Breeze coverage of the Pacific Corridor Downtown Waterfront Steering Committee
This morning, The Breeze came out with their coverage of Wednesday's meeting. I'm not going to re-hash the whole damn thing, but here are two sections I wanted to highlight.
"I understand the nostalgia for old Pedro," said Doug Epperhart, president of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. "But the biggest mistake a community makes is trying to re-create the past. We can't re-create" what's gone.
I couldn't agree with Doug more on this one. Although I think we should preserve those buildings and areas that really define our town, I don't want to see development projects that ape San Pedro's past in a Disneyland fashion.
"We're trying to find out if the community desires more moderately priced (about $250,000 to $350,000) homes" to be included with higher-end units priced in the $600,000 range, said architect Arthur Ashai.
You have to try to find that out? How out of touch are you? From the article it appears that this braniac is the architect for the 255 West 8th Street project, the fake Mediterranean villa in the middle of the Vinegar Hill Historic District. That's how out of touch he is
"I understand the nostalgia for old Pedro," said Doug Epperhart, president of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. "But the biggest mistake a community makes is trying to re-create the past. We can't re-create" what's gone.
I couldn't agree with Doug more on this one. Although I think we should preserve those buildings and areas that really define our town, I don't want to see development projects that ape San Pedro's past in a Disneyland fashion.
"We're trying to find out if the community desires more moderately priced (about $250,000 to $350,000) homes" to be included with higher-end units priced in the $600,000 range, said architect Arthur Ashai.
You have to try to find that out? How out of touch are you? From the article it appears that this braniac is the architect for the 255 West 8th Street project, the fake Mediterranean villa in the middle of the Vinegar Hill Historic District. That's how out of touch he is
29 Comments:
While you're at it, Ashai, how about commissioning a study to find out whether the community desires more moderately priced breakfast cereals to be included with higher-end brands priced in the $30-40 per box range?
Also, I propose that we kick off these Exciting New Changes In San Pedro ® by razing Doug Epperhart's house and erecting a sleek new glass- and steel-faced set of affordable (definition: $500,000-600,000) loft (definition: four walls and at least one door) condominiums. After all, we mustn't cling to the past.
Why are you so attached to the status quo? Is there a point in advocating the razing of Doug's house, other than to marginalise your position? I don't know of any project in Pedro that has taken place or is proposed to take place on top of any existing resident's home. With the exclusion of Bridge to Breakwater, the developments in town are all on properties that have stood fallow or underused for years, if not decades (H2).
Change can be a good thing. The one thing we all definitely know about Pedro is that what has been and is being done in this town isn't working.
Who's attached to the status quo? You don't have a monopoly on Bold Visions For The Future®, buster. In fact, I've noticed over the months that much of your program is distinctively backwards-looking, which is one reason why you might want to be extremely careful about whom you accuse of being reactionary.
You ought to train yourself to recognize the possibility that some folks object to various "revitalization" proposals not because they're new, but because they're bad--they're ugly, they're overpriced, they're doomed to fail, they're socioeconomically unjust, or (in most cases) they're some combination of the aforementioned. Do not fall into the Christiana Dominguez trap of assuming that opponents of these projects are congenital spoilsports who enjoy living in an economically depressed town where there's nothing to do after six o'clock, or that we are cargo-culters casting our eyes skyward in the hopes that somebody will plop Shanghai Red's back down on Beacon Street.
So what changes do I favor? I think that the old commercial buildings on Seventh streets that don't already have them should have upper stories added on to them, with a mix of condo, apartment, and office use. I would like to see the office buildings on the north side of Fifth Street razed and replaced with mixed-use three- or four-story buildings, architecturally tied to the buildings on Sixth Street, with retail on the first floor and apartments--not "luxury" apartments, just apartments--above. I would love to see the auto parts store on the northwest corner of Sixth and Pacific knocked down and replaced with a two- or three-story retail building that takes up the whole lot, coming close enough to the sidewalk to allow for cafes with sidewalk seating on the ground floor.
I want to see the unused Harbor Subdivision Right Of Way, which MTA owns and which extends all the way down to Pedro, used for a light rail connection to LAX and downtown, and/or an express bus with twenty or thirty minute headways to downtown, running from 5 AM to 2 AM daily. That way, the residents of these all these new apartments won't be clogging the streets and killing the ozone layer with cars every morning and afternoon. Where to terminate all these buses and trains? Well, how about a transit mall, like they have in Long Beach. The current PTC building location might have been a nice place for something like that. The mall would also include a Bikestation, so that people from other parts of SP could become bicycle/transit commuters, and cruise ship tourists could rent bikes and explore San Pedro on two wheels. LA in general and Pedro in particular need to get ready for the end of cheap oil, and the time to start is now. That means bike paths galore, streetcars and buses, and the gradual reclamation of public streets for human beings rather than automobiles. Portland has the right idea here; why must we (well, you, anyway) be so mired in the past?
Getting away from downtown a bit, wouldn't it be cool if Warehouse One could be turned into an art/cinema/music space, run by an autonomous collective similar to the one that has successfully run the space at the abandoned Reitschule (horse-riding school) in Bern, Switzerland for twenty years? The Reitschule also has a bar, a cafe, a print shop, and it's a police-free zone, with rules (no violence, no drug dealing) enforced by the collective. I would cream my jeans if something like that could start up here.
I'd also like to see zoning laws changed to allow more locally-oriented, low-key businesses in residential areas. There's no reason why a grocery store, a coffee shop, or even a local pub can't be operated on a residential block--even in a single-family house--if its intended customers live in the neighborhood and won't need to find parking places. It would also add immeasurably to the sense of community in some of these neighborhoods, more so the farther away you get from Old San Pedro. Not to mention keeping people from having to jump in their cars every time they need groceries or a meal.
And of course this has been harped on endlessly elsewhere, but I'll remind you anyway that I'm gung-ho for the massive greening of the fallow industrial areas currently slated for megamallization in the B2B plan. That's with a liberal definition of "greening"--wetlands restoration, community gardens, baseball diamonds, native plants, you name it.
Those are just the changes I would endorse right off the top of my head. Give me a half hour or so, and I could think of a lot more. The difference between my changes and the changes actually on the table is that my new buildings would be built on a human scale, architecturally in harmony with the historic buildings around them, and the businesses and residential units in them would be designed to accommodate SP's current residents, rather than to replace them with a "better," more affluent crowd. And they would always be better than the structures they replaced. My changes would prepare SP for the geopolitical and environmental realities of the twenty-first century, rather than trying to address traffic and overcrowding with more and more parking lots. And my changes would at least start to give the streets back to pedestrians, and give people things to do in their leisure time that haven't been programmed for them by some corporation or other.
I've proposed some of these changes before in this here blog, and I seem to recall that you thought them a bit radical. Well, what's wrong with change, you big ol' reactionary, you?
I say this with all the love, brother--all the love--but you really shouldn't pat yourself on the back quite so hard for your visionary plans for Pedro, when so many of them essentially consist of throwing late 20th century solutions at early 21st century problems. Change can be good. So what are we waiting for?
(Somebody, however, will have to explain the idea of a worker-run artists collective to Janice Hahn and John Papadakis. I hereby elect you.)
I asked you a specific question - what is the point of your statement? From where I'm standing, it appears that you basically have no respect for anyone who advocates that we look forward, rather than backward in as we make Pedro a better place to live.
Ah. Sorry, Mr. Chairman; I'd assumed you understood.
The point of my statement was to facetiously suggest that something Mr. Epperhart presumably holds dear, namely his house, be treated as secondary in importance to some vague notion of progress--thus inverting, in effect, his own statement about the relative importance of new development and the preservation of San Pedro's historic character. In so doing, I employed a rhetorical device known as "satire," wherein a thing is nonseriously stated or suggested in order to facilitate criticism.
As to the vitally important matter of just who is looking forward and who is looking backward, I refer the honorable gentleman to the rather lengthy and detailed comments I made some moments ago.
Thank you Mr. IMBG for your coments at 10:01 PM, with which I wholeheartedly agree.
I would not presume to comment at that level, but I would say that the renderings I have seen of sort of glass clad 14 or 15 story condo towers in the middle of old downtown seem totally inappropriate.
My younger son is a graduate student in planning at Cal Poly SLO. He keeps sending me books, which I find to be uniformly troubling and upsetting in the face of what is going on in San Pedro.
Professor Calthorpe, who is very active in the New Orleans restoration effort, is one of the leaders of the so-called "new urbanism" movement. He stress repeatedly that it is a mistake to break up exiting architectural themes in communities with sort of "modernist" structures thrust into their midst.
When CIM was starting on their Centre St. project, James Allen did a good job of insisting on some sort of visual compatibility with what is already there. It looks to me like he is about to get overwhelmed.
Well done and thanks again.
IMBG here we go -
Who's attached to the status quo? You don't have a monopoly on Bold Visions For The Future®, buster. In fact, I've noticed over the months that much of your program is distinctively backwards-looking, which is one reason why you might want to be extremely careful about whom you accuse of being reactionary.
I'm not professing to offer any bold visions here. I don't have any illusion that I possess a vision to plan and develop San Pedro. I have my perspectives on things that are going on in my town, that's it. Whatever vision I have is earmarked for the projects that are directly my own responsibility. I don't have a "program" for anything, and I don't need to be careful in accusing you of being reactionary.
You ought to train yourself to recognize the possibility that some folks object to various "revitalization" proposals not because they're new, but because they're bad--they're ugly, they're overpriced, they're doomed to fail, they're socioeconomically unjust, or (in most cases) they're some combination of the aforementioned. Do not fall into the Christiana Dominguez trap of assuming that opponents of these projects are congenital spoilsports who enjoy living in an economically depressed town where there's nothing to do after six o'clock, or that we are cargo-culters casting our eyes skyward in the hopes that somebody will plop Shanghai Red's back down on Beacon Street.
I'm well aware of the critisisms that many people have regarding the various developments in San Pedro. People are entitled to feel however they want about things, and to make their voices heard. I think that there are many more reasons to oppose various projects or to oppose the execution of those projects than the "spoilsport" viewpoint (although there are some of those folks out there). I don't need to train myself to do anything, however. Train myself to agree with you is what you'd really like. I don't think you're interested in honest debate.
So what changes do I favor? I think that the old commercial buildings on Seventh streets that don't already have them should have upper stories added on to them, with a mix of condo, apartment, and office use. I would like to see the office buildings on the north side of Fifth Street razed and replaced with mixed-use three- or four-story buildings, architecturally tied to the buildings on Sixth Street, with retail on the first floor and apartments--not "luxury" apartments, just apartments--above. I would love to see the auto parts store on the northwest corner of Sixth and Pacific knocked down and replaced with a two- or three-story retail building that takes up the whole lot, coming close enough to the sidewalk to allow for cafes with sidewalk seating on the ground floor.
Without splitting hairs, which I have little taste for, I find it interesting that you are directly advocating a development future for Pedro that evicts people from their homes and businesses, to re-order the town. I rent one of the one storey buildings on 7th Street, as do at least a half dozen of the artists in the "Arts District" (whatever that means). Your plan would destroy my small local business, and the dozen other small local businesses (artists are, as individuals, small businesses) that have been the only investors in a district that others have been to afraid to invest in. Not to mention that several of those units are live works - your idea actually would require the forcible eviction of people from their homes.
No developer in pursuit of one of their "socioeconmically unjust, eyesore, overpriced, doomed to fail" developments has even suggested destroying existing businesses and homes. You are essentially arguing for a complete re-organisation of downtown, and saying fuck you to the exisiting businesses and residents, if they live or work in a building that could be better, as you imagine things.
I want to see the unused Harbor Subdivision Right Of Way, which MTA owns and which extends all the way down to Pedro, used for a light rail connection to LAX and downtown, and/or an express bus with twenty or thirty minute headways to downtown, running from 5 AM to 2 AM daily. That way, the residents of these all these new apartments won't be clogging the streets and killing the ozone layer with cars every morning and afternoon. Where to terminate all these buses and trains? Well, how about a transit mall, like they have in Long Beach. The current PTC building location might have been a nice place for something like that. The mall would also include a Bikestation, so that people from other parts of SP could become bicycle/transit commuters, and cruise ship tourists could rent bikes and explore San Pedro on two wheels. LA in general and Pedro in particular need to get ready for the end of cheap oil, and the time to start is now. That means bike paths galore, streetcars and buses, and the gradual reclamation of public streets for human beings rather than automobiles. Portland has the right idea here; why must we (well, you, anyway) be so mired in the past?
Mired in the past? I've been advocating this type of transit development for years. When Angels Gate was looking at H2, I spent many an hour trying to argue that we should locate a bus transit hub on the site. Supposedly there is both a planning mandate and bond money in place somewhere for just this type of project. Why hasn't it happened then? I believe that the class/race difference between those most likely to use the buses and those who call the shots in Pedro has kept a real debate on mass transit from happening. As far as I know, nobody on the city end of things has advocated building light rail straight down the 110 to Pedro, even though everybody I know wants to see that project explored and developed. I don't think that buses alone can cut the mustard in a city as geographically large as Los Angeles, we have a much more complex situation than Portland has, although that city is a model for properly planned mass transit.
Getting away from downtown a bit, wouldn't it be cool if Warehouse One could be turned into an art/cinema/music space, run by an autonomous collective similar to the one that has successfully run the space at the abandoned Reitschule (horse-riding school) in Bern, Switzerland for twenty years? The Reitschule also has a bar, a cafe, a print shop, and it's a police-free zone, with rules (no violence, no drug dealing) enforced by the collective. I would cream my jeans if something like that could start up here.
Not to get too technical, but Warehouse One is one of Los Angeles few remaing large unreinforced masonry buildings. I want to see it used for a cultural purpose, but I don't see any collective coming up with the millions or tens of millions in development monies required to make the building safer and functional. Any development of Warehouse One is going to happen as a partnership between the Port and the operating entity. And yes both the Port and others are exploring/imagining what kind of cultural purpose it could be put to. I'm under the impression that no one really has their eye on it for a project because of both the historical issues and the safety issues in the building, so I think it's a natural that it could be developed for an arts purpose. Arts organisations are usually the ones with the balls and vision to take on otherwise crazy adaptive re-use projects. And yes, I'm one of the entities exploring the possibilities of the space as an arts venue/facility. FYI Angels Gate has a print studio that's open to the public now, and a cafe is definitely being considered as part of the development of that site.
I'd also like to see zoning laws changed to allow more locally-oriented, low-key businesses in residential areas. There's no reason why a grocery store, a coffee shop, or even a local pub can't be operated on a residential block--even in a single-family house--if its intended customers live in the neighborhood and won't need to find parking places. It would also add immeasurably to the sense of community in some of these neighborhoods, more so the farther away you get from Old San Pedro. Not to mention keeping people from having to jump in their cars every time they need groceries or a meal.
San Pedro is full of these businesses already (which is great). It takes a lot more than zoning laws to support this kind of business, though. You need to have individuals willing to invest all of their lives in opening a business that may fail. Changing the zoning is easy. Once the laws are changed, you have no garuntee that anyone will be willing to take the risk in opening such a business, or that the larger public really wants to use these businesses. Look outside, the public seems to value convenience above all things. Personally, I shop in local markets all of the time, the prices are better, the produce is usually better, and the service is better. I'd love to see a "shop local" buddy program where people like me drag Vons shoppers to all of San Pedro's great bakeries, butcher shops and small markets, to show them the quality & value that's out there.
And of course this has been harped on endlessly elsewhere, but I'll remind you anyway that I'm gung-ho for the massive greening of the fallow industrial areas currently slated for megamallization in the B2B plan. That's with a liberal definition of "greening"--wetlands restoration, community gardens, baseball diamonds, native plants, you name it.
I too am all for a very green B2B plan. I think there's lots of room for commercial devlopment and green/open space in the project. I don't think we have much of a disagreement here. We could split hairs over the quantity and type of greening, but we're largely on the same page. Personally, I'm into wetlands restoration & native plants more than parks or sports facilities.
Those are just the changes I would endorse right off the top of my head. Give me a half hour or so, and I could think of a lot more. The difference between my changes and the changes actually on the table is that my new buildings would be built on a human scale, architecturally in harmony with the historic buildings around them, and the businesses and residential units in them would be designed to accommodate SP's current residents, rather than to replace them with a "better," more affluent crowd. And they would always be better than the structures they replaced. My changes would prepare SP for the geopolitical and environmental realities of the twenty-first century, rather than trying to address traffic and overcrowding with more and more parking lots. And my changes would at least start to give the streets back to pedestrians, and give people things to do in their leisure time that haven't been programmed for them by some corporation or other.
I have no doubt that you have no problem ruling an imaginary Pedro with an iron fist. No individual's vision is perfect, stop coming at this from an imagined position of moral and intellectual authority. It's not that you have bad ideas, it's that your vision and ideas don't seem to include the reality of the situation and the opinions of others.
I'm aware of the possibility that others might have legitimate alternate positions on development. I have no problem with that. You seem unwilling to consider any perspectives other than your own. I find your attitude and your perspectives to be dictatorial and I think you address this debate from a point of imagined moral and intellectual superiority.
I've proposed some of these changes before in this here blog, and I seem to recall that you thought them a bit radical. Well, what's wrong with change, you big ol' reactionary, you?
I say this with all the love, brother--all the love--but you really shouldn't pat yourself on the back quite so hard for your visionary plans for Pedro, when so many of them essentially consist of throwing late 20th century solutions at early 21st century problems. Change can be good. So what are we waiting for?
I do find many of your perspectives/proposals radical. First, as I pointed out above, you just advocated a development path for downtown that would devestate the current businesses and residents in that area. The construction costs would gentrify the affected properties and would prevent/discourage the current residents from returning. That's a radical proposal and one that I find extremely offensive to the community to which I am a part of. Secondly you have repeatedly shown disdain for business in general, and you have coupled this with a radical perspective of home-ownership that I find more motivated by bitterness towards the "haves" by a "have not" than by reason.
"Pat myself on the back?" As I've said before I don't have a visionary plan for San Pedro. I'm just interested in the changes that are happening in my town. It's easy to critisise my ideas as being non-visionary, because they aren't! I'm a realist, trying to have a role in the actual situation at hand, that's all.
(Somebody, however, will have to explain the idea of a worker-run artists collective to Janice Hahn and John Papadakis. I hereby elect you.)\
What would I know about collectives? I have zero experience working in a collective environment. I don't believe that the arts economy or the governmental policies in the United States are sympathetic to the kind of collective projects that have been successful in Europe. I don't really have much interest in artists' collectives. All of my experience in managing artists, as exhibting artists, employees and tenants, leads me to believe that solid management is better than collective organisation almost all of the time.
Warehouse 1 is actually built of reinforced concrete. One of the reasons it is still there is that it would cost an amazing amount of money to tear it down.
I personally think it's pretty ugly, but it clearly isn't going anywhere in our lifetimes.
There may well be issues around its interior design and layout, or its "hell for stout" concrete construction, that make it very difficult to adaptively reuse, but I wouldn't look for it to fall down in an earthquake anytime soon.
My bad - I thought the building had some inherent structural issues. All the easier to bring back into action, then. I love that building, personally.
Cali, I have no doubt that you have no doubt that I'd have no problem ruling Pedro with an iron fist. It wouldn't be the first time that you read something I wrote without seeming to comprehend it. Hint: people who advocate worker-run collectives usually aren't in favor of anybody ruling anybody with any kind of fist.
On the other hand, I confess that I should have been clearer about how I would implement the structural changes to Sixth and Seventh Streets (adding stories to existing buildings). Doing it all at once would indeed be suicidal. I was thinking more like a building at a time, over a few years. That way, nobody's community is broken up, the town is given time to adjust to the changes and take advantage of the opportunities for new locally-owned businesses, and any unintended consequences can be dealt with as they come up.
I can't make anybody assume the risk of starting a small neighborhood business, this is true. All I can do is point out that in places where government encourages (or at least doesn't get in the way of) such things, people do them and they often prosper. And contrary to what you suggest, they don't prosper at the expense of centrally-located downtown businesses. You don't go to your corner grocery to pick up thirty pounds of kitty litter, and you don't go to your neighborhood pub to meet hot chicks.
That "shop local" thing is probably the best idea I've heard from you. Why don't you do it?
Why did I elect you to explain collectives to Papadakis? That, my friend, was another example of what we Earthlings call a "joke." Relax and have a beer, Cali; this is just banter on the Internet. And make up your damned mind--am I too radical or too reactionary? I need to know, so I can decide whether to join the RCP or the Minutemen...
P.S. I would patronize the living shit out of a cafe at Angel's Gate. Let a thousand coffeehouses bloom, I always say.
I am aware that you advocate worker-run collectives. I also am of the opinion that although you might be in favour of collective action, you would force it on the general population if you were in the position to do so, regardless of their opinion on the matter.
I'll let you backpedal on the 6th & 7th remodel. If only because 7th Street would actually be a better place if the artists could somehow be magically moved to 2nd story lofts and regular offices and "open to the public" businesses could occupy the downstairs. Unfortunately the current population is both too valuable and too entrenched for it to happen via any normal means, IMHO.
I've never suggested that small local businesses drain business away from downtown. My concern is that major business developments at Bridge to Breakwater, if not properly enacted, could contribute to the ongoing failure to attract businesses to downtown.
I make ever effort to talk up the local markets to my friends and roommates. I don't know if dragging people around would really do the trick, but I might be on to something here... First thing I could do is start posting more about the great markets that I'm eating from. Believe me, I'd murder for the kind of small business, open air markets that I saw in Paris and the walking neighborhoods that they grew out of. The great walking cities of the world evolved that way because there was only one real organisational principle "within walking distance". I don't know if a city like Los Angeles can mutate into one via any planned means. Paris is a great walking city because it just ended up that way, and Los Angeles is a great car city because it evolved that way.
I presumed that you were presuming that Angels Gate is an artists' collective or co-op. Outside of presuming that we are part of Rec and Parks, that's the most common mistake people make when thinking about Angels Gate.
You are both radical and reactionary. I don't see how one necessarily excludes the other.
I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't want to relax at a re-landscaped (death to iceplant!) Angels Gate, overlooking the Bell, sipping on java (or better yet, a beer).
Calimari wrote:
I am aware that you advocate worker-run collectives. I also am of the opinion that although you might be in favour of collective action, you would force it on the general population if you were in the position to do so, regardless of their opinion on the matter.
I am of the opinion that if there were a conclusion-jumping event in the Olympics, you would win a gold conclusion-jumping medal. For conclusion-jumping!
Seriously, Squid, what is it with you? Is it that you skim, rather than read? I laid down all those radical ideas to demonstrate that my distaste for yuppie-condo / waterfront megamall development stems not from a desire to "cling to the status quo" (your words, remember) but from a desire for a different kind of change. I was answering your question.
In other words, if the City Council were to come to my door tomorrow morning and ask me what kind of future I would like to see in Pedro, that's what I would tell them. How the hell could I force any of those changes on anybody, even if I wanted to? How do you force a building owner to add stories? How do you make someone ride a bike to the store instead of driving? What am I gonna do, kidnap artists at gunpoint, give them a crash course in nonhierarchical organization and consensus-based decision making, and force them to invade Warehouse One? All that would accomplish is a bunch of empty buildings, resentful bike riders, and puzzled artists staring at each other in a dank warehouse.
The bit about forcing people to form anarcho-syndicalist collectives is particularly absurd if you know the first thing about that philosophy.
I'll let you backpedal on the 6th & 7th remodel.
I'll let you think I'm backpedaling if it makes you feel better about being a big fat change-hating reactionary person. See, I can jump to conclusions, too!
Like I said, I should have been clearer.
If only because 7th Street would actually be a better place if the artists could somehow be magically moved to 2nd story lofts and regular offices and "open to the public" businesses could occupy the downstairs.
Well...yes, that's more or less what I was thinking. I look at it as correcting a mistake that the original builders made--those buildings should have had second and third stories, at least, in the first place. The East Village arts district in Long Beach seems to be as successful as it is in part because their old buildings were done right the first time. My idea is offered as a way to fix that without tearing the buildings down and replacing them with some gleaming, blingy crap.
Believe me, I'd murder for the kind of small business, open air markets that I saw in Paris and the walking neighborhoods that they grew out of. The great walking cities of the world evolved that way because there was only one real organisational principle "within walking distance". I don't know if a city like Los Angeles can mutate into one via any planned means. Paris is a great walking city because it just ended up that way, and Los Angeles is a great car city because it evolved that way.
Correction: Los Angeles WAS a great car city. Those days are over. I used to love driving in LA, but now when I'm forced to do it I realize that I actually wish I were on a bus, train, or bike.
LA, by the way, didn't "evolve" to be a great car city; it was forced to be a car city when the auto and tire manufacturers colluded to remove the existing public transit system and lobbied endlessly over the ensuing decades to keep another one from being built. It was entirely by "planned means," in other words.
Los Angeles is going to have to become a great walking city, or more accurately a collection of great walking communities connected by great public transit, again. There's no way around it. Why not embrace it?
I presumed that you were presuming that Angels Gate is an artists' collective or co-op.
No, I know how it works. I actually tried to apply for a space there a long time ago. (Don't ask)
You are both radical and reactionary. I don't see how one necessarily excludes the other.
Well, they just happen to be exact freakin' opposites in this context, is all. A reactionary clings to the past to avoid the future. A radical wants to destroy the past and transform the present, towards some (usually utopian) future.
(The longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer argued, in The True Believer, that the radical's true hatred is for the present, and that in some sense he seeks to restore an idealized past, but I'm using the conventional definitions. Either way, the radical's only hope is in the future. Without it, he has nothing.)
Incidentally, what part of the "status quo" do you think I'm clinging to?
I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't want to relax at a re-landscaped (death to iceplant!) Angels Gate, overlooking the Bell, sipping on java (or better yet, a beer).
Java by day, beer by night. Whatever works.
Some people, when they hit a new town, immediately look for a bar. I look for an indie coffeehouse.
Speaking of which, if anybody is still reading at this point, can I get a quick straw poll on what people think about the big screen TV at Sacred Grounds? Keep it? Dump it?
If you want to see how the City of LA nurtures small neighborhood businesses, consider the tortured history of the Corner Store at 37th and Barbara. They have tried to serve sandwiches - not allowed. Beer and wine? Forget it.
As a small business owner myself, I can absolutely relate to the idea of being too stubborn to quit, so my hat is off to them.
As to TV in eating/drinking places, I hate it. I finally quit going to Pronto's because I just couldn't stand the 3 TVs going all the time. Great food, great prices, great service, blasting TVs - forget it.
At least, the last time I went into the Sacred Grounds, they had the sound turned off. You can turn your back on the TV and pretend it isn't there.
If these places are supposed to be about socializing and conversation, how does TV help? Quite the opposite, in my opinion.
Thanks for bringing up one of my pet peeves.
Wow...I've missed alot not dropping in for a few days! Hot debate, incendiary remarks, *satire*, great visions mixed in with beautifuly irresponsible personal proclamations!
Utopian visionaries, or reactionaries looking back on European models of impossibly gorgeous architecture buttered with extremely personal artistic, socially-enlightened, creative lifestyle-orientated micro-enterprise? Ok, I'll take two, please.
While we're voting in a blok of 4, I'll shout out for:
A few stories incrementally added above the commercial building on 7th St, if we could only invent the appropriate economic model and law to save their current function as affordable, personal artistic venues that preserve what community we have left here. Where are the noveau braintrusts that will dream up the appropriate economic paradigms?
mixed-use construction, to speak in the current venacular,
allowing modestly scaled retail presence below affordable (target $250,000 for 1,000 square feet)housing.
industrial-style glass and steel towers along the waterfront to compliment and respond to the portlands.
saving Warehouse 1, at whatever cost, until it's time is come (back).
shopping small local business, or don't buy it (unless it's available online).
condemning the big TV in Sacred Grounds (are they listening in at all?)
walking, biking, and bus-riding as a lifestyle choice. so why don't i daily bus myself across the portlands? i blame the but-ugly bus benches on 7th St, and a lazy gas-guzzlingness supported by a regular salary (shame on me).
Dynamiting the autoparts bldg on Pacific and 5th (ok, i'm now guilty of emulating IMBG-speak).
something akin to Shanghai Reds and Beacon Street being delivered back to us from up above. The worst thing we EVER did was to raze the street, so can we not take this sad history to heart?
Light-rail to LAX, downtown, Long Beach. Someday I will share with you an e-ticket vision for an aerial, trans-harbor Aerobus system (goggle it), but i digress towards the impossibly visonary.
a 24-7 public downtown marketplace celebrating healthy food choice, downtown culture, local produce and enterprise (ok, let it close down at 10pm).
autonomous collectives, once they become sufficiently organized, intelligent and politically savvy enough to manage things (don't deny future possibilities, remote thou they seem).
Now, IMBG, shame on you for:
denying others their aesthetic values (diversity, diversity, diversity!). You might be (a) giant, but you are not without aesthetic vulnerabilities in judgement.
sour grapes towards fellow humans who are making the big bucks serving societies current trends, (not all of which are evil) and who might want housing among us.
lack of appreciation for office space on the N side of 5th St. these serve many valuable functions (which form equals).
the statement that "changing the zoning is easy." It will take huge efforts from informed individuals to make change.
beyond that, I totally agree with you, and your wordcraft and historic reference which are truly admirable. Also, you are the only voice i hear that acknowledges some of the good things that are happening in the LBC.
To Cali, keep up the fine work of responsible advocacy for small local business and artistic integrity in the midst of city bureaucracy and current economic realities. have a beer or two and enjoy the banter, without giving up your passion (not that i think you ever would).
And Noel, props to you for:
No. 1 - using your own name and speaking a rare true voice in the public sphere, and your indefatigueable effort in standing up for vision that has no current political reward. Re architectural notions, i cannot refrain from commenting that the port is here to stay, and is now a part of our architectural fabric.
As to the Port, all we really have asked for is fair mitigation of all of its many environmental impacts.
It has gotten away with denial for 30 years. No more, if we can help it.
Why do you suppose that dynamite is such a recurring theme in so many local conversations (mine included, I hasten to add)?
Plus, thanks for your kind words. You do me too mch credit, but it is deeply appreciated.
"Now, IMBG, shame on you for:
denying others their aesthetic values (diversity, diversity, diversity!). You might be (a) giant, but you are not without aesthetic vulnerabilities in judgement." --Redrider at 11:56 PM
I'm sorry, but that's way past ridiculous. There are a lot of ways to deny somebody their aesthetic values, but posting a wishlist on the Internet isn't one of them. Unless the Giant is a developer posing as an opinionated longshoreman, he doesn't have the power to deny anybody their aesthetic values. I only point this out because there are forces at work around here that truly do have that power, so it's slightly ridiculous IMHO to accuse Giant of doing so.
I'm not trying to start a fight here, and I can see you weren't doing that either. And I'm not weighing in one way or the other on the development issue because I'm undecided. But it seems to me that you guys are all intelligent enough to counter each other's actual arguments instead of making stuff up.
To end on a positive note, thanks to all of you, whatever "side" you're on, for having this debate. It's really weird that I should have to come here to find it, though. Why isn't it being held on this level in the local papers?
Well, thank you, APGBNP, for defending me with such vigor. In that same spirit, let me sort of leap to the Redrider's defense here: I'm not sure that he was really accusing me of wanting to squash anybody's aesthetic values (Cali was, a few days ago, but I like to think that he's since come to his senses--or at least gone back and read what I actually wrote). Rather, I suspect that the Rider suspects me of harboring a double standard, harping on the importance of racial and class diversity while insisting on a certain non-diversity of architectural design. I'll hold my ringing defense of my own views in abeyance until I find out whether that's what he actually meant, though.
Maybe we're both wrong.
Now, then, in no particular order:
Noel Park wrote:
They [The Corner Store] have tried to serve sandwiches - not allowed.
How does Starbucks get away with it?
At least, the last time I went into the Sacred Grounds, they had the sound turned off. You can turn your back on the TV and pretend it isn't there.
If these places are supposed to be about socializing and conversation, how does TV help? Quite the opposite, in my opinion.
It will probably surprise nobody to learn that I'm a huge fan of watching as little TV as possible. Unless something good is on (hey, it's not a religion with me, just a practice).
I ain't no medium snob, either. Big screen televisions in public places can be used for good as well as for evil. Indie-film DVD screenings, anybody?
That TV in Sacred Grounds bugs me because I've already noticed a tendency for that part of the room to become a TV-centric zone at night, with people sitting on the couch slack-jawed and silent, absorbing the game. It's like every shitty dateless Friday night you ever endured with your roommates when you were 22, only without the beer. I've already been outed here as a hopeless romantic, but is it really so much to ask that a coffeehouse engender conversation and reading, rather than attempt to ape a sports bar? So what if the sound is down? It just makes it easier to hear the sound of a thousand dead Viennese intellectuals spinning in their graves.
Redrider wrote:
A few stories incrementally added above the commercial building on 7th St, if we could only invent the appropriate economic model and law to save their current function as affordable, personal artistic venues that preserve what community we have left here.
O, ye of little faith...we (humankind) managed to invent the limited liability corporation, didn't we? Kick it around over the weekend and see what you come up with, is all I'm saying.
industrial-style glass and steel towers along the waterfront to compliment and respond to the portlands.
Really, at this point, the only appropriate response from San Pedro to the portlands is something like, "TURN THOSE (cough) FUCKING LIGHTS OFF! WE'RE (cough) TRYING TO SLEEP!"
industrial-style glass and steel towers along the waterfront to compliment and respond to the portlands.
In the interest of pedantry I must inform you that "sufficiently" would have been sufficient, or "enough" would have been enough.
The Reithalle collective manages just fine, by the way. It's particularly amusing to stop by one of the rooms and watch an avant-garde theater group do their thing, and then a half an hour later the place becomes a dark, throbbing, hipsterrific eighties retro disco.
sour grapes towards fellow humans who are making the big bucks serving societies current trends, (not all of which are evil) and who might want housing among us.
I'll have you know, good sir, that I come by my distaste for the Sex In The City crowd honestly. Sour grapes don't enter into it; I'm not exacly poor myself (thank you, what's left of the labor movement!). I don't want this to become a town where you have to be as lucky as I am, situationwise, to live here, which is why Cali's "longshoremen are the yuppies of Pedro" argument rings hollow to me.
the statement that "changing the zoning is easy." It will take huge efforts from informed individuals to make change.
I mean that it's physically easy for the people who have the authority to do it, once having so decided. As distinct from, say, building a house or writing a novel. Hell, if I thought it was easy to persuade them to do it, do you think I'd be moaning about it here? I'd just call Janice Hahn and ask her to stop by the office on the way to Busy Bee and change the zoning laws for me.
Dy-no-mite!
I wrote:
Redrider wrote:
industrial-style glass and steel towers along the waterfront to compliment and respond to the portlands.
In the interest of pedantry I must inform you that "sufficiently" would have been sufficient, or "enough" would have been enough.
The Reithalle collective manages just fine, by the way. It's particularly amusing to stop by one of the rooms and watch an avant-garde theater group do their thing, and then a half an hour later the place becomes a dark, throbbing, hipsterrific eighties retro disco.
Well, leave it to me to make a huge editing error while being pedantic about syntax. That was all meant to be a response to this, also from Redrider:
autonomous collectives, once they become sufficiently organized, intelligent and politically savvy enough to manage things (don't deny future possibilities, remote thou they seem).
And I don't have any excuse either, because I previewed the damned post before publishing it.
For this, yes: shame on me!
Well right.
I'm just saying that TV with no sound is marginally less obnoxious that TV with sound.
Did anyone see the article on Pacific Energy Partners' "Community Education" (puts me in the mind of a North Vietnamese "Reeducation" camp, but never mind) meetings?
To steal a pharse from Vern Hall, via the Barbary Pirates:
"Millions for lobbyists and lawyers, but not one cent for mitigation."
Finally, the other "San Pedro" "magazine" again didn't bother to publish my rebuttal to John Wentworths "flea" tract. I guess I could post it here, but I don't want to presume upon your patience.
Maybe send it to Random Lengths with a cover letter, or just a preamble, explaining that you've tried twice to get SPM to print your answer to an attack in their pages clearly aimed at you (among others), and that they've refused to print it. That would seem to me like a perfectly appropriate use of RL's Letters to the Editor or Opinion section, as the purpose for that paper's existence is to be an alternative to the local mainstream media.
Otherwise, post it here. But, even with all the new readers popping up on this here blog, I think you'd get much more exposure in the pages of "The Lengths" (as we hip people call it).
I'll give it a try.
I can't imagine why Dave brought the T.V. into Sacred Grounds. I'm tempted to organise a video game night there, though.
Noel - if you want me to post your rebuttal here as a post, post it here and I'll put it on the main page. Or you can E-mail it to me, if you like and I'll post it.
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