Neighborhood watch

Every Angeleno had a decision to make Thursday night. Mexico or South Korea? Boyle Heights or Koreatown? Metro's social media team dubbed it the Battle for Los Angeles, although with their help — a brisk 33-minute E to the D ride — you'd easily be able to attend both watch parties.

I opted for the Boyle Heights block party at Mariachi Plaza where the street was blocked off to vehicles by two classic cars, a nice East LA touch. The screen was too low and required staring directly into the setting sun, but a serious sports fan could wedge into the nearest bar to catch the action. The best michelada I've ever had in my life was being sold out of the back of a vehicle, but you had to BYOB your own Modelo, although you could probably squeeze enough out of your shirt after several kegs-worth were sprayed over the crowd after the first and only goal. Mexico won, the fireworks began, the sun finally went down, and a dance party started up on 1st Street. I felt I had chosen wisely.

But one week in to LA's World Cup experience, where to go and what to do was becoming a more complicated public health assessment. Getting there was the least complicated question.

While toddlers were roaming the closed streets in Boyle Heights, Koreatown — the densest neighborhood in the city — was overwhelmed with fans. Someone fired a gun into the air and injured another person (they were hospitalized but okay), but that wasn't the most immediate safety concern for many people. The city's viewing party, held in Seoul International Park, was described to me as Astroworld-level dangerous. Bars shut their doors, sidewalks spilled over, buses got stuck; we're talking a post-World Series Echo Park experience exported to Koreatown for the night. (But with much, much better transit access.) I know so little about soccer that I had to look up how long the matches are, but even I could have told you this would be one of the city's most popular events. And yet! Our leaders once again neglected to create proper spaces for celebration. South Korea plays again on June 24; let's try two concurrent watch parties next time, one at Liberty Park and one at Seoul International Park, and maybe close all the streets between them. (And I dunno, maybe Wilshire between Western and Normandie also? MacArthur Park is doing it! LACMA's doing it!) It also wasn't a coincidence that this happened in the most park-deprived community in the city. A viral drone shot showed crowds squeezed into a tiny corridor between an empty athletic field and empty asphalt schoolyard — a visual demonstration of just how much we suck at properly allocating our public spaces.

On Wednesday, I was enjoying a well-attended but uncrowded Kick It in the Park on the beach in Venice when a Watch Duty notification for a structure fire flashed across my phone. A thick cloud emitting from a Boyle Heights cold storage warehouse was accompanied by a shelter-in-place order for the immediate neighborhood. As the government of Turkey prepped its hospitality house in Grand Park — free yogurt until June 26 and I hear the baklava is amazing — the black wall of what officials had described as "toxic, heavy smoke" reached City Hall.

The mayor had just flown to Chicago to attend the opening of Barack Obama's presidential library. You can't really make these things up.

Some scary-looking shots from Torched subscribers. (I’m on the westside today.) Also the mayor has left town

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— Alissa Walker (@awalkerinla.bsky.social) June 17, 2026 at 4:35 PM

Some of us got emergency alerts; some of us thought we definitely should have, but didn't — although I was happy to see whatever went out was in multiple languages. The shelter-in-place order was lifted Thursday; at the Boyle Heights block party — about three miles north — the AQI was fine, and I didn't smell smoke. But on Friday, the shelter in place order was reissued. The ominous cloud was back — and so was the mayor — and officials finally held a press conference TWO DAYS after the fire started. Believe me I am glad to now possess an intimate understanding of ammonia fire-fighting skills — in short, the flames will appear to be out and then flare up again as the building is ventilated, possibly for days or weeks on end; we have to douse the building aerially because it's too dangerous to attack from the ground, hence all the helicopters — but maybe they could have given us a collective heads up ahead of time? At the end of the presser, Recreation and Parks general manager Jimmy Kim announced that a smoke respite center would be opening at the nearby Pecan Recreation Center because of course this falls onto our underfunded parks department on top of summer camps and cooling centers and 100 free World Cup watch parties. I hate to ask about the contingency plan for moving those indoors!

I had asked, not too long ago, what happens when the air quality is too dangerous for to players to compete, although I can guess the answer based on FIFA's track record. I guess we'll see tomorrow, when Belgium plays Iran at SoFi. But I was more worried about the fans; there was a lot of coughing on the bus as I rode home from downtown last night. I worried about all the vibrant outdoor watch parties I had visited; a truly magic moment Brazilian and Haitian dancers streaming out of the 7th and Metro station and into the Bloc. But I had also stopped by a few key indoor viewing spots — Clifton's lives! — which I dutifully added to my guide under a new section for air quality/heat options when I got home. In hindsight, I should have anticipated this happening.

This morning, Angelenos woke to the strong smell of smoke, a gray-streaked sky, and that familiar sallow light I personally never, ever want to see again. A quite alarming scent over such a widespread area with so many tourists in town should probably have merited some kind of messaging? Instead, we heaved that heavy N95 sigh and flicked open Watch Duty, forced once again to fend for ourselves. As I finished writing this newsletter, an emergency was finally declared, 72 hours after the fire started. A haze settled over our megaevent-hosting city — with four more weeks to go. 🔥