Showing posts with label Palm Springs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palm Springs. Show all posts

Sunday, August 15, 2021

The Dream is in the Desert

For black Americans, at LAT, "‘We’re here to stay.’ Despite isolation and racism, Black Americans feel at home in California’s desert":

PALM SPRINGS — La’Ronjanae Curtis has grown used to the disbelief of college classmates and friends when she tells them she was born in Palm Springs, a city of 48,000 where people of color are relatively few. “There are Black people out there?” they always say. Curtis proudly tells them that she’s living proof.

Tourists flock to the Coachella Valley and Mojave Desert to take in the psychedelic hues of their sunsets, lose themselves among otherworldly rock formations, and sip drinks poolside at Modernist hideaways in Palm Springs the way Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack did in an earlier era.

For the few Black Americans who live in the California desert, it takes willpower to feel at ease in these playgrounds, and imagination to make them feel like home.

In the first half of the last century, hundreds of Black people from the South, and from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, settled in desert communities like Palm Springs. They came for some of the same reasons that drew many white people: plentiful jobs, ample land to put down stakes, and the live-and-let-live openness of what still felt like America’s frontier.

But the picture-postcard settings and air of possibility masked an uglier reality for Black newcomers.

Many towns historically restricted Black families to segregated neighborhoods through housing covenants and lending practices. That legacy lives on.

Today, the presence of an established Black community isn’t obvious when driving through Curtis’ hometown, where low-lying houses hide behind Moorish-style screens, meticulously kept cactus gardens look as untouchable as jewelry displays, and locals ride around their condo complexes in golf carts designed to resemble Mercedes and Rolls Royces.

Most Black residents live far from the carefully constructed fantasy visitors see.

Curtis, who attends San Diego State University, says relatives on both sides of her family migrated from San Francisco in the middle of the last century. They mainly settled in Desert Highland Gateway Estates, a neighborhood of about 400 homes that sits on the wind-whipped northern outskirts — three miles from the Midcentury Modern furniture stores and spray-misted restaurant patios of downtown.

The other historically Black neighborhood, Lawrence Crossley, is at the opposite end of the city near the airport — a single U-shaped street lined with several dozen two- and three-bedroom houses shaded by palms. The lush green of a municipal golf course borders the neighborhood on one side. At the far end, a strip of barren desert.

Dominique Brenagh, 38, takes shelter from the 100-degree heat in the shade of his carport at the small ranch-style house where he grew up and his family still lives.

Brenagh says his father’s relatives moved to Palm Springs in the 1950s from Louisiana in part to escape the segregation and violence of the Jim Crow era.

“Back in those times, you had the KKK out there that was oppressing people,” he says of the South.

Brenagh looks back on his own life as a happy one by comparison. He smiles when reminiscing about sneaking from his backyard onto the golf course to play with friends.

“I love it here,” he says...

Keep reading.


 

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Horrific Tour Bush Crash in Desert Hot Springs: 11 Dead

You can see from the photos that the bus driver rear-ended the semi at full speed.


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Alternative Routes After Interstate 10 Closure

Folks are going to be racking up a lot of extra miles to make it to Phoenix, or back.

At ABC 15 News Phoenix, "Detour options between Arizona and California."

Plus, "Heavy rains collapse I-10 bridge in California."

Monday, July 20, 2015

Interstate 10 Closed After Bridge Collapses (VIDEO)

At the Palm Springs Desert Sun, "I-10 closed at collapsed bridge in Desert Center":

A bridge collapse east of the Coachella Valley late Sunday afternoon forced the closure of Interstate 10 – the main roadway between Southern California and Phoenix – injuring one man and stranding hundreds of motorists backed up for miles.

The Tex Wash bridge, built on the eastbound I-10 in 1967, was listed as functionally obsolete in the 2013 National Bridge Inventory released last year. Essentially, the bridge was listed as no longer adequate for its task, though it was not listed as having known structural problems that needed to be fixed.

A black truck was driving east on I-10 when the bridge crumpled beneath it about 4:45 p.m. Bystanders used straps from their cars to tie the truck to a guardrail and prevent it from washing away in the running water below. The passenger was able to get out but the driver had to be rescued. Firefighters went into rapidly rising water with asphalt and debris falling around them to pull the driver out by 7 p.m...
More.

Also at LAT, "Unusually strong July rains offer a preview of a robust El NiƱo."

Monday, July 21, 2014

Reports: The Obamas in Escrow on $4.25 Million, 8,200-Square-Foot Home in Exclusive Rancho Mirage

You know, because economic inequality, or something.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Are the Obamas buying a home in Rancho Mirage?"



And at the San Bernardino Sun, "Did President Barack Obama buy a Rancho Mirage home?":
The home, a hilltop estate in Thunderbird Heights, has been on the market for about a year. Several real estate agents, speaking anonymously, said they heard secondhand that the president was looking to buy the 1993 remodeled home with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

But those rumors have not yet been verified.

Just before the Fourth of July, the listing agent, Carl Blea of HOM Sotheby's, told The Desert Sun that he could not talk about the buyer's identity.

Then, last Tuesday, The Desert Sun asked The White House whether Obama bought the 3.29-acre property in Rancho Mirage. The White House would not confirm or deny the statement.
Rough life.

Amazing how the Obamas never make any pretense of adopting a lifestyle more in tune with those they claim to champion.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

'The audiences have also been mostly elderly. The theater comes equipped with a defibrillator, and managers used to keep a supply of disposable underwear, in case of accidents...'

What a story, at the Los Angeles Times, "THE FABULOUS PALM SPRINGS FOLLIES NEARS LAST HURRAH IN PRIME FORM":
It was 10 minutes before showtime and Joni Naber was putting the final touches on her costume — a blue explosion of tassels and sequins that wasn't doing a very good job of covering her body.

"Come here and feel this!" she called out, grabbing a reporter's hand and placing it squarely on her midriff.

Her abdominals felt tight and smooth, like a piece of molded plastic.

"It's a corset," the 77-year-old former USO dancer explained with a grin.

In the cramped dressing room of the Plaza Theatre, 10 other showgirls were prepping for a matinee show. "Stop flirting with the reporter," one called out.

Naber is a dancer in the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, the musical revue and local institution that for the last 23 years has featured performers who could all claim AARP membership. The current cast ranges in age from 55 to 84...
The crowds have been streaming back in since the end of the run was announced. Alas, sounds a bit too late.