Los Feliz

As an Australian in Los Angeles, I actually feel as if I'm only over the other side of the drink. Admittedly that's got a lot to do with the gum trees everywhere. But I also love the fact that Los Angeles is a similar age to Sydney. The Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles was founded in 1781, in the decade which saw the First Fleet sail into Sydney Harbour.

And a lot of the Spanish land grants date around the same time as land was being granted to soldiers of the Crown in New South Wales. Part of Newtown in Sydney's inner west, the area lying south of King Street, was granted to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine, by Governor Phillip in 1794 and 1799. Part of the area lying to the north of King Street, was granted in 1806 to Governor William Bligh (yes, the Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame), who named it Camperdown and passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. This marker at Montrose commemorates the Rancho San Rafael, the first of California's Spanish land grants made to Don Jose Maria Verdugo in 1784.

The rancho covered what is, these days, Glendale, Eagle Rock,La Cañada, Montrose and Verdugo City. From the south one of its boundaries went north along the east bank of the Los Angeles River and wrapped around the western side of Griffith Park. On the southern side of Griffith Park is Los Feliz, which was once a Spanish land concession made out to Cpl Jose Vicente Feliz in 1795 (See? Similar period). I've even seen a street directory which showed the borders of these old ranches.

I enjoy Los Feliz. It's one of those areas in Los Angeles that is described as 'walkable'.

You come out of the Metro Underground at Vermont and Sunset and, looking up Vermont, get a good sense of where you are in relation to the rest of the city.

Looking up Vermont Ave, the Hollywood sign in the west and Griffith Park with its observatory to the right

Los Feliz has bookshops, restaurants, street life...

and in the distance, glimpses of Frank Lloyd Wright houses

Or at least buildings in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, because the museum up here, in Barnsdall Park, is in keeping with the actual house, Hollyhock, further back on the hill

But this house, up in the hills, is the actual Wright, Ennis House, known by some as 'the Bladerunner house'

Australian flora is the dead give-away

Just a couple of photographs today:

People rave about the Fall colours in the US or complain about the drabness of the Australian bush. Doubtless when they talk of the bush they're talking of the gun-metal greys and off-yellows of a eucalyptus forest, not the rainforest of New South Wales. For, let's face it, how rivetting is this? An Illawarra Flame Tree  (Brachychiton acerifolius), native of the NSW coast, spectacular at this time of year (summer) here in an inner-Sydney street.

Another flame tree from the adjacent street, prior to losing all its leaves. You may also see the dark brown, boat-shaped 10cm-long fruits if you look close enough.

Flame Tree in Hyde Park, CBD

We also saw a tree I'd never noticed before in Randwick yesterday - a Native Hibiscus, endemic to our coast, and I think the Randwick municipality's coast.

There is a certain sameness to Australian cities. I'm not talking of the glass and steel towers which make CBDs and downtowns all over the world 'samey', but that suburban architecture which means an Australian from just about anywhere in the country can recognise the caricatured suburbia of a Howard Arkley painting. But when you look at our flora you see regional difference. The banksias of the West are not like the banksias of the Sydney eastern suburbs. Jarrahs are different from Mountain Ash or Angophorae costatae or Ghost Gums (Eucalyptus papuana). You've got to look to our flora and not our accents or our architecture to really locate yourself in this country.