viewfromaloft

Los Angeles Magazine Ready to Blow Taps for Downtown

"At the risk of offending the folks who want so badly to see a downtown renaissance, I can’t help stating the obvious: Lower those expectations." writes Mark Lacter in Los Angeles Magazine.

It's a safe guess that the development Downtown has seen in the last few years won't be happening again for a while. Still, the editorial viewpoint has an important factor: Downtown lost its luster as an ad  marketing tool and may be considered a dried up cash cow by the publication.  (And Los Angeles Magazine rode shotgun on that bandwagon for a few years).

When parent company Emmis Publishing ended Tu Ciudad, it was based on not being able to make money from the upscale Latino Market.

Safe to say, both Downtown and upscale Latinos in Los Angeles are here to stay.  Both are caught in this national ecomonic downfall. Then again, who isn't?

What is Downtown Los Angeles?

"It's a small town with tall buildings." - Eric Richardson. [view]
Photos: VFaL

'end of watch' *

LAPD Officer Randal Simmons, 1956-2008: A day of powerful ceremonial images and words ends with: "r41david clear. End of watch." [LAPD radio]

Add 2.16:
"Ed, this is going to be big." LAPD Officer Marco Durate day before service.

"It was just incredible." LAPD Sgt Kris Werner (Hollenbeck Division) hours after the service.

"Never had I been so close to the reality and the sorrow." view [Will Cambell]

". . . the feeling in the air is just unbelievable." view [Zach Behrens]

". . . today’s outpouring in South LA could be used as something of a wake-up call." view KCRW [Kevin Roderick]

"First of all I'd like to say, uh Chief... that photograph you saw of us sleeping. I was ordered by Randy to meditate." KNBC's raw video from services including "Knockin' on Heavens Door", then the Photo Tribute before some Thoughts from a Friend.

Thousands pay tribute [LAT]

One of their own [DN]

Slideshow [KCBS.com]

The other side:  Family members Simmons attempted to save, plus the shooter who took the lives, were laid to rest Friday at St. Frances Catholic Church in North Hollywood. "Deacon Richard Morgan said that while more than 10,000 people celebrated the life of Simmons at a funeral service in Los Angeles, the Rivera family deserved to be laid to rest with respect as well." view [Daily News]

Skid Row Not a Nice Place: Quote 37

“I have a friend who keeps taking me down to skid row, since I spent the early part of my life there.
I don’t learn too much by going back, except it’s not a nice place to have a typewriter; and no place is really nice unless you have a typewriter.  You can do without a woman, but you can’t do without a typewriter.”
-- Charles Bukowski

That’s what Poet Laureate Skid Row Charles Bukowski taught some students in spring of 1970. The off-the-cuff reflection was given after he read his poem “Another Academy” at Washington State’s Bellevue Community College. The reading itself was videotaped by two unknown students––probably assigned to just document it––and you can feel each of the 18 years the tape was lost before recovered, edited, and released as "Bukowski at Bellevue" in 1995. Interestingly, the reading was held while he was a "resident of East Hollywood" and fits the time frame when he writing and living in the now infamous bungalow on De Longpre.

Murals becoming a Los Angeles Memory: Quote 36

A tagged John Wehrle's "Galileo, Jupiter, Apollo" on the north retaining wall of the 101 at North Broadway. After the jump, the site of "Going to the Olympics".

"Now the city is allowing these incredible works of diversity to disappear."  Muralist Judy Baca in  "L.A.'s street murals disappearing" Daily News

VFaL made the declaration that the battle to save L.A.'s murals is being lost to taggers, and speculated that Caltrans painted over three murals on the 101. Daily News looks into it and finds out taggers are indeed outlasting restoration funding, and the budgets from artists who are under contract to restore their own works. Still,  it doesn't help when Cultural Affairs is told by Caltrans the murals are painted over a day later. More from Daily News and others after the jump:

Pink champagne was on ice: LA Quote 35

"Downtown Los Angeles used to be a place you pointed to when you were in the hills: 'There it is, those big buildings. No reason to go down there,' " - Don Henley backstage at opening night of Nokia Theatre

For decades, Downtown was a destination where you would shuttle in via desert highways and drop yourself off inside a building designed to isolate you from any kind of Downtown experience. Last night, The Eagles and Dixie Chicks open the grand experiment that is heavily investing in transforming Downtown's South Park into an urban village.   Developers should leave the "Times Square West" idea behind. The grit has became sophisticated and Downtown LA has become the Hotel California;  It's a lovely place.

The Nokia's atmosphere proved conducive to excitement. [LAT]
Success still an open ended question [LAT]
Opening Night [DN]
Economic apartheid, L.A. style. [DN]
 

50 Years Ago: Quote 33

"...we have been informed that your club and the New York Giants are both interested in studying the advantages of a new location for your respective ball clubs." Letter from Councilwoman "Roz" Wyman to Walter O'Malley dated September 1, 1955.  

Heavenly Look: Quote 32

"A place where kids can truly become the truth of who they are." - Father Gregory Boyle on Homeboy Industries (NPR, 2004)

"G-dog" is in the New House: Father Gregory Boyle glances over to staff of Homeboy Bakery offering him shout-outs during the grand opening celebration of Homeboy Industries. Homeboy was founded in 1992 to provide outreach for Boyle Heights gang members, and the nonprofit will continue it's work headquartered inside the new Fran and Ray Stark Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Boyle is also known as "G-dog" and "Father-G",  nicknamea given to him by formal gang members he has befriended.

View [Blogdowntown] [KNBC] 10.1.2007 Preview [LATimes] 2004 Interview [NPR] Photo/viewfromaloft

A documentary narrated by Martin Sheen, "Father G and the Homeboys" will be screened at the LA Latino Film Festival October 10.

On a changing Neighborhood: Quote 31

"J. Crew, I can smell it. I know it's coming, and this will become a downtown like anywhere else. So it's just obsessive for me now: 'I need to take photos today. I need to document it before it's gone.' " - Marisela Norte poet, performance artist

According to Agustin Gurza of the LA Times, Norte sees Los Angeles "like a lifelong pedestrian who traverses the sidewalks and stops at street corners to wait for the bus."  Norte's photos and writings will be on display at Tropico de Nopal Gallery-Art Space until October 13.

[A view of downtown L.A. from a seasoned walker] LAT
[Norte Video] La Pena
[Sociedad Anónima] Tropico de Nopal Gallery  (1665 Beverly Blvd)
Photo: La Dama de la Sandia (Lady of the Watermelon) by Marisela Norte 

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Library Reference: LA Quote 30

....there are thousands of people in the streets, limping through the doors of the Central Library, beating on the pay phones, not begging for help but demanding to pull the rest of us down into their dark hole. The library is their refuge, four stories up, four stories down into a dark hole. This is the Downtown Los Angeles I knew."  --  Joel J. Rane  (Scream at the Librarian)

Joel Rane didn't have a good time as a reference librarian in the Literature and Fiction Department of the Downtown's Central Library from June 2001 to April 2006. He spent his part of his time cataloguing patrons and had a 84 page, letterpressed cover, xeroxed interior book published by Booklyn Artists Alliance (2005).  Scream at the Librarian Illustrations by Raymond Pettibon & Cristin Sheehan Sullivan. After the jump, one library regular Rane calls "The Cougher." [Book By It's Cover]