -118.481726, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmCatalina.jpg', 'width': '236', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Catalina View - Bearing Pimu\'s spirits back to Catalina on a song', 'bodytext': 'The view has abandoned Brentwood\'s Santa Catalina View, but 400 years ago explorer Sebastian Vizcaíno cast anchor off the island and named it for a third-century saint, Saint Catherine: Santa Catalina.
Long before Vizcaíno\'s time – or even Saint Catherine\'s time - the island was already home to the Pimuvit people, a branch of the Tongva Indians who have called much of Southern California home for millennia. The Pimuvit fished, carved stone, played flutes, and built canoes, watched over by the sacred porpoises leaping about offshore, until the natives were herded off their island in 1833, and shipped off to the missions.
A century later, the ethnomusicologist Helen Heffron Roberts tracked down a lone descendant of these exiled Pimuvit people, Celestino Awatu, and transcribed a few of his songs.
When Saint Catherine - Santa Catalina - was martyred, legend tells us that angels carried her body away to Mount Sinai.
Celestino sang a Spirit Song with the lyrics, \"Dwell there my spirit, stay there my spirit.\" This song, he explained, expressed the Pimuvit belief that, when we die, our \"spirit goes back to Catalina to stay there.\"
'}, {'street': 'St. Charles Place', 'latitude': 34.042703, 'longitude': -118.331648, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmCharles.jpg', 'width': '250', 'height': '167', 'headline': 'St. Charles Place - How to name a street in just 150 years', 'bodytext': 'At times the steps needed to explain how a street connects to a saint are so many, it becomes almost a game or puzzle. Such is the case with St. Charles Place and San Carlos Borromeo. The artist has used puns and other fanciful details to convey his story.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Clara Avenue', 'latitude': 33.99324, 'longitude': -118.465, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmClaraAv.jpg', 'width': '250', 'height': '233', 'headline': 'Santa Clara Avenue - Two creative responses to deprivation and discrimination', 'bodytext': 'Abbot Kinney, the founder of Venice, California, treated blacks fairly, welcoming them as builders of the evocative canals that gave Venice its identity.
Perhaps no African-American derived more direct or longer-lasting benefit from Kinney\'s openness than did Irving Tabor, his personal chauffeur. Abbot and Irving traveled everywhere together, even sleeping overnight in Abbot\'s fine automobile when southern hotel owners refused Irving admittance.
When Abbott died, he deeded his house to Irving. However, the same hostility that barred Irving (and thousands of other blacks) from entry to whites-only hotels, also made his family unwelcome in Kinney\'s old neighborhood.
So Irving Tabor exercised the Wisdom of Solomon: sawing his house in twain, hitching it to his mules, and driving it home, across those famed Venice canals, to its present site, at the southeast corner of Sixth and Santa Clara.
Fortunately, Santa Clara, who drove back an invading army by holding aloft a holy, golden monstrance, raised it this time, instead, as a welcoming beacon to Irving and his family and home.
'}, {'street': 'San Clemente Ave.', 'latitude': 33.7577, 'longitude': -118.2648, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmClemente.jpg', 'width': '200', 'height': '163', 'headline': 'Kinkingna - A virtual broken heartbeat, painstakingly repaired', 'bodytext': 'Kinkingna is the Tongva name for San Clemente Island, which gave San Clemente Avenue its name. Kinkignans had inhabited their island home for so long - 10,000 years - they had no stories of how they got here: they had simply been here forever.
By the time the Spaniards came north to California, other invaders were heading south. Siberian fur traders, having depleted sea otter colonies along the Alaskan Gulf, were literally moving in for the kill.
As the invaders killed off Kinkingna\'s sea otters, Kinkigna\'s peoples and culture were also ravished. A way of being in the world, nurtured across ten millennia, disappeared in a virtual broken heartbeat.
Legend says San Clemente was thrown into the ocean with an anchor \'round his neck, inspiring his patronage of mariners. The Kinkingnans were great seamen, but San Clemente offered them no protection when the invaders arrived.
Legend says Clemente\'s underwater tomb is made visible yearly to the faithful. But the Kinkingnans\' culture reveals itself slowly, to researchers sifting through their island\'s mounds. Forget legend, forget romance: let us finally, belatedly appreciate the Kinkingnans as they really were.
'}, {'street': 'St. Cloud Road', 'latitude': 34.083872, 'longitude': -118.438454, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmCloud.jpg', 'width': '174', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Bel-Air Saints - Four ascetic priests lost in wealthy Bel Air', 'bodytext': 'What irony to find, in Bel Air\'s wealthy enclave, four streets named for ascetic priests and monks.
San Onofre Drive -
Along San Onofre Drive\'s errant cul-de-sac, the saintly solitude and simplicity of the past are mocked by the ceaseless construction and expansion of ostentatious estates.
Saint Pierre Road -
St. Pierre Road mocks the call to abandon all, and that sacrifice in this life brings eternal happiness in the next.
St. Cloud Road -
Alphonzo Bell dreamed of a spot where \"the soul has calm\": Might it be in the transitory sky above St. Cloud Road, the wandering monk?
San Remo Drive -
San Remo Drive, snaking along Bel-Air’s Riviera hilltop, evokes this most anonymous and unknowable saint, guarded by Bel-Air Patrol and Edison Security signs.
Out at sea thunderstorms erupt with violent swiftness. Sometimes strange electrical discharges dart about a ship\'s sails. Since Columbus\' time seamen have called these \"St. Elmo\'s Fire,\" a sign their patron saint Elmo is near and that all will be well.
Here in L.A., the community along St. Elmo Drive appeared to flounder in economic and social malaise until 1969, when Rozelle and Roderick Sykes, uncle and nephew artists, settled into a cluster of old bungalows and garages along St. Elmo Drive, and the tides began to turn.
Roderick and Rozelle christened their outpost \"St. Elmo Village,\" a place, they said, to \"nurture the positive aspects of life,\" and show that art is \"the art of living and is your whole environment.\"
Much of St. Elmo\'s spirit dwells in the colourful, vibrant Village bearing his name, but most significantly here burns \"St. Elmo\'s Fire\" – the sou\'s creative spark, evidenced in the Village\'s motto, \"If it is to be, it is up to me\". And when that fire sparks, all is well.
For all who seek shelter from life\'s storms at St. Elmo Village, Shakespeare\'s description of St. Elmo\'s Fire from The Tempest rings true: \"I flamed amazement.\"
'}, {'street': 'Santa Fe Avenue', 'latitude': 34.046552, 'longitude': -118.23261, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmFe.jpg', 'width': '184', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Fe Avenue - A potentially great match that did not work out', 'bodytext': 'It seems as though it would have been a great marriage: bringing St. Francis\' faith to St. Francis\' chapel.
But, when the Santa Fe Railroad rolled into Our Lady of the Angels, in 1886, its steam whistle sounded the death knell for El Pueblo and its traditional ways of life.
'}, {'street': 'San Feliciano Drive', 'latitude': 34.16073, 'longitude': -118.60825, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmFeliciano.jpg', 'width': '166', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Feliciano Drive - The first saint\'s name might have helped', 'bodytext': 'San Feliciano Drive recalls California\'s first documented discovery of gold, in San Feliciano Canyon. In1842 Francisco López found gold there while digging wild onions; but his strike gave out and was soon forgotten.
San Feliciano Drive was originally part of Victor Girard\'s city of Girard, and its association with the quest for gold is appropriate. Just as many gold miners were betrayed by promises of great wealth, and went broke buying equipment and supplies; so, too, did many who purchased land along San Feliciano Drive and surrounding streets feel betrayed when Girard\'s development scheme went bankrupt amid real estate fraud and scandal.
When the Spaniards first came here, in 1769, their priest, Juan Crespí, dedicated the Valley to Saint Catherine of Bologna – a name changed when Mission San Fernando was built two decades later. Given what happened here, though – gold fever and real estate swindles – it is unfortunate that Crespí\'s name did not stick. For the day Francisco López first found gold in the canyons, March 9th, is the feast day of Saint Catherine of Bologna – the saint to be called upon when facing great temptation.
'}, {'street': 'San Fernando Road', 'latitude': 34.078878, 'longitude': -118.224081, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmFernando.jpg', 'width': '184', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Fernando Road - Caught between the powerful and the powerless', 'bodytext': 'San Fernando Road, Valley, and Mission all hearken back to the 13th century life and legend of King Ferdinand III of Castile, who we call San Fernando.
Best remembered for his decades-long crusade against the Moors, one pictures San Fernando and his army herding Tongva natives onto his Mission, where, exposed to disease and deprived of the diets, traditions, and beliefs that had sustained them for millennia, they were nearly exterminated.
Rogerio Rocha was born and raised on the mission and after secularization was permitted, as tribal elder, to stay there as long as he lived. Unfortunately, Rogerio\'s fifteen acres were coveted by powerful Charles Maclay.
San Fernando, as patron saint of paupers and governors, faced a dilemma: Rogerio was clearly a pauper, but Maclay was an ex-senator. Faced with these competing interests, San Fernando erred on the side of power. Rogerio and family were evicted during a rainstorm, exposure to which killed his wife.
San Fernando, legendary man of his times, could not serve both the powerful and the powerless. And the real men of his time, like Charles Maclay, bear real responsibility for the history his Valley.
'}, {'street': 'St. George Street', 'latitude': 34.106743, 'longitude': -118.277599, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmGeorge.jpg', 'width': '183', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'St. George Street', 'bodytext': 'Saint George, patron saint of Ethiopia and forerunner of modern exterminators, battles his legendary dragon on a quiet Los Feliz side street: It might be advisable to step out of the way.
'}, {'street': 'Kuruvungna Springs', 'latitude': 34.04407, 'longitude': -118.45933, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmKuru.jpg', 'width': '250', 'height': '167', 'headline': 'Kuruvungna Springs - Gathering our bounty we welcomed you into our world', 'bodytext': 'In a corner of University High School\'s campus, behind a parking lot, flows Kuruvungna, the Tongva\'s sacred spring. Here, natives welcomed the Spaniards with warm generosity, hoping to become life-long friends.
'}, {'street': 'San Lorenzo Street', 'latitude': 34.03767, 'longitude': -118.50968, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmLorenzo.jpg', 'width': '176', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Lorenzo Street - Our lives pass by like San Lorenzo\'s Tears', 'bodytext': 'Hidden away in Santa Monica Canyon, Los Angeles\' only family cemetery provides a link to the 1830\'s, when the Reyes and Márquez families owned Rancho la Boca de Santa Mónica. The cemetery evolved as Márquez family members passed away and were buried in the distant canyon.
Even after the rancho was subdivided and developed, in the 1920\'s, the cemetery remained intact, protected by an adobe wall commissioned by the developer\'s daughter, Dorothy. Dorothy bought a saint\'s statue to guard the cemetery’s gate, and her dad gave the saint\'s name to the street out front: San Lorenzo.
San Lorenzo\'s Tears is the ancient name people gave to the Perseid meteor showers that stream from the sky every mid-August – on the feast day of San Lorenzo, a 3rd century deacon of the Church and defender of the poor, who died a fiery death.
One pictures San Lorenzo\'s Tears darting over Márquez Cemetery, underscoring the transience of our lives, yes, but also lamenting the nights when those tears streaked bright against skies of ebony over Rancho la Boca de Santa Mónica, and throughout all the ancient Tongva and Chumash lands.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Lucia Drive', 'latitude': 34.15357, 'longitude': -118.60465, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmLucia.jpg', 'width': '173', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Lucia Drive - \"ojos dulces… con el sabor de llanto\"', 'bodytext': '\"What lovely eyes you have,\" begins the enduring Mexican song Malagueña Salerosa, continuing, \"They want to look at me, but you won\'t let them... so much as blink.\"
Santa Lucía, one of many women who have died for resisting a man\'s embrace, had eyes that drove men beyond distraction, which led to her martyrdom. Another song, this one by Guty Cárdenas, describes, \"Your eyes possess a rare enchantment...your eyes as sweet as a saint\'s...eyes which have the flavor of tears.\"
The light in Lucía\'s eyes glowed from within, but it was a light, no doubt, tinged with sadness.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Maria Road', 'latitude': 34.1338, 'longitude': -118.57731, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmMaria.jpg', 'width': '169', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Maria Road - A winding road through anti-Semitism and adaptation', 'bodytext': 'A twisting road off Topanga Canyon Boulevard leads into the southern scrub brush of the San Fernando Valley, tracing the footsteps of Jesús Santa María, who settled here in 1875. Jesús cut, hauled, and sold firewood for El Pueblo\'s distant residents; but his name traces back to Gothic Spain.
Medieval Europeans were encouraged to view the spiritual and physical realms as seamlessly related, and to identify with important Biblical events. This was all well and good, except they often saw their Jewish neighbors as descendants of Biblical antagonists.
Among many outrages Jews suffered was forced conversion to Catholicism and the imposition of super-Christian names – like Santa Maria. Additionally, in 1492, a quarter million Jews were expelled from Spain: many found their way to the Americas, where, over time, their ultra-Catholic names won them easier acceptance into anti-Semitic society.
Succeeding generations of these \"conversos\" have confronted an ever-changing social landscape, responding in a spirit of improvisation and adaptation; integration and reinvention, forgiveness and forbearance.
On Santa María Road, affronted (as Jews have been for centuries) with \"Restricted Entry\" signs, Our Lady of Sorrows bemoans the loss and suffering such intolerance has caused.
'}, {'street': 'San Miguel Street', 'latitude': 34.15857, 'longitude': -118.6113, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmMiguel.jpg', 'width': '184', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Miguel Street meets De la Osa - The Last Judgment of Don Vicente de la Osa – and each of us', 'bodytext': 'San Miguel Street is named for the archangel who weighs our souls when we die, to determine our fate; eternal joy or damnation. As San Miguel Street winds west, it arcs north to meet De la Osa Street. At mid-point the street sign dividing the two resembles the balance of a scale. One wonders, who was De la Osa, and why is San Miguel weighing his soul?
Don Vicente de los Reyes de la Osa is born in 1808, and by his mid-twenties becomes El Pueblo\'s equivalent of a City councilman. In 1842 he parlays his political connections and public service into ownership of Rancho La Providencia, the site of present-day Burbank.
Don Vicente soon sells his 4000 acres of La Providencia for $1500, pocketing the profits and biding his time, with an acquisitive eye on fair, spring-fed Rancho Los Encinos.
The three transactions whereby Don Vicente de los Reyes de la Osa acquires Rancho Los Encinos total just over $120 for 4400 acres of prime farm land – spirited away from the native grantees and their families at a time when travelers (presumably non-Indian) are invited to stay free of charge at Don Vicente’s home for as long as they like.
Don Vicente was born on January 6th; the Feast of the Three Kings (This is where his middle name, de los Reyes, comes from). Perhaps, as patron saints are believed to do, the Three Kings will plead for leniency as San Miguel weighs Don Vicente\'s soul on his mighty scales. From the other side may come a call for justice from the three landless native men, Ramón, Tiburcio, and Francisco, and their defrauded families.
If so, in that moment of divine judgment, which side will prevail? Can three Indians, against the tide of history, prevail against three kings?
'}, {'street': 'St. Mihiel Avenue', 'latitude': 34.061719, 'longitude': -118.452358, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmMihiel.jpg', 'width': '170', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'St. Mihiel Avenue - All this loss, this endless waste', 'bodytext': 'St. Mihiel, a small town in northeastern France, was the site of one of the last battles of World War I, the storied \"War to end all wars.\" It was named for the archangel St. Michael, who battles evil, much like the Allied soldiers did.
St. Michael also weighs our souls when we die; and in the light of our troubled history, one wonders how he copes. It seemed inconceivable at the end of World War I, with its 20 million deaths, that anyone would use war again as means to an end. Yet, twenty years later, World War II began, slaughtering sixty million more. The killing, of course, continues to this day.
Saint Michael may well weary, as we do, of these ceaseless battles of good and evil. Holding aloft his great scales to weigh the fate of the dying, he may shudder beneath the weight of so many corpses, mourning their loss, bemoaning this endless waste.
'}, {'street': 'St. Moritz Drive', 'latitude': 34.14546, 'longitude': -118.53775, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmMoritz.jpg', 'width': '184', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'St. Moritz Drive - The black saint for a white world, waiting to be seen', 'bodytext': 'Fifteen years ago, the developers of Tarzana\'s gated community of Silver Hawk Ridge named their streets for European resorts; a Swiss ski resort inspired the development\'s guarded and gated entryway, St. Moritz Drive.
St. Moritz\'s name traces back to the deaths, in the third century, of some legendary soldiers known as the Theban Legion, who came from Africa\'s Upper Nile and were martyred in present-day Switzerland. The site of their killing became a sacred place of pilgrimage for European Christians, and hundreds of churches and dozens of cities were dedicated to their commander, who became known as St. Maurice (or Moritz).
Difficulties arose when European artists developed the skills to portray people realistically - and when Europeans learned what African men actually look like. To make Maurice more palatable, artists responded by \"giving\" the saint white skin or European features; but eventually, a powerful, pious black man proved too provocative. St. Maurice - black saint for a white world - could defeat the enemy, but could not overcome Eurocentric culture\'s narrow ideals of physical beauty and perfection.
As the twentieth-century artifacts here remind us, it\'s been a struggle not yet entirely won.
'}, {'street': 'San Onofre Drive', 'latitude': 34.06268, 'longitude': -118.50209, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmOnofre.jpg', 'width': '156', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Bel-Air Saints - Four ascetic priests lost in wealthy Bel Air', 'bodytext': 'What irony to find, in Bel Air\'s wealthy enclave, four streets named for ascetic priests and monks.
San Onofre Drive -
Along San Onofre Drive\'s errant cul-de-sac, the saintly solitude and simplicity of the past are mocked by the ceaseless construction and expansion of ostentatious estates.
Saint Pierre Road -
St. Pierre Road mocks the call to abandon all, and that sacrifice in this life brings eternal happiness in the next.
St. Cloud Road -
Alphonzo Bell dreamed of a spot where \"the soul has calm\": Might it be in the transitory sky above St. Cloud Road, the wandering monk?
San Remo Drive -
San Remo Drive, snaking along Bel-Air’s Riviera hilltop, evokes this most anonymous and unknowable saint, guarded by Bel-Air Patrol and Edison Security signs.
La Calle San Pablo, solitario y olvidado, se levanta al lado de la vía ferrocarrilera de Boyle Heights y sube por el hospital general del condado, hasta llegar a un precipito. Allí, desde esa cumbre, ignorado por los automóviles que pasen debajo, él declama sus Epístolas hacia la metrópolis moderna. Si logra uno ignorar a sus prejuicios y rabia, hay cierta poesía adentro.
'}, {'street': 'San Pascual Avenue', 'latitude': 34.115944, 'longitude': -118.175466, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmPascual.jpg', 'width': '183', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Pascual Avenue - One final triumphant dance of the spirit', 'bodytext': 'Doña Eulalia Pérez came north from Baja in 1824 and essentially ran San Gabriel Mission its final dozen years. While the priests tended to matters of the soul, Doña Eulalia ran the kitchen and food stores, the olive and wine presses, the leather and woodworking shops, and the making of boots, clothing, candies, and saddles. Nearing sixty, she still competed in regional dance contests, winning each one: the best dancer in all of Southern California.
As secularization drew close, the priests, afraid this mighty, resourceful woman might somehow not fend for herself, hatched a plan to protect her: marrying her to a man she did not want and deeding to him (on Easter Sunday, Domingo de Pascuas; hence San Pascual) the lands of future San Marino and South Pasadena. Of course the plan failed: her husband\'s children wasted the lands, leaving Doña Eulalia with nothing – or rather, nothing but her sense of herself.
In 1878, six months before she died, at age 110, a researcher came to interview Doña Eulalia. Clearly, from the records, he was humoring an old lady; just as clearly, though, the \"old lady\" insisted on telling her story, in one final triumphant dance of the spirit.
'}, {'street': 'St. Pierre Road', 'latitude': 34.082206, 'longitude': -118.436056, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmPierre.jpg', 'width': '172', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Bel-Air Saints - Four ascetic priests lost in wealthy Bel Air', 'bodytext': 'What irony to find, in Bel Air\'s wealthy enclave, four streets named for ascetic priests and monks.
San Onofre Drive -
Along San Onofre Drive\'s errant cul-de-sac, the saintly solitude and simplicity of the past are mocked by the ceaseless construction and expansion of ostentatious estates.
Saint Pierre Road -
St. Pierre Road mocks the call to abandon all, and that sacrifice in this life brings eternal happiness in the next.
St. Cloud Road -
Alphonzo Bell dreamed of a spot where \"the soul has calm\": Might it be in the transitory sky above St. Cloud Road, the wandering monk?
San Remo Drive -
San Remo Drive, snaking along Bel-Air’s Riviera hilltop, evokes this most anonymous and unknowable saint, guarded by Bel-Air Patrol and Edison Security signs.
Some two hundred years ago, Corporal José María Verdugo was deeded Rancho San Rafael, extending from Cypress Park and Mt. Washington, to Burbank and La Cañada Flintridge. José Maria soon passed the rancho to two of his children, who, as economic times worsened in the 1860’s, took on loans they could not repay and lost their inheritance.
All that remains now of Rancho San Rafael are a few adobe houses in Glendale and a small road tumbling off Mt. Washington.
The Avenue and Rancho were both named for the archangel San Rafael, who appears in legend as a wise stranger accompanying a boy named Tobias on the journey that will make him a man. The archangel\'s guidance led San Rafael to be regarded as the Guardian Angel.
What comfort to find him still on the job, on San Rafael Avenue, where each weekday a crossing guard shepherds children across the crosswalk to Mt. Washington Elementary School. Anxious parents dropping their children off in the morning may take comfort in his legend\'s reassuring words:
\"For a good angel will accompany him; his journey will be successful, and he will come back in good health.\"
'}, {'street': 'San Remo Drive', 'latitude': 34.05582, 'longitude': -118.49886, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmRemo.jpg', 'width': '182', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Bel-Air Saints - Four ascetic priests lost in wealthy Bel Air', 'bodytext': 'What irony to find, in Bel Air\'s wealthy enclave, four streets named for ascetic priests and monks.
San Onofre Drive -
Along San Onofre Drive\'s errant cul-de-sac, the saintly solitude and simplicity of the past are mocked by the ceaseless construction and expansion of ostentatious estates.
Saint Pierre Road -
St. Pierre Road mocks the call to abandon all, and that sacrifice in this life brings eternal happiness in the next.
St. Cloud Road -
Alphonzo Bell dreamed of a spot where \"the soul has calm\": Might it be in the transitory sky above St. Cloud Road, the wandering monk?
San Remo Drive -
San Remo Drive, snaking along Bel-Air’s Riviera hilltop, evokes this most anonymous and unknowable saint, guarded by Bel-Air Patrol and Edison Security signs.
Two decades after Santa Rita was canonized, in 1900, Santa Rita Street was named in her honor. Hers was a popular name among 19th century Mexican women, and three women who lived on Rancho Los Encinos – by Santa Rita Street – shared Rita’s name.
Rita Papabubaba, a native woman, was heir to the 4400 acre rancho deeded by Pío Pico in the 1840\'s. Cruelly, she lost her land to Don Vicente de la Osa, who paid her property taxes and took ownership of the rancho for three cents an acre.
Don Vicente married Rita de la Osa and, when he died, a similar fate befell her. She put the rancho in the care of son-in-law James Thompson, a former tax-collector. He sued her in court for ownership and won, forcing her family – including daughter Rita – off their land.
Santa Rita is patron saint of difficult causes; making it tragic that sainthood came too late to aid the three Rita\'s who lost Rancho los Encinos.
For if ever there were a difficult cause, it would be the plight of the native Californians, Mexicans, and women who lost their lands to legal chicanery in nineteenth century Los Angeles.
'}, {'street': 'San Sebastian Drive', 'latitude': 34.15386, 'longitude': -118.61948, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmSebastian.jpg', 'width': '167', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Sebastian Drive - Brutalized, abandoned, and nursed back to health', 'bodytext': 'Here, at the undeveloped end of San Sebastian Drive, the exposed heart of Woodland Hills belies its Tongva beginnings. Just as San Sebastian was shot full of arrows, left for dead, then revived by a woman elder to continue to defend his faith; so too have the Tongva relied upon their elders to nurse them back to communal health, as they struggle for the survival and renaissance of their traditional way of life.
'}, {'street': 'St. Stephanie', 'latitude': 34.045406, 'longitude': -118.224295, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmStephanie.jpg', 'width': '173', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'St. Stephanie de los Niños', 'bodytext': 'So many mothers weep for sons and daughters who are victims or perpetrators of violence. We are all connected, a community of pain and of hope.
'}, {'street': 'St. Susan Place', 'latitude': 34.015868, 'longitude': -118.429036, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmSusan.jpg', 'width': '167', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'St. Susan Place - Woman\'s basic right on an anonymous dead end street', 'bodytext': 'From the earliest times the Church has mourned women who suffered violent, needless deaths. Individual names may vary – Agnes or Appolonia, Lucy or Susan – but the saint\'s tale remains tragically common and constant: a woman who spurns a man’s advances pays with her life.
\"The years pass,\" this song (composed by the artist) reminds us, \"and still there are men who do not understand that women have the right to live as they wish.\"
Tiny St. Susan Place – a circular cipher, a virtual dead end – evokes all the anonymous women martyred for this basic human right.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Susana Pass', 'latitude': 34.27221, 'longitude': -118.60705, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmSusana.jpg', 'width': '164', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Susana Pass - Gazing unfazed at man’s comings and goings.', 'bodytext': 'Two hundred years ago Spanish priests already called Santa Susana\'s name while climbing these rocks from Mission San Fernando to visit Chumash villages in the western valley, or pushing on to Mission San Buenaventura in the north.
The gravel, silt and sand that pass for soil here have tossed about in the wind for some twenty thousand years; the shale and volcanic rock have lain exposed five hundred times as long; and the great sandstone ramparts and bedrock date back further still: more than fifty million years.
Whether it was the priests, or the settlers, or these mountains themselves who chose the name, they were right.
The sandstone boulders push themselves up from the earth\'s crust and onto the siltstone surface to watch over the plains like millennial sentries, gazing unfazed at our furious, futile comings and goings.
Santa Susana, self-possessed, unmoved, disdains the advances of men.
'}, {'street': 'Avenida de Santa Ynez', 'latitude': 34.07295, 'longitude': -118.55967, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmYnezAv.jpg', 'width': '167', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Via Santa Ynez - Beauty, resistance, loss: the Passion of Southern California', 'bodytext': 'Santa Ynez\'s beauty brought unwanted attention from men who so ardently desired her they were willing, when rebuffed, to destroy her. Although she resisted, Ynez was ultimately martyred, leaving us both to mourn her passing and celebrate her courage.
In some ways it\'s a parable of the Southern California landscape, and Pacific Palisades history in particular. On placid Vía Santa Ynez, we reflect that it was the community\'s activism which not only prevented overdevelopment of the lands around Avenida de Santa Ynez; but which also inspired the purchase and preservation, as Santa Ynez Canyon Park, of the lands enveloping Santa Ynez Road in their natural beauty.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Ynez Road', 'latitude': 34.07135, 'longitude': -118.56524, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmYnezRd.jpg', 'width': '167', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Via Santa Ynez - Beauty, resistance, loss: the Passion of Southern California', 'bodytext': 'Santa Ynez\'s beauty brought unwanted attention from men who so ardently desired her they were willing, when rebuffed, to destroy her. Although she resisted, Ynez was ultimately martyred, leaving us both to mourn her passing and celebrate her courage.
In some ways it\'s a parable of the Southern California landscape, and Pacific Palisades history in particular. On placid Vía Santa Ynez, we reflect that it was the community\'s activism which not only prevented overdevelopment of the lands around Avenida de Santa Ynez; but which also inspired the purchase and preservation, as Santa Ynez Canyon Park, of the lands enveloping Santa Ynez Road in their natural beauty.
'}, {'street': 'Santa Ynez St', 'latitude': 34.074837, 'longitude': -118.26341, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmYnezSt.jpg', 'width': '177', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Santa Ynez St - Getting through some days can be a miracle enough', 'bodytext': 'Many people come to Los Angeles hoping to achieve fame as performers; sometimes their dreams are realized. While exploring San Julian Street I met a young woman who was decidedly not successful: her life and situation were very hard.
While I took her portrait she told me her story; which I noticed bore more than a passing resemblance to the legend of Santa Ynez. Men promised her wealth and success if she would do their bidding; and she was repeatedly subjected to sexual threats. That she maintained any sense of tranquility or optimism in the face of life\'s trials seemed miracle enough.
Not long after I shared my portrait with her, she disappeared. We want to accomplish so much, and we expect great deeds of those – such as saints – who we admire. But sometimes just getting through the day is all there is – that, and touching someone.
'}, {'street': 'Via Santa Ynez', 'latitude': 34.04877, 'longitude': -118.55025, 'level': 'IN_SHOW', 'image_small': 'SmYnezVia.jpg', 'width': '167', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'Via Santa Ynez - Beauty, resistance, loss: the Passion of Southern California', 'bodytext': 'Santa Ynez\'s beauty brought unwanted attention from men who so ardently desired her they were willing, when rebuffed, to destroy her. Although she resisted, Ynez was ultimately martyred, leaving us both to mourn her passing and celebrate her courage.
In some ways it\'s a parable of the Southern California landscape, and Pacific Palisades history in particular. On placid Vía Santa Ynez, we reflect that it was the community\'s activism which not only prevented overdevelopment of the lands around Avenida de Santa Ynez; but which also inspired the purchase and preservation, as Santa Ynez Canyon Park, of the lands enveloping Santa Ynez Road in their natural beauty.
'}, {'street': 'San Ysidro Drive', 'latitude': 34.095969, 'longitude': -118.422049, 'level': 'ON_WEB', 'image_small': 'SmYsidro.jpg', 'width': '177', 'height': '250', 'headline': 'San Ysidro Drive - The sons of San Ysidro on the streets of Bel-Air', 'bodytext': 'San Ysidro Labrador was a poor Spanish farmer, a 12th century laborer working other men\'s lands to support his family. In 1622 Ysidro was named a saint, and his devotion – particularly in México – spread far and wide among men and women of the soil who also, over time, spread far and wide.
Here in California these hijos de San Ysidro can be glimpsed along our highways, stooping in the sun to pick lettuce and strawberries; lifting berries from bushes like precious infants; and bearing bushels of peaches like burdens imposed by some inexplicable curse.
From crowded apartments in LA\'s Southside, Eastside, and Valley, the daughters of San Ysidro take early morning buses to work in other people\'s homes; while the sons of San Ysidro inch their dented pick-up trucks toward other people\'s gardens.
Here on Bel-Air\'s San Ysidro Drive, as in so many prosperous areas of Los Angeles, our picturesque gardens and well-groomed homes are maintained by those who continue the work of San Ysidro Labrador.
'} ];