All Things HERMON. . . (1/05/12)

*** Happiest New Year to us all! This will be an exciting year in Hermon. One hundred years ago, in 1912, the good people in the little town of Hermon decided to become part of their big neighbor city, Los Angeles. This would bring a lot of services to the young neighborhood – police, fire department, and the needed infrastructure for a growing community. So, we’re planning a huge party for later this year – celebrating a century of being one of the many communities that make up the City of Los Angeles.

Over that span of 100 years in Hermon of course there’s a lot of history. Lives lived -- some purposeful, some tragic. Kids that started kindergarten together at Bushnell Way Elementary still live two blocks apart, but now with grandkids that live just across the street. Families that came from all over the country to send their kids to Los Angeles Free Methodist Seminary (later L.A. Pacific College) watched their graduates move all over the globe – many as missionaries, teachers, and pastors. Hermon was known at some of the farthest outposts and corners of the world as the community with the school that trained up leaders to make a difference. And there have been the eclectic and the eccentric throughout the years, all that added life and balance to Hermon. You probably have your own great “Hermon” stories . . . more about that to come.

*** Our monthly “Clean Team” volunteers kick off the year this Saturday, January 7, with our first clean-up of the year. Join us at 8 a.m. by Monterey Donuts in the Monterey Plaza (Avenue 60 side). We’ll have a box of the best donuts in Southern California waiting – you’ll see all the people in royal blue T-shirts huddled around them. Then we hand out bags and gloves and off we go all over our community, making it just all that much better.

*** Perhaps you’re packing away your Christmas treasures for another year and you’re wondering how to dispose of your Christmas tree. You can cut it up and put it in your green barrel (but remember to take the wooden stand off the bottom of the tree first, and place those boards in your black barrel). If the tree is too big for your barrel, you can take the stand off and lay it next to your green barrel for Monday’s pick up. Just make sure you get all those beautiful decorations off first, for next year!

*** Next week there are a couple things for your calendar.

-- Tuesday, January 10 at 4:30 p.m., will be the re-lighting of the historic Figueroa Street rooftop “Manning’s Coffee Store” sign. Meet at Highland Park Farmers Market from Figueroa to Marmion, between Avenues 57 and 58 (Gold Line station adjacent). The market opens at 3 p.m., so you can go early and buy some fresh produce; maybe grab something to eat. Then you can join in on the lighting and stay around for coffee and snacks.

You’ll witness the successful renovation of the neon and opal glass sign that joins the Highland Theatre in creating the North Figueroa/Historic Route 66 Signage District. Project consultants from the Museum of Neon Art say this sign is extremely rare because of the combination of neon and opal glass elements. The sign above what is now the Salvadorian restaurant called “Las Cazuelas” advertised Manning’s Coffee Store at that site from 1936 to 1959. Before that, the sign had hung for three years on the Manning’s store at 6556 Hollywood Boulevard. Mannings, a forerunner of today’s Starbucks, was founded in Seattle in 1908 by brothers William W. Manning and Edward M. Manning Sr. They started with a coffee and tea stand at the Pike Place Market, later opening their first café there. They eventually added large scale bakeries and institutional food services to what had grown to be 40 cafeterias and restaurants in nine western states. In 1960 the company was taken over by the sons of Manning Sr. who sold it in 1970 to LaBatt of Canada, and subsequently to Del Monte Foods.

-- On Thursday of next week, January 12, our town hall-style Hermon Local Issues meeting of the City-certified Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council (ASNC) meets at 7 p.m., at Hermon Fellowship Center, 5800 Monterey Road -- at Wheeling Way. This meeting is for all that live, work, or own property in Hermon; have students attending Hermon schools, or are otherwise invested in our community. We’ll have action items to vote on going forward to the whole ASNC Board, with time as always for your public comments and announcements.

-- But that’s only part of the fun. Immediately after Local Issues ends, at about 7:45 p.m., we’ll go right into our Hermon Neighborhood Council Formation meeting (with just enough time to grab a couple more treats and a drink). We’ve had the initial response from the City’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) and sure enough -- as if reading our script -- they said exactly what we talked about them saying. So we stay right on course and follow our timeline towards becoming fully certified, separate from the ASNC. Our Councilman Jose Huizar supports our process.

*** Plans are underway for a huge Centennial Celebration for Hermon, with free food, fun, entertainment, art, music, historical displays, and vignettes and activities for the whole family. You can help by participating in one or both of the following ways:

-- Yard Sale: In order to raise funds to finance our free birthday BBQ, we’re planning a huge, community-wide yard sale on Saturday, January 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the empty lot at 5710 Monterey Road, a couple doors down from Hermon Church (between Wheeling Way and Coleman Avenue). It’s a terrific reason to get rid of all that stuff you’re probably never going to use again – from your garage, spare bedroom, office, or storage unit. No need to price anything, just bring your gently used, clean items, and we’ll do the rest. All items need to be dropped off the morning of the sale between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Big thanks to Councilman Huizar for all the tables to display the yard sale items.

-- History: We are compiling a more complete history of our Hermon community and need your help in finding pictures and stories of the last 100+ years in Hermon. Come to the yard sale with your stories and/or pictures of growing up in Hermon so we can enter all your information into our database. If we get enough old photographs and information, it’s possible we may be able to publish a book about our community. We’re looking for any and all pictures of Hermon residences and business over the past century as well as photos from Bushnell Way School, Los Angeles Pacific College, Pacific Christian High School, Hermon Free Methodist Church, and any and all pictures of neighborhood activities at residences or in the park. So get out those old family albums and bring them with you to the yard sale, we’ll scan pictures and give them right back to you. Also come prepared to share your stories. Neighborhood history and memorabilia will be displayed at our centennial celebration for all to enjoy.

Want to help with the yard sale and hang out with other good Hermon people for a couple hours? You can volunteer to help set up, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., or price and check-out from 9 a.m. to noon, or from noon to 3 p.m. Lastly, you could help clean-up at 3 p.m.

Just send me a quick email with how you’d like to help wendiriser@cs.com

It’s all good . . . in Hermon
where quirky works,
families return,
and dogs sleep all night long.

Wendi