Sahra Sulaiman
Sahra is Communities Editor for Streetsblog L.A., covering the intersection of mobility with race, class, history, representation, policing, housing, health, culture, community, and access to the public space in Boyle Heights and South Central Los Angeles.
Recent Posts
Hide Your Wife! Hide Your Kids! Freeway Closes for the Demolition of the 6th St. Bridge!
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Hide your wife! Hide your kids! And try to hide the bitter tears the L.A. Times believes you will probably shed when you struggle to visit “downtown’s trendiest bars and pubs” this weekend because THE 101 FREEWAY IS CLOSING FOR 40 HOURS starting at 10 p.m. tonight! Between 10 p.m. Friday night and 2 p.m. […]
L.A. City and Residents Debate Fate of Lot at 1st and Boyle
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“Dots are not a very democratic way to do things.” If there was a message Boyle Heights residents wanted to send to the city regarding their community outreach process last night, that seemed to be it. They were referring to the colored stickers planners often ask residents to use to signal their planning priorities. In […]
Congratulations! The LA 2015 Streetsie Winners Are…
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The moment of truth! The 2015 Streetsie winners are here! We are disappointed to say that there have been some glitches this year. Some glitches were our fault. I, Joe, not having used the poll feature much until these, my first Streetsies, take blame for these. The polls didn’t close when they were automatically supposed […]
Vote for 2015 L.A. Streetsies: Advocacy Group of the Year
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[poll id=130] Welcome to a brand new category to close out the 2015 Streetsie awards. SBLA already had an award for the individual advocate, and now readers will also help choose an organization to honor: Advocacy Organization of the year. Voting starts right about now and will close on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 at noon. […]
Vote for 2015 L.A. Streetsies: Advocate of the Year
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[poll id=131] Vote early and vote often for your choice in the 2015 Streetsie poll for the Deborah Murphy Award for Excellence in Advocacy. This award is named after Deborah Murphy, founder and motivating force behind L.A. Walks. Murphy serves on the steering committee for Streetsblog L.A. Voting starts now and will close on Tuesday, […]
Hit-and-Run Claims Life of Beloved Nun. We Must Do Better, Los Angeles.
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On Sunday, Raquel Diaz, a sister with the Los Angeles Archdiocese, succumbed to her injuries. She was seventy years old. The beloved Boyle Heights nun was crossing Evergreen Avenue at Winter Street at 5:20 p.m. on December 13 when she was run down by a driver in a white, four-door Nissan or Toyota. The loss […]
O Come All Ye Donors…
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You love us. You really, really love us. Or, at least, we like to think you do. How else could Streetsblog Los Angeles founding editor Damien Newton have expanded his west coast publishing empire to cover Long Beach, Santa Monica, San Francisco, the Central Valley, Sacramento, and beyond if you didn’t? Especially at a time […]
Today in Exide: Residential Clean-up Phase 2, Draft Closure Plan for Vernon Facility
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Last week, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) began a second round of clean-ups of lead-contaminated soil in the residential areas around Exide Technologies’ now-shuttered lead-acid battery recycling facility. The Vernon plant and serial violator of environmental regulations cut a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in March, 2015, to close up shop in […]
Well-Intended Proposal to Shame “Johns” Using License Plate Readers Could End up Shaming Entire Communities in South L.A., Valley
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In the excitement of seeing the City Council rescind its vote on an amended Mobility Plan 2035 and re-adopt the plan in its draft form just before Thanksgiving, I managed to miss another item on the Council agenda from Councilmember Nury Martinez: a motion requesting that “the City Attorney report on issuing John Letters to […]
Terms of Art: Boyle Heights Youth Rally against Being Columbused by the New York Times
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Speaking about her new 35,000 square foot gallery space, located in the western industrial edge of Boyle Heights, art dealer Michele Maccarone told the New York Times, “It still has a dangerous quality — I kind of like that. I like that we spent a fortune on security.” It was a line that, to the […]
South L.A. Residents Deliver Message to Council Re: Mobility Plan 2035
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Tuesday afternoon, a special joint meeting of the Planning and Land Use Management and Transportation Committees will be held to, first, “consider a Motion to rescind the August 11, 2015 Resolution adopting the Mobility Plan 2035 as amended by the City Council,” and, second, “adopt a Resolution adopting the draft Mobility Plan 2035 as considered […]
Equity Advocates Discuss Needs of “Invisible” Cyclists on HuffPost Live
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Last week, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University published a story declaring that “Most Cyclists Are Working-Class Immigrants, Not Hipsters.” If you spend any time in the streets and/or pay attention to cycling issues, this is something you probably already knew. At least, intuitively. It’s been a little harder to substantiate that […]