Lifestyle
Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane survives. Volunteers hope to turn the lights on again
• Altadena’s 104-year holiday lighting tradition known as Christmas Tree Lane escaped damage from the fire despite a torrent of embers coming down on its historic deodar cedars.
• Fierce Santa Ana winds did break branches from some of the trees, but most on Santa Rosa Avenue — the real name of the street — appear unscathed.
• The lights are usually taken down every February, but the head of the volunteer association hopes they can be turned on again “to show we’re still here.”
The people who tend Altadena’s venerable deodar cedars have suffered incomprehensible community losses this week, but Santa Rosa Avenue, a.k.a. Christmas Tree Lane, is a tiny bright spot among the wreckage wrought by the Eaton fire.
Despite what residents described as a fiery rain of embers propelled by hurricane force winds, the street’s 135 cedars seemed unfazed by the fire. The raging Santa Ana winds have broken a few branches, but overall, the massive trees with their graceful drapey limbs seem fine, which means the community’s 104-year holiday light tradition can continue.
Tony Ward and his wife, Maureen, longtime residents of Santa Rosa Avenue and past presidents of the Christmas Tree Lane Assn., went out for dinner in Hastings Ranch on Jan. 7, after the power went out at their home.
Thousands of people turn out every year to drive under a nearly mile-long canopy of sparkly lights strung on 135 deodar cedars on Santa Rosa Avenue in Altadena, a 104-year, volunteer-led tradition known as Christmas Tree Lane.
(Los Angeles Times)
The wind was intense when they left “but there wasn’t any discussion on the media about a fire,” Ward said.
Their dinner outing was short. Before their meal was served, Ward said, “the waiter came up and apologized. He said, ‘We have to give you the meal to go because we have an evacuation order.’ ”
The Wards’ home of nearly 50 years is at the southern end of Santa Rosa Avenue, near Woodbury Road, about six miles west of Hastings Ranch. As the couple returned home and looked to the north, “we could see Eaton Canyon was totally involved in fire, from top to bottom, and we were flabbergasted. It happened so fast,” Ward said.
Once they got home, they began packing “all the things we could think of, photos and business records, into our car and van,” in case they had to evacuate, Ward said. “The wind was intense, and the smoke was just heavy, heavy, heavy.”
The gusting Santa Ana winds blew fiery embers throughout Altadena, including on Woodlyn Road, on Jan. 8 during the Eaton fire.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Wards have lived in their home for 50 years and never experienced this kind of fire event. Between the constant roar of the wind and the advancing flames, sleep was impossible that night.
They joined their neighbor standing watch outside “to see if anything flared up so we could run and stamp it out,” Ward said.
By 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday, “we noticed embers flying all the way down from way up in the [Angeles National] forest. They would strike the trees [the deodar cedars] and burst into little sparklers. And most of the embers went out, but this was something we’d never experienced before,” he said.
“And in addition to the wind roaring, there were very loud reports we could hear in the background, which we surmised to be exploding canisters of fuel for barbecues and outdoor space heater,” he added. “It was pretty scary because the wind was so intense, and the dust and ashes, everything was right in your eyes. And who thinks of wearing safety goggles? We had no idea that anything like this could happen so far away from the canyons and the national forest.”
When the evacuation order came at 5 a.m., the Wards finally left. They were able to return briefly last Thursday and found their home still standing. It turns out that most of the houses on Santa Rosa Avenue south of Mariposa Street escaped fire damage, although houses on adjoining streets were burned.
And the cedars, most of which were planted in the late 1880s, seemed fine.
A large broken branch from a deodar cedar hangs precariously from a string of lights on Santa Rosa Avenue the day after massive winds and the Eaton fire tore through Altadena.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
However, there is wind damage. A few large branches broken in the heavy winds dragged strings of lights with them to the street. But the trees didn’t burn, and it’s not clear why.
“They are pretty lusciously green,” said Cristhian Mace, a natural areas biologist for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, “which makes me think they were well irrigated, and that’s probably one of the factors that saved them. They weren’t dry and brittle, and when you look at cedar bark, it’s thick and somewhat fire resistant. … I don’t know how else to account for their resiliency.”
The trees are well tended by the Christmas Tree Lane Assn., but they are largely cared for by the homeowners on whose property the trees reside, said Assn. President Scott Wardlaw. During drought years, the association has taken steps to give the trees extra water, but usually, Wardlaw said, it has to warn homeowners against overwatering the deodar cedars. Too much water can lead to Armillaria root disease, a deadly form of root rot.
Preserving the trees is critical, because without the cedars, there is no Christmas Tree Lane.
In November 2024, volunteers use ropes and pulleys to hang long strings of holiday lights on Christmas Tree Lane’s deodar cedars. Casty Fortich, far left, and Temple City High School student Patience Cam, pull as Scott Wardlaw, president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Assn., and Feli Hernandez, right, look on.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
It takes 10 weekends and more than a 100 volunteers to string those lights every year; volunteers begin their work in September to be ready for Altadena’s free winter festival and tree lighting event in early December. The same volunteers usually start taking the lights down for the year in February to avoid winter rains.
The festival is traditionally held in the parking area of the Altadena Public Library at the corner of Mariposa Street and Santa Rosa Avenue. Last week, several buildings at the intersection burned, including the Altadena Senior Center next door, but the library was saved.
The area lighting event that began in 1920 still has a small-town, old-fashioned feel, with booths and hot chocolate, local leaders making speeches and attendees walking the route once the lights are turned on. The Christmas Tree Lane display itself is pretty low-tech, with no music or special effects. But it still draws thousands of people every year for the simple pleasure of driving slowly for a near mile under a canopy of sparkly lights.
Wardlaw said at least 13 of the Christmas Tree Lane volunteers lost homes in the fire. Also, the local school that had let the association park its truck and store its container of equipment for free was destroyed in the fire.
Now the association is grappling with where it will store its truck and equipment, which didn’t burn in the fire.
The trick will be finding a new storage place the cash-strapped nonprofit can afford. “The cheapest storage units charge around $5 a day for a truck, nearly $1,900 a year, which we can’t afford for just parking,” Wardlaw said.
The association relies on annual $35 memberships and sponsors to cover its expenses, and several of its sponsors, including Altadena Hardware, St. Mark’s School, Pasadena Waldorf School and Western Fence Co., lost buildings in the fire.
Those losses have weighed heavy on Wardlaw, who, like most displaced Altadena residents, is chafing to get into the burned areas, presently closed to the public, to see what has been lost, and what, if anything, can be saved. The broken tree branches on the street will have to be cleared away, he said, and the strings of lights, many of which are likely broken, will have to be repaired or replaced.
The work will require volunteers, many of whom will be preoccupied by their own losses, Wardlaw acknowledged, but he sees the work ahead as a tiny act of defiance against all the fire’s terrible destruction.
“Something I want to do, if it’s feasible, is turn the lights on again as soon as possible,” he said, “Just so we can say, ‘We’re still here.’ ”
Delroy Lindo is nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in Sinners.
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
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Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
Over the course of his decades-long career on stage and in Hollywood, Sinners actor Delroy Lindo has experienced firsthand what he calls the “disappointments, the vicissitudes of the industry.”
On Feb. 22, at the BAFTA awards in London, Lindo and Sinners co-star Michael B. Jordan were the first presenters of the evening when a man with Tourette syndrome shouted a racial slur.
Initially, Lindo says, he questioned if he had heard correctly. Then, he says, he adjusted his glasses and read the teleprompter: “I processed in the way that I process, in a nanosecond. Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Lindo describes the BAFTA incident as “something that started out negatively becoming a positive.” A week after the BAFTAs, he appeared with Sinners director Ryan Coogler at the NAACP awards.
“The fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people … and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported,” he says. “I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that event, that incident.”
Sinners is a haunting vampire thriller about twins (both played by Jordan) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. The film has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including best actor for Jordan and best supporting actor for Lindo, who plays a blues musician named Delta Slim.
This is Lindo’s first Oscar nomination; five years ago, many felt his performance in the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods deserved recognition from the Academy. When that didn’t happen, Lindo admits he was disappointed, but he had no choice but to move on.
“I have never taken my marbles and gone home,” he says. “And I want to claim that I will not do that now. I will continue working.”
Interview highlights
On his preparation to play Delta Slim
Various people have mentioned … [that] my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families, and that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it’s an affirmation for the work. My preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People, by Amiri Baraka — who was [known as] LeRoi Jones when he wrote the book — and Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer.
Lindo, shown above in his role as Delta Slim, says director Ryan Coogler “created a sacred space for all of us” on the Sinners set.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
In reading those books and then referencing those books, continuing to reference those throughout production, I was given an entrée into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There’s a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music, so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
On being Oscar-nominated for the first time — and thinking about other Black actors, including Halle Berry and Lou Gossett Jr., who had trouble getting work after their wins
I will not view it as a curse, because I am claiming the victory in this process, no matter what happens. … In terms of this moment, I absolutely am claiming, as much as I can, the joy of this moment. I’m not saying I don’t have trepidation, I do. It’s the reason I was not listening to the broadcast this year when the nominations were announced. I did not want to set myself up. But I’m … attempting as much as I can to fortify myself and know in my heart that I will continue working as an actor. I absolutely will.
On being “othered” as a child because of his race
Because my mom was studying to be a nurse they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus, so as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working class area of London. … I was loved, I was cared for, but as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally the only Black child in an all-white school.
So one afternoon, after school had ended, I was playing with one of my playmates … And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up, and this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back and he … says, “I can’t play with you.” And that was the end of the game.
On the experience of writing his forthcoming memoir
It’s been healing, actually. I’m not denying that it has opened me up. I’ve been compelled to scrutinize myself. I’m using that word very advisedly, “scrutinized.” It’s a scrutiny, it’s an examination of oneself. But in my case, because a very, very, very significant part of what I’m writing has to do with re-examining my relationship with my mom. And so my mom is a protagonist in my memoir. I’m told by my editor and by my publisher that one of the attractions to what I’m writing is that it is not a classic “celebrity memoir.” I am examining history. I’m examining culture. I’m looking at certain passages of history through the lens of the “Windrush” experience [of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK after World War II].
On getting a masters degree to help him write his mother’s story
My mom deserved it. My mom is deserving. And not only is my mom deserving, by extension, all the people of the Windrush generation are deserving. Stories about Windrush are not part of the global cultural lexicon commensurate with its impact. The people of Windrush changed the definition of what it means to be British. There are all these Black and brown people, theretofore members of what used to be called the British Commonwealth. And they were invited by the British government to come to England, the United Kingdom, to help rebuild the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the destruction of World War II. My mom was part of that movement. They helped rebuild construction, construction industry, transportation industry, critically, the health industry, the NHS, the National Health Service. My mom is a nurse.
The reason that I went into NYU was because my original intention was to write a screenplay about my mom. I wanted to write a screenplay about my mom because I looked around and I thought: Where are the feature films that have as protagonist a Caribbean female, a Black female, where are they? … I wanted to address that, I wanted to correct that, what I see as being an imbalance.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.
We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
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