So today for lunch I went shopping at Forever 21 (don’t ask) and guys. When they say everything old is new again, this is exactly what they mean. Like, I totally remember wearing a significant amount of these outfits as a teen in the 80’s (I AM OLDER THAN I LOOK OKAY). They had flower print leggings and bodysuits and they were playing my sissie’s favorite song by RUN DMC and I was like WOW, TAKE ME BACK TO YE OLDE SCHOOL. I was 14 when that song came out! And I remember it well because me and my cousin used to always listen to it when we would be running the streets on our bikes doing shit that we absolutely should not be doing. Sorry, mommy! You were right, I was bad as hell.
Actually, there were TWO songs that I remember listening back to back in the summer of 1986. The other was Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys.
Which is only amusing in that I ended up eventually living in Boston and every year they would reenact Paul Revere’s ride in Lexington because of COURSE THEY DID and lemme tell you guys, I never EVER saw Adrock, M.C.A OR Mike D.
And WHY EXACTLY am I talking about white people during Black History Month? I’m not!
Today when I was driving in to work, I saw a building (the South Central Los Angeles Regional Office) and it was dedicated to Paul Revere and I was like WHAAAA? But when I actually READ the dedication, it said Paul Revere WILLIAMS. And so here is your fact:
Paul Revere Williams was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. He became a certified architect in 1921, and the first certified African-American architect west of the Mississippi. At age 25, he won an architectural competition and three years later opened his own office. Known as an outstanding draftsman, he perfected the skill of rendering drawings “upside down.” This skill was developed because in the 1920s many of his white clients felt uncomfortable sitting directly next to a black man. He learned to draft upside down so that he could sit across the desk from his clients who would see his drafts right-side-up.
Williams designed more than 2,000 private homes, most of which were in the Hollywood Hills and the Mid-Wilshire portion of Los Angeles (including his own home in Lafayette Square, part of historic West Adams, Los Angeles, California). He designed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and Lon Chaney. Williams famously remarked upon the bitter irony of the fact that most of the homes he designed, and whose construction he oversaw, were on parcels whose deeds included segregation covenants barring blacks from purchasing them.
Anyway.
A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Like, yannow. This place:
I really, REALLY love my city.
Yeah I said it 