I am planning on moving to a different neighborhood in LA this year.  I'd like to stay in my current neighborhood, Los Feliz, but my rent is wayyyyyyyyyyyy to high.

I started looking at different areas and I thought I found a really sweet deal in an area called Lincoln Heights.  Now, I'm still new to LA, so I didn't know about Lincoln Heights' history.  I just knew that the place I was looking at was in front of a school and seemed like a nice street.

That all changed when I came back at night to see what the neighborhood was like once the sun went down.  I didn't realize the Ramona Gardens projects were a bottle's throw away from the place I was considering.  If Ramona Gardens doesn't sound familiar, you should rent the film "American Me."  Or you can borrow it from your Latino friend.



American Me is about an LA youth who rises to power in the CA prison system and develops ingenious ways to stick sharp objects into different orifices in the human body.  Part of the movie was filmed in Lincoln Heights and the gang members in the movie were actual gang members from Ramona Gardens.  The neighborhood I grew up in was a rough hood, but nothing like Lincoln Heights.  This is not the kind of description that will win stars on Yelp.

Driving through the neighborhood at night, I felt a lot like Emilio Estevez in "Judgement Night" which you can probably borrow from your same Latino friend.



Now the movie was filmed in 1992, so it's not exactly the same neighborhood,  but since 2006, police have been fired upon twice.  Hmmmm, you know it would be nice to say I live in the neighborhood where they filmed one of my favorite movies of all time, but I just might sit this one out.