I know that the world is currently inundated with MJ news. That said, I figured that since I made a church organ related post last week, I should follow it up with the footage from Robert Ridgell's tribute to Michael. Although the Trinity Wall Street Church's organ is an electric facsimile of a pipe organ, I'll give them a pass, as it seems their old pipe organ was taken out by 9-11 debris & fallout.

In the confusing sprawl that is Los Angeles, you never know what alternate realities are hidden from block to block. Some of our best kept culinary secrets are tucked away in minimal blight or carted around in taco trucks, secret museums are hidden in bank basements, powerful soothsayers and Santaria healers rent corner spaces from struggling car stereo shops. But due to the overwhelming topography of LA, we can miss out of things that are not hidden at all. In fact, some of these "secrets" can take up city blocks. Case in point, the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. The beautiful Neo-Gothic church is just behind Lafayette Skate Park in the Westlake area and quite visible from Wilshire. If you need an escape from the drug dealers and fake I.D. guys in MacArthur Park, this is the place. Every Thursday @ 12:10 they open the doors to the public and give free organ concerts. Their organ happens to be the largest on the planet, so it's quite a privilage to attend these concerts. This Thursday, July 2nd, there will be a special concert @ 2:00pm featuring brass and choral ensembles as well as the organ. It might be worth an extended lunch break...

      

One of the distinctive features of the expansive East Bay city of Oakland is the amount of churches that dot its wide landscape from Deep East Oakland to North Oakland, and of course West Oakland. Churches are everywhere --every few blocks in most parts of Oakland it seems there's a church building.

What's so wonderful about these churches is how they range so widely in architectural styles and types.

Each church boasts its own unique structure and they vary from the fancy to the functional. 

If time allows, it's fun to leisurely travel Oakland's streets and take in their beauty.

Click on this website for a list of many (not all) of the churches of Oakland. But really, you don't need a guide to find them.  Go anywhere in Oakland and you'll pass a church within no time.

West Oakland (the red part in opposite map of Oakland) is a good place to start where there's a church on every second or third block. As a result the churches of West Oakland play a key role in defining the image of this East Bay neighborhood. However, with the fast advancing gentrification that's been going on in West Oakland in recent years, many longtime residents may be forced out due to rising real estate value. 

Hence economics would dictate that many of these little West Oakland churches, most of which draw a steady but small congregation every Sunday, will in short time become an endangered species, so if you want to see them in all their beauty do it now.