My Funny Valentine

The gritty neighborhood is not known for Martha Stewart-like flourishes. But it’s hard to miss the 8-foot-tall heart-shaped bougainvillea accessorizing a four-plex on Bellevue Avenue in Echo Park. The topiary is the result of 25 years of pruning and nurturing by the building’s owners, the Gamez brothers. Augustine, an elevator company employee, first gave the seedling its distinctive shape, but for the past 15 years, Art, a property surveyor, has been the Edward Scissorhands who keeps the bush looking like a green Valentine and a popular photo op for newlyweds in full regalia. Though the topiary is usually barren of the blazing flowers typical of a bougainvillea--a consequence of Art’s regular assaults with the hedge clippers--the neighborhood has long since taken the sculpture to heart. “This is an old neighborhood and parts of it are bad,” Art says. “We can’t do much about the slumlords, but we can brighten up our own little island.”