Life With the Little Caliph

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Our family moved Downtown three years ago, when our son, Nathan,was just a year old. We were refugees from Silver Lake, escaping not only the crazy high rents butthe insularity as well.

My husband, James, and I were looking for a place that was big enough to accommodate hiscomputer business while also being a short commute to my job in City West. As regulars at the ArtWalk, we could see the neighborhood was evolving into something exciting, and as native NewYorkers who'd grown up playing street games like hopscotch, stickball and Ringalevio, we liked theidea of raising our kid in the city core.

There is now a whole litany of places that didn't exist when we first moved here: the Nickel Diner, D-town Burger Bar, Bliss, Spring for Coffee, Crack Gallery, Syrup Desserts, Flea, Bark Avenue, BoltBarbers, the Gorbals and all of the bars on Spring Street.

There were also, when we arrived, almost no families. I personally knew almost everyone with kidsDowntown and could count them all on my fingers (no toes needed). I'd push Nathan in his strollerdown deserted streets on Sunday afternoons wondering if we'd made a terrible mistake by movinginto the neighborhood.

Things have changed. A lot. There's a newborn in my building whose daddy takes her out for walksin the Baby Bjorn, along with the family dog. More than 150 people belong to the Downtown L.A.Parents Facebook group. There's a play date in Grand Hope Park every Saturday and I see peoplepushing baby strollers down Spring Street every day. It blows my mind. It's so... normal.

Of course, raising kids Downtown has its own special flavor. There's a man on Broadway and SixthStreet who gives out handwritten sheets detailing the connection between Allah and Frankenstein(seriously), and he always makes a point of handing one to Nathan. My son loves it because, at agefour, he thinks getting stuff, any kind of stuff, is awesome. The man loves it because there aren't toomany people who grab his handouts with a big grin on their faces. He calls Nathan the Little Caliph.

So yeah, raising your kid Downtown means putting up with a bit of weirdness. But in a strange way,Caliph Man illustrates what I love most about living Downtown: the sense of community. When weeat at the Nickel, owner Monica May sits at our table and calls Nathan her mascot because he'sgrown up along with her restaurant. Shane, our favorite barber at Bolt, knows exactly how to cutNathan's hair and calls him the best kid he's ever worked on. At Christmas last year, both the ownerof an electronics store and our parking garage attendant gave Nathan presents out of the blue.Walking down Spring Street or Broadway with Nathan can sometimes feel like the Copa sequence inGoodfellas, with people calling out his name and waving or stopping to shake his hand.

The other amazing aspect of raising a kid in Downtown is the culture. My husband and I grew up inNew York visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in Broadway shows and hearing freesymphony concerts in Central Park. Living in Downtown Los Angeles, our son is having similarexperiences. Nathan gets to gallery hop at Art Walk, and attend children's opera at the DorothyChandler Pavilion and free concerts at Disney Hall. This summer Nathan will be taking musiclessons at the Colburn School on Bunker Hill (and riding Angels Flight to get there).

I remember one amazing event in particular when Pershing Square was taken over for a nighttimeart show. Nathan wasn't the only kid there that night, and he and the other children ran around andgaped in wonder at the sculptures as bands played and parents strolled hand-in-hand under thestars.

As Downtown continues to evolve, there will be more and more kids like Nathan, moving into theneighborhood along with their parents or born here (because, as my husband says, when young,attractive people move into lofts together, reproduction happens). They'll experience a childhoodthat's unique in Los Angeles, one that isn't limited to seeing the world passing by through a carwindow.

We love it and we wouldn't want anything else for our son.

page 12, 5/2/2011

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