The Effie-Mohawk Stairway has been reopened, and the illegally-placed gates that were put up there over this past Thanksgiving weekend have been taken down.
Sort of.
My friends and stair-climbing partners Andrew Lichtman and Ying Chen were the first to report this, and sent these pix (click to enlarge.)
In the tradition of not being overly thankful for things that should happen without anyone yelling about them in the first place, this fix – which I assume the city is responsible for – is pretty weak. The support struts for the gates are still there; those were the ones that were sunk into concrete, and since they still exist, putting in a new gate wouldn’t be that hard.
Bob Inman – LA’s Stairway King – also noticed, and sent me this account:
“Top and bottom gates removed. The posts they hung from are still there, even with springs hanging uselessly from them. I think there was some sort of city notice posted at the bottom but I was rushing and did not park to go read it. I had kind of a strange call from the City last Monday in response to the report I filed. Essentially the only reason they called was to ask if I knew which neighbor had put them up. Frustrating that they delayed their response trying to work out that moot point. But also satisfying to see my report had not yet made its way to the deep six file.”
Meanwhile, Diane Edwardson, of the Corralitas Red Car Property blog, reports that another nearby staircase – this one leading up to Corralitas Drive, just west of the Glendale Freeway at the edge of Echo Park, is getting some much needed repairs – though again, there’s more to do be done (specifically, fixing the side of the staircase – ignored during this repair – that borders a dangerous open trench. See Diane’s blog for more info.)
Image: Diane Edwardson; taken Dec. 17, 2009.
I’ve asked the Department of Streets to finish the jobs; I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman 
