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Let’s just kick the elephant out of the room right away. It’s hard to write a guide to Highland Park without addressing the “G” word. The neighborhood has been described as a poster child of gentrification, and for anyone who spends time there, it’s easy to see why.

Get to know Los Angeles through the places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to discover now.

Within the Northeast neighborhood nestled between downtown L.A. and Pasadena, you’ll see the Highland Park of the past: find remnants like the stone castle that was once the home of Charles F. Lummis, a poet and journalist who famously walked from Cincinnati to Highland Park — yes, you read that correctly — to accept a job at the Los Angeles Times in the mid 1880s. (He later went on to found the Southwest Museum, L.A.’s first museum, close by.)

You’ll see the Highland Park that remains: a working-class hub where bandas practice outside for all to hear, the smell of street tacos fills the air, multigenerational families play together at the park and iconic fixtures like the 22-foot-tall Chicken Boy statue that hovers over North Figueroa like a friendly mascot.

And you’ll see the Highland Park that’s emerging: an L.A. hot spot where young people flock to sip on fancy cocktails along York Boulevard and hang out at a chic Prohibition-era bowling alley.

Somehow, all these versions exist together. These days, it’s common to see luxury companies like Le Labo, which sells candles for upward of $90, move next door to small businesses such as the beloved Mexican family-owned Delicias Bakery & Some that has been serving fresh pan dulce for nearly 35 years. The community collectively mourned when its 100-year-old historic movie theater closed last March.

As one of L.A.’s first suburbs, Highland Park began the 20th century as an artsy oasis that was dotted with charming Craftsman homes. By the 1960s, the neighborhood had transformed into an epicenter for Latino life. The evolution of Highland Park has brought all the usual tensions between longtime residents and newcomers, many of whom were priced out of areas like Silver Lake and South Pasadena.

In spite of that, Highland Park has managed to hold onto its roots and small-town charm. This is in part thanks to nonprofits like the Highland Park Heritage Trust and community members who have been working to preserve the neighborhood’s rich history and cherished cultural hubs.

“A lot of the identity is still here, things that just make it feel like home,” says Michael Nájera, 35, whose family has lived in the neighborhood for three generations. He and his wife co-founded a running club called Tofu Scramble that meets at local coffee shops on Friday mornings.

“There’s a strong sense of community here. Even with everything going on these days, it’s amazing to see people out — some of us because we can, and others at risk because they have to,” he adds, referring to the recent ICE raids. “And still, this feels like a place where it’s OK to be brown and to be outside.” It’s common to see local businesses displaying Know Your Rights cards in support of their neighbors.

Rocio Paredes, a director and photographer who attended Franklin Middle School and High School in Highland Park, adds that “Chicanoism is very engraved in our DNA here.” You can see the culture’s influence in spaces like the Centro de Arte Público and the Mechicano Art Center, both of which were home to Highland Park’s Chicano Arts Collective, an organization that helped advance the political aims of L.A.’s Chicano movement in the 1970s. And also at local restaurants. At Las Cazuelas, a family-run Salvadoran pupuseria that’s been open since 1985, Parades says, “It’s like a f— time capsule.”

From historic Craftsman homes, beautiful hills, bountiful green spaces, cuisine from various cultures, vintage shops of varied prices and a vibrant nightlife scene, there’s so much to appreciate about Highland Park.

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — the brash agent who led a phalanx of military personnel into MacArthur Park this summer — was called as a witness Wednesday in a misdemeanor assault case against a protester, who allegedly struck a federal agent.

Bovino, one of the faces of President Trump’s immigration crackdown that began in Los Angeles and is now underway in Chicago, took the stand to testify that he witnessed an assault committed by Brayan Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.

Outfitted in his green Border Patrol uniform, Bovino testified that he witnessed Ramos-Brito drag his arm back and strike an agent with an open palm in the chest.

The incident occurred during a skirmish outside a federal building between federal law enforcement agents and locals frustrated by Trump’s immigration policies.

On a cross-examination, federal public defender Cuauhtemoc Ortega questioned Bovino about being the subject of a misconduct investigation a few years ago and receiving a reprimand for referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum, filth and trash.”

Bovino denied referring to undocumented immigrants that way and said he was referring to “a specific criminal illegal alien” — a Honduran national who he said had raped a child and reentered the United States and had been caught at or near the Baton Rouge Border Patrol station.

“I said that about a specific individual, not about undocumented peoples, that’s not correct,” he said.

Ortega pushed back, reading from the reprimand, which Bovino signed, stating that he was describing “illegal aliens.”

“They did not say one illegal alien,” Ortega said. “They said you describing illegal aliens, and or criminals, as scum, trash and filth is misconduct. Isn’t that correct?”

“The report states that,” Bovino said.

Ortega said that Bovino was warned if he committed any instance of misconduct again, “you could be fired.”

More than 40 people have been charged with a range of federal offenses, including assaulting officers and interfering with immigration enforcement, at either downtown protests or the scene of immigration raids throughout the region this summer, the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. said this week.

Ramos-Brito’s case is the first to go to trial.

The case centers around a protest outside the Paramount Business Center, across the street from Home Depot.

Already tensions were high, with federal officials raiding a retail and distribution warehouse in downtown L.A. in early June, arresting dozens of workers and a top union official.

At the Paramount complex, which houses Homeland Security Investigation offices, protesters began arriving around 10 a.m on June 7. Among them was Ramos-Brito.

Several videos played in court Tuesday showed Ramos-Brito and another man cursing at Border Patrol agents and stepping inches from their faces with balled fists. At one point, Ramos-Brito approached multiple Border Patrol agents who appeared to be Latino and said “you’re a f—ing disgrace if you’re Mexican.”

Asst. U.S. Atty. Patrick Kibbe said that while many protesters were “passionately” demonstrating, Ramos-Brito crossed a line by striking U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jonathan Morales.

“There’s a constitutional right to protest peacefully. It is a crime to hit a federal officer,” Kibbe said.

Federal public defender M. Bo Griffith, however, said Ramos-Brito was the victim of an assault, not the other way around.

Both social media and body-worn camera footage played in court clearly show Morales shove Ramos-Brito first, sending him flying backward into the busy intersection of Alondra Blvd. While footage shows Morales marching back toward the agent with his fists balled, no angle clearly captures the alleged assault.

Aside from Morales, three other agents took the stand Tuesday, but none said they saw Ramos-Brito hit Morales. None of the agents who testified were outfitted with body-worn cameras that day, according to Border Patrol Asst. Chief Jorge Rivera-Navarro, who serves as chief of staff for “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles.

Some of the Border Patrol agents swarming L.A. in recent months come from stations that don’t normally wear body-worn cameras, according to Navarro. He testified that he has since issued an order that led to cameras being distributed to agents working in L.A.

The clash that led to the assault charge started when Ramos-Brito stepped to U.S. Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Mejorado, who said he repeatedly asked Ramos-Brito to move to the sidewalk as the protest was blocking traffic. Video shows Mejorado place his hand on Ramos-Brito’s shoulder twice, and the defendant swatting it away.

At that point, Morales, a 24-year veteran of the Border Patrol, said he thought he needed to step in and de-escalate the situation between his fellow agent and Ramos-Brito. He did so by shoving Ramos-Brito backward into the intersection, according to video played in court. Morales said Ramos-Brito then charged at him while cursing and threw a punch at the upper part of his chest and throat.

On cross-examination, Griffith confronted Morales and Mejorado with inconsistencies between descriptions of the event they previously gave to a Homeland Security Investigations officer and their testimony in court. It was not the first time such a discrepancy affected the case.

Federal prosecutors previously dropped charges against Jose Mojica, another protester who was arrested alongside Ramos-Brito, after video footage called into question the testimony of an immigration enforcement agent.

According to an investigation summary of Mojica’s arrest previously reviewed by The Times, Mejorado claimed a man was screaming in his face that he was going to “shoot him,” then punched him at the Paramount protest. The officer said he and other agents started chasing the man, but were “stopped by two other males,” later identified as Mojica and Ramos-Brito.

Video played in court Tuesday and previously reported by The Times shows that sequence of events did not happen. Ramos-Brito and Mojica were arrested in a dogpile of agents after Ramos-Brito allegedly struck Mojica. There was no chase.

Questioned about Mojica’s case in July, a Homeland Security spokesperson said they were unable to comment on cases “under active litigation.”

Defense attorneys said Ramos-Brito sustained multiple contusions on his face, neck and back and had cuts and scrapes on his body from being dragged across the pavement later.

According to his attorneys, Ramos-Brito’s only prior interaction with law enforcement was for driving without a license.

The case could prove to be a bellwether for other immigration protest charges filed by Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli in a region where many potential jurors have negative views of immigration enforcement, or may be immigrants themselves.

On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson had to remove 21 potential jurors from the pool, several of whom said they could not be impartial due to their views on immigration policy.

Many of the potential jurors said they were first or second generation immigrants from the Philippines, Colombia, Bulgaria, Jamaica and Canada.

“I believe that immigrants are part of this country and I’m kind of partial with the defendant,” said one man, a landscaper from Lancaster.

California’s top law enforcement official has weighed in on Monday‘s controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immigration enforcement.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta condemned the decision, which clears the way for immigration agents to stop and question people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally based solely on information such as their perceived race or place of employment.

Speaking at a news conference Monday in downtown L.A., Bonta said he agreed with claims the ACLU made in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. He called indiscriminate tactics used to make immigration arrests a violation of the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Bonta said he thinks it is unconstitutional “for ICE agents, federal immigration officers, to use race, the inability to speak English, location or perceived occupation to … stop and detain, search, seize Californians.”

He also decried what he described as the Supreme Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket, which he said often obscures the justices’ decision-making.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “And the emergency docket has been used more and more. You often don’t know who has voted and how. There’s no argument. There’s no written opinion.”

Bonta called Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s opinion “very disturbing.”

The Trump-appointed justice argued that because many people who do day labor in fields such as construction or farming, engagement in such work could be useful in helping immigrant agents determine which people to stop.

Bonta said the practice enables “the use of race to potentially discriminate,” saying “it is disturbing and it is troubling.”

Inside Superchief Gallery, murmurs of excitement and eagerness filled the air. Around 60 people gathered in the downtown art space for a screen printing workshop on a late summer evening in August.

Young families, friend groups and couples filled neon pink pews, ready to print designs on T-shirts. Salsa music blared over the speakers as a few stragglers took their seats and others admired artwork on the walls, including a fine-line David Lynch drawing, a ceramic Garfield and a depiction of a lowrider’s paint job.

Despite the lively atmosphere, this gathering might be one of the last. Co-founder Bill Dunleavy said the gallery may be forced to close this month if it can’t raise enough money to pay the bills.

“We thought we had until November to save Superchief, but it came early,” Dunleavy said. “It’s not easy to build the type of community we’ve built. It would be a real shame, and set the culture back to some degree.”

For over a decade, Superchief has established itself as a place where punk rockers, graffiti writers, street photographers, homegrown fine artists and anyone with a piqued interest in counterculture gather to celebrate art.

Audrey Caceres poses with her screen printed jersey at Superchief Gallery, during the workshop.

(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Times)

The gallery’s possible closure would add to the list of shuttered businesses in downtown L.A. that have struggled to rebound following the COVID-19 pandemic. Although downtown continues to attract residents, many office buildings are struggling with falling values and high vacancies.

This year alone, the neighborhood has seen legacy kitchens like the Original Pantry Cafe and Cole’s French Dip face permanent closure. The Mayan, a historic nightclub, is set to shut down later this month and Angel City Brewery announced that its Arts District taproom is being put up for sale.

Nick Griffin, executive vice president of the DTLA Alliance, a coalition of property owners, said the closures reflect the “ebb and flow” of business and changing tastes rather than conditions in downtown.

“Superchief might be closing, but Dataland, the digital AI Art Museum up on Bunker Hill, is going to be opening next year. The Lucas Museum, a massive billion-dollar museum, is opening in Exposition Park. The Broad is doing a $100-million expansion of its facility,” said Griffin. “It’s the normal churn of businesses and culture.”

He says that more businesses are opening in the area than are closing, but the ones that are closing tend to be “very high profile,” cater to niche audiences and often have a cult following — like Superchief.

Art galleries have faced their own challenges.

The global art market declined 12% in 2024, marking its second consecutive year of falling sales, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. Facing shrinking revenue and rising overhead costs, several other art galleries across the city, like Blum, Clearing and Tanya Bonakdar, have also recently announced the closure of their L.A. locations.

Dunleavy first started to notice a falloff in business about a year ago. The gallery’s usual sponsors, who would attach their names and brands to the various exhibitions, started to pull out and revenue from digital art (NFT) sales declined.

“People are just being more careful with their money,” Dunleavy said. “They’re scaling back their advertising and promotional budgets. At the same time, fewer people are buying art. These are the two things that keep an art gallery business model afloat: sponsors and sales.”

Last spring, he and his business partner Ed Zipco launched a fundraising campaign to help save Superchief. They started a Patreon, a monthly subscription service tailored to individual audiences where members are invited to attend special events and get various perks for a monthly fee ranging $10 to $30.

Subscribers and regular gallery-goers have since carved pinewood derby cars, participated in a figure drawing class where models in lingerie were bound by ropes and shopped at a monthly vendor market. The crowdfunding now has about 400 members.

Although the fundraising has helped, the gallery isn’t making enough to cover monthly expenses that range from $10,000 to $15,000, most of it to pay for renting the 10,000-square-foot building on South Los Angeles Street.

The gallery employs two part-time employees and is now open only on the weekends. Dunleavy disclosed that he hasn’t paid himself in over two years and has taken on more loans to meet expenses.

A flier with a Patreon QR code is pictured at the Superchief Gallery during their event.

(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Times)

“We started to incur a lot of debt in order to stay afloat, hoping things were going to get better. But things didn’t get better, they just got worse,” he said.

Superchief moved into its current location in 2022. The gallery, which opened in 2014, was previously housed in a warehouse in Skid Row where it shared space with artists. It soon built a relationship with L.A.’s underground art scene, selling artworks and competing with larger mainstream galleries.

In 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic, a nearby explosion damaged the building, and the gallery was forced to relocate to its current location.

“The economy is unreliable, and the art market is not what it was pre-pandemic, so it’s forcing us to make some real pivots and adaptations,” Dunleavy said.

Though September may be the final curtain call for the gallery, Dunleavy hasn’t given up. He plans to host ticketed parties and other fundraising events with the gallery’s associated artists.

“Patreon is about halfway where it needs to be in order to be sustainable,” Dunleavy said. “I’ve learned how to cope with stressful situations by throwing crazy parties and unconventional events — so that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

Surrounded by ink-flooded screens and piles of white T-shirts used for the August workshop, Audrey Caceres, a frequent Superchief goer, had just finished printing her pink jersey with the gallery’s logo in bright blue ink. The Boyle Heights resident says the gallery’s location, on the outskirts of downtown near East 21st Street, has brought new life to the commercial area.

“I really can’t imagine LA [sub]cultures without Superchief. It’s such a strong foundation for photographers, zine makers, and multimedia artists,” Caceres said. “So, if they weren’t here, I don’t know where people would run to display their work.”