Everyone knows that where artists dare to lead, bohemian cafes and hipster bars are sure to follow. And while one of Ed Ruscha’s first studios was based in this barrio in northeast Los Angeles 50+ years ago, Glassell Park remains a mostly untouched neighborhood of quiet charms. Once home to a three hectare pigeon farm (amazing what people used to get in a flap about it 1898), it soon became one of Los Angeles’s premier tourist attractions. Flooding led to the concrete entombment of the LA River in 1938. Buildings of note include the beautiful Dutch Colonial Revival Van de Kamp Bakery, designed by J. Edward Hopkins, and the Hemphill Diesel Engineering School, which retains a beautiful Art Deco frieze portraying diesel-fueled machinery. There are public stairways as well, covered in Charles Fleming‘s locally-popular book, Secret Stairs. Time for a step change?