Is there a grumpier old man in this town of grumpy old men than Bill Reynolds, aka NotaFerryFan, aka Children’s Swim Team hater? From his perch way up Valencia Summit way, he seemingly looks down on all of us. But he reserves special hate for your’s truly, just because I choose to live in the high density urban hellscape that is Newhall:
This silly anecdotal report comes from 30′s something liberal who resides in a high density condo complex on the wrong side of the tracks within the bowels of Newhall. Very amusing…
He shouldn’t be amused. He should be frightened. Not only am I a 30s something liberal with a popular blog and a fresh 40 under Forty award (badge of legitimacy, holla!), but my high density condo complex and my advocacy of the high density lifestyle takes place right on the very border of Valencia 91355. The bowels of Newhall? Ha! I’m actually within throwing distance of Awesometown across the DMZ that is Lyons Avenue. I’m a lot closer than you think and I aim to disrupt.
This all got me thinking though. How do people like Reynolds, Steve Lunetta (“Tough, Gang-infested Newhall,“) and Roger Gitlin (“most of you will never want to visit Old Town Newhall”) mentally map out the dimensions and borders of communities in the SCV? Like where does Good SCV end and Bad, Urban, High Density, Mexican SCV begin?
To find out, my wife and I independently imagined ourselves as Bill Reynolds. We asked ourselves where Bill Reynolds might feel safe, where he might feel threatened and uneasy, and what parts of the central valley he associates with bad things. Then we took to reliable standby MS Paint to map it out. Here are our results:
My wife's renderig. Notice bowel-shaped Newhall, the new Newhall library, and the railroad tracks and the encroachment of Mexicans into Awesometown thanks to the Vallarta. OMG Newhall is so dense; Bill Reynolds likely sees everything South of Lyons as Mexican, and especially everything across the railroad tracks (even Placerita Canyon makes him feel unsafe)
My map:
You may think Newhall has lots of diverse housing options, from sprawling ranch houses with horse parking to condominiums and everything in between, but according to Bill Reynolds, it's all high density urban up in the 91321. Interesting that my wife and I both noticed the encroachment of Vallarta into safe, Valencia territory. This is the marquee event of the last five years in the relationship between the communities, and it figures high in Bill Reynold's threat assessment for Newhall.
We had so much fun doing this we’ve decided to open it up to you, our loyal readers. Here’s how: 1) Open Microsoft Paint (or your Mac-based equivalent) and map out how you think Bill Reynolds views some or all of the SCV (alternatively it can be your own mental map or the mental map of some other public figure). 2) Save your image and email it to jeff at scvtalk.com. We’ll review and post. If we get a few submissions, we might have a more accurate picture of how Bill Reynolds and the rest of the Grumpy Old Man Corps of the SCV think.
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