LA Cowboy

When I turned the corner to go back to my office at the Spring Arts Tower, where the TV series ELI STONE has been shooting this afternoon, 30 or 40 paparazzi suddenly appeared and started shooting their cameras in front of me. And I assumed that were part of a scene that was being shot. But then they turned to shoot a van that was pulling away and I was told Katie Holmes has just walked in front of me.

And this really surprised me. After having watched half of the blockbuster films of the past ten years shot in my neighborhood - and regularly seeing many of the biggest stars in Hollywood - I could not recall even one paparazzi stalking anyone - much less a whole pack of them.

Then when I returned from the gym tonight, a half dozen of them were still waiting around when I stopped to gossip with a couple of the guys from Magic Elves - which produces most of the reality shows on TV. And I turned from them just as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and got out of a car and walked right in front of me and into the building followed by the flash of cameras.

Now after living in Malibu for 20 years and selling real estate, I saw film and TV stars every day and worked with many of them. But it was still weird to see these two walking into my building and even weirder to see packs of paparazzi roaming our sidewalks. The real problem, though, is with all the actors moving in our neighborhood, hopefully, this was only an aberration and not the start of our descent into paparazzi hell.

Last Sunday, I was recovering from an exhausting Saturday night when I got a frantic call from my long time fashion stylist, Miss Kitty. Her news flash was that the Times' fashion section - Image - in an article about the hottest international fashion boutiques flocking to Los Angeles - could find only one person - a certain local cowboy - fashionable enough to be featured.

Moi!

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-stores13-2008jul13,0,1077507.story

Yes, the single person the fashion editors of the Los Angeles Times found in these exclusive shops with a fashion sense worthy of being photographed was this cowboy as I exited Comme de Garçons. But what upset Miss Kitty was that not only was not I - much less her properly credited - but that the Times also neglected to mention any of the designers of my elegant ensemble, which of course defeated the purpose of all those designers who so graciously give me their latest fashions to wear.

So to give credit where credit is due - my black cowboy hat is made by the Golden Gate Hat Company of Los Angeles and my au courant T-shirt - with it's muscular coiled cobra emblazened across it (which makes it the absolutely favorite shirt of Mr. Cowboy's female fans) is yet another stunning design by famed atelier of the Striker Wrestling Club.

Ironic Update...

Now that I think of it, my being photographed walking out of the shop is kind of fitting since the store would never have been there without me, and a number of other people.

Back in the Wild West Days of the 'hood, I did the original master lease (pro bono as usual) to Jose Caballer of GROOP SPACE and then they sub-leased part of their space to Tak Kato of BLENDS (and that concept was part of the original business plan) - and BLENDS was brought in by a friend of mine, Brigham Yen - and then Tak and Brett Westfall brought in the pop-up version of Comme des Garçons.

The moral is... it takes a village to build a neighborhood.

*** COMEDY WALK ANNOUNCEMENT ***

COMEDY WALK is the biggest monthly comedy festival in the world. It's like speed-dating with comedians! 25 different comedy acts. 6 simultaneous 90-minute shows. As seen in The Onion. A Los Angeles Times "Best Bet". A Hollywood Today selection.

* Get your FREE TICKET at www.ComedyWalk.com
* Thursday, July 10th, 2008, 8:30pm-10pm

COMEDY WALK #7 is at the New LATC Theatre, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, and nearby venues. Featured performers include Jason Dudey, Michael Goldstom, and Alysia Wood. Different acts and different venues each month. Another performer every 10 minutes. Performers are comedians who've appeared at comedy clubs or on television or in films.

Venue #1
Host: Jennifer Simms
Alexandria Room
200-seat club
501 S Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
8:25 Host Warm-Up
8:30 Alysia Wood
8:40 Tim Powers
8:50 Willis Turner
9:00 Brian Farrell
9:10 Courtney Ca
9:20 Josh Rencher
9:30 Erik Lundy
9:40 Bill Word
9:50 Rick Overton

Venue #2
Host: Kirk Bovill
Lobby Cabaret Theater
80-seat cabaret
The New LATC
514 S. Spring St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
8:25 Host Warm-Up
8:30 Michael Goldstrom
8:40 Joe Bartnick
8:50 Julia Louiza
9:00 Jason Dudey
9:10 Stevie Mack
9:20 Rick Overton
9:30 Celeste Davis
9:40 Jodi Miller
9:50 Roz Browne

Venue #3
Host: Ashley McCarthy
"The Velvet Room
By the Bert Green Art Gallery
114 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,500-sq.ft SRO
8:25 Host Warm-Up
8:30 Bruno Lucia
8:40 Stevie Mack
8:50 Erik Lundy
9:00 Pat Branch
9:10 Larry Vazeos
9:20 Grace Fraga
9:30 Alysia Wood
9:40 Jackie Fabulous
9:50 Brian Farrell

Venue #4
Host: Katia Louise
"The Onion Room
Spring Arts Tower
205 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,400 sq. ft. SRO
8:25 Host Warm-Up
8:30 Jodi Miller
8:40 Bill Word
8:50 Grace Fraga
9:00 Celeste Davis
9:10 Sasha Faynor
9:20 Michael Goldstrom
9:30 Pat Branch
9:40 Willis Turner
9:50 Courtney Ca

Venue #5
Host: Corey Blake
The Chicken Room
Spring Arts Tower
211 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,000-sq.ft SRO
8:25 Host Warm-Up
8:30 Jason Dudey
8:40 Josh Rencher
8:50 Jackie Fabulous
9:00 Roz Browne
9:10 Bruno Lucia
9:20 Tim Powers
9:30 Julia Louiza
9:40 Joe Bartnick
9:50 Larry Vazeos

Venue #6
Host: Gabrielle Pantera
The Pump Room
Alexandria Building
214 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,000 sq. ft. SRO
8pm-10pm
Gosh! TV Talk Show
Three-minute interviews with the comedians and hosts in a talk show format.

Supporters: Digital Express Printing, The Onion, Hollywood Today, British Weekly, StubDog, Thrillist, Couch Surfers, The New LATC, Rooftop Comedy, ScreenPlayLab. For the City of Los Angeles: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, District 9 Councilwoman Jan Perry. For the Cultural Affairs Department: Executive Director Olga Garay, Assistant General Manager Saul Romo.

Executive Producer Robin Rowe, Casting Director Gabrielle Pantera, Associate Producer Hillary Layman, Associate Producer Brian Fredericks. A production of MovieEditor.com

###

Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council- DLANC &
Historic Downtown LA Business Improvement District- HDLA BID

Sponsors Re-imagining Downtown
Creating a Master Plan for the Civic Center and its
Neighbors.

Tuesday July 8th 6:45 pm Historic Los Angeles Theatre Lobby
615 S. Broadway - parking at Pershing Square or Red Line Subway Stop One Block away at 5th and Hill
Refreshments provided

Presentations:
• The Grand & Civic Center Grand Avenue Park- Bill Witte of The
Related Group will give an update on these two projects.
A joint powers project including the Community Redevelopment
Agency/City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles and The
Related Group. This $3 billion project will include Frank Gehry
designed buildings which include 2600 housing units of condominiums,
apartments, affordable housing, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, a grocery
store, bookstore, fitness club, restaurants and entertainment venues
and numerous retail outlets. 3.6 million square feet of development

• The Civic Center 16 acre park- Bill Witte- The Related Group
LA's new version of Central Park will be a $100 million plus project
will be a grand commons connecting The Music Center Plaza to the
steps of City Hall for city-wide celebrations and international
events.

• Park 101- EDAW Design Group-
An International design forum with 24 participants has created a
master plan that caps the 101 Hollywood Freeway from Alameda to
Grand Avenue, from Temple to Cesar Chavez. This proposed project
would unite Chinatown, El Pueblo, Union Station, the Civic Center,
Bunker Hill and the Arts District with 100 acres of green space and
development opportunities.

• LA Police Department Headquarters-
This 2 acre site is opposite the LA Times Building from First to
Second Street along Spring and from Main to Spring Street along 2nd
Street opposite Higgins Building all activated by a restaurant,
auditorium and plaza fronting First Street.

• Vista Hermosa- Park at Belmont Learning Center
This $14 million open space consists of 10 acres adjacent to the
Edward R. Roybald Learning Center (Belmont Learning Center) in the
City West neighborhood at 1st and Beaudry. The complex will serve
2,800 students and cost $350 million. Walking and hiking trails,
water features, a playground, soccer field shared by LAUSD and the
Dept. of Recreation & Parks are part of the complex. The Mountains
Recreation and Conservation Authority have operational authority.

A proposed plan on how the 101 Freeway AKA - the Hollywood Freeway - between Alameda and Grand Avenue - can be capped with a park - and other civic amenities - will shown to the public at 5PM today - Friday 27th June - at the Cal Trans Plaza on Main Street between 1st and 2nd Streets.

Twenty-four interns from around the world came to Los Angeles to design a plan that will also include suggestions on how the adjacent neighborhoods of Downtown - the Civic Center, Bunker Hill & the Historic Core - and China Town, the Plaza & Union Station separated by the below grade 101 Freeway slot can be reconnected and revitalized.

And they did this all in two weeks.

Among the speakers will be City of Los Angeles Planning Director Gail Goldberg and Department of Transportation (Cal Trans) District Director Douglas R. Failing.

But the highlight will be a 45 minute presentation of the plan by the interns them self. Much more on this after the event along some ideas on what the Downtown community needs to do next. Because in the city with countless shelves filled with endless forgotten reports - unless we get organized to make this vision a reality - two weeks from now, the dust will already be settling on this plan.

Here are the opening graphs from Peter Villes L.A. LAND blog on the LAT website:

Zell to entertain offers for Tribune Tower, L.A. Times building

Sam Zell, the real estate mogul who runs the Tribune Company, put out this stunner this morning: he's willing entertain offers for the company's prize real estate holdings, which include the Tribune Tower in Chicago and the Times Mirror Square complex here in Los Angeles, which many know as the Los Angeles Times building.

This from an e-mail Sam sent to me personally, as well as every other Tribune employee: "... we are in the process of asking a number of real estate firms to give us their best thinking on how we can generate more value from Tribune Tower in Chicago, and the Times Mirror Square complex in Los Angeles."

More: "We’ll be considering numerous options to maximize the value of these properties. While a near-term transaction is possible, we’ll be focusing on opportunities that allow for some level of ongoing occupancy in both buildings for the mid-term (defined as five years), for farther out (15 years), and beyond.

A RFP will go out to potential buyers today. And while the Times not being in the Times building was once unthinkable, with the quality of local coverage of Los Angeles in the print section having recently deteriorated so dramatically - even while the rest of the paper and the website have continued to improve - the print version of the Times has already ceased to be a credible local institution.

Once again, Evelyn Larrubia manages to break the increasing trend towards factually challenged propaganda pieces masquerading as news article within the LA Times Metro section. Her cause is also helped when she has an editor who writes brilliant headlines that actually tell you what the story is about as opposed to headlines that either contradict the story - or are so biased as to be fictional.

Below is the opening of her story; as you will see, the headline, the sub-headline and the story all allow both sides to make their best points - and then allows the reader to make an intelligent, informed decision on who is right.

(And, btw - the LAUSD is ignoring the wishes of the voters with their present actions and - as usual - refuses to allow any true public debate on this very complicated issue in which both sides have valid points)

L.A. Unified will have more seats, but fewer students to fill them

Despite falling enrollment, the district will keep building schools as a way to eliminate year-round calendars, forced busing and portable classrooms. Critics say it's overbuilding.

By Evelyn Larrubia, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2008

San Fernando Middle School is expecting 1,600 students this fall, but officials estimate that the north Valley campus could handle 2,300. Lake Primary Center in Echo Park is expecting 160 but has room for 260. And Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights is anticipating about 2,700 students; it has space for about 3,000.

What do Los Angeles Unified School District officials plan to do with the empty space? Add to it.

The district plans to build campuses that will take hundreds of students from those schools, further reducing their enrollment. By the time the building program is completed in 2012, there will be tens of thousands of empty seats at dozens of once-crowded schools, a Times analysis shows.

The district will use boundary changes, smaller class sizes and other methods to even out enrollment and reduce the surplus. A decade ago, the nation's second-largest school system was bursting at the seams, with campuses so crowded that students sometimes had no desks. And the number of students was predicted to keep growing. The dire situation persuaded local voters to approve four bonds, which launched a $20-billion building and modernization program.

But now, with 180 new schools and additions completed and 79 more on the drawing board, things have changed dramatically.

Economic and demographic changes have resolved some of the space crunch that the construction program was created to fix.

Over the last decade, fewer people moved to Southern California, large numbers of school-aged children grew up, and the birth rate among Latinos declined. Some students left traditional public schools to enroll in publicly financed charters, experts and officials said. Rising housing prices changed the face of some neighborhoods in the urban core, bringing singles and childless couples into what were once communities of large, poor immigrant families.

As a result, L.A. Unified has lost 57,000 students, nearly 8% of its total enrollment.

"When we wrote the ballot arguments against the last bond, we said they should wait. There were still billions of dollars in the pipeline, and their own figures showed declining enrollment," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. "We were speculating that these schools were eventually going to be housing the homeless because we're running out of students."

With the district paying $600 a square foot for construction costs, the extra schools add up to real money.

Facing a budget shortfall, the school board last year scrapped 19 projects and reduced the size of others, citing demographic changes, but officials said every remaining school is necessary.

L.A. Unified plans to add space for roughly 70,000 students at currently mandated class sizes by 2012. But its own projections show that would produce space for 25,000 more students than needed to take schools off year-round schedules and eliminate forced busing, the goals of the school building program.

The district is continuing with plans to build some schools in areas of dwindling population and others that are too large, in some cases because the projects are too far along. Also, the district, running up against state deadlines for matching funds, is primed to avoid delays.

"If we're locked and loaded, let's go," said Edwin Van Ginkel, a high-ranking consultant for the district's building program. "You don't save a whole lot of money in redesign. You're just taking a few classrooms out."

In addition, officials said, the extra space will allow the district to stop crowding playgrounds with portable classroom trailers, leave a large majority of classrooms empty for one period to allow teachers to plan there and, potentially, shrink class sizes at all schools. The extra space will also allow the district to take advantage of a seven-year state grant to make classes at select campuses smaller still. These measures were not envisioned when voters were asked to approve the bonds.

Rena Perez, the district's head demographer, said an increase in births in the region is expected to cause enrollment to begin rising in six years.

"If we build to our absolute need, then we wouldn't have any margin if and when our enrollment starts to grow again," she said.

The rest of the story is at the above link....

After an intensive first week of work, the 24 interns developing a master plan to the cap the 101 Freeway Downtown between the Civic Center and the Plaza (see prior post for details), presented six different visions to the Review Committee on Friday. We were shown substantially proposals on how – and where - the freeway might be capped - and we were also given sweeping visions of how the adjacent neighborhoods might be redeveloped and connected with each other.

These 24 interns from all over the country – and all over the world - have worked at the Cal Trans Building under EDAW’s leadership and in less than one week from their arrival in LA, they have produced an amazing array of choices from which the panel could comment upon.

The single most striking point of the session, though, was not the high quality of each of the presentations, but the fact that by using the most salient points from each of the proposals, one unified vision could be constructed.

In fact, not only could large parts of each of these six proposals be used in combination – but it is absolutely essential that any plan – or plans – contain the key elements from each of these proposals. But they now have just one week before they present their final vision – or visions – to the Review Committee – and the public at large at 5 PM – at the Cal Trans Plaza at 1st and Main Streets.

So while I have a lot to say about what I saw, I will defer any comment until after the public unveiling. But I will state this now.

Monday morning needs to be the start of a permanent committee to begin a far broader public process for this project. With the high quality of work already produced, getting the public excited about their vision should prove easy. Keeping our civic leaders engaged for the long process though, will – as usual, be the far harder task.

The only words I can add to the below editorial is that while 100 acres are technically possible for the proposed park - and while a far larger area than that should be benefited by this project, the actual park will likely be smaller.

Where's our Central Park?
Putting a 'lid' over the 101 Freeway could give L.A. the gathering place it needs.
By Vaughan Davies

June 20, 2008

Great cities have great urban parks. Central Park in New York, Millennium Park in Chicago, Washington's Mall. They are magnets for the key ingredients that make a successful city center: housing and hotels, shops and cafes, museums and concert halls, public festivals and recreation from active sports to leisurely strolling. They provide breathing room amid the civic bustle; they open up the densest cityscapes; they signify the heart of the heart of their hometowns.

Unfortunately, Los Angeles -- a great city by most definitions -- has no important downtown park. Griffith Park meets many needs, but it's not in the center of the city. The Cornfield, north of Chinatown, is also removed from the action (and mostly not off the drawing board). The public space that links downtown's civic center buildings may get a polish as part of the Grand Avenue project, but it's tucked away, hemmed in by government buildings. None of these alone is the great, open-air city gathering place that L.A. needs.

It is time for something bold and visionary.

More than 100 acres of potential downtown urban parkland are hiding in plain sight. The site -- which is passed by tens of thousands of people every day -- is close to all the new transit lines that converge on downtown. Building a park there would not require hundreds of Angelenos to be relocated or dozens of buildings to be demolished. And the money to pay for it is available now from a variety of sources, both public and private.

Where is this potential park? On top of the "Big Trench" -- that unsightly two-thirds of a mile of the 101 Freeway, just east of the 110 interchange between Grand Avenue and Alameda Street -- that brutally slices through the historic heart of Los Angeles. The Big Trench separates some of our most prized and appealing landmarks -- Olvera Street, Chinatown and Union Station on one side; Disney Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and City Hall on the other -- creating isolated pockets of activity rather than what we need: a livable, walkable and unified downtown district.

All we have to do is put a "lid" over the Big Trench and its exit ramps and acquire nearby parking lots and underutilized land next to the freeway, turning an urban eyesore into a 100-acre urban park and knitting the core of downtown together again.

If we build it, the Grand Avenue arts corridor would end at a magnificent park, not a freeway no man's land. Angelenos could walk from Union Station through a park to their jobs at Civic Center or to weekend events on Bunker Hill, not trudge across intimidating bridges above the roar of freeway traffic.

Students at the $200-million performing arts high school, which is nearing completion -- without playing fields -- next to the freeway at Grand Avenue would have outdoor recreation space at their doorstep. Chinatown would gain a great "front door," and the long-proposed Latino Cultural Center could become one of the park's great destinations. Surrounding property values would get a boost.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who frequently speaks about the need for more urban parks, gets a Central Park footsteps from City Hall.

Can it be done? Decking over the Big Trench and constructing a park on the "lid" is a relatively straightforward engineering enterprise. Other cities have built parks on top of freeways. In Manhattan, the 15-acre Carl Schultz Park and Gracie Mansion (the mayor's official residence) have been sitting atop the East River Drive expressway for 50 years. Seattle opened its 5-acre Freeway Park atop Interstate 5 in 1976. A similar scheme is being discussed in Hollywood, also over the 101 Freeway.

Funding for such public projects is always a challenge, but money sources are available. Because the freeway could be streamlined and improved as part of the project, state infrastructure funding, provided by Propositions 1A and 1B, could be tapped. Property owners who would benefit from a new park could contribute to a fund for this open space as part of new development agreements. Fees for environmental "mitigation" programs at the Port of Los Angeles and similar initiatives could be put to use. And finally, the patchwork of funds available to Caltrans and other agencies for landscaping, sidewalks and the like could be marshaled to support a major new park.

The first major step in creating the Big Trench park is happening now. Twenty-five urban design students from across the country are in town for a two-week workshop, a design "charrette" whose aim is to analyze the Big Trench site, identify challenges to covering it and making a park, suggest ways to overcome those challenges and present a design approach. The best of their work will be unveiled at 5 p.m. at the Caltrans building's plaza, across 1st Street from City Hall, on June 27, with the cooperation of Caltrans, the Los Angeles Planning Department, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Community Redevelopment Agency, the Southern California Assn. of Governments, City Council members and the mayor's office.

Imagine what today's New York would be like without Central Park. Now envision what downtown L.A. could become if we convert the Big Trench dead zone into our own downtown park reflecting the city's great and boundless aspirations. Better yet, come to the Caltrans headquarters next Friday and see how what you imagine might actually take shape.

Vaughan Davies is a principal and director of urban design at the Los Angeles office of EDAW, an urban planning and design firm. EDAW organized the Big Trench charrette.

I try to never read any stores in the LA Times Metro section since they have become so factually challenged - why bother? But when glancing a the website, I saw the headline about the Main Street off-ramp of the 5 Freeway which is in Lincoln Heights suddenly being moved into East Los Angeles.

Man, said to be tagging overpass, injured on 5 Freeway in East Los Angeles

Witnesses say man who fell from an overpass near Main Street off-ramp had a can of spray paint in his hands.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
2:36 PM PDT, June 22, 2008

A man was apparently spray painting graffiti on an overpass when he fell Saturday night onto the 5 Freeway in East Los Angeles, authorities said.

Several motorists told authorities that the man had possibly broken his back at about 9:45 p.m. and had a can of spray paint clutched in his hands as he lay on the freeway near the Main Street off-ramp, said California Highway Patrol spokesman David Porter.

Granted some people call everything east of Downtown, East Los Angeles - but anyone who writes for what used to be the paper of record of this city should be able to know the difference between Lincoln Heights and the real East Los Angeles - which is unincorporated county territory many miles south and east of Lincoln Heights.

Yesterday, 24 interns from around the world gathered at the Cal Trans Building on Main Street to begin a two week study of how a section of the Hollywood Freeway that runs through Downtown Los Angeles can be capped with a park. The study will also examine how the communities on each side of the freeway can be connected with each other and made more pedestrian accessible.

This project is sponsored by EDAW which is also doing the official study of he Hollywood Freeway Cap Park in the heart of Hollywood.

The day started with welcoming speeches by Doug Failing of Cal Trans, the principals of EDAW - whose names I did not catch, EDAW project coordinators Mike Williams & Gaurav Srivastava, Planning Director Gail Goldberg, Jessica Wethington McClean who represented Councilman Jose Huizar and moi.

Afterwards, I gave a tour of the project area between First Street and the Plaza/Union Station area on Alameda all the way up to the Music Center and the Performing Arts High School on Grand Avenue and pretty much everything in between. We managed this all in under four hours.

My impression of the project after this first day is that EDAW has assembled a talented team of in-house staff members and local civic leaders to assist the interns in developing a much needed vision for both our Civic Center and our historic center. If anything, I think connecting these two sides of the freeway will be the easy part; the far bigger challenge will be to find a way to make the neighborhoods on each side of the freeway places one would want to connect with.

Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, who runs elections statewide. Below is her most recent FACEBOOK update:

Debra Bowen

Debra Bowen is in Monday-before-an-election mode, with press inquiries and the odd problem here and there - including not receiving my VBM ballot!

14 minutes ago

In her defense, her office is not in charge of those ballots. That is the responsibility of the individual counties.

Unlike the provincial reaction in the Los Angles Times, the New York Times embraces Sonny's exciting plans for South Park in Downtown Los Angeles.

May 21, 2008
A Developer’s Unusual Plan for Bright Lights, Inspired by a Dark Film
By REBECCA CATHCART
LOS ANGELES — The year is 2019. The illuminated windows of the city’s densely packed towers sparkle like stars in the night, and their facades are covered with bright, animated billboards. A flying car glides past the enormous eye of a smiling geisha hundreds of stories above the wet urban streets.

That is the world of “Blade Runner,” Ridley Scott’s 1982 film set in a futuristic dystopia. It is also an obsession of a real estate developer, Sonny Astani, who hopes to evoke those atmospherics by affixing rows of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to the facades of his two newest condominium towers in downtown Los Angeles.

“That movie really hit a chord with me,” Mr. Astani, 55, said with a broad smile. “It was beautiful.”

On a recent afternoon in his Beverly Hills office, he held up digital renderings of the two buildings, the geisha’s face from “Blade Runner” superimposed on their facades.

“I saw ‘Blade Runner’ at a time when L.A. was feeling like that,” he said. “I was feeling like that.”

In 1982 Mr. Astani was a struggling real estate broker here. He had come to Los Angeles from Tehran six years earlier to study engineering at the University of Southern California, with plans to return home after graduation. The Iranian revolution changed that. He never went back.

The dark mood of “Blade Runner” matched his own melancholy at the time, Mr. Astani said, and he was gripped by the notion of looming skyscrapers covered with moving images and graphics, and the layering of old and new structures. Today Mr. Astani is a successful businessman, with two million square feet of downtown real estate built or in development, including six tall residential buildings. His projects are part of a wave of development in the area that began around 2001 and gained momentum in 2003, when Los Angeles expanded adaptive reuse policies similar to those of New York.

“Everyone wants downtown to happen,” he said. “This could create some excitement and conversation,” he said of his “Blade Runner”-inspired facades.

His 30-story residential towers, scheduled to be completed in 2009, sit at the north end of an evolving entertainment district anchored by the Stapes Center and L.A. Live, a sports and entertainment complex sometimes described as Times Square West.

The area already has plenty of loud billboards and klieg lights that have drawn complaints from some neighborhood groups, so the city is concerned about anything billboardesque. Mr. Astani’s application to build the LED panels is undergoing an environmental review by city planning officials.

He has taken pains to distinguish his project from typical LED billboards with bright, fast-paced graphics. His panels would shine with one-sixth the intensity of ordinary models; adjust their brightness at different times of the day; and project slower-moving images, according to the ordinance application. They would cover about 10 stories on just one side of each building.

The panels would appear solid from a distance, although they consist of horizontal blades spaced six inches apart, like large blinds. Only a half-inch thick and three inches wide, each one carries a single row of diodes.

The blades were designed by Frederic Opsomer, who is also known for creating spectacular video, light and stage designs for pop-music acts. The only other building clad in similar LED blades is the T-Mobile headquarters in Bonn, Mr. Astani said. The screens would feature mostly paid advertisements but would include work by local artists and ads for nonprofit groups 20 percent of the time. The technology and content have sowed some confusion among the city officials weighing Mr. Astani’s application.

“The issue of it potentially being viewed as art has complicated it,” said Patricia Diefenderfer, of the Los Angeles Planning Department.

“We’re treating it like a sign,” she said. “Signs are a stimulus. They clutter our environment and can assault us, in a sense. This is something very large. What is the impact? What does that mean?”

Yet Eric Lynxwiler, a downtown resident and author who leads nighttime tours of the city’s neon signs for the Museum of Neon Art, favors the project.

“I think he scared far too many people when he compared it to ‘Blade Runner,’ ” Mr. Lynxwiler said of Mr. Astani. “But I remember L.A. as it was — dark, more like ‘Blade Runner’ before the development,” he said, describing streets that were mostly empty after 6 p.m. “I think downtown definitely has the vibe to support something that large, that new and that bold and daring.”

Syd Mead, a visual-effects artist who worked on “Blade Runner,” said that the city’s once-haunted look is what inspired Mr. Scott to film there. The director was also taken with the eclectic downtown mix of newer structures and historic buildings, he said.

That the movie could inspire innovation is not a surprise, Mr. Mead said, adding, “I’ve called science fiction ‘reality ahead of schedule.’ ”

At a time when too many reporters spend five minutes talking with the usual suspects prior to re-beating the same old dead horses when writing about the housing market, Michael Hiltzik took the time to actually research the generally accepted fact that scores of people who could afford to make the mortgage payments on their own homes, were now walking away from their obligations once they realized their home was worth less than they had paid for it - and even less than they owed on it.

And while everyone he talked with knew about this supposed phenonmenon, not one person could offer any evidence that such a thing was at all happening, much less that it was wide spread. Below, is the opening of the article:

In mortgage market, ‘walkaway’ homeowners may be urban myth
Bankers and housing analysts say many homeowners, owing more than their homes are worth, are defaulting on their loans even when they can afford payments. But no hard numbers back up their claims.
By Michael A. Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

10:42 AM PDT, May 10, 2008

Bankers and housing market analysts are warning of a chilling new trend in the mortgage world: Homeowners voluntarily defaulting on their loans even though they can actually afford to make the payments.

It's known colloquially as "walking away," or more jocularly as "jingle mail," from the sound your house keys supposedly make when you mail them back to your bank.

It's a way of saying that Americans are beginning to apply a cold financial calculation to home ownership: When a home's value has fallen below what is owed on its mortgage, they feel it makes no sense to keep up the payments.

"That is going on, clearly, and there's lots of evidence of that in the market," Don Truslow, senior executive vice president of Wachovia Bank, said in a conference call with investors last month. A few weeks earlier, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson had waggled a stern finger at homeowners contemplating walking away from affordable mortgages: Do that, and you're no better than a "speculator," he said.

Elsewhere, media reports and Internet postings are rife with stories about the trend and a supposed sea change in American attitudes toward debt. But there's a major problem with all this talk about the phenomenon of solvent homeowners "walking away": There doesn't appear to be any hard evidence that it's actually happening.

When pressed for the number of borrowers who could afford their mortgage payments, major banks and lender groups could not produce numbers figures.

Nor could the Mortgage Bankers Assn., the leading trade group for housing lenders. Spokesman John Mechem said he believed that walkaways by homeowners who could afford their payments were "becoming more prevalent." But he said that was based on "anecdotes we're hearing from our members and what we're reading in the newspapers."

Wachovia's Truslow acknowledged during the bank's conference call April 14 that walkaways were "hard to quantify." A bank spokesman said this week that "we have heard anecdotally that people are walking away" but that Wachovia had no hard numbers.

Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, whose company is acquiring mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., complained about "a change in social attitudes toward default" in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in December.

In response to questions from The Times, Bank of America spokesman Terry Francisco said the bank had seen indications that some homeowners were taking pains to keep their credit card accounts current at the expense of their mortgage balances, often by raiding their home equity lines to pay their cards, a reversal of traditional customary customer priorities.

But he said the bank did not have "firm figures" on how many homeowners were unnecessarily defaulting on their mortgages.

"We are working hard with our analytics to get at how much that is happening," Francisco said. Others suggest that it may be impossible to find out.

"How would you know what someone's true ability to pay would be?" asked Todd Sinai, an associate professor of real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "I'm not sure you could even come up with a definition."

At Fannie Mae, the government-chartered company that owns or guarantees billions of dollars in home mortgages, Senior Vice President Marianne Sullivan conceded that there was growing "folklore" about residential walkaways but said that the phenomenon was more likely connected to investors than people who live in their homes, or "owner-occupants."

"The vast majority of borrowers we find have been acting in good faith," she said. "If they get behind, they are interested in working with their lender."

Bruce Marks, CEO of Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a Boston-based nonprofit agency that helps strapped homeowners, says flat out that the notion that legions of borrowers are simply deciding not to pay is an "urban myth" that largely reflects the mortgage industry's desire to blame homeowners, rather than their lenders, for the surge in problem loans.

Marks and others assert that mortgage bankers have an incentive to blame the rise in delinquencies and foreclosures on borrowers skipping out on obligations they're financially able to meet, because that diverts attention from the lenders' own role in the mortgage crisis.

Much more at the above link.

That's the word on the street today. The mixed use project at 4th and Main that was postponed for one year according to an announcement last week - is now supposedly going to resume construction after progress was made on construction costs and retail leasing.

UPDATE -- Just talked with Tom Gilmore at Pete's - and the builder called him Friday and told him the project is going ahead immediately. Also heard from another source that the bank wasn't too crazy about extending the construction loan which also played a role in the project's resumption. Have also heard from another developer that his bank also still feels good about funding new rental projects downtown.

COMEDY WALK is the biggest monthly comedy event in Los Angeles and happens during the Gallery Row Art Walk. Now in its fifth month running, Thursday, May 8th, 2008. A Los Angeles Times "Best Bet". PLEASE PASS THE WORD ALONG!

HOW MUCH: FREE TICKETS at www.comedywalk.com.

WHEN: Thursday, May 8th, 2008, 8:30pm to 10pm, 2nd Thursday each month.

WHAT: COMEDY WALK is the biggest comedy walk event in the world, a family-friendly show.

WHO: Each month COMEDY WALK presents 25 of the hottest upbeat comedy acts in Los Angeles selected from comedy clubs, television and radio.

WHERE: The New Los Angeles Theatre Complex, 504 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, and 5 other nearby downtown locations including the ballroom of the ALexandria Hotel and three storefronts along 5th Street just west of Spring in the Spring Arts Tower. All venues within 1/2 block of each other!

Six simultaneous 90-minute shows. Neighborhood parking $6 or free on the street.

WHY: See your favorite hottest comedians all in one night. Join thousands of people crowding the streets of L.A. the second Thursday of each month.

Featured performers this month are Stevie Mack, Gayla Johnson and Laurie McDermott. Stevie Mack has performed at Last Comic Standing, BET, Comedy Central, UPN, and SpikeTV. Gayla Johnson has performed at The HaHa, Comedy Store, the Improv, Ice House, B.E.T, Comedy Central, and SiTV. Laurie McDermott has performed at HBO Comic Relief and Lifetime TV Mom Comics.

COMEDY WALK PERFORMERS - FULL LIST

1. Abel Arias - a regular on "The Cathy Lewis Show" www.abelarias.com
2. Philip Bach - The HaHa. www.jointhecrew.org
3. Jackie "Fabulous" Champagnie - Downtown Comedy Club, Laugh Factory, Ice House www.myspace.com/jackiechampagnie
4. Jamal Doman - BET, ComicView, SiTV, Latino Laugh Festival, The Magic Hour, Showtime, At the Apollo. www.jamaldoman.com
5. Dan Dominguez - Verizon Network www.funconsuming.com
6. Jason Dudey - Hosts GaysRUs at the Hollywood Improv. www.jasondudey.com
7. Christy Eidson - Southern fried humor. www.christyeidson.com
8. Shereen Faltas - Ice House, the Improv, Comedy Store. www.shereenfaltas.com
9. Nick Hoff - Comedy Uniion, Hollywood Improv, Ice House Annex. www.myspace.com/nicholasmckain
10. Jeffrey Isaak - The HaHa, Comedy Store, the Improv. www.myspace.com/comedyfreek
11. Gayla Johnson - The HaHa, Comedy Store, the Improv, Ice House, B.E.T, Comedy Central, SiTV. www.GaylaJohnson.net
12. Andy Konigsmark - Ice House Annex. www.andykonigsmark.com
13. Stevie Mack - Last Comic Standing, BET, Comedy Central, UPN, SpikeTV. www.steviemack.com
14. Madd Marv - Funny guy
15. Laurie McDermott - HBO Comic Relief and Lifetime TV Mom Comics. www.lauriemcdermott.com
16. Dave Mishevitz - Comedy Store. www.myspace.com/daveiscomedy
17. Tim Powers - has shared the stage with Sean Young and Chris Rock www.timisfunny.com
18. Alishia Simmons - from Newark, earthy comedy.
19. Ron Swallow - www.myspace.com/ronswallow
20. Mike Truesdale - Hollywood Improv, the HaHa Cafe. www.myspace.com/mikeiscoolerthanyourmom
21. Willis Turner - www.myspace.com/willisturner1
22. Scott Vinci - guitar comedy. Will Ferrell's www.funnyordie.com.
23. Tara Walden - Rocky's, Ice House Annex www.myspace.com/tarawalden
24. Joe Wilson - www.JoeWilsonComedy.com
25. Bill Word - National Lampoon Comedy Radio. www.killerkomedy.com

COMEDY WALK promotes comedy, downtown, and diversity.

My article this week in CityWatch on the CRA and the LA River:

Last week in CityWatch I exposed how the CRA, no longer satisfied with stopping the regreening of LA River Downtown with its neo-Stalinesque industrial policies, is now planning to aggressively line the river within the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s boundaries with block after block of wall-to-wall new factories.

At a time when leaders in other major cities are removing the artificial barriers placed between their rivers and the hearts of their cities to create great civic places, our city’s leaders are insisting on erecting – in the heart of our city – a contemporary version of the Berlin Wall that will permanently seal off the Los Angeles River from the people of Los Angeles.

Welcome to Downtown Los Angeles – the most anti-green city center in the world.

The CRA’s increasingly bizarre anachronistic policies will also destroy - forever - our city’s ability to use property tax increment funds to someday regreen the river in Downtown. Their plan will also make it impossible to ever build desperately needed parks, develop equally needed housing where trains now run and underground the ugly high tension electric lines along the river, (and, for the slow witted at City Hall, here is a sarcasm warning) which is just an extra added bonus to them.

Plus, as if all of this was not enough, the CRA also wants to use our tax money to pay the developers to do all of this.

And, no, you are not accidentally reading ‘The Onion” – or ‘Mad Magazine’; this really is CityWatch and this actually is the deadly bullet the CRA wants to fire into the heart of our city.

Of the almost 300,000 acres in this city to choose from – this narrow strip of land – located directly next to the most per capita park deprived part of the city - is the spot where the CRA has decided not to save existing manufacturing facilities – since almost none exist along the banks of the river – but to build entirely new heavy industry facilities where any civilized city would build public amenities and 24/7 communities.

In contrast to Downtown, though, every other community along the LA River is being gifted with parks, housing and community-building projects which makes us wonder why Downtown alone has been selected for this chilling Industrial Anschluss.

But, in fairness, this is not entirely a policy that was initiated by the present CRA leadership – or by this current administration.

The first proposal to try and reindustrialize the Los Angeles River corridor – and other former manufacturing areas of Downtown – began during the James Hahn administration. It was then picked up by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City of Los Angeles Planning Department under Gail Goldberg and the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency under Cecilia Estolano.

From day one, however, we were promised that this would not be a blanket policy, but that the stakeholders of Downtown would be consulted with and that we would be made a part of the process of how this policy would be implemented.

But ever since this industrial zoning program (a policy implemented solely by fiat by non-elected officials with no approval of the city council) was first announced, we have been lied to – time and time again – and there is no other more polite word to describe how we have been treated – about our having a voice in this process.

We have also been given fraudulent statistics that were deliberately manipulated to deceive us and after four years, both the local neighborhood councils and all other major stakeholders’ groups are still excluded from every aspect of the planning process.

Then, in the middle of that lack of process, came the LA River scoping meetings. And almost every community in Central Los Angeles adjoining the river – including South Los Angeles which is many miles from the LA River – had public meetings. But despite our constant objections, to our amazement, the River Committee refused to hold even a single public meeting within downtown until we embarrassed them into giving us even a single token meeting.

And that turned out to be for naught.

Because even though many of us attended a half-dozen of these public meetings in the Central Area to give our input – every single suggestion or request made by those of us Downtown regarding the river within Downtown LA Neighborhood Council’s boundaries was 100% ignored.

No wonder they never wanted to meet with us.

And, again, as I have said before, when I asked why Downtown was denied even a single park or community serving amenity, I was told by two separate staff members, that due to the unofficial, never passed by the city council industrial policy – they were instructed not to allow a single park, a single housing unit or anything resembling a community building amenity anywhere on the river within DLANC’s boundaries.

Except for a few street trees.

And, oh yes – if there were any palm trees discovered in the area – they would have to be removed and destroyed since palm trees were not considered sufficiently politically correct to be allowed in our neighborhood

Again, behind closed doors, every decision regarding our community, every detail of our future down to what trees we would be allowed to have in our neighborhood, had already been made long before the first 'public' meetings were held.

Entrenched special interests within City Hall had already determined – that no matter what our community wanted – all we deserved along our river was factory buildings. No parks or anything serving the various communities that actually live in the area would ever be allowed since the goal was to have the area 'cleansed' of all residential uses.

Clearly, we Downtowners can no longer practice the politics of appeasement.

So, with all this past history of treachery and betrayal, and with the entire resources of the City of Los Angeles seemingly being marshaled against the citizens of Downtown - how could anyone possibly think the CRA could ever – even momentarily - throw off the self-imposed shackles of the special interest groups – and fly off to freedom?

Well, let’s just say that I believe in miracles.

Plus I also believe in omens.

And two weekends ago at the Coachella Music Festival such an omen appeared in the skies of California.

As Roger Waters crooned a version of Pink Floyd’s “Pigs” – his giant pig balloon filled with helium broke free of its moorings – and flew away. Yes, a giant pig broke free of its handlers and soared up into the sky.

Granted it crashed to earth in a heap a few hours later, but for a brief time a pig did fly.

So since we now know it’s possible for pigs to fly – at least in California - let’s now take that as our omen – our own special sign from the heavens – so to speak – and pray that our local Evil Empire might actually break loose from special interest groups and political consultants - and momentarily consider serving the public good.

Let’s imagine – even if for just a moment – what life in our city could be like if we were ruled by wise rulers; rulers who listened to and consulted with and worked with those they governed rather than ones who only periodically emerge from their Death Star with imperial edicts.

First, though, before our daydreams, a little practical background on the LA River Project.

There is obviously a growing consensus that the Los Angeles River needs to be re-greened for both ecological and flood planning reasons and, even more importantly - to create a better urban environment for the people of Los Angeles.

And the political will for that is rapidly growing.

But what is still lacking right now are any real world financial and structural means of achieving this overall vision. And in Downtown there is, of course, not even a hint of a plan, much less anything resembling a means of executing a plan that doesn’t even exist (other than the installing highly politically correct street trees, of course).

And this is where the CRA – or at least a CRA that might exist in a parallel universe to the one we unfortunately live in – could develop the necessary public/private partnerships to regreen the LA River.

This new CRA would become the lead agency in the most far-reaching – and historic - urban planning project since the days of Barron Haussmann and Robert Moses, but, this time, a project developed with the sensitivity of a Jane Jacobs and the palette of the Olmsteads.

And since each area of the river has very different challenges and very different constraints; ergo, each area also has its own very different possibilities and it will also need its very different solutions.

So while there have been countless imaginative and creative ideas such as envisioning massive dams with huge lakes behind them, inflatable rubber dams that store up the run-off water in temporary holding basins and large green parks that can act as spreading grounds for the water – all these plans have one thing in common.

Few – if any of them - are going to happen.

Or at least, nothing remotely like any of them is going to happen in more than a very few places along the river; places like the Glendale Narrows where a soft, green river bottom already exists or Sepulveda Basin where many acres of open space are already owned by a government agency.

But even then, there are still countless obstacles and no inherent existing way for any of these projects to be self-funded.

That then leaves us with the 95% of the rest of the river that is even harder to deal with than the 5% of the river that has at least physically feasible regreening options.

Just to ‘fix’ the river in its existing channel anywhere is going to take massive amounts of money – and even more so in Downtown. Plus in Downtown we are dealing with the rail lines and the high tension towers that will also require massive amounts of money to fix. Plus the huge social disruption required to greatly expand the river is still another reason why any plan that requires large parts of the city to be condemned for non-revenue producing land is doomed to failure.

Finally – as an additional dream killer - the engineers on the project have already informed us that due to the velocity of the flood waters in the heart of Downtown – and the narrowness and the lack of depth in the channel, it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove the concrete from the floor of the river – much less along the sides of the river - due to flood control considerations.

And they are right.

Therefore, the only possible permanent ‘solutions’ for Downtown proposed right now is to have a few narrow benches of green cut into the sides of the walls.

Unless, of course… we let our imaginations fly… and let them fly as high as that pig in Coachella soared above the desert floor for its few brief hours of freedom.

So, as someone in this city (whose name I seem to have momentarily forgotten) once said a few years ago while many of us sat before him on the lawn in front of City Hall…

… Come dream with me….

But first there is a catch…

The bitter truth that in Downtown, the LA River does not exist.

At least as a real… in any way connected to nature… river, it no longer exists.

What we have, instead, is a concrete-lined, open-air storm drain. Then, below that, the ‘real’ LA River runs through the aquifer underneath all the concrete.

There is nothing- at all - natural left about our existing 'river' through Downtown. Even much of the water in it is street and sidewalk run-off from well washed cars and overly energetic sprinklers; water that now goes straight from the Colorado River or the Owens Valley to the Pacific Ocean via the gutters of Los Angeles without ever even for one moment touching the soil of Los Angeles.

Everything about the Downtown section of the river is completely an artificial construct, literally and figuratively, as any suitably unreliable post-modernist can tell you.

There is very simply no there, there, if one accepts the standard misinterpretation of Gertrude Stein’s assessment of her hometown of Oakland.

Now several other parts of the current concrete lined river do periodically reconnect with the river’s natural roots through a dirt bottom and that allows that part of the river to temporarily rejoin the natural aquifer. But that is a physical impossibility anywhere in Downtown.

So, with that sad truth being the case – and since we cannot remove any of the concrete in any meaningful way as we might in other parts of the river – we need to find a way of to take this open air storm drain and create the maximum amount of green space. We need to create our own year around simulacrum of a real river filled with clean, moving water. And it also needs to have no danger from winter flooding – and it needs to have walking and biking paths along it and it needs to have residential communities lined with shops and restaurants along the banks of the River and its concurrent riverside park.

And then, even if we can somehow find a way to accomplish this miracle, we still need to find a way to pay for all this.

Fortunately, other cities have already shown us how to do this.

The first – and best - model is the city of San Antonio which has created the best case scenario of what the LA River – in not just the heart of Downtown, but all of Downtown – can become.

Along any part of the river such as Downtown, where the river cannot be meaningfully regreened within its existing banks without destroying its flood control ability, we need to instead focus on creating a smaller channel of water – 20 or 30 feet wide - at the edge of the river.

A river channel similar to what they have achieved in cities like San Antonio. That would then allow for the property adjacent to river bed to be redeveloped with both the park space and – also – with housing and mixed use spaces to help fund the project.

Just imagine being able to walk along this new river channel for miles - from the edge of Elysian Park to the city of Vernon - surrounded by LA’s version of the San Antonio Riverwalk. This would not only instantly become a major tourist attraction whose size could outdraw Disneyland (as the Grove already does now), but it could also bring in the desperately needed sales tax revenues of a dozen Groves.

And the water for this new channel would be pumped straight from the aquifer of the real LA River (which would later be returned to that aquifer), making this version of the river – if anything – far more authentic then the existing storm drain, concrete version of the river.

And in the middle of this new river is… Union Station – where every rail line in LA County ends up. So the now the existing redundant rail lines along the river both north and south of Union Station can be used to provide hard rail mass transit the entire length of the project – eventually taking tens of thousands of cars off the highway and making the entire project transit accessible to everyone in LA County.

But that is only phase one.

The second phase is even more exciting.

The reuse of all the rail lines and vast rail yards that still exist along the river.

But only way we can do this is to build housing and commercial uses on a platform OVER the tracks. But that is just the start.

We can also extend that platform over the existing flood control channel since we now have a new, more natural river channel for recreational uses.

This would then create a whole new set of uses for this reclaimed land/air space. That platform would cover the existing concrete flood control channel, making it easier to develop a new, much smaller river to run through a new channel built into the banks of the existing concrete channel. It would also allow the present concrete channel to remain a conduit for storm waters – which too often become contaminated by water from storm drains.

This platform over the river could then be 100% dedicated to parks and other recreational uses giving us multiple Central Parks in the heart of our city.

And with the water in the new channel being pumped straight from the aquifer, there is only one place that needs to be checked to ensure the quality of the water flowing through this new park. And thus only one place where the water would need to be filtered if that was necessary.

And the water flow into this channel can be controlled by pumps during the rainy season keeping the water at the same level so that it would never be in danger of overflowing. This bridging over the existing channel would also make it possible to slightly raise the sides of the storm drain section of the river – if necessary – to save Los Angeles from the disastrous eventual floods that will someday in the future now spill over the existing banks, devastating large parts of Los Angeles.

Plus this can be largely funded by the literally billions of dollars in development that can take place on these platforms that would both front a greened river, be within walking distance of the older parts of downtown and their amenities and would also be served by the now underground rail lines that now connect to Union Station.

Now, granted, the market does not yet exist to make all aspects of this plan financially feasible, but it is crucial that we preserve this option for the future.

But the best part of this plan is that one or both parts of it can be done – piecemeal – one block at a time without having to make any changes to any other parts of the river. It can be done with existing technology and it can be done without massive amounts of land condemnation.

Either building new river channel or the partial bridging of either the train tracks – or the storm drain part of the river – can be done in small – or large - pieces without having any impact on the hydrology or the water levels or the water safety of the rest of the storm drain section of the river.

And it can be done – today.

Now single biggest obstacle remaining to reclaiming the river and generating enough revenue to pay for it is the need to acquire – or in some way control - enough land adjacent to the river.

Luckily, the CRA – and only the CRA (unless an entirely new agency is formed which may have to be the long term solution) - with its ability to handle 30-year projects and its ability to tap future tax revenues to finance the project can acquire that much land under broad enough guidelines within the necessary time frame.

And with the tight budgets forecast for the next few years on the federal, state and local levels – there is simply not going to be sufficient revenue streams for the billions – yes – billions of dollars - it will take to both regreen the actual river bed and acquire park land alongside the river; not unless we can utilize the future tax revenue generated from both the regreening of the river and the concurrent redevelopment of the adjacent land.

Right now, most of the land along the river is still reasonably priced, particularly with the current market slump. But as the greening along the sides of the river starts and the real estate market returns, land values will eventually sky rocket making it impossible to acquire sufficient park land and also raise the revenue necessary to restore the river.

The paradox is that the more successful we are in greening what lies along the river today, the harder it will be to acquire the necessary land to actually regreen the river itself or acquire more park space tomorrow.

As for taking into consideration the uses the land is being used for (many of which are essential to the community in the short term, and some of which may – or may not – be compatible with future uses), the CRA should first buy whatever land is feasible to buy the land at today’s very temporarily depressed prices – as quickly as it becomes financially feasible.

And if any of the existing property owners – particularly the larger holdings such as large redevelopment sites and rail yards – wish to take part in his project, there would then be no need to even acquire their land. We would just need to find ways of incorporating whatever new development they will be proposing into the master plan, once that new plan is developed. And, luckily, most of the projects in the Arts District already perfectly fit into this new vision.

In the mean time, any of the land that is purchased should be immediately leased back to the previous owners or users – uses such as factories and rail lines and warehouses - for fixed periods of time (both short and long term) to avoid unnecessary social and economic disruptions.

This will create both a revenue stream for the CRA (allowing it to sell bonds against both that fixed lease revenue and future sales of some of that land PLUS the future tax revenues) and it will also allow for sufficient time for to relocate those uses, while allowing the public to acquire the land at the lowest possible cost. Options to eventually purchase are another tool that might be considered.

The key is that, unlike previous CRA projects, NOTHING will be demolished until it is about to be converted to its new use.

‘Just in time’ land use.

Now there will be some complications in that several parts of the river are already included within CRA projects. But even if those areas cannot be separated and combined into a new project – which I suspect may be the case – portions of the revenues from the affected parcels can be directed towards river-oriented projects.

But there is also a unique kicker in this equation, one that will create a far more than normal tax revenue increase.

One of the biggest – and most wasteful uses – of the immediate river area is the storage and maintenance of government vehicles – with the immense Piper Center being only one of many offenders.

Now the concept behind Piper is excellent – a one stop maintenance yard and utility spot for many of the more industrial government services. Unfortunately, it is also in a location that no longer works. It also has acres and acres of land between it and the edge of the river – perfect for conversion to the new river bed and park space.

The same type of conversion can be done with the huge DWP maintenance yard on Alameda, the many MTA bus and rail yards and the many, many other such now incompatible uses currently along or near the river such as the city’s current personnel building which would make a great loft conversion.

Ironically, all these last uses are also largely concentrated within walking distance of Union Station – the one place we need to concentrate housing and 24/7 uses to help amortize the billions spent in making Union Station the hub of ALL transit systems in Southern California.

The solution to these problems, while not be simple, is at least clear.

First, there needs to be a series of bond issues floated to acquire non-strategic land away from the river (and away from mass transit stations) so we can build new maintenance and storage yards for all seemingly endless levels of government agencies. Multi-agency consolidation of these uses might also allow for considerable savings.

Second, the existing sites then need to be sold to developers who will convert these tax exempt uses with few people currently using them into 24/7 housing and other uses that will create off hours demand for the transit system that terminates at Union Station – plus also create the tax revenues needed to fix the river.

As for specifics on what can be done with these properties, the massive concrete and brick Piper Center can be converted into Los Angeles’ version of San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square overlooking the LA River with dozens of uses being imaginatively carved out of its now bunker like bulk.

And the sleek architecture of the DWP yard on Alameda can easily be converted into mixed uses of retail and housing, with room for a couple of apartment towers to make it a mini-city within the city.

And platforms for housing can be built over the MTA transit yards, as has been one so successfully in New York, London and Paris – and as is being suggested in the Arts District today. And while the economics may not fully be place yet for that aspect of the project, again – the key is to develop today a master plan that will allow this to happen in the future.

But when it happens, it will create additional transit riders that will help amortize the costs of the transit system. And existing government uses can be converted to true public uses and create a much larger tax base from not just the land and the existing improvements being returned to the tax rolls, but also from the new improvements - a double and triple boost to the tax revenues to pay off the bonds.

Another inappropriate use in the area are the various jail facilities that encroach upon the river area. Luckily, though, it has been recently suggested that some of these facilities need to be replaced. So the planning needs to begin now, too, for that section of the river. And a large massive mixed use complex within walking distance of Union Station might produce enough revenue to help fund the replacement of the now outdated justice facilities.

Now besides all these reasons, there is yet another major reason for the CRA to redevelop the LA River corridor – and that is to preserve our critically threatened low and moderate income housing stock in urban Los Angeles.

The CRA redevelopment of the Los Angeles River area could create some affordable housing; but it cannot come close to replacing the tens of thousands of existing low and moderate-income housing units currently being lost yearly to redevelopment in many job rich urban Los Angeles neighborhoods. In fact, one recent study claimed that LA needs 50,000 units of new housing of all kinds, each year.

But there is no way enough new affordable housing units can be built -- even with massive, politically impossible subsidies --- to replace even a fraction of those units.

So if we can’t adequately replace them, and if we can’t legally confiscate (without compensation) a property owner’s right to remodel and improve his units if the demand is there, what can be done to keep what is left of our lower-priced rental housing?

Another simple answer.

Create massive amounts of new workforce, middle-income and upper-income housing along the LA River to slow the conversion of lower- income/workforce housing throughout urban Los Angeles into middle and upper income housing.

This way we can help solve the overall urban housing crisis by providing enough urban housing designed for higher income tenants and buyers in sufficient numbers to stop or at least slow the conversion of existing lower income housing. No other solution will be able to even begin to preserve our existing lower income housing stock unless someone brighter than I can figure out to repeal the laws of supply and demand.

And this is where the LA RIVER CRA redevelopment project can have a major impact on all of the central city.

Along one – and sometimes both – sides of the river, build relatively dense urban market rate housing of all types.

And these new neighborhoods would have the added attraction of the river and its attendant park. And with the river running from Vernon to Elysian Park, there is an almost endless amount of building sites.

So for much of this century, the LA River corridor can provide a release valve for the ever-increasing need for middle and upper middle class housing in urban Los Angeles, leading to the preservation of low and lower middle-income housing in other parts of the city; low income housing that can NOT be feasibly replaced once lost.

And by providing pre-entitled, infrastructure-provided, ready to develop land sold at reasonable (but never subsidized) prices, the CRA will allow developers to create as much competitively priced market rate housing as the market will bear. And the fact that the amount of land released can be increased as the need grows, it can provide a lid on rents and prices both along the corridor and in other others of the city.

And there is yet another social benefit.

The reduction of urban sprawl.

Here we have the ability to create rail service either at grade or under the new platforms that might hook up at one end with the Red Line at Universal City and in the middle with Union Station, along with walking and biking paths for low tech commuting.

And since we will be concentrating upon middle and upper middle-income inhabitants – the ones who are most resistant to mass transit, this will be an opportunity to get far more cars off of the roads and highways, as opposed to merely switching riders from buses to fixed rail with no net reduction in automobile traffic.

Now as for providing the also necessary subsidized housing component, land can be sold at a discount under one of two conditions. First, the developer agrees to provide a certain amount of lower cost units in exchange for the discount in the price of the land. Or, second, non-profit housing developers can buy a certain number of lots on which they can build projects with a mix of market rate and subsidized housing to subsidize the overall project making each project financially self-sustainable and thus allowing them to create even more projects.

Another reason for the acquisition of some of the land in the present time (even if it is then rented back long term to the users), is that it allows the city to control – without any current social disruption – large quantities of land for future needs of the city over the next fifty years. As one example – with both UCLA and USC coming close to being built out physically – and becoming too large socially – where can we place a third (or fourth) great university - private or public - in our city?

And in a city with no MIT with its Route 128 spin-offs and no equivalent of Yale or Harvard with their social science and business schools - and no equivalent of Stanford with its Silicon Valley prodigy – and in a city with a pressing need for additional class rooms - we need new universities that can compete with the finest elsewhere in the country. And it’s not just universities to educate our own – but universities that will also attract the finest talents into the heart of our city from around the world as universities are now major forces in economic development – and are needed to bring us the future filmmakers, bio-tech gurus, business leaders and technology innovators.

Another lack LA has suffered from is that we – alone among major American cities - have never had a world’s fair or exposition; something that San Francisco has had twice – and even San Diego has had once. And beside the short-term benefits of an exposition – largely paid for by corporations and foreign governments – even more important is the physical infrastructure that is left behind – a nucleus for say…. a new university - or new museum complexes.

And where else in LA can we build the housing and facilities for hosting the Olympics plus creating a present day world-class sports park for Angelinos? Or build future biotech research parks and skunk works for whatever new technologies are going to develop over the next thirty years, all of which can be developed behind the housing that will line the banks of the river.

It’s hard to say what the future needs of our city may be, but this land will give us an ongoing supply of new, centrally located land for the next few decades to meet them, along with a stretch of greenery right though the heart of LA country unlike any park anywhere in the world.

And it can be done in such a way that the project is largely self-financed.

But there is, of course, one major obstacle.

The CRA and its leadership.

For unless Cecilia Estolano and her other Rajas of Downtown – the CRA board members – are willing to climb down off of their elephants and at least acknowledge the existence of us natives – nothing in this city will ever change.

But after three years of top down, public-be-damned thoughts and actions – I think, or at least I hope – that maybe, just maybe… they are finally ready to talk with us and work with us and… possibly even… dream with us…..

And, with this hope in mind, in this Friday’s issue of CityWatch, I will examine how the CRA-owned Crown Coach site might become the very first place where all of our collective dreams can finally start to come true. (Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. Westwater is a regular contributor to CityWatch. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.com

While at the DLANC Parks Committee Meeting this dusk at Pershing Square, I saw swarms of migrating swifts (which were finally correctly identified as swifts after weeks of bats vs. swallows debates online last fall) high up in the sky as they fly north for the summer. But, tonight, at least, they do not seem to be coming down to roost at night in the Old Bank/Gallery Row/Historic Downtown neighborhoods.

Further updates as news warrants.

I have one, maybe two tickets for 8 PM Saturday May 3rd in Santa Monica.

Brady Westwater
213-804-8396

And it's not even in 90210 - or 90265.

It's a converted dog kennel that once housed 40 Pekineses in... Rhode Island.

My latest article over at CITYWATCH:

If one wants a reel (i.e., Hollywood) world equivalent of the real world danger to the LA River in Downtown, it would be a silent film starring Simon Legree (i.e., the appointed Community Redevelopment Agency leadership) tying the hopes and dreams of Downtown Los Angeles, for a LA River lined with parks and mixed uses, to the railroad tracks while a locomotive – packed with special interest groups - comes barreling towards us at ninety miles an hour.

To back up a bit, the City of Los Angeles is planning to spend at least a billion dollars (though no comprehensive business plan yet exists) to turn the LA River into a public amenity lined with parks and mixed uses – except in one area.

In the most per capita park poor part of the entire city – the part of Downtown represented by the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council - the approved plan will not allow us even a single park in our neighborhood; we will also not get even one unit of housing in the area with the single biggest jobs/housing imbalance nor will we get anything resembling the kinds of public amenities every other neighborhood in Los Angeles along the river will get.

And when I asked over a year ago why we were the only neighborhood not to be allowed any parks – I was told by two different staff members that it would conflict with the city's industrial policy since only industry was going to be allowed along the 'new' LA River in our neighborhood.

Now, no other city in this country – for that matter– no city on this planet (since Stalinist five year industrial plans have gone out of fashion even in Russia – if not in Los Angeles) would ever dream of lining a river in the most congested and populated part of the city with railroad tracks, high tension lines and wall to wall factories – forever.

Ironically, though – as I demonstrated in an earlier CityWatch article, while the city's industrial zoning policy will work in some parts of the city – this policy will actually destroy jobs and prevent jobs from being created in the older parts of Downtown.

But here's the best part. Since building heavy industry facilities in the heart of the city is no longer financially feasible – the CRA will have to give these factories 30 years of vast tax subsidies to pay them to destroy the LA River in our neighborhood.

Please inset the appropriate Vietnam War metaphor of your choice here.

But this situation had been recently – seemingly - looking up. Our three elected officials, Jan Perry, Jose Huizar and Ed Reyes had recently overturned the CRA's stonewalling of two major live work projects near the LA River and the city council had also just passed a resolution condemning the CRA and the Planning Department's unilateral implementation of their industrial policy. And … at public meeting after public meeting, at least 95% of the speakers – and sometimes 100% of them – strongly opposed every aspect of this plan.

Every single Downtown community and business organization with an elected board has opposed this policy – including those representing the property and business owners this plan is supposed to protect.

The only people to support this plan are appointed city officials, people being paid by city contracts – and organizations that do not represent Downtown.

So one would think that since the public the CRA 'serves', the industrial users the plan is supposed to 'protect' and the councilpersons elected by the public to represent them are all opposed to this policy– that the CRA would finally back off from their plan.

Well, not in LA.

Last week I went into an AIA (American Institute of Architects) meeting on the future of Downtown. One of the panel members was Cecilia Estolano, the head of the CRA. She greeted me warmly before the meeting started and I took that as a sign that she – finally – was willing to work with us downtown to develop a real world plan that
will create jobs, housing and parks along the LA River.

I say finally because after years of guarantees that the public would be involved in the drafting of this plan – the long promised public workshops were canceled last December – between Christmas and New Years Day when no one was in town. And then, even after the CRA and Planning were forced to hold public hearings on their betrayal, they still refused to in any way discuss or debate their policy with us. They just stoically listened to our testimony against their plan,
declined to engage in any kind of debate – and then went back to
implementing their plan with a complete disregard of the public input.

But instead of addressing any of that during her presentation last week, Estolano instead announced her latest initiative for Downtown – a policy that was created, as usual, behind closed doors - to line the banks of the LA River – particularly within the DLANC boundaries - with not just industry – but heavy industry. "Green" heavy industry

Yes, her proposal is now to destroy our environment with 'green' heavy industry to build products to improve other people's environments.

Again, insert appropriate Vietnam War analogy.

And the best part is – this new plan was again developed without any input from – or even the knowledge of - anyone in the affected areas. This was the first I had ever heard about it and when I asked around the next day, my suspicions were confirmed. Not a single one of the stakeholder groups had been contacted plus no one at Planning or
even in the CRA office in Downtown had ever heard of this new plan, much less had been consulted about it.

When the Q & A session started, I announced we had just witnessed why this city does not work; that we are still a city where some of the biggest decisions affecting our communities are still made behind closed doors. And that even when these plans are opposite of what the community wants – or needs – the community will still be ignored if they are in conflict with the desires of politically connected special interest groups.

Estolano's response to my remarks was that there was no green manufacturing policy for the length of the LA River in Downtown – even though she had just announced to the audience that there was one and she had just passed out a map showing the project's boundaries.

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and agree she actually does believe in her mind that there will someday be some public involvement in this proposal. I'll do this despite the fact the CRA has still refused to engage in any debate with us on the specifics of the
existing industrial zoning plan and that it has still refused to allow any kind of meaningful two-way dialogue with the community on the planning process for this issue – for the past two years.

Now, on a cynical sidetrack, it appears clear to me that changing the 100% industrial zone along the LA River into a 100% 'green' industrial area – even though that would prevent – for a variety of reasons – the actual regreening of the LA River - is just a new way of re-packaging their old idea by adding the buzz word 'green' to their plan.

But the delusion that large factories making green products are going to be suddenly built anywhere in Los Angeles – much less in Downtown Los Angeles ( just like the 1990's hallucination that LA would suddenly become the center for the manufacturing of rapid transit equipment if we built subways) – is exactly that – a delusion.

What the politicians and special interest groups are ignoring is that with Downtown's outdated infrastructure, high wage costs, high business taxes, high utility fees and many other obstacles to manufacturing in Downtown – no one is going to set up heavy industry in an area that is far more expensive to do business within than in other states, other cities in LA County – or even in other parts of the City of Los Angeles. And even if they would – the massive public subsidies would far outweigh the gains.

Even more to the point, since green products are inherently more expensive than non green products – and they are often considerably more expensive - manufacturers must find the lowest cost places to make their products if they are to be at all competitive within the marketplace.

The bottom line is - of all the types of manufacturing – green products are among the least likely to locate in a high cost area such as Downtown Los Angeles.

And everyone who has a clue of how business works – and who is not dependent on the public teat – knows this to be true.

So where does this leaves us?

Well, pretty much where we started.

Nowhere.

But at some point in time the CRA's leadership might actually learn they need to work with us to get anything done. Someday, they might even stop acting like an occupying army determined to destroy all resistance to their initiatives (and shooting anyone who dares go off-message) and understand they are supposed to serve our community – and not attack it.

The tragedy is that we all want the same things for our community. Good paying jobs, a greener environment, parks along the LA River, better transportation – and housing for everyone. But none of this will ever happen with the current bunker mentality of the CRA.

I might add that that when Estolano first came into office, I was very impressed by her speech on how the CRA would be actively involved in grass roots community building. I was so impressed I offered to give her a tour of Downtown to show how we had turned the former heroin district into a vibrant community filled with new jobs and how with modest amounts of working capital we had accomplished far more than
past, failed multi-million dollar projects of the CRA had in the same neighborhood. And she said she looked forward to that tour. But after six months – and a half-a-dozen unreturned and unacknowledged phone calls and emails and letters – I finally gave up.

Just like a lot of people Downtown are giving up on the idea that the CRA can ever be our partners in building a new Downtown for everyone.

But it shouldn't - and doesn't - have to be that way. So, just maybe, one day that attitude might start to change.

And, luckily, it will only take one person to accomplish that. But first she will have to start returning our phone calls.

(Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. Westwater is a regular contributor to CityWatch. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ). _

I had heard that Livable Places - one of the few affordable housing developers that tried to have a sustainable financial business plan which did not depend on endless subsidies was in trouble - and I knew that something big was about to be announced - but I was still shocked to see in Curbed LA that they have just closed their doors.

Below is the opening of the letter announcing the closure from Joe Linton; the rest can be found at the Curbed LA link above.

Colleagues -

It is with great sadness that I am writing to let you know that Livable Places is closing. Seven years ago, our board of directors set ambitious goals for a new nonprofit organization to advocate for land use policy reform, and to develop affordable housing that demonstrated the feasibility of smart growth. Since then, Livable Places has worked on multiple policy issues and initiated two developments offering 160 homes and leveraging $60 million as we strived to build for-sale housing affordable to working people with minimal subsidy.

We began construction as speculation and frenzied demand drove up construction costs, and we started marketing homes as the turmoil in financial and real estate markets began. The credit crisis raised the requirements for buyers that we targeted, and the glut of higher priced housing lowered demand for new homes overall. The impact on the Southern California economy has been dire, and for Livable Places, the economic downturn has proved fatal.

My latest CITYWATCH story:

Reviewing press coverage of Laura Chick's audit of the LAPD Headquarters cost overruns, there desperately needs to be some clarification from Laura Chick’s office on who was at fault.

Was it the city for not having a approved building site, the city for allowing the Civic Center Authority to not meet in ten years and the city for allowing the small 911 emergency call center to be built on the same block as Parker Center – making it impossible to later rebuilding the PHQ on the site – or was this all the BOE’s fault. Because right now – the BOE is taking a lot of the blame for decisions – it had nothing to do with.

This report might have an addendum to address the real causes for the overrun so we can prevent similar problems in the over billion or two dollars in projects that will happen in the civic center within the next ten years.

Second, the press needs to correct its existing error-filled coverage of this project. Not one story even mentioned that the city had failed to develop a master plan for the civic center after over forty years, nor did they even mention the existence of the Civic Center Authority, much less how building the 911 Center on the Parker Center block made it impossible to rebuild the PHQ on that site.

Third, the press needs to engage in some serious investigative reporting that used to be done by the much missed Jeffrey Anderson, David Zahniser and a few others during a brief golden age at the LA Weekly and as used to be done by the LA Times on huge, multi-year long investigations.

But the Times needs to learn that one or two good reporters with some real working knowledge can accomplish a lot, even when compared dozens or reporters and a huge budgets. Unfortunately, the new young hires at the Times have little interest in discovering, much less, reporting, the truth; they are only interested in pushing their own preconceived political prejudices to the exclusion of anything resembling serious news reporting.

Unsurprisingly then, the biggest winner in getting the story right came from the media outlet with the smallest budget – CURBEDLA – when Josh Williams – alone – was able to decode from the report that the Audit admitted that the blame for the overrun was not due to the BOE’s supervision.

The second biggest winder was the Downtown New which has the bet coverage and which got the most quotes from people on each side, giving the most complete and balanced coverage – but which still did not talk with a anyone who would point out the real culprits. It’s the City’s fault.

Going to the opposite end of the spectrum, the second biggest loser – the biggest we’ll save for the last – was the Daily News even though it got off to a decent start with an article covering much of the back story about the delays due to the site problems, but which emphasized the role of the BOE in that – while ignoring the real reasons. But then they blew it with an editorial that blamed the entire problem on the BOE and – somehow got the original building cost as bein