Subject: Floral Park

• A Gardener, His Heroism, and Orange County Register Readers

  "Look at that black plume of smoke!" someone said, as your favorite group of ragtag rag writers knocked back some pints and Maker's at The Olde Ship in SanTana. We assumed it was some car crash on Interstate 5 but were surprised when it turned out to be a house fire in Floral Park, the SanTana neighborhood where everything is perfect. Turns out a family was nearly killed in the afternoon blaze, saved only by their longtime gardener, 32-year-old Vincent Virgen of Buena Park. People are rightfull

  July 9, 2008

• SanTana is Finally Mexico Gracias to Don Papi Pulido

  October 13, 2008

• Floral Park's Segregated Halloween Continues

  *Updated, with new info on the bottom... Floral Park imagines itself as an oasis of tranquility in SanTana, a respite from the city's gritty reality. Really, this neighborhood--roughly bordered by Bristol to the west, 17th Street to the South, Broadway to the east, and Memory Lane in the north--is a neighborhood built on apartheid. Need proof? There's a house in Floral Park with "TARA" on its front gate, for chrissakes, and direct access is blocked if you're coming north from the rest of the c

  November 1, 2008

• SanTana's Boys in Blue Don't Care about Prostitution?

  Saturday night, around 9 p.m. Was hanging out at a friend's SanTana business on the outskirts of Floral Park when we saw a car in the darkest section of the parking lot, um, a'rockin. Hey, young lovers need their public areas, but the folks who patronize this cozy corner always leave their used condoms for my pals. It happens. We'd usually wouldn't give the paramours a second thought...except a guy kept popping in and out, lying down on the hood, and smacking an empty plastic oil can repeatedly

  November 10, 2008

• The Unluckiest 7-Eleven In Orange County

  I have many fond memories of 7-11. When I went to Sycamore Junior High in Anaheim, I'd play the pinball version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day before taking the bus down La Palma Avenue. In my drunken years, 7-Eleven has always stocked my all-time favorite fast food: Zingers. And one of my most-prized possessions is a beat-up 7-Eleven cup that was a promotion back when Maggie shot Mr. Burns that I found on the street, used, which should show you the priorities I keep in this world.There is one 7-

  January 5, 2009

• Where Santa Ana's Segregationists Can Eat Mexican Food in Peace

  Cute, little, quaint Floral Park in SanTana--the place that holds segregated Halloweens and where a mansion gate states "Tara"--has its own Mexican restaurant: El Pico de Gallo Grill. It's located right at the entrance of the neighborhood--or rather, where the northbound entrance would be except that it's illegal to enter on Flower Street coming north. It's a big place, with a massive menu, but guess what? Pico de Gallo Grill ain't great.It's not just gabachos who eat here, although they remain

  January 23, 2009

• Man Claiming to be FBI Informant Spins Quite a Tale

  A location scout for a spy movie could not have picked a better location for my late December meeting with Craig Monteilh: a table outside a restaurant in a bustling Irvine shopping center. A lensman would appreciate the shadow-erasing clouds hovering overhead on the warm winter morning. And central casting could not have found a better leading man: Monteilh is tall, intense, talkative, with a shaved head and the kind of cut body one would expect from someone who is now a fitness instructor.

  February 26, 2009

• SanTana Sports and Don Papi Pulido's Preferred Pelotas

  Don Papi Pulido in his other preferred sport: maintaining his kingdomArt Pedroza at Orange Juice! had quite the scoop last week in reporting that First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen recently allocated $170,000 to the building of a clay tennis court at Cabrillo Park in SanTana. Pedroza opined out loud that the tennis courts came at the request of mayor Don Papi Pulido, a known tennis fiend, because he's a Francophile (past media profiles have documented Don Papi Pulido's French fluency and sup

  March 10, 2009

• A Look at Craig Monteilh, Who Says He Spied on the Islamic Center of Irvine for the Feds

  March 5, 2009

• Playing Hive and Seek With the Backyard Beekeepers

  February 26, 2009

• The Best Posts of 2008, Direct From the Weekly's Parallel Universe

  January 1, 2009

• This Is Your Life: A Companion Guide/Shameless Propaganda for 'Orange County: A Personal History'

  September 11, 2008

• County Life

  People, places, politicos, lawmen, muckrakers, card sharps, & other assorted scalawags & neer-do-wells, plus tall tales & ghost stories.

  September 20, 2007

• Their Man Tan

  November 2, 2006

• The Playground

  No. 3: Santa Ana is absolutely, positively, OCs best downtownnow, keep it that way!

  October 19, 2006

• !Ask a Mexican!

  November 17, 2005

• Santa Ana

  October 20, 2005

• Good Bones

  Careful restoration and decoration revived designer David-Michael Madigans historic Federal-style home

  August 18, 2005

• Bare, Ruined Choirs

  April 21, 2005

• Bare, Ruined Choirs

  April 7, 2005

• Architecturally Sound

  March 31, 2005

• Hardwood House

  December 2, 2004

• Best of OC 2004: Part 2

  October 21, 2004

• The Year in Girl

  January 1, 2004

• S

  October 24, 2002

• United We Brand!

  October 11, 2001

• Santa Ana

  September 27, 2001

• No Ace with Taxes: Santa Ana Mayor Don Papi Pulido and His Family Muffler Shop

  Not scheduled for gentrificationThere is perhaps no business more fundamental to an Orange County politico's creation myth than Ace Muffler Shop, on First Street in downtown SanTana and belonging to the family of SanTana Mayor Don Papi "Miguel" Pulido. It was the city's planned demolishing of Ace Muffler through eminent domain that spurred the young Don Papi to enter politics in 1986. It was the fight to preserve Ace Muffler that earned Don Papi Pulido the coalition that elected him to the city

  May 7, 2009

• Will Floral Park's Home Tour Mention the Neighborhood's Segregationist Pioneers?

  Don Papi Pulido is a Floral Park residentThis weekend, the Floral Park Neighborhood Association  hosts its annual Home and Garden Tour, a fantabulous two days where residents can pretend they don't live in SanTana. "Stroll tree-lined streets, enjoy the ambiance of a simpler time gone by," reads a promotional brochure, and ain't that the funniest code for "before the Mexicans ruined the town" you've read in a while? The starting point will be on the corner of Santa Clara Avenue and Victoria

  April 23, 2009

• Getting Ripped Off By Bland Food at Geisha House

  I've eaten at restaurants where the bill came to more than $300 for two (the late, great Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel). Where the buffet cost $100 for two (Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel again). Over $100 for omakase for one (Hanamori). Many other places too expensive and too superfluous to remember. But never have I gasped at the final bill until visiting Geisha House in SanTana.Of course I wasn't expecting much, especially considering the idiocy that is their valet service and t

  April 21, 2009

• The First History Book About OC's African-American Community Tells Tales of Segregation, Triumph

  July 9, 2009

• God Calls Yost Theater Matriarch Phoebe Olivos

  ​Another part of old SanTana disappeared this week as Phoebe Olivos passed away July 23 at 89. The artists and hipsters who currently troll the city's downtown, marveling at how authentic the area is compared to the rest of OC while munching down on $9 "street" tacos owe her respect, as she was the matriarch of the Olivos clan who helped keep one of the county's few brick-and-mortar downtowns from the wrecking ball through their Yost Theater. For decades, the movie palace located on SanTana's

  July 30, 2009

• Does Miguel Pulido Work out of a Tax Preparer's Office?

  With IRS troubles like his, will Don Papi become Obama's ambassador to Mexico?For years, opponents of SanTana Mayor Don Papi Pulido have openly wondered how an invisible politician can make so much cash that he can afford an estate in the city's ritzy Floral Park neighborhood. His Form 700s have always included a grab bag of new investments, projects, and other cash inflows that the Don Papi has pursued--real-estate deals, car-related efforts, and a longstanding stint as a director of the Fuller

  June 4, 2009