Stan’s Obligatory Blog

The route there:
http://maps.google.com

The route back:
http://maps.google.com

Today’s ride was a special one. Out to West L.A. to Hillside Memorial Park to visit Moe Howard’s grave.

We met at Victory Park and headed out. The route there was pretty easy, since it’s mostly downhill all the way to downtown L.A. On the way through downtown, we saw the new Caltrans building on 1st St. It looks like it was designed by the same architect as the Death Star.

On the south side of downtown, we saw the Metro Blue Line train heading to Long Beach. The Blue Line is one of the success stories for rail in Los Angeles. It’s about the only rail line that’s used by lots of people.

Next, we headed straight west on Adams. Then we cut south, crossing the old rail line that is going to be the Metro Expo Line someday. The old tracks are still there, but it’s pretty obvious that there hasn’t been a train on them in decades.

At La Cienega, we saw the little piece of freeway that they built back in the 1950s. It was supposed to be the first part of the Laurel Canyon Freeway, and it was supposed to run all the way up to North Hollywood.

We rode through Culver City and passed Fox Hills Mall. Then we were there. The guy at the gate didn’t want to let us in for some reason. I really have no idea what he thought we were going to do. If we’d been in a car he wouldn’t have even noticed us. But I explained that we were there to visit with Moe Howard, and I showed him the map and my handwritten directions. So he finally let us in.

We rode up to the top to look for Ruth Handler’s grave, but we weren’t able to find it. Then we headed over to see Vic Morrow. His death in the “Twilight Zone” movie was the big news story when I first moved to L.A. back in 1982.

Finally, we headed back down to find Moe. The directions I had were not very good. They said he was in the “Court of Love”, but he and his wife Helen were actually in the “Alcove of Love” right next to it. Anyway, we found Moe and took a moment to reflect on The Three Stooges. We’d visited Curly Howard’s grave, which makes no reference to his time with the Stooges. But we noticed that Moe’s was marked with his stage name. He lived long enough to see the Stooges become legend.

Leaving the cemetery, we headed back the way we came, turning north to get to Venice Blvd. We stopped at a Noah’s Bagels there, and then we headed for home. There was a big billboard at La Brea advertising “L.A. Ink“. There just aren’t enough ads that feature heavily tattooed women, so I enjoyed seeing this. We took Venice almost all the way back to downtown, and then turned north on Hoover. Then we got on Benton Way to go to Silver Lake. Along the street there, I saw no fewer than five abandoned couches: 1 2 3 4 5

Benton Way ends in a steep uphill pitch. Then we take a couple of small streets and come out on Silver Lake Blvd at the top of the hill by the dog park. From there, we took the regular route home on Eagle Rock, Ave 50 and Monterey Road.

It was a nice ride.

58 miles.
cycling