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OBSOLESCENT LAND USES: Christmas Tree Auctions in pre-2010s Los Angeles ABOVE: The checkout booth at a Christmas tree auction in Hollywood. Photo by the author, 2002. As the final year of the decade comes to a close, I reflect upon the changes Los Angeles has undergone over the last ten years. Of course, I reflect upon all the same personal matters that many others do at the end of the year--and hopefully more often than that! However, my reflections as I have grown older have come from other angles as well, e.g. from the angle of an urban planner. I did not know in 1999 or 2009 that I wanted to be an urban planner in Los Angeles, but I had a keen awareness of many aspects of urban geography. Reflecting on urbanity in Los Angeles just two decades ago is enough to make one feel like they witnessed a whole different era of this city. While the wave of development that has engulfed 2010s Los Angeles is not quite comparable to the real estate boom of the early 20th century or the post-World War II build-out, the 2010s-era development of Los Angeles has nonetheless been massive and unique. This decade-closing piece is about a form of land use that has become mostly obsolete in Los Angeles, an American tradition that in the last fifteen years or so has mostly disappeared into the yesteryears of Los Angeles history: live Christmas tree auctions. ___ There used to be a lot of vacant parcels all over the city, even in areas where you would think it was too valuable to be left undeveloped. The fact was that in 2000, or even 2005, the idea of living in or near Downtown Los Angeles had not caught on the same way it has today. The owners of these vacant parcels were waiting for the day—about a decade down the road—when these parcels could be entitled for some 5-to-11-story condominium project. Some developer would buy it from them, and they would be rich! But in the meantime, they had to pay their property taxes and have some sort of cash flow. In addition to the boarded up old factories and warehouses, the Arts District had plenty of these empty lots. These lots served every purpose imaginable, but one particularly merry way in which they found use was as Christmas tree lots. Live Christmas tree auctions, to be exact. As a kid, I distinctly remember going down to the Arts District (not as well-known back then) where there was an auction lot across from what was then called “the Cornfields” at Alameda and Spring Streets, another one Alameda at 7th Street, and still another at Santa Fe and 3rd—the present site of the One Santa Fe development. My mom, grandfather and I would watch the fast-talkin’ Christmas tree auctioneers rattlin’ off one tree after the other. And we would buy a nice Douglass fir, of course. " I have a bid for fifty-five dollars! Have-I-got-a-bidder-for-sixty-do-I-see-a-YES-I-DO-SEE-sixty-dollars! Do-I-see-a-bid-for-sixty-five-one-for-sixty-five-DOLLARRRRS?? SOLD!!! FOR SIXTY DOLLARS to the folks right here in the front row!!! " Moments like these—crammed onto a long, narrow lot with total strangers, in the bitter cold, sipping champurrado from a street vendor, and competing for a great-looking Douglass fir—produced feelings of immense camaraderie for me, a realization of for my fondness for urbanity and above all, community. Above: A Christmas tree lot in unincorporated West Athens. Photo by the author, 2019. You don’t see these Christmas tree auctions very much lately, partially because many of the large, empty parcels that once fit their needs have been sold off for lucrative developments. Another potential deterrent is that live tree auctions require more production investment: a stage, a PA system, a sound technician, and of course, an auctioneer. Nowadays, it is most feasible to Christmas tree proprietors to lease a small section of an existing large-lot business (e.g. a grocery store), receive a few shipments of trees, and sell them at flat rate. Above: A Christmas tree lot occupying a section of the Ralph's parking lot on Vermont Avenue at 120th Street. Photo by the author, 2019. This is not to imply that these live Christmas tree auctions will disappear completely and forever from Angeleno life; surely, some well-capitalized person or persons will bring it back as a novelty. It is to say, however, that the availability of vacant land for these novel or seasonal land uses will diminish as the last large, vacant (and valuable!) parcels in the Central City or the Valley are developed.
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