Well, evicted is a bit strong. Their current Miracle Mile landlords generously gave them the space for free for more than a year but now the building's owners have leased the space so when this show closes, so does the space. So the A + D Museum needs to find a new home, once again.
And hopefully, they can return downtown to a place not far from the Bradbury Building where they started as I will be showing them a potential space shortly right in the heart of Gallery Row.
As for the show, Enlightened Development, it is a wide ranging look at many better quality developments throughout the greater Los Angeles area. And it will be up for over two months - so hit the above link and go see the show!
Addressing the audience were one of A + D's founders, architect Stephen Kanner, long time museum supporter/developer Dan Rosenfeld and Councilman Bernard Parks.
Among those in attendance I also chatted with about various civic projects we are either already working on - or hopefully will be working on together - were the essential Merrie Norris, critic Sam Hall Kaplan, urban planner Doug Suisan, Councilman Jose Huizar aide Amy Yeager, LA Conservancy stalwart John English and architects Bob Hale & Richard Corsini.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Retail Rises In Downtown!
Today's Times has an article surveying the growing retail market in Downtown Los Angeles which is a switch from articles last year that bemoaned how new retail was still the missing element in the Downtown retail.
Well, no longer.
I've done over thirty leases in the Historic Core (all pro bono) and the first to come were the art galleries and creative businesses and organizations that didn't need a street level presence. Next were the restaurants, bakeries and bars. Now... finally... clothing, furniture and other retail. Today I am working with over a dozen potential tenants.
As a harbinger of the future, the Planning Committee of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (which I sit on) is seeing increasing numbers of applications for restaurants, bars... and now retail. In fact, just one project we endorsed at the committee level last Wednesday had over 250,000 square feet of retail and restaurants with numerous major national retailers being mentioned as potential tenants. And two more supermarkets were also proposed at that meeting besides the soon to open Ralphs and the already planned market on Grand Avenue.
Ironically, the proposed Italian restaurant/gourmet market is being built very near where a proposed Italian Cultural center might be invited to build.
Well, no longer.
I've done over thirty leases in the Historic Core (all pro bono) and the first to come were the art galleries and creative businesses and organizations that didn't need a street level presence. Next were the restaurants, bakeries and bars. Now... finally... clothing, furniture and other retail. Today I am working with over a dozen potential tenants.
As a harbinger of the future, the Planning Committee of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (which I sit on) is seeing increasing numbers of applications for restaurants, bars... and now retail. In fact, just one project we endorsed at the committee level last Wednesday had over 250,000 square feet of retail and restaurants with numerous major national retailers being mentioned as potential tenants. And two more supermarkets were also proposed at that meeting besides the soon to open Ralphs and the already planned market on Grand Avenue.
Ironically, the proposed Italian restaurant/gourmet market is being built very near where a proposed Italian Cultural center might be invited to build.
Has downtown L.A. finally arrived?
The district's revival appears to be picking up steam as national chains seek store sites to serve the growing residential population.
By Cara Mia DiMassa
Times Staff Writer
March 30, 2007
The construction cranes that are roosting all over downtown these days are one thing. But the real hints that the neighborhood is changing come in more subtle forms — such as the tours Derrick Moore has been giving around downtown recently.
Moore, a senior associate in CB Richard Ellis' Urban Development Group, has been helping representatives from national chain stores such as Walgreen's and the Outback Steakhouse group — who have long shied away from downtown — search for properties in the area. He has wined and dined potential retailers at local hotspots — and found their reaction a distinct shift from even a few months ago, when most took a wait-and-see attitude toward the neighborhood.
What has changed, downtown backers say, is how the burgeoning neighborhood is being perceived. After years of being not quite there, retailers seem to think that the area has reached — or is near reaching — a tipping point.
Residents have moved in, with the population now at 30,000. Some of downtown's long-anticipated, large-scale projects — including a supermarket and a movie theater — are only months from opening.
It's this trend that is behind much of the debate over the city's proposal to sell the air rights above the Los Angeles Convention Center, allowing developers to build larger and denser residential buildings downtown.
Because the Convention Center was originally zoned for towers, the city wants to sell the unused airspace as a way of boosting development elsewhere in downtown beyond what current zoning laws allow.
Backers argue that selling air rights would boost downtown's residential population even more. The more residents downtown can lure, the thinking goes, the larger the market for upscale retail. Until now, retail development has lagged behind residential development, with some merchants waiting to see whether the downtown boom is for real.
Questions about downtown's future have heightened with the recent cooling of Southern California's real estate market. But downtown so far doesn't appear to be suffering much, and there are growing signs that retail is actually strengthening.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
LA Times Website Guru To Address Neighborhood Councils This Saturday!
Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress
Senate Agenda
Saturday March 31, 2007
(12:30 p.m.)
DIFFERENT LOCATION THAN NORMAL!!!
LOS ANGELES CITY COLLEGE
855 N. Vermont
http://www.lacitycollege.edu/public/cmap/map.html
Room 105 Holmes Hall - just west of Alliance’s meeting place
One-half block from Vermont/Santa Monica Blvd. Red Line Station
Parking is across Vermont from LACC. Coming north or south on the 101 (Hollywood) Freeway, exit onto VERMONT. Turn NORTH to MARATHON ST. Turn EAST onto MARATHON, then NORTH into the lot. http://www.allncs.org/meetings.htm & Holmes Hall is due left of the faculty lounge as shown on the map.
1. Call to order and roll call.
2. Approval of the minutes
3. Public Comment (2 minutes per speaker on non-agenda items)
4. Reports from board members/Neighborhood Councils including: Tarzana asks that Neighborhood Councils be granted the right of appeal on planning and zoning matters and San Pedro requests that a citywide transportation plan to be developed in consultation with the NC’s.
5. Discussion/vote on date of board officer elections now scheduled for May. Open nominations.
6. Report on SAVING LA CONFERENCE & other committee reports.
7. Rob Barrett, head of interactive media and the website of the Los Angeles Times, will discuss how the Times will cover local neighborhoods and how the NC's can be a part of that coverage.
7. Report on DONE Congress & LANCC participation.
8. Other committee reports.
9. Formation of any new committees.
10. Public Comment
11. Future Agenda Items
12. Adjournment.
NEXT LANCC Senate Meeting: Saturday May 5th 10 AM
Senate Agenda
Saturday March 31, 2007
(12:30 p.m.)
DIFFERENT LOCATION THAN NORMAL!!!
LOS ANGELES CITY COLLEGE
855 N. Vermont
http://www.lacitycollege.edu/public/cmap/map.html
Room 105 Holmes Hall - just west of Alliance’s meeting place
One-half block from Vermont/Santa Monica Blvd. Red Line Station
Parking is across Vermont from LACC. Coming north or south on the 101 (Hollywood) Freeway, exit onto VERMONT. Turn NORTH to MARATHON ST. Turn EAST onto MARATHON, then NORTH into the lot. http://www.allncs.org/meetings.htm & Holmes Hall is due left of the faculty lounge as shown on the map.
1. Call to order and roll call.
2. Approval of the minutes
3. Public Comment (2 minutes per speaker on non-agenda items)
4. Reports from board members/Neighborhood Councils including: Tarzana asks that Neighborhood Councils be granted the right of appeal on planning and zoning matters and San Pedro requests that a citywide transportation plan to be developed in consultation with the NC’s.
5. Discussion/vote on date of board officer elections now scheduled for May. Open nominations.
6. Report on SAVING LA CONFERENCE & other committee reports.
7. Rob Barrett, head of interactive media and the website of the Los Angeles Times, will discuss how the Times will cover local neighborhoods and how the NC's can be a part of that coverage.
7. Report on DONE Congress & LANCC participation.
8. Other committee reports.
9. Formation of any new committees.
10. Public Comment
11. Future Agenda Items
12. Adjournment.
NEXT LANCC Senate Meeting: Saturday May 5th 10 AM
Right After Al Gore Invented The... Internet... USC Invented - The Neighborhood Councils!
At a press conference about a long overdue focus on entrepreneurship and the commercialization of ideas generated at local universities - which has has been done at Stanford and MIT for years, USC announced it is about to get into the act. Much more on this later tonight.
But first... an interesting - if totally spurious - claim that USC developed the concept of neighborhood councils.
Traditionally, schools tend to focus on inventions and ideas connected to science and technology and ignore others, but officials said all disciplines must be included for maximum benefit to the public's quality of life. Innovative ideas could also include nonprofit organizations that aid a community. For example, many years ago, a USC professor from the School of Policy, Planning and Development developed the concept of the neighborhood council, according to the institute's director.
Well, the neighborhood council movement has been around in other cities long before the idea was ever broached here - and that history is too well known to need to go into detail. But even if NC's had been invented in LA - everyone knows that they would have been invented at UCLA.
But first... an interesting - if totally spurious - claim that USC developed the concept of neighborhood councils.
Traditionally, schools tend to focus on inventions and ideas connected to science and technology and ignore others, but officials said all disciplines must be included for maximum benefit to the public's quality of life. Innovative ideas could also include nonprofit organizations that aid a community. For example, many years ago, a USC professor from the School of Policy, Planning and Development developed the concept of the neighborhood council, according to the institute's director.
Well, the neighborhood council movement has been around in other cities long before the idea was ever broached here - and that history is too well known to need to go into detail. But even if NC's had been invented in LA - everyone knows that they would have been invented at UCLA.
With All The Sturm Und Drang At The Los Angeles Times - Has Anyone Else Noticed - The End Product Is Getting Better And Better?
Ignoring the insanity of the past week (more later) - and the impending Anschluss by the Grave Dancer - the quality of the writing at the LA Times by the up coming writers (and the best of the veteran reporters) and the increasing quantity of the local coverage continues to impress.
Today's example is the Column One piece by 2004 Pulizer prize co-winner Hector Becerra on... weathermen; a wonderfully crafted essay of the type the New Yorker used to publish back when the New Yorker was still the New Yorker.
Below is the opening:
COLUMN ONE
Perhaps the best weatherman in town
By Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2007
THE celebrity TV weatherman was pretty much invented in Los Angeles. They have names like Dallas Raines and Johnny Mountain, and before them, the avuncular man in the bow tie known to millions simply as Dr. George.
Steve Martin mocked this culture in his movie "L.A. Story," in which he plays a weatherman who tapes his forecasts in advance because, well, L.A. has no weather.
But although the TV news provides the overnight lows and five-day forecasts, the job of understanding the weather and making the long-term predictions falls to the meteorologists and climatologists who toil behind the scenes.
Many work for the federal government and universities. They are generally a conservative bunch, quick with the caveat and the nuance — knowing their forecasts can have huge and costly implications, including how farmers plant their crops and how government agencies calibrate water supplies.
Then there is Bill Patzert...
Another great piece of his is about the passing of his sister... and many other things:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cemetery16jan16,1,176004.story?coll=la-headlines-california
COLUMN ONE
A vigil for the living
By Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writer
January 16, 2007
I PARKED my car on the salt-and-pepper asphalt and crossed the grassy expanse, weaving around headstones.
Clutching flowers and lyrics from a U2 song, I looked for the grave of my sister, Michelle Melissa Becerra.
She was a 22-year-old art history major at UCLA, just months from graduation. She was 10 years younger than I, the baby among my five brothers and sisters.
Michelle and I rarely interacted and I never really understood why. And yet the last time I saw her, Michelle asked whether we were going to take that summer trip to our parents' hometown in central Mexico. I told her to just let me know when. I was looking forward to the trip because I was sure we would bond.
Days later, she lay dead just blocks from home, killed when a car flipped onto the sidewalk where she was walking.
After her burial, I was filled with grief, and regret that I had never had a heart-to-heart talk with my little sister. Certain words should have come from my mouth, even if they made Michelle blush or fidget.
And now she was gone. It was as if she had just disappeared. And so, as lame as it felt to act so belatedly, I had to "talk" to Michelle, even if I had to do so over her drab headstone.
After about 15 minutes of searching, I found the black marker.
And there they were. The two old men.
They were no more than 10 feet away, sitting in lawn chairs and chatting about who knows what. They looked as perfectly at ease as I suddenly felt self-conscious.
With the men in the corner of my eye, words failed me. I didn't want to cry in front of them. I had never found the right words for Michelle when she was alive, and now she was dead, and these men weren't making it any easier. I wanted to tell Michelle that I loved her, but the words would not come out.
I stood quietly by her grave for a few minutes before leaving.
I came back a few months later with more flowers and yet another page of U2 lyrics. And sure enough, the pair were there, this time joined by a few other older men.
I tensed with annoyance, resentful that I didn't have any privacy.
My older brother Javier described a similar scene. Every time he visited the Resurrection Cemetery in Montebello, he said, it seemed they were talking about "mundane stuff," how their cars don't work, what they saw on TV, good lunch spots.
The scene repeated itself over a year and a half until one morning, about two months ago, I showed up just after the grass had been trimmed and watered. There was a soup of mud spread all over my sister's headstone. I bent down and began to wipe it away with my hand.
One of the men, mustached and wearing sunglasses, quietly walked over and handed me a rag. He retreated to his chair as I cleaned Michelle's headstone.
For the first time, I made out parts of their conversation. The man talked about how when he was young, all the kids used to chase after the water truck to take a bath.
Almost against my will, I smiled....
Today's example is the Column One piece by 2004 Pulizer prize co-winner Hector Becerra on... weathermen; a wonderfully crafted essay of the type the New Yorker used to publish back when the New Yorker was still the New Yorker.
Below is the opening:
COLUMN ONE
Perhaps the best weatherman in town
By Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2007
THE celebrity TV weatherman was pretty much invented in Los Angeles. They have names like Dallas Raines and Johnny Mountain, and before them, the avuncular man in the bow tie known to millions simply as Dr. George.
Steve Martin mocked this culture in his movie "L.A. Story," in which he plays a weatherman who tapes his forecasts in advance because, well, L.A. has no weather.
But although the TV news provides the overnight lows and five-day forecasts, the job of understanding the weather and making the long-term predictions falls to the meteorologists and climatologists who toil behind the scenes.
Many work for the federal government and universities. They are generally a conservative bunch, quick with the caveat and the nuance — knowing their forecasts can have huge and costly implications, including how farmers plant their crops and how government agencies calibrate water supplies.
Then there is Bill Patzert...
Another great piece of his is about the passing of his sister... and many other things:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cemetery16jan16,1,176004.story?coll=la-headlines-california
COLUMN ONE
A vigil for the living
By Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writer
January 16, 2007
I PARKED my car on the salt-and-pepper asphalt and crossed the grassy expanse, weaving around headstones.
Clutching flowers and lyrics from a U2 song, I looked for the grave of my sister, Michelle Melissa Becerra.
She was a 22-year-old art history major at UCLA, just months from graduation. She was 10 years younger than I, the baby among my five brothers and sisters.
Michelle and I rarely interacted and I never really understood why. And yet the last time I saw her, Michelle asked whether we were going to take that summer trip to our parents' hometown in central Mexico. I told her to just let me know when. I was looking forward to the trip because I was sure we would bond.
Days later, she lay dead just blocks from home, killed when a car flipped onto the sidewalk where she was walking.
After her burial, I was filled with grief, and regret that I had never had a heart-to-heart talk with my little sister. Certain words should have come from my mouth, even if they made Michelle blush or fidget.
And now she was gone. It was as if she had just disappeared. And so, as lame as it felt to act so belatedly, I had to "talk" to Michelle, even if I had to do so over her drab headstone.
After about 15 minutes of searching, I found the black marker.
And there they were. The two old men.
They were no more than 10 feet away, sitting in lawn chairs and chatting about who knows what. They looked as perfectly at ease as I suddenly felt self-conscious.
With the men in the corner of my eye, words failed me. I didn't want to cry in front of them. I had never found the right words for Michelle when she was alive, and now she was dead, and these men weren't making it any easier. I wanted to tell Michelle that I loved her, but the words would not come out.
I stood quietly by her grave for a few minutes before leaving.
I came back a few months later with more flowers and yet another page of U2 lyrics. And sure enough, the pair were there, this time joined by a few other older men.
I tensed with annoyance, resentful that I didn't have any privacy.
My older brother Javier described a similar scene. Every time he visited the Resurrection Cemetery in Montebello, he said, it seemed they were talking about "mundane stuff," how their cars don't work, what they saw on TV, good lunch spots.
The scene repeated itself over a year and a half until one morning, about two months ago, I showed up just after the grass had been trimmed and watered. There was a soup of mud spread all over my sister's headstone. I bent down and began to wipe it away with my hand.
One of the men, mustached and wearing sunglasses, quietly walked over and handed me a rag. He retreated to his chair as I cleaned Michelle's headstone.
For the first time, I made out parts of their conversation. The man talked about how when he was young, all the kids used to chase after the water truck to take a bath.
Almost against my will, I smiled....
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Kevin Roderick's Father, Robert Roderick, Passes At Age 89
Sadly, not long after I posted the good news of my father reaching age 84, I returned to my office to see that Kevin Roderick just lost his father at age 89.
Point of personal privilege
The News & Chatter side of LA Observed plans to stand down for a day or so to mark the passing of my father. Robert Roderick lived to 89 and will be missed by many, among them the ethnic restaurateurs he helped keep in business around the San Fernando Valley. Those selected bloggers, columnists and political aides who would find his unsolicited email tips in their in-boxes are on their own now.
My condolences to Kevin and all his family.
Point of personal privilege
The News & Chatter side of LA Observed plans to stand down for a day or so to mark the passing of my father. Robert Roderick lived to 89 and will be missed by many, among them the ethnic restaurateurs he helped keep in business around the San Fernando Valley. Those selected bloggers, columnists and political aides who would find his unsolicited email tips in their in-boxes are on their own now.
My condolences to Kevin and all his family.
Happy Birthday Dad!
Yesterday was my father's eighty-fourth birthday and he spent it like he spends most weekdays - working. He appeared in court for a client down in Orange County - and next week he will drive to Yolo County in Northern California to represent another client.
While a bad hip slowed him down for a bit, after a successful operation, he is back working five days a week. Hit the link and scroll down to see what I had to say on Father's Day.
While a bad hip slowed him down for a bit, after a successful operation, he is back working five days a week. Hit the link and scroll down to see what I had to say on Father's Day.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
We've Got The Damn Culture - So Where're The Damn Cultural Tourists? Sounds Like A Job For... The Neighborhood Councils!
In Sunday's New York Times - there's a superb look at the dramatic disconnect between the amount of art being created and housed in Los Angeles - and the pathetic amount of cultural tourism that art generates.
But first, my minor quibbles about the story. The writer mentions how 5th and Spring is filled with people on Friday and Saturday nights when all the art galleries have their openings.
Well, close - but no cigar, not even a cigar that.... isn't a cigar.
The actual intersection is one-half block away at 5th and Main Street which has six store front galleries (and two more coming) as opposed to the solitary one at 6th and Spring located in a restaurant. Plus the big night for gallery goers is the second Thursday of the month Gallery Walk when all of the galleries are open, though many of them do have individual openings on Friday or Saturday nights.
And the area was hardly deserted at night before the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council midwifed the Gallery Row organization and the DLANC Economic Development Committee I headed leased many of these galleries their spaces; before DLANC took on this project, 5th and Main was filled every night - wall to wall - but with drug dealers, virtually all of whom are now gone.
Second, the article correctly mentions people complain that Eli Broad either does too much or that he doesn't do enough to support the arts in Los Angeles. Well, Eli is the ONLY person in LA who looks at the city as a whole and then works to try and make all the parts of the city work. Right now, our civic leadership is Eli Broad and the seven dwarfs. But, of course, everyone criticizes Eli but never any of the seven dwarfs.
OK - now for the good stuff - which is everything else, starting with the concise definition of the core problem:
While New York, London and Paris each attract 10 million to 15 million such visitors per year, Los Angeles draws only about 2.5 million...
And...
Whereas 40 percent of visitors to New York and London take part in some sort of cultural activity — a museum visit, a theatrical performance or the like — and 85 percent of visitors to Paris do so, only about 1 in 10 tourists to Los Angeles visit a cultural site.
So what is wrong? A number of things.
First, while we have almost as many plays put on every year as New York - we have very little commercial theater in either the full Broadway mode - or even using the commercial off-Broadway model.
So how to fix that? Well, a group of us at DLANC are working on turning the Broadway theaters into... actual Broadway theaters. That is because a major commercial theater district Downtown - along with theaters in North Hollywood and Hollywood and elsewhere - would bring millions of cultural tourists to our city each year since commercial theater is single largest generator of tourists of all kind to New York - and one of the largest generator of tourists to London.
Another problem we have is the lack of major cultural events to bring well heeled tourists to LA. An example of how to fix this is when four DLANC (Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council) board members in just six weeks brought Fashion Week back to Downtown.
This was after all the usual suspects had passed on doing anything this season, for a fourth year in a row.
Plus the four of us are already well into planning a far larger event for the October Fashion Week - and we are also planning numerous events for the general public besides the cat walk shows for the buyers, the press and the VIP's. Our goal is to make our March and October Fashion Weeks major tourist draws besides the events that will be exclusively for the fashionistas. And other organizations and individuals Downtown will be working with us this time.
More about this in the coming months.
In line with that, our same core group is working to bring a major international art fair to Los Angeles and working to start other culturally inclined fairs and weeks in Los Angeles, again using the networking among neighborhood councils to accomplish this.
And can anyone explain to me why during Oscar week - the one time of the year when every eye is turned on Los Angeles - there isn't a full week of activities to bring film buffs to Los Angeles?
I mean... duh!
Next there is our museum problem. We have dozens a major collections that have no homes, and little prospect of that changing, unless someone can develop a business model to fund their buildings. And that is something the NC's are working on.
In addition, even our existing museums have major gaps in what they can exhibit. MOCA in its two buildings has no room to show its growing permanent collection - and the Getty has no space to show its rapidly expanding photo collection since the Trust is prohibited from building any additional square footage up on the hill.
Luckily, there is a single, elegant solution (and business plan) that might solve both problems that is being examined right now and which will be presented to both institutions. And after one hundred years of complaints that the City of Los Angeles is the only city - or even town - without a museum devoted to its own history, the neighborhood councils have once more grabbed the bull by the horns and are creating a Los Angeles Museum that will have not just a main building, but - eventually - branches in every community in Los Angeles.
And that is only the beginning of what the NC's are doing on this issue.
Now as for the funding problem the article addresses:
Two years ago Mr. Broad tried to raise $10 million in public financing to promote the arts here. While the city promised $2 million, officials at the county, state and federal levels balked, arguing in part that more private money should be raised for that purpose. For now the effort has stalled, although Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said in an interview that he would like to create a public-private partnership to accomplish what Mr. Broad proposed.
What no one seems to understand is that our problem is NOT in promoting the arts in LA - it is in making the arts as accessible in LA as they are in other cities.
Increased promotion is putting the cart before the horse. What we need are better museums, more world class galleries, a commercial theater district, a major second younger opera company - such as the one several DLANC board members are supporting, a ballet company, a classical theater company (to name just a few of our needs) and dozens of fairs and public events that would both benefit locals - and attract tourists.
Every art form needs to have a concentrated week of activities once or twice a year to make LA a must see destination for anyone interested in that art form.
We have the artists and the art, but our presentation of the arts far lags behind New York, London and Paris. And that is the core problem we have to fix.
The irony is that the proposed ten million to promote the arts - if used as seed money to create the attractions we need - would greatly reduce the need to spend the money to promote LA as a cultural destination.
And as far as spreading cultural tourism across the city - and then promoting our attractions to the world, the NC's are working on a plan to do just that (think social networking) - and we can do it for a fraction of the ten million being proposed.
Stay tuned!
March 25, 2007
The Art’s Here. Where’s the Crowd?
By EDWARD WYATT
LOS ANGELES
JOHN BALDESSARI, the conceptual artist who has long made his home here, for years gave his college art students one piece of advice when they graduated: Go to New York, the capital of the art world.
Now, however, Mr. Baldessari has a different view. “I don’t think it matters,” he said recently. “More and more young artists leave school and stay here. The opportunities are better, and the cost of living is cheaper. People involved in art regularly come to L.A. It really doesn’t matter if they live in New York or L.A.”
Two decades after Los Angeles emerged as the nation’s second art capital, the city is reaping the benefits of a migration of artists, galleries, dealers and curators. In recent years more than two artists have moved to this city for every one that moved away, a net rate of gain that is higher than in any metropolitan area in the country, according to an analysis of Census Bureau statistics by Ann Markusen, a professor at the University of Minnesota.
In the process new centers of gravity have emerged for contemporary art and artists in a city that has suffered for years because of its lack of a central arts district. Now there is not one such geographic center but several: downtown, where a thriving gallery district operates in what used to be a nighttime ghost town, as well as in former industrial areas in Culver City and Santa Monica. And a new generation of curators have been lured to the major museums here. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Hammer Museum have each attracted energizing new talent in recent years.
Of course the city has long since emerged as an important center for the performing arts as well. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, regarded as one of the country’s most dynamic orchestras, gained added allure with its move to Frank Gehry’s 2003 Disney Hall on Grand Avenue, and the Los Angeles Opera is preparing for its first-ever “Ring” cycle next door at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
In architecture Los Angeles has been an incubator not just for Mr. Gehry but for the rising star Thom Mayne, and high-profile commissions by Renzo Piano at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Steven Holl at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are proceeding apace. And the boom in television and film production in Hollywood has created new opportunities for visual artists and dancers, many of whom also work for companies that perform in or have close ties to Pacific Rim countries.
Yet the city is still struggling to attract cultural tourists. While New York, London and Paris each attract 10 million to 15 million such visitors per year, Los Angeles draws only about 2.5 million, according to a 2004 study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.
“Why is that?” asked the philanthropist Eli Broad, the city’s most visible and generous champion of the arts. “Perception. We have not promoted cultural travel. That’s going to start happening, and that’s going to get the city more and more attention.”
Whereas 40 percent of visitors to New York and London take part in some sort of cultural activity — a museum visit, a theatrical performance or the like — and 85 percent of visitors to Paris do so, only about 1 in 10 tourists to Los Angeles visit a cultural site.
To remedy that Mr. Broad and other civic leaders are bargaining on their investment in the commercial and cultural districts that are taking shape downtown, like the Grand Avenue Project and L.A. Live, efforts that include hotels, restaurants, shops and entertainment centers.
“It will mean a big boost to the economy, and a big boost to how our city is viewed internationally,” Mr. Broad said. “It’s not simply sunshine, beaches and Hollywood here.”
But that effort hasn’t been easy. Two years ago Mr. Broad tried to raise $10 million in public financing to promote the arts here. While the city promised $2 million, officials at the county, state and federal levels balked, arguing in part that more private money should be raised for that purpose. For now the effort has stalled, although Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said in an interview that he would like to create a public-private partnership to accomplish what Mr. Broad proposed.
The mayor’s initiative, however, awaits his appointment of a new general manager for the city’s cultural affairs department, a job that has gone unfilled since the previous department manager resigned nine months ago.
The department manager will be charged with fashioning a new cultural master plan for the city, a blueprint for encouraging both local investment in the arts and reaching out to areas of the city that are underserved by museums, theaters and the like. The master plan was last revised in 1991.
“I think there are a lot of people who want to get involved in the arts, and would if there was a conduit for it,” Mr. Villaraigosa said in an interview.
But that financial conduit is conspicuously absent, especially at a time when corporations are cutting their arts budgets or using them more for marketing than for philanthropy. That problem is aggravated by the relative shortage of major corporations here: Los Angeles has fewer Fortune 500 companies than Richmond, Va., or Charlotte, N.C.
Historically, said Kevin F. McCarthy, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation who is working on a study of support systems for the arts in cities around the country, Los Angeles has had three sets of business leaders: the first drawn from the downtown corporations, the second from the high-technology and aerospace industries on the west side, and the third from Hollywood.
“You could never get the entertainment industry to work with the other two guys, even though there were some people who had connections in both communities,” Mr. McCarthy said. The problem with Hollywood leaders, he said, is that “they’re so used to publicity and understanding the importance of marketing that they want to be the center of attention on all of this stuff.”
“I think they also have a very short-sighted focus, like much of the corporate sector, on profits,” he added. “And they tend to see this as a zero- sum game.”
Some Hollywood moguls are already big donors of course. David Geffen gave $5 million in 1996 to the Museum of Contemporary Art; it now maintains the Geffen Contemporary galleries as a separate part of its three-campus institution. Mr. Geffen also gave money for the renovation of a theater near the University of California at Los Angeles campus in Westwood that is now called the Geffen Playhouse. And Disney Hall was built with $120 million from corporations and private donors, along with an initial $50 million from Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, and more than $100 million from Los Angeles County.
Mr. Broad says he is confident that Hollywood’s commitment will increase, in part through the goading of newly arrived museum directors, including Michael Govan. Mr. Govan arrived one year ago from the Dia Art Foundation in New York to take over as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has forged new connections with Hollywood. Among his additions to the museum’s board are Barbra Streisand; Michael Crichton; Terry Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo and former co-chief executive of Warner Brothers; and Willow Bay, the television reporter who is married to Robert Iger, chief executive of Disney.
Now, however, Mayor Villaraigosa may be in the best position to mobilize money into the arts, galvanize business leaders in Hollywood and beyond, and raise the visibility of the city’s cultural scene. “He’s got the kind of sex appeal that Hollywood wants,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He could bring these guys together,” in a way that the previous mayor, James K. Hahn, could not.
In 2004 Mr. Hahn floated the idea of doing away with the city’s cultural affairs department altogether. That effort was fought by Mr. Villaraigosa, then a councilman, earning him the support of many grass-roots arts organizations, which helped his 2005 election campaign.
“I think we can get Hollywood to be more active in the arts,” Mr. Villaraigosa said. “One of the reasons why we’re focused on finding a visionary leader in the area of the arts is because it’s going to take someone who’s got the wherewithal, the respect, the ethos if you will, in the arts community and can rally that community in support of new initiatives,” like cultural programs in the schools and greater citywide spending on the arts.
If anyone knows how hard it can be to attract that support, it is Mr. Broad, who seems to have a hand in almost everything that goes on in the arts.
He was the founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and its present location on Grand Avenue downtown, near Disney Hall, is a direct result of his efforts. Mr. Broad is also a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is currently building the Broad Contemporary Art Museum on its campus on Wilshire Boulevard, thanks to a $60 million gift from Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe.
The Broads have also made a big impact on the art schools in the Los Angeles area. Last fall U.C.L.A. opened the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center, a collection of studios, classrooms, offices and gallery space designed by the architects Richard Meier and Michael Palladino. Outside sits a Richard Serra sculpture commissioned by Mr. Broad for that purpose. And the Broads have donated money for buildings at the two other major art schools in the region, the California Institute of the Arts, known as CalArts, in Valencia, and Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.
His efforts extend beyond the visual arts. He recently provided a gift to pay for the Los Angeles Opera’s staging of Wagner’s “Ring,” the first time the complete cycle will be produced here.
“Eli Broad really does seem to be the most strategic thinker right now about L.A. and the arts,” said Elizabeth Ondaatje, a Rand Corporation researcher who is directing the institution’s studies of the arts with Mr. McCarthy. “Every other month you read another investment they’ve decided to make.”
Mr. Broad (whose name rhymes with road) has generated a fair amount of resentment in some corners here for his outsized presence on the art scene. His devotion to the downtown projects have been criticized as ignoring pockets of the city that have less access to the arts, like the largely Hispanic sections of East Los Angeles and the areas south of downtown that have large African-American populations. And some of the resistance he faced in his most recent fund-raising effort came from people who wondered why a billionaire was asking for money from taxpayers to promote museums on whose boards he sits.
Ever an optimist, Mr. Broad dismisses those criticisms, saying he prefers to discuss why, despite the relative lack of major corporations here, he still believes that new money can flow to the art world. As evidence, he cited a $25 million donation announced this month by BP, the energy company, to the Los Angeles County Museum to finance a new entrance pavilion.
If it has been hard to attract investment and government support for cultural activities, the city’s vibrant visual arts scene might be seen as its own best advertisement.
“The rest of the world is promoting the city as well or better than L.A. does,” said Gary Garrels, the chief curator at the Hammer Museum, who moved here two years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “All of the curators and galleries that are dynamic are coming to Los Angeles and looking at what’s going on here.”
Downtown, which not too long ago was little more than a ghost town after 5 p.m. on weekdays, now bustles with activity around Fifth and Spring streets on Friday and Saturday nights, when art galleries typically schedule their openings of new shows. Similar scenes unfold around more established galleries on Wilshire Boulevard and among emerging contemporary galleries in Santa Monica and Culver City, the incorporated area south of Interstate 10.
Last year Los Angeles and its artists were the focus of a major show at the Pompidou Center in Paris, “Los Angeles 1955-1985: The Birth of an Art Capital.” This month the Hammer Museum here will feature 15 contemporary Los Angeles artists in a show exploring what it means to create here, playfully titled “Eden’s Edge.”
As a career art seems more realistic to graduate art students than ever before, said Patrick Painter, who owns a gallery in Santa Monica. “Students graduate here with a feeling they can live in L.A. and make a living in LA.,” he said. “L.A. will never be more important than New York, but it will be equal.”
And naturally some artists adopt Los Angeles precisely because it is not New York. Max Jansons, a Los Angeles painter who is a New York native, graduated from U.C.L.A., then returned to Columbia University for a master’s degree. He now lives in Santa Monica.
“I like having time to be in my studio without being surrounded by tons of different voices and seeing all these different shows and being part of that activity,” Mr. Jansons said. “There’s something very focused about your time here in the studio that I never really had in New York when I was there.”
Whereas New York presents more opportunities for the chance meetings with other artists that stimulate discussion, he added, it is easier to isolate oneself and get work done in Los Angeles. “Here you really have to make an effort to be part of something,” he said.
In large part that is because of the sprawl that so defines Los Angeles, said Michael Brand, who came here in 2005 as director of the Getty Museum. “The thing the city lacks is public transport and ease of access,” he said. “That, I think, is a major problem, unlike London, unlike New York, where you can just quickly go to other sorts of cultural organizations. It means people like myself and my colleagues in the end find it harder to maintain a face-to-face dialogue. You’ve got to plan ahead, and at a minimum it’s an afternoon.”
What Angelenos get in the trade of course is physical space. Sherin Guirguis, an artist who was born in Egypt and received her master’s degree from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said she chose Los Angeles by necessity.
“I couldn’t afford to live in New York no matter what, not even in Brooklyn,” she said. “I’m able to have space here. I make very large work, and it’s very expensive to make.”
Meanwhile the path forged by Mr. Baldessari and others has brought a legitimacy to artists here, one that many people believe will be followed by increasing levels of financial aid.
“L.A. has been the model for another American city having a spot in the art world,” said Fredric Snitzer, the owner of a gallery in Miami who brought works by several of his artists to the “Art LA” show here in late January.
“In the old days California artists were like they were on another planet,” he said. “In the last 20 years that has changed. There are fabulous artists here who have to be reckoned with.”
But first, my minor quibbles about the story. The writer mentions how 5th and Spring is filled with people on Friday and Saturday nights when all the art galleries have their openings.
Well, close - but no cigar, not even a cigar that.... isn't a cigar.
The actual intersection is one-half block away at 5th and Main Street which has six store front galleries (and two more coming) as opposed to the solitary one at 6th and Spring located in a restaurant. Plus the big night for gallery goers is the second Thursday of the month Gallery Walk when all of the galleries are open, though many of them do have individual openings on Friday or Saturday nights.
And the area was hardly deserted at night before the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council midwifed the Gallery Row organization and the DLANC Economic Development Committee I headed leased many of these galleries their spaces; before DLANC took on this project, 5th and Main was filled every night - wall to wall - but with drug dealers, virtually all of whom are now gone.
Second, the article correctly mentions people complain that Eli Broad either does too much or that he doesn't do enough to support the arts in Los Angeles. Well, Eli is the ONLY person in LA who looks at the city as a whole and then works to try and make all the parts of the city work. Right now, our civic leadership is Eli Broad and the seven dwarfs. But, of course, everyone criticizes Eli but never any of the seven dwarfs.
OK - now for the good stuff - which is everything else, starting with the concise definition of the core problem:
While New York, London and Paris each attract 10 million to 15 million such visitors per year, Los Angeles draws only about 2.5 million...
And...
Whereas 40 percent of visitors to New York and London take part in some sort of cultural activity — a museum visit, a theatrical performance or the like — and 85 percent of visitors to Paris do so, only about 1 in 10 tourists to Los Angeles visit a cultural site.
So what is wrong? A number of things.
First, while we have almost as many plays put on every year as New York - we have very little commercial theater in either the full Broadway mode - or even using the commercial off-Broadway model.
So how to fix that? Well, a group of us at DLANC are working on turning the Broadway theaters into... actual Broadway theaters. That is because a major commercial theater district Downtown - along with theaters in North Hollywood and Hollywood and elsewhere - would bring millions of cultural tourists to our city each year since commercial theater is single largest generator of tourists of all kind to New York - and one of the largest generator of tourists to London.
Another problem we have is the lack of major cultural events to bring well heeled tourists to LA. An example of how to fix this is when four DLANC (Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council) board members in just six weeks brought Fashion Week back to Downtown.
This was after all the usual suspects had passed on doing anything this season, for a fourth year in a row.
Plus the four of us are already well into planning a far larger event for the October Fashion Week - and we are also planning numerous events for the general public besides the cat walk shows for the buyers, the press and the VIP's. Our goal is to make our March and October Fashion Weeks major tourist draws besides the events that will be exclusively for the fashionistas. And other organizations and individuals Downtown will be working with us this time.
More about this in the coming months.
In line with that, our same core group is working to bring a major international art fair to Los Angeles and working to start other culturally inclined fairs and weeks in Los Angeles, again using the networking among neighborhood councils to accomplish this.
And can anyone explain to me why during Oscar week - the one time of the year when every eye is turned on Los Angeles - there isn't a full week of activities to bring film buffs to Los Angeles?
I mean... duh!
Next there is our museum problem. We have dozens a major collections that have no homes, and little prospect of that changing, unless someone can develop a business model to fund their buildings. And that is something the NC's are working on.
In addition, even our existing museums have major gaps in what they can exhibit. MOCA in its two buildings has no room to show its growing permanent collection - and the Getty has no space to show its rapidly expanding photo collection since the Trust is prohibited from building any additional square footage up on the hill.
Luckily, there is a single, elegant solution (and business plan) that might solve both problems that is being examined right now and which will be presented to both institutions. And after one hundred years of complaints that the City of Los Angeles is the only city - or even town - without a museum devoted to its own history, the neighborhood councils have once more grabbed the bull by the horns and are creating a Los Angeles Museum that will have not just a main building, but - eventually - branches in every community in Los Angeles.
And that is only the beginning of what the NC's are doing on this issue.
Now as for the funding problem the article addresses:
Two years ago Mr. Broad tried to raise $10 million in public financing to promote the arts here. While the city promised $2 million, officials at the county, state and federal levels balked, arguing in part that more private money should be raised for that purpose. For now the effort has stalled, although Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said in an interview that he would like to create a public-private partnership to accomplish what Mr. Broad proposed.
What no one seems to understand is that our problem is NOT in promoting the arts in LA - it is in making the arts as accessible in LA as they are in other cities.
Increased promotion is putting the cart before the horse. What we need are better museums, more world class galleries, a commercial theater district, a major second younger opera company - such as the one several DLANC board members are supporting, a ballet company, a classical theater company (to name just a few of our needs) and dozens of fairs and public events that would both benefit locals - and attract tourists.
Every art form needs to have a concentrated week of activities once or twice a year to make LA a must see destination for anyone interested in that art form.
We have the artists and the art, but our presentation of the arts far lags behind New York, London and Paris. And that is the core problem we have to fix.
The irony is that the proposed ten million to promote the arts - if used as seed money to create the attractions we need - would greatly reduce the need to spend the money to promote LA as a cultural destination.
And as far as spreading cultural tourism across the city - and then promoting our attractions to the world, the NC's are working on a plan to do just that (think social networking) - and we can do it for a fraction of the ten million being proposed.
Stay tuned!
March 25, 2007
The Art’s Here. Where’s the Crowd?
By EDWARD WYATT
LOS ANGELES
JOHN BALDESSARI, the conceptual artist who has long made his home here, for years gave his college art students one piece of advice when they graduated: Go to New York, the capital of the art world.
Now, however, Mr. Baldessari has a different view. “I don’t think it matters,” he said recently. “More and more young artists leave school and stay here. The opportunities are better, and the cost of living is cheaper. People involved in art regularly come to L.A. It really doesn’t matter if they live in New York or L.A.”
Two decades after Los Angeles emerged as the nation’s second art capital, the city is reaping the benefits of a migration of artists, galleries, dealers and curators. In recent years more than two artists have moved to this city for every one that moved away, a net rate of gain that is higher than in any metropolitan area in the country, according to an analysis of Census Bureau statistics by Ann Markusen, a professor at the University of Minnesota.
In the process new centers of gravity have emerged for contemporary art and artists in a city that has suffered for years because of its lack of a central arts district. Now there is not one such geographic center but several: downtown, where a thriving gallery district operates in what used to be a nighttime ghost town, as well as in former industrial areas in Culver City and Santa Monica. And a new generation of curators have been lured to the major museums here. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Hammer Museum have each attracted energizing new talent in recent years.
Of course the city has long since emerged as an important center for the performing arts as well. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, regarded as one of the country’s most dynamic orchestras, gained added allure with its move to Frank Gehry’s 2003 Disney Hall on Grand Avenue, and the Los Angeles Opera is preparing for its first-ever “Ring” cycle next door at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
In architecture Los Angeles has been an incubator not just for Mr. Gehry but for the rising star Thom Mayne, and high-profile commissions by Renzo Piano at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Steven Holl at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are proceeding apace. And the boom in television and film production in Hollywood has created new opportunities for visual artists and dancers, many of whom also work for companies that perform in or have close ties to Pacific Rim countries.
Yet the city is still struggling to attract cultural tourists. While New York, London and Paris each attract 10 million to 15 million such visitors per year, Los Angeles draws only about 2.5 million, according to a 2004 study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.
“Why is that?” asked the philanthropist Eli Broad, the city’s most visible and generous champion of the arts. “Perception. We have not promoted cultural travel. That’s going to start happening, and that’s going to get the city more and more attention.”
Whereas 40 percent of visitors to New York and London take part in some sort of cultural activity — a museum visit, a theatrical performance or the like — and 85 percent of visitors to Paris do so, only about 1 in 10 tourists to Los Angeles visit a cultural site.
To remedy that Mr. Broad and other civic leaders are bargaining on their investment in the commercial and cultural districts that are taking shape downtown, like the Grand Avenue Project and L.A. Live, efforts that include hotels, restaurants, shops and entertainment centers.
“It will mean a big boost to the economy, and a big boost to how our city is viewed internationally,” Mr. Broad said. “It’s not simply sunshine, beaches and Hollywood here.”
But that effort hasn’t been easy. Two years ago Mr. Broad tried to raise $10 million in public financing to promote the arts here. While the city promised $2 million, officials at the county, state and federal levels balked, arguing in part that more private money should be raised for that purpose. For now the effort has stalled, although Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said in an interview that he would like to create a public-private partnership to accomplish what Mr. Broad proposed.
The mayor’s initiative, however, awaits his appointment of a new general manager for the city’s cultural affairs department, a job that has gone unfilled since the previous department manager resigned nine months ago.
The department manager will be charged with fashioning a new cultural master plan for the city, a blueprint for encouraging both local investment in the arts and reaching out to areas of the city that are underserved by museums, theaters and the like. The master plan was last revised in 1991.
“I think there are a lot of people who want to get involved in the arts, and would if there was a conduit for it,” Mr. Villaraigosa said in an interview.
But that financial conduit is conspicuously absent, especially at a time when corporations are cutting their arts budgets or using them more for marketing than for philanthropy. That problem is aggravated by the relative shortage of major corporations here: Los Angeles has fewer Fortune 500 companies than Richmond, Va., or Charlotte, N.C.
Historically, said Kevin F. McCarthy, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation who is working on a study of support systems for the arts in cities around the country, Los Angeles has had three sets of business leaders: the first drawn from the downtown corporations, the second from the high-technology and aerospace industries on the west side, and the third from Hollywood.
“You could never get the entertainment industry to work with the other two guys, even though there were some people who had connections in both communities,” Mr. McCarthy said. The problem with Hollywood leaders, he said, is that “they’re so used to publicity and understanding the importance of marketing that they want to be the center of attention on all of this stuff.”
“I think they also have a very short-sighted focus, like much of the corporate sector, on profits,” he added. “And they tend to see this as a zero- sum game.”
Some Hollywood moguls are already big donors of course. David Geffen gave $5 million in 1996 to the Museum of Contemporary Art; it now maintains the Geffen Contemporary galleries as a separate part of its three-campus institution. Mr. Geffen also gave money for the renovation of a theater near the University of California at Los Angeles campus in Westwood that is now called the Geffen Playhouse. And Disney Hall was built with $120 million from corporations and private donors, along with an initial $50 million from Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, and more than $100 million from Los Angeles County.
Mr. Broad says he is confident that Hollywood’s commitment will increase, in part through the goading of newly arrived museum directors, including Michael Govan. Mr. Govan arrived one year ago from the Dia Art Foundation in New York to take over as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has forged new connections with Hollywood. Among his additions to the museum’s board are Barbra Streisand; Michael Crichton; Terry Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo and former co-chief executive of Warner Brothers; and Willow Bay, the television reporter who is married to Robert Iger, chief executive of Disney.
Now, however, Mayor Villaraigosa may be in the best position to mobilize money into the arts, galvanize business leaders in Hollywood and beyond, and raise the visibility of the city’s cultural scene. “He’s got the kind of sex appeal that Hollywood wants,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He could bring these guys together,” in a way that the previous mayor, James K. Hahn, could not.
In 2004 Mr. Hahn floated the idea of doing away with the city’s cultural affairs department altogether. That effort was fought by Mr. Villaraigosa, then a councilman, earning him the support of many grass-roots arts organizations, which helped his 2005 election campaign.
“I think we can get Hollywood to be more active in the arts,” Mr. Villaraigosa said. “One of the reasons why we’re focused on finding a visionary leader in the area of the arts is because it’s going to take someone who’s got the wherewithal, the respect, the ethos if you will, in the arts community and can rally that community in support of new initiatives,” like cultural programs in the schools and greater citywide spending on the arts.
If anyone knows how hard it can be to attract that support, it is Mr. Broad, who seems to have a hand in almost everything that goes on in the arts.
He was the founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and its present location on Grand Avenue downtown, near Disney Hall, is a direct result of his efforts. Mr. Broad is also a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is currently building the Broad Contemporary Art Museum on its campus on Wilshire Boulevard, thanks to a $60 million gift from Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe.
The Broads have also made a big impact on the art schools in the Los Angeles area. Last fall U.C.L.A. opened the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center, a collection of studios, classrooms, offices and gallery space designed by the architects Richard Meier and Michael Palladino. Outside sits a Richard Serra sculpture commissioned by Mr. Broad for that purpose. And the Broads have donated money for buildings at the two other major art schools in the region, the California Institute of the Arts, known as CalArts, in Valencia, and Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.
His efforts extend beyond the visual arts. He recently provided a gift to pay for the Los Angeles Opera’s staging of Wagner’s “Ring,” the first time the complete cycle will be produced here.
“Eli Broad really does seem to be the most strategic thinker right now about L.A. and the arts,” said Elizabeth Ondaatje, a Rand Corporation researcher who is directing the institution’s studies of the arts with Mr. McCarthy. “Every other month you read another investment they’ve decided to make.”
Mr. Broad (whose name rhymes with road) has generated a fair amount of resentment in some corners here for his outsized presence on the art scene. His devotion to the downtown projects have been criticized as ignoring pockets of the city that have less access to the arts, like the largely Hispanic sections of East Los Angeles and the areas south of downtown that have large African-American populations. And some of the resistance he faced in his most recent fund-raising effort came from people who wondered why a billionaire was asking for money from taxpayers to promote museums on whose boards he sits.
Ever an optimist, Mr. Broad dismisses those criticisms, saying he prefers to discuss why, despite the relative lack of major corporations here, he still believes that new money can flow to the art world. As evidence, he cited a $25 million donation announced this month by BP, the energy company, to the Los Angeles County Museum to finance a new entrance pavilion.
If it has been hard to attract investment and government support for cultural activities, the city’s vibrant visual arts scene might be seen as its own best advertisement.
“The rest of the world is promoting the city as well or better than L.A. does,” said Gary Garrels, the chief curator at the Hammer Museum, who moved here two years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “All of the curators and galleries that are dynamic are coming to Los Angeles and looking at what’s going on here.”
Downtown, which not too long ago was little more than a ghost town after 5 p.m. on weekdays, now bustles with activity around Fifth and Spring streets on Friday and Saturday nights, when art galleries typically schedule their openings of new shows. Similar scenes unfold around more established galleries on Wilshire Boulevard and among emerging contemporary galleries in Santa Monica and Culver City, the incorporated area south of Interstate 10.
Last year Los Angeles and its artists were the focus of a major show at the Pompidou Center in Paris, “Los Angeles 1955-1985: The Birth of an Art Capital.” This month the Hammer Museum here will feature 15 contemporary Los Angeles artists in a show exploring what it means to create here, playfully titled “Eden’s Edge.”
As a career art seems more realistic to graduate art students than ever before, said Patrick Painter, who owns a gallery in Santa Monica. “Students graduate here with a feeling they can live in L.A. and make a living in LA.,” he said. “L.A. will never be more important than New York, but it will be equal.”
And naturally some artists adopt Los Angeles precisely because it is not New York. Max Jansons, a Los Angeles painter who is a New York native, graduated from U.C.L.A., then returned to Columbia University for a master’s degree. He now lives in Santa Monica.
“I like having time to be in my studio without being surrounded by tons of different voices and seeing all these different shows and being part of that activity,” Mr. Jansons said. “There’s something very focused about your time here in the studio that I never really had in New York when I was there.”
Whereas New York presents more opportunities for the chance meetings with other artists that stimulate discussion, he added, it is easier to isolate oneself and get work done in Los Angeles. “Here you really have to make an effort to be part of something,” he said.
In large part that is because of the sprawl that so defines Los Angeles, said Michael Brand, who came here in 2005 as director of the Getty Museum. “The thing the city lacks is public transport and ease of access,” he said. “That, I think, is a major problem, unlike London, unlike New York, where you can just quickly go to other sorts of cultural organizations. It means people like myself and my colleagues in the end find it harder to maintain a face-to-face dialogue. You’ve got to plan ahead, and at a minimum it’s an afternoon.”
What Angelenos get in the trade of course is physical space. Sherin Guirguis, an artist who was born in Egypt and received her master’s degree from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said she chose Los Angeles by necessity.
“I couldn’t afford to live in New York no matter what, not even in Brooklyn,” she said. “I’m able to have space here. I make very large work, and it’s very expensive to make.”
Meanwhile the path forged by Mr. Baldessari and others has brought a legitimacy to artists here, one that many people believe will be followed by increasing levels of financial aid.
“L.A. has been the model for another American city having a spot in the art world,” said Fredric Snitzer, the owner of a gallery in Miami who brought works by several of his artists to the “Art LA” show here in late January.
“In the old days California artists were like they were on another planet,” he said. “In the last 20 years that has changed. There are fabulous artists here who have to be reckoned with.”
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Did Mary Shelley NOT write Frankenstein?
Sounds like a pretty convincing case to me...
From The Sunday Times
March 25, 2007
A monstrous lie: Mary Shelley’s claim to Frankenstein disputed
THE conventional account of how Mary Shelley, a teenager, came to invent Dr Frankenstein and his monster is of a “waking dream” brought on by a drinking session with some of Britain’s most notorious Romantic poets.
However, a forthcoming book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, claims that Shelley, an icon of modern feminism, was a fraud who did not dream up the gothic monster in response to a challenge by Lord Byron by Lake Geneva. It claims the credit for the world’s first science fiction novel should go to Percy Bysshe Shelley, her future husband.
John Lauritsen’s book, due out in May, builds on debates that have surrounded Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus since it was published anonymously in 1818. Even the older Mary seemed amazed by it. Nearly a decade after her husband died in a boating accident she wondered “how I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea”.
Loyalists are rallying to defend Mary while iconoclastic scholars such as Camille Paglia praise Lauritsen for his “fresh and convincing outsider’s challenge to the orthodoxies of today’s lazy and overpaid academics”.
Lauritsen, a Harvard-educated “independent scholar” who has spent seven years comparing the texts of Shelley’s great works such as Ozymandias with his wife’s subsequent books, says that Frankenstein was too profound to have been created by an “ill-educated 19-year-old whose later writings were just ordinary”.
He says some of the language, with lines such as “I will glut the maw of death”, were pure Shelley.
Lauritsen said Shelley had many reasons to disguise his authorship, including hints of “free love” that had driven him out of England and an undertone of “Romantic, but I would not say gay, male love”. Another factor may have been the critics, who hated it.
The Quarterly Review of 1818 said the story of Frankenstein, the Swiss scientist who creates a monster from body parts, only to see it run amok, was a “tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity”.
Yet after Shelley drowned off Tuscany in 1822, Frankenstein defied the critics to return to life and become a massive hit, first on the stage and then in many sexually censored editions overseen by Mary. She was unable to recreate such a blockbuster.
Paglia said: “There are serious questions here that feminists who have turned Mary Shelley into a saint need to address. This is very exciting stuff that will infuriate scholars who cannot accept that Mary was a second-rate writer.”
Hilary Bailey, author of the forthcoming novel Frankenstein’s Bride, said: “The style of Frankenstein is, to be brutal, clotted and pedestrian. Shelley didn’t write it and, if he did, it would be kinder not to say so.”
From The Sunday Times
March 25, 2007
A monstrous lie: Mary Shelley’s claim to Frankenstein disputed
THE conventional account of how Mary Shelley, a teenager, came to invent Dr Frankenstein and his monster is of a “waking dream” brought on by a drinking session with some of Britain’s most notorious Romantic poets.
However, a forthcoming book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, claims that Shelley, an icon of modern feminism, was a fraud who did not dream up the gothic monster in response to a challenge by Lord Byron by Lake Geneva. It claims the credit for the world’s first science fiction novel should go to Percy Bysshe Shelley, her future husband.
John Lauritsen’s book, due out in May, builds on debates that have surrounded Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus since it was published anonymously in 1818. Even the older Mary seemed amazed by it. Nearly a decade after her husband died in a boating accident she wondered “how I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea”.
Loyalists are rallying to defend Mary while iconoclastic scholars such as Camille Paglia praise Lauritsen for his “fresh and convincing outsider’s challenge to the orthodoxies of today’s lazy and overpaid academics”.
Lauritsen, a Harvard-educated “independent scholar” who has spent seven years comparing the texts of Shelley’s great works such as Ozymandias with his wife’s subsequent books, says that Frankenstein was too profound to have been created by an “ill-educated 19-year-old whose later writings were just ordinary”.
He says some of the language, with lines such as “I will glut the maw of death”, were pure Shelley.
Lauritsen said Shelley had many reasons to disguise his authorship, including hints of “free love” that had driven him out of England and an undertone of “Romantic, but I would not say gay, male love”. Another factor may have been the critics, who hated it.
The Quarterly Review of 1818 said the story of Frankenstein, the Swiss scientist who creates a monster from body parts, only to see it run amok, was a “tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity”.
Yet after Shelley drowned off Tuscany in 1822, Frankenstein defied the critics to return to life and become a massive hit, first on the stage and then in many sexually censored editions overseen by Mary. She was unable to recreate such a blockbuster.
Paglia said: “There are serious questions here that feminists who have turned Mary Shelley into a saint need to address. This is very exciting stuff that will infuriate scholars who cannot accept that Mary was a second-rate writer.”
Hilary Bailey, author of the forthcoming novel Frankenstein’s Bride, said: “The style of Frankenstein is, to be brutal, clotted and pedestrian. Shelley didn’t write it and, if he did, it would be kinder not to say so.”
Downtown News Wrap-Up On Downtown Fashion Week!
Another article on one of the five Downtown Fashion Week events of last week:
Downtown Flaunts A Fashion of Its Own
Culver City Has Smashbox, but the Los Angeles Theatre Knows How to Party
by Kathleen Nye Flynn
I'm no fashion expert, but in the last few years I've snuck into my fair share of catwalk events. I've wiggled into Culver City's biannual Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios a few times, either through the front door or the back.
Jared Gold's fashion show at the Los Angeles Theatre, with an aisle carved out of the venue's grand ballroom, was far friendlier than similar events on the Westside.
So I had an inkling of what I was getting into when I showed up (through the front door) at Downtown's first Fashion Week event in years, which began March 16. The two nights of shows at Broadway's Los Angeles Theatre, I knew, had the potential to be memorable.
I arrived at the Friday night show just in time for Jared Gold's collection. The theater's ornate ceiling swooped above a crowd glammed out in avant-garde dresses, handmade hats and vintage styles.
The lustrous, colonnaded walls and wide, tumbling staircases, combined with the artsy folks on the guest list and DJs spinning tunes, provided the groundwork for one enticing evening - especially for an event that began as a random notion over drinks.
A motley crew of neighborhood advocates slapped the show together in just seven weeks. The group included Brady Westwater, the Downtown Neighborhood Council's vice president with a penchant for cowboy hats and wrestling team shirts, along with artist Peter Gurnz, Gary Warfel, a local CEO, and Michael Delijani, the theater's owner. They're not exactly a fashion forward group, but they obviously knew something about attracting a scene - each night drew more than 800 people.
After working my way through the crowd, I squeezed into a space on a tightly filled bench. Instead of the usual raised catwalk, bleachers lined an aisle carved out of the theater's grand ballroom. The layout created an intimate, parlor room effect, which made the vibe more friendly than self conscious, rare for a fashion show.
I sat near Westwater, who was wearing a dapper red button down, sans cowboy hat but still hiding a wrestling shirt underneath the formal front. He stole glances at the woman on the other side of him, L.A. artist Dame Darcy, who donned a feather hat, a long white lace dress and carried a doll in her likeness. Surely, this was no City Council meeting.
The crowd was boisterous, cheering on each model. Unlike Smashbox events, there was an air of congeniality - probably because we were able to bring our drinks and get sloshed while watching.
Gold's collection was in line with its edgy audience. The pieces - a post-apocalyptic mixture of Edwardian collars, 1970s-style skirts and one dress apparently made from a bed sheet - matched the rebelliousness of the models, who threw off shoes and succumbed to silly dance moves.
Even though the show was intended to supplement Smashbox's events rather than compete with them, as I sat amid the raucous audience, I couldn't help but draw some comparisons.
Smashbox is in Culver City, far from any sort of party scene. The building is pristine, austere and streamlined - much like the catwalks that the models strut down, much like the models themselves.
The Los Angeles Theater proved measurably more interesting. It boasts dark, mysterious corners and historical beauty, its glamorous architectural arches like the curls in Marilyn Monroe's hair.
The show was not without hiccups: Up until the last minute, organizers were scrambling to get city approvals for street closures and other permits. Later, the after-party only captured a smallish audience.
I came back the next night with a few friends and high expectations. But, sadly, I learned that much of a fashion event's scene is directly affected by the designers who are showcasing. On Saturday night, Eduardo Lucero, an established designer with a store on the Westside, showed off his stunning collection of refined, high-waisted skirts, open-backed cocktail dresses and a pair of perfectly nipped alabaster gowns.
Lucero did much of his own promoting, and with him came a decidedly different scene, more mainstream, more, well, Smashbox. The crowd seemed out of place in the unique, if primitive, surroundings. Some critics may call the second night the more professional of the two, but to me it lacked the energy that made night one so memorable.
The two nights made me think not just about fashion, but about Los Angeles and its role in the industry. There's no reason why our fashion shows shouldn't represent the city's playful, anything-goes lifestyle. With the east side of Los Angeles home to so much creative energy (mostly because of the cheaper real estate), it makes sense that an old Broadway theater would be an appropriate venue to saddle that originality.
Overall, Fashion Week - whether in Culver City or elsewhere - would do well to keep playing up its differences, its youthful, creative qualities, its edginess and serendipity.
This fledgling, quickly planned event went a long way in proving that L.A. fashion, along with Downtown, can truly foster a niche of its own.
Contact Kathleen Nye Flynn at kathleen@downtownnews.com.
Downtown Flaunts A Fashion of Its Own
Culver City Has Smashbox, but the Los Angeles Theatre Knows How to Party
by Kathleen Nye Flynn
I'm no fashion expert, but in the last few years I've snuck into my fair share of catwalk events. I've wiggled into Culver City's biannual Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios a few times, either through the front door or the back.
Jared Gold's fashion show at the Los Angeles Theatre, with an aisle carved out of the venue's grand ballroom, was far friendlier than similar events on the Westside.
So I had an inkling of what I was getting into when I showed up (through the front door) at Downtown's first Fashion Week event in years, which began March 16. The two nights of shows at Broadway's Los Angeles Theatre, I knew, had the potential to be memorable.
I arrived at the Friday night show just in time for Jared Gold's collection. The theater's ornate ceiling swooped above a crowd glammed out in avant-garde dresses, handmade hats and vintage styles.
The lustrous, colonnaded walls and wide, tumbling staircases, combined with the artsy folks on the guest list and DJs spinning tunes, provided the groundwork for one enticing evening - especially for an event that began as a random notion over drinks.
A motley crew of neighborhood advocates slapped the show together in just seven weeks. The group included Brady Westwater, the Downtown Neighborhood Council's vice president with a penchant for cowboy hats and wrestling team shirts, along with artist Peter Gurnz, Gary Warfel, a local CEO, and Michael Delijani, the theater's owner. They're not exactly a fashion forward group, but they obviously knew something about attracting a scene - each night drew more than 800 people.
After working my way through the crowd, I squeezed into a space on a tightly filled bench. Instead of the usual raised catwalk, bleachers lined an aisle carved out of the theater's grand ballroom. The layout created an intimate, parlor room effect, which made the vibe more friendly than self conscious, rare for a fashion show.
I sat near Westwater, who was wearing a dapper red button down, sans cowboy hat but still hiding a wrestling shirt underneath the formal front. He stole glances at the woman on the other side of him, L.A. artist Dame Darcy, who donned a feather hat, a long white lace dress and carried a doll in her likeness. Surely, this was no City Council meeting.
The crowd was boisterous, cheering on each model. Unlike Smashbox events, there was an air of congeniality - probably because we were able to bring our drinks and get sloshed while watching.
Gold's collection was in line with its edgy audience. The pieces - a post-apocalyptic mixture of Edwardian collars, 1970s-style skirts and one dress apparently made from a bed sheet - matched the rebelliousness of the models, who threw off shoes and succumbed to silly dance moves.
Even though the show was intended to supplement Smashbox's events rather than compete with them, as I sat amid the raucous audience, I couldn't help but draw some comparisons.
Smashbox is in Culver City, far from any sort of party scene. The building is pristine, austere and streamlined - much like the catwalks that the models strut down, much like the models themselves.
The Los Angeles Theater proved measurably more interesting. It boasts dark, mysterious corners and historical beauty, its glamorous architectural arches like the curls in Marilyn Monroe's hair.
The show was not without hiccups: Up until the last minute, organizers were scrambling to get city approvals for street closures and other permits. Later, the after-party only captured a smallish audience.
I came back the next night with a few friends and high expectations. But, sadly, I learned that much of a fashion event's scene is directly affected by the designers who are showcasing. On Saturday night, Eduardo Lucero, an established designer with a store on the Westside, showed off his stunning collection of refined, high-waisted skirts, open-backed cocktail dresses and a pair of perfectly nipped alabaster gowns.
Lucero did much of his own promoting, and with him came a decidedly different scene, more mainstream, more, well, Smashbox. The crowd seemed out of place in the unique, if primitive, surroundings. Some critics may call the second night the more professional of the two, but to me it lacked the energy that made night one so memorable.
The two nights made me think not just about fashion, but about Los Angeles and its role in the industry. There's no reason why our fashion shows shouldn't represent the city's playful, anything-goes lifestyle. With the east side of Los Angeles home to so much creative energy (mostly because of the cheaper real estate), it makes sense that an old Broadway theater would be an appropriate venue to saddle that originality.
Overall, Fashion Week - whether in Culver City or elsewhere - would do well to keep playing up its differences, its youthful, creative qualities, its edginess and serendipity.
This fledgling, quickly planned event went a long way in proving that L.A. fashion, along with Downtown, can truly foster a niche of its own.
Contact Kathleen Nye Flynn at kathleen@downtownnews.com.
Friday, March 23, 2007
LA Weekly On Downtown Fashion Week's Party Scene!
First, an update on the latest Art Bar incarnation of the Grand Avenue Club:
Ain’t it Grand (Ave.)?
It’s still too sketchy for us to live in, but downtown definitely beats Hollywood for going out: less traffic, less moolah, less velvet-rope burn. It’s no wonder D-town’s boomin’. Let’s hope it doesn’t go too far, though: Many of the new living spaces go for seven figures, and we even heard rumors that Posh & Bex were looking at some swanky pads east of the Civic Center. (Shall we call them Pex for short? —ed.)
Based at Broadway and Ninth, the arty collective BOXEight get props for putting the focus back on the beauty and character of L.A.’s old, under-used architectural treasures. Not only did they choose the palatial Los Angeles Theatre as a venue for two nights of music and clothing-designer action (an alternative to Smashbox’s Fashion Week shows), but they’re bringing new life to the previously neglected Grand Ave. Nightclub with a monthly gathering called Art Bar.
The Grand old building’s usual crowd includes salsersos and Top 40 fans, but owner Gary Warfer told us he’s looking to attract a more rockin’ scene and has some biggie band bookings in the works. With a groovy new paint job and seating/eating area, it sure looks nicer than it did back when it was a rave fave, and we know it works as a rock venue: Tiger Mask had its first (and last) L.A. Shakedown garage-a-thon there a few years ago, and though there were problems with that event, the space wasn’t one of them. We’ll keep ya posted on the plans for Grand’s return to grandeur in the coming months.
Then the party events at the LA Theatre shows:
Hot & Hammy Media Whores
The Los Angeles Theatre provided a charming, ornate backdrop for BOXEight’s three highly entertaining fashion shows and after-parties. Friday, a group show featuring the local lines Kit Pistol, Rock N Roll Beauty and Goddollars was zesty fun, but it only warmed up the runway for the main event: the flamboyant, uniform-inspired frocks of Salt Lake City provocateur Jared Gold (see A Considerable Town for full review). Gold’s show attracted a Technicolor brew of tatted art tarts, spiffed-up rockers (Eric Erlandson, Miss Derringer’s Elizabeth McGrath and Morgan Slade), hot & hammy media whores (celebutante author James St. James, Anna Nicole Smith “pal” Bobby Trendy in a puffy shirt and stripper boots), and industry playas & pets, including Amy Heckerling (Fast Times, Clueless), Heather Tom (Young & the Restless), Jennifer Carpenter (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and porn queen Jenna Jameson (sporting a bob haircut). Catwalk prancers were plucked from America’s Next Top Model, Janice Dickensen’s Modeling Agency and outer space — uh, we mean cyberspace. (Pink princess Jeffree Star, currently No. 1 on iTunes’ dance-music chart with his EP Plastic Surgery Slumber Party, worked it like Wonder Woman.) Overheard at the show’s close: “Well, that was the hippest crowd and show in L.A. Fashion Week. We might as well take the rest of the week off!”
Of course, we didn’t. We returned for Eduardo Lucero’s show the following night, where a more sophisticated, mostly Latin crowd gathered to eyeball Lucero’s Studio 54–ish getups. We were banished to bad seats in the back, but even from that distance, we thought the collection was hit-and-miss. We actually preferred the edgy ensembles we saw on latecomers after the show — including members of Orgy and The Living Things who funneled into the theater for Stephen Hauptfeur’s post-fashion show happening. The androgynous NYC electro-poppers Dangerous Muse and Suicide Club (led by Morphine Generation designer Erik Hart) provided the sounds but, alas, Nightranger had other (drunken) fish to fry. It was St. Paddy’s Day, after all.
Ain’t it Grand (Ave.)?
It’s still too sketchy for us to live in, but downtown definitely beats Hollywood for going out: less traffic, less moolah, less velvet-rope burn. It’s no wonder D-town’s boomin’. Let’s hope it doesn’t go too far, though: Many of the new living spaces go for seven figures, and we even heard rumors that Posh & Bex were looking at some swanky pads east of the Civic Center. (Shall we call them Pex for short? —ed.)
Based at Broadway and Ninth, the arty collective BOXEight get props for putting the focus back on the beauty and character of L.A.’s old, under-used architectural treasures. Not only did they choose the palatial Los Angeles Theatre as a venue for two nights of music and clothing-designer action (an alternative to Smashbox’s Fashion Week shows), but they’re bringing new life to the previously neglected Grand Ave. Nightclub with a monthly gathering called Art Bar.
The Grand old building’s usual crowd includes salsersos and Top 40 fans, but owner Gary Warfer told us he’s looking to attract a more rockin’ scene and has some biggie band bookings in the works. With a groovy new paint job and seating/eating area, it sure looks nicer than it did back when it was a rave fave, and we know it works as a rock venue: Tiger Mask had its first (and last) L.A. Shakedown garage-a-thon there a few years ago, and though there were problems with that event, the space wasn’t one of them. We’ll keep ya posted on the plans for Grand’s return to grandeur in the coming months.
Then the party events at the LA Theatre shows:
Hot & Hammy Media Whores
The Los Angeles Theatre provided a charming, ornate backdrop for BOXEight’s three highly entertaining fashion shows and after-parties. Friday, a group show featuring the local lines Kit Pistol, Rock N Roll Beauty and Goddollars was zesty fun, but it only warmed up the runway for the main event: the flamboyant, uniform-inspired frocks of Salt Lake City provocateur Jared Gold (see A Considerable Town for full review). Gold’s show attracted a Technicolor brew of tatted art tarts, spiffed-up rockers (Eric Erlandson, Miss Derringer’s Elizabeth McGrath and Morgan Slade), hot & hammy media whores (celebutante author James St. James, Anna Nicole Smith “pal” Bobby Trendy in a puffy shirt and stripper boots), and industry playas & pets, including Amy Heckerling (Fast Times, Clueless), Heather Tom (Young & the Restless), Jennifer Carpenter (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and porn queen Jenna Jameson (sporting a bob haircut). Catwalk prancers were plucked from America’s Next Top Model, Janice Dickensen’s Modeling Agency and outer space — uh, we mean cyberspace. (Pink princess Jeffree Star, currently No. 1 on iTunes’ dance-music chart with his EP Plastic Surgery Slumber Party, worked it like Wonder Woman.) Overheard at the show’s close: “Well, that was the hippest crowd and show in L.A. Fashion Week. We might as well take the rest of the week off!”
Of course, we didn’t. We returned for Eduardo Lucero’s show the following night, where a more sophisticated, mostly Latin crowd gathered to eyeball Lucero’s Studio 54–ish getups. We were banished to bad seats in the back, but even from that distance, we thought the collection was hit-and-miss. We actually preferred the edgy ensembles we saw on latecomers after the show — including members of Orgy and The Living Things who funneled into the theater for Stephen Hauptfeur’s post-fashion show happening. The androgynous NYC electro-poppers Dangerous Muse and Suicide Club (led by Morphine Generation designer Erik Hart) provided the sounds but, alas, Nightranger had other (drunken) fish to fry. It was St. Paddy’s Day, after all.
Weekly On Downtown Fashion Week's Jared Gold Show/Party!
This was definitely not your grandmother's fashion show - or fashions. Unless your Grandmother was Divine, of course.
L.A. Fashion Week Smackdown
Jared Gold’s runway spectacle competes with Smashbox shows
By LINDA IMMEDIATO
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 10:00 am
It was billed as “the wildest front row in all of Fashion Week.” You sometimes get a tranny or two in the audience at Smashbox Studios, site of L.A.’s official Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, but never in the numbers or caliber of the sparkling array of gorgeous cross-dressers in falsies and heels that turned up Friday night at Jared Gold’s Quiet Army show. Equally as shiny were the stylish men who sashayed this way and that in the lobby, including the event’s producer, the now-lithe Clint Catalyst, writer and contributing editor at Swindle, who was wearing a Jared Gold jacket adorned with multicolored horseback-riding ribbons.
“I’m a size queen,” he said as he handed us our tickets. “Believe me I’ve rode some horses.”
It’s hard to say what was more opulent — the crowd or the Los Angeles Theater, with its cathedral-coffered ceilings, gold molding and dripping crystal chandeliers. But the men weren’t the only ones who put extra effort into their outfits. Women in gloves, tiny veiled hats and home-crafted dresses populated the old movie house. Dame Darcy turned up in a wide-brimmed hat holding a parasol and one of her own, kind-of-creepy handmade china dolls.
This was a palace of underground royalty, with the kind of artsy throng made up of so many creative individuals that we felt like Sears-suited paint-by-numbers accountants in comparison. It was no Culver City fashion show.
And it was all brought to you by BOXeight, basically three men with no luxury-car sponsorship who plan to take over the world. Or at least to bring the heart of L.A. Fashion Week back to its birthplace downtown — to promote shows that demonstrate true artistry in clothing instead of the corporate-machine runway scenes that they say have taken over the other end of town.
The three of them look a bit like the Village People: Peter Gurnz, a hipster artist with a shaggy haircut is the driving force behind BOXeight; downtown advocate and neighborhood council president Brady Westwater, a.k.a. “L.A. Cowboy,” who comes complete with prerequisite hat, is well known to metro news types; and Gary Warfel, in a suit and tie, actually looks a little like a paint-by-numbers accountant, but is really a big downtown developer.
They dreamed up the idea of competing with Smashbox over drinks just a little more than six weeks before Fashion Week was set to begin. The idea was to produce their own L.A. fashion weekend of sorts, with shows at the Standard and the Los Angeles Theater. And so far the crowd and the location is already much more appealing than the Smashbox scene.
What about celebrities? Jared Gold’s show was filled with reality-TV stars, you know — those celebrities created by the people. Clint Catalyst got beauties like Top Model’s Lisa D’Amato and Joanie Dodds as well as J.P. Calderon of Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, actress Mageina Tovah, and the now fucshia-haired Jeffree Star of MySpace (whose EP Plastic Surgery Slumber Party is, according to a fan, currently No. 1 on the iTunes dance chart right above Justin Timberlake).
Old-school reality-TV veteran Bobby Trendy, who made a small name on the small screen as Anna Nicole Smith’s interior decorator, watched the spectacle from the front row in an oversize blouse worthy of Patti LaBelle, and a pink-and-rhinestone choker. I asked if he wanted to share any thoughts about Anna.
“It’s very sad,” he said, the light flickering in his lip-gloss. “But her legacy lives on. She touched a lot of people. And I just want to say that I never accepted any money for interviews. The only reason some people are talking now is because they want money, but I haven’t asked for one dollar. Ugh, that Howard. The truth will be revealed.”
How X-Files. The front row also contained the likes of Jenna Jameson, Eric from Hole (remember him? He actually lived through this), directors Daniel Stein (Color Me Olsen) and Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), White Oleander author Janet Fitch, and many other “fancy folks” as they’re known in certain circles.
But this crowd didn’t really care. Here, the lovely sculptress Elizabeth McGrath and other artist-utantes rule, and designer Jared Gold is the king du jour. Gold has shown to the underground for many years, cultivating a cult following with such ephemeral themes as light and shadows and aural vacuums.
Finally it was showtime, and with a Palace of Versailles–worthy hallway of dark wood paneling and candle sconces as runway backdrop, his clothes took center stage.
The theme? Mormon chic.
Yes, Mormon.
Despite the devil’s water being poured at the bar upstairs, on the runway it was all high-ruffled collars, modest hemlines, golden honeycombs and bees. Gold has just moved his company’s Black Chandelier headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, and his new home has clearly inspired him. But there were also touches of Girl Scout green and military emblems.
A fashion militia?
Gold smiled and said, “I’m building a small army.”
L.A. Fashion Week Smackdown
Jared Gold’s runway spectacle competes with Smashbox shows
By LINDA IMMEDIATO
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 10:00 am
It was billed as “the wildest front row in all of Fashion Week.” You sometimes get a tranny or two in the audience at Smashbox Studios, site of L.A.’s official Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, but never in the numbers or caliber of the sparkling array of gorgeous cross-dressers in falsies and heels that turned up Friday night at Jared Gold’s Quiet Army show. Equally as shiny were the stylish men who sashayed this way and that in the lobby, including the event’s producer, the now-lithe Clint Catalyst, writer and contributing editor at Swindle, who was wearing a Jared Gold jacket adorned with multicolored horseback-riding ribbons.
“I’m a size queen,” he said as he handed us our tickets. “Believe me I’ve rode some horses.”
It’s hard to say what was more opulent — the crowd or the Los Angeles Theater, with its cathedral-coffered ceilings, gold molding and dripping crystal chandeliers. But the men weren’t the only ones who put extra effort into their outfits. Women in gloves, tiny veiled hats and home-crafted dresses populated the old movie house. Dame Darcy turned up in a wide-brimmed hat holding a parasol and one of her own, kind-of-creepy handmade china dolls.
This was a palace of underground royalty, with the kind of artsy throng made up of so many creative individuals that we felt like Sears-suited paint-by-numbers accountants in comparison. It was no Culver City fashion show.
And it was all brought to you by BOXeight, basically three men with no luxury-car sponsorship who plan to take over the world. Or at least to bring the heart of L.A. Fashion Week back to its birthplace downtown — to promote shows that demonstrate true artistry in clothing instead of the corporate-machine runway scenes that they say have taken over the other end of town.
The three of them look a bit like the Village People: Peter Gurnz, a hipster artist with a shaggy haircut is the driving force behind BOXeight; downtown advocate and neighborhood council president Brady Westwater, a.k.a. “L.A. Cowboy,” who comes complete with prerequisite hat, is well known to metro news types; and Gary Warfel, in a suit and tie, actually looks a little like a paint-by-numbers accountant, but is really a big downtown developer.
They dreamed up the idea of competing with Smashbox over drinks just a little more than six weeks before Fashion Week was set to begin. The idea was to produce their own L.A. fashion weekend of sorts, with shows at the Standard and the Los Angeles Theater. And so far the crowd and the location is already much more appealing than the Smashbox scene.
What about celebrities? Jared Gold’s show was filled with reality-TV stars, you know — those celebrities created by the people. Clint Catalyst got beauties like Top Model’s Lisa D’Amato and Joanie Dodds as well as J.P. Calderon of Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, actress Mageina Tovah, and the now fucshia-haired Jeffree Star of MySpace (whose EP Plastic Surgery Slumber Party is, according to a fan, currently No. 1 on the iTunes dance chart right above Justin Timberlake).
Old-school reality-TV veteran Bobby Trendy, who made a small name on the small screen as Anna Nicole Smith’s interior decorator, watched the spectacle from the front row in an oversize blouse worthy of Patti LaBelle, and a pink-and-rhinestone choker. I asked if he wanted to share any thoughts about Anna.
“It’s very sad,” he said, the light flickering in his lip-gloss. “But her legacy lives on. She touched a lot of people. And I just want to say that I never accepted any money for interviews. The only reason some people are talking now is because they want money, but I haven’t asked for one dollar. Ugh, that Howard. The truth will be revealed.”
How X-Files. The front row also contained the likes of Jenna Jameson, Eric from Hole (remember him? He actually lived through this), directors Daniel Stein (Color Me Olsen) and Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), White Oleander author Janet Fitch, and many other “fancy folks” as they’re known in certain circles.
But this crowd didn’t really care. Here, the lovely sculptress Elizabeth McGrath and other artist-utantes rule, and designer Jared Gold is the king du jour. Gold has shown to the underground for many years, cultivating a cult following with such ephemeral themes as light and shadows and aural vacuums.
Finally it was showtime, and with a Palace of Versailles–worthy hallway of dark wood paneling and candle sconces as runway backdrop, his clothes took center stage.
The theme? Mormon chic.
Yes, Mormon.
Despite the devil’s water being poured at the bar upstairs, on the runway it was all high-ruffled collars, modest hemlines, golden honeycombs and bees. Gold has just moved his company’s Black Chandelier headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, and his new home has clearly inspired him. But there were also touches of Girl Scout green and military emblems.
A fashion militia?
Gold smiled and said, “I’m building a small army.”
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
LA Times On DLANC's Downtown LA Fashion Week vs. Mercedes-Benz's Culver City Smashbox Fashion Week!
When I challenged fellow Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Board members Gary Warfel, Michael Delinjani and Peter Gurnz to think out of the box... so to speak... and to join up to move Fashion Week back to Downtown Los Angeles, little did I know that within six weeks we would change the future of Fashion Week in Los Angeles.
L.A. FASHION WEEK
It's a clear case of diminishing returns
Fledgling rivals steal buzz while some notable designers bypass Smashbox.
By Adam Tschorn
Times Staff Writer
March 21, 2007
Alber Elbaz, Zac Posen and Phillip Lim in town. Glittering designer dinners in Hollywood and trunk shows in Beverly Hills. There has never been so much fashion in Los Angeles as there is this week. And yet, the event that anchors it all, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios, has never been more diminished.
With only 23 shows on the roster, this is its thinnest designer lineup in years. A pared-down seating chart — an effort to curb the party scene at the event — also means that there are fewer people attending the shows. Two rival "fashion weeks" have sprung up in downtown L.A. — fledgling though they might be, they were enough to have the fashion world buzzing about the threat to the main event. Before the first heel hit the catwalk, insiders were speculating that this might be the make-or-break season for the partnership behind the event — Smashbox Studios and the event production firm IMG.
Davis Factor, co-owner of Smashbox, said he didn't consider the season currently under way more or less crucial than any other. "Every single season we say the same thing: 'Is this going to be a make-or-break year?' But personally I don't look at each season, I look at the big picture. Would I be happy if there were another 10 great designers showing? I would be happier but I'm happy with what we have this season." To that end, he plans to hire someone full time to help network with the Los Angeles fashion community year-round.
Likewise, Fern Mallis, vice president of IMG Fashion, said her group was here to stay. "I think they are doing some terrific things downtown," Mallis said. "And I think what it shows is that Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week L.A. is clearly the anchor and the focus of what's happening in L.A."
Nevertheless, the schedule for Fashion Week, an event that includes The Times among 15 corporate sponsors, is filled with empty slots and some lesser-known designers, including the men's underwear line 2(x)ist, eveningwear designer Joseph Domingo and Tart, maker of jersey separates.
While some of the best in L.A. continue to show here, they are increasingly choosing to do so far from Smashbox. Rozae Nichols, who was named 2006 Designer of the Year at the L.A. Fashion Awards, presented her collection at her home in the Hollywood Hills on Sunday night. Corey Lynn Calter drew an A-list crowd including Christina Ricci to her Thursday-night presentation downtown.
And...
The most visible competition this season, though, is the pair of upstart fashion weeks held downtown in the days before the official event. Kitten Fashion Week, sponsored by Kitten magazine, showcased a dozen designers at the Standard Hotel over three days, and BOXeight, produced by an art collective, held two shows at the Los Angeles Theatre, including one by Eduardo Lucero, a veteran of the L.A. fashion scene.
"I've shown at Smashbox quite a few times," Lucero said, "and this time it was just more convenient for me to show at the theater — it really fit in with the clothes I was showing." BOXeight's sponsorship of his show also meant he didn't need to shell out money for a venue. (Renting a runway at Smashbox ranges from $1,500 to $7,500 this season — still a bargain compared with New York.)
"It wasn't like I was choosing one over the other," Lucero said. "It's all part of Fashion Week in L.A. When you go to New York and show in a different venue apart from Bryant Park it does not mean you aren't showing during Fashion Week."
And....more on the decline of the Smashbox Fashion Week:
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week's 23 shows are fewer than either Smashbox or IMG had on their own, separate calendars before they joined forces. A review of previous seasons' schedules shows that the number of designers showing in Culver City has decreased steadily each season since the spring 2005 collections in October 2004, the partnership's second season.
Mallis blames L.A.: "Nobody wants to come in the morning. In New York the shows start 9 o'clock in the morning, but it's different here, so we've made a concerted effort to bring them in a little later and out a little earlier."
But there are plenty of open slots during the afternoon too.
In addition to fewer shows, there are also fewer seats — one venue was downsized by 90 seats and another by 150. Factor said that was part of the effort to limit the numbers of hangers-on and create a more intimate space.
Both Mallis and Factor say focusing purely on the numbers doesn't tell the whole story, that it's a matter of "quality over quantity." Still, a show featuring men's underpants, entertaining as it was, is hard to take seriously.
Publicist Henri Meyers, owner of EM Productions, has worked on several L.A. Fashion Week shows in the past. He said that while he appreciated organizers' efforts to curtail the party scene, it may be too late to recover credibility. "It should have been done last season," he said.
Calter said she opted out of Smashbox because of her collection, not the venue. At Smashbox, "there's a lack of intimacy," she said. "This season my girl is little bit darker…. I wanted something more intimate and more special. It was more of an aesthetic decision."
Factor acknowledged the demand for alternative venues. "In the future I'd like to have a traditional runway venue as well as one or two venues that can change to reflect what the designer wants to do." He's considering the Convention Center in downtown L.A. or the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
"Either of those would make sense," he said. "Downtown would certainly make sense…. This season doesn't even matter on its own. As long as we give them fashion, the media will come whether we do 10 shows or 50 shows."
And this fall we will be showing in far more Downtown venues during this October's Fashion Week and, after what we accomplished in six weeks, imagine what we'll do this October with over six months to prepare.
L.A. FASHION WEEK
It's a clear case of diminishing returns
Fledgling rivals steal buzz while some notable designers bypass Smashbox.
By Adam Tschorn
Times Staff Writer
March 21, 2007
Alber Elbaz, Zac Posen and Phillip Lim in town. Glittering designer dinners in Hollywood and trunk shows in Beverly Hills. There has never been so much fashion in Los Angeles as there is this week. And yet, the event that anchors it all, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios, has never been more diminished.
With only 23 shows on the roster, this is its thinnest designer lineup in years. A pared-down seating chart — an effort to curb the party scene at the event — also means that there are fewer people attending the shows. Two rival "fashion weeks" have sprung up in downtown L.A. — fledgling though they might be, they were enough to have the fashion world buzzing about the threat to the main event. Before the first heel hit the catwalk, insiders were speculating that this might be the make-or-break season for the partnership behind the event — Smashbox Studios and the event production firm IMG.
Davis Factor, co-owner of Smashbox, said he didn't consider the season currently under way more or less crucial than any other. "Every single season we say the same thing: 'Is this going to be a make-or-break year?' But personally I don't look at each season, I look at the big picture. Would I be happy if there were another 10 great designers showing? I would be happier but I'm happy with what we have this season." To that end, he plans to hire someone full time to help network with the Los Angeles fashion community year-round.
Likewise, Fern Mallis, vice president of IMG Fashion, said her group was here to stay. "I think they are doing some terrific things downtown," Mallis said. "And I think what it shows is that Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week L.A. is clearly the anchor and the focus of what's happening in L.A."
Nevertheless, the schedule for Fashion Week, an event that includes The Times among 15 corporate sponsors, is filled with empty slots and some lesser-known designers, including the men's underwear line 2(x)ist, eveningwear designer Joseph Domingo and Tart, maker of jersey separates.
While some of the best in L.A. continue to show here, they are increasingly choosing to do so far from Smashbox. Rozae Nichols, who was named 2006 Designer of the Year at the L.A. Fashion Awards, presented her collection at her home in the Hollywood Hills on Sunday night. Corey Lynn Calter drew an A-list crowd including Christina Ricci to her Thursday-night presentation downtown.
And...
The most visible competition this season, though, is the pair of upstart fashion weeks held downtown in the days before the official event. Kitten Fashion Week, sponsored by Kitten magazine, showcased a dozen designers at the Standard Hotel over three days, and BOXeight, produced by an art collective, held two shows at the Los Angeles Theatre, including one by Eduardo Lucero, a veteran of the L.A. fashion scene.
"I've shown at Smashbox quite a few times," Lucero said, "and this time it was just more convenient for me to show at the theater — it really fit in with the clothes I was showing." BOXeight's sponsorship of his show also meant he didn't need to shell out money for a venue. (Renting a runway at Smashbox ranges from $1,500 to $7,500 this season — still a bargain compared with New York.)
"It wasn't like I was choosing one over the other," Lucero said. "It's all part of Fashion Week in L.A. When you go to New York and show in a different venue apart from Bryant Park it does not mean you aren't showing during Fashion Week."
And....more on the decline of the Smashbox Fashion Week:
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week's 23 shows are fewer than either Smashbox or IMG had on their own, separate calendars before they joined forces. A review of previous seasons' schedules shows that the number of designers showing in Culver City has decreased steadily each season since the spring 2005 collections in October 2004, the partnership's second season.
Mallis blames L.A.: "Nobody wants to come in the morning. In New York the shows start 9 o'clock in the morning, but it's different here, so we've made a concerted effort to bring them in a little later and out a little earlier."
But there are plenty of open slots during the afternoon too.
In addition to fewer shows, there are also fewer seats — one venue was downsized by 90 seats and another by 150. Factor said that was part of the effort to limit the numbers of hangers-on and create a more intimate space.
Both Mallis and Factor say focusing purely on the numbers doesn't tell the whole story, that it's a matter of "quality over quantity." Still, a show featuring men's underpants, entertaining as it was, is hard to take seriously.
Publicist Henri Meyers, owner of EM Productions, has worked on several L.A. Fashion Week shows in the past. He said that while he appreciated organizers' efforts to curtail the party scene, it may be too late to recover credibility. "It should have been done last season," he said.
Calter said she opted out of Smashbox because of her collection, not the venue. At Smashbox, "there's a lack of intimacy," she said. "This season my girl is little bit darker…. I wanted something more intimate and more special. It was more of an aesthetic decision."
Factor acknowledged the demand for alternative venues. "In the future I'd like to have a traditional runway venue as well as one or two venues that can change to reflect what the designer wants to do." He's considering the Convention Center in downtown L.A. or the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
"Either of those would make sense," he said. "Downtown would certainly make sense…. This season doesn't even matter on its own. As long as we give them fashion, the media will come whether we do 10 shows or 50 shows."
And this fall we will be showing in far more Downtown venues during this October's Fashion Week and, after what we accomplished in six weeks, imagine what we'll do this October with over six months to prepare.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Is London Now The Capital City Of The 21st Century?
That's what New York Magazine supposedly said according to London's Evening Standard:
London is the world capital of the 21st century... says New York
By Tom Teodorczuk, Evening Standard, in New York 20.03.
An influential American magazine has named London the global capital of the 21st century.
The new issue of New York magazine is a homage to London, claiming the financial, cultural and culinary benefits now tower over those of its home city.
In the most glowing American media coverage of Britain since Vanity Fair's 1996 Cool Britannia issue, the article declares: "If Paris was the capital of the 19th century and New York of the 20th, London is shaping up to be the capital of the 21st century.
"It is not Britain and the US that have a special relationship, it is London and New York ... increasingly it seems as though London has the upper hand."
American writers Eugenia Bell and Matt Weiland add: "To Londoners now, there's a sense that the future belongs to them. It can sometimes seem as if there's nobody over 30 in the streets and that a great experiment in mass immigration and assimilation is under way."
The architectural skyline, including Norman Foster's Gherkin and the Shard of Glass, and thriving arts scene, particularly West End theatre and the Frieze Art Fair, all receive special praise. A report commissioned by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Wall Street that the Square Mile was ahead when it came to job creation. He visited Britain last month and concluded: "London is gaining on us in area after area."
The magazine says: "In short, New York is cardiganed Woody Allen and London is party-dressed Lily Allen."
London is the world capital of the 21st century... says New York
By Tom Teodorczuk, Evening Standard, in New York 20.03.
An influential American magazine has named London the global capital of the 21st century.
The new issue of New York magazine is a homage to London, claiming the financial, cultural and culinary benefits now tower over those of its home city.
In the most glowing American media coverage of Britain since Vanity Fair's 1996 Cool Britannia issue, the article declares: "If Paris was the capital of the 19th century and New York of the 20th, London is shaping up to be the capital of the 21st century.
"It is not Britain and the US that have a special relationship, it is London and New York ... increasingly it seems as though London has the upper hand."
American writers Eugenia Bell and Matt Weiland add: "To Londoners now, there's a sense that the future belongs to them. It can sometimes seem as if there's nobody over 30 in the streets and that a great experiment in mass immigration and assimilation is under way."
The architectural skyline, including Norman Foster's Gherkin and the Shard of Glass, and thriving arts scene, particularly West End theatre and the Frieze Art Fair, all receive special praise. A report commissioned by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Wall Street that the Square Mile was ahead when it came to job creation. He visited Britain last month and concluded: "London is gaining on us in area after area."
The magazine says: "In short, New York is cardiganed Woody Allen and London is party-dressed Lily Allen."
Monday, March 19, 2007
Wyatt Earp Born Today! Happy 159th Birthday!
Now that seems like a long time ago - but my father - whose birthday is in exactly one week - is alive and well and was alive and well when they both lived in Los Angeles during the 1920's. I also grew up knowing people who knew Wyatt Earp both in Tombstone and in Los Angeles.
New York Times Claims Los Angeles Fashion Week Doesn't Exist!
While looking for the New York Times reviews of the fashion shows presented in Los Angeles during the past... four days.... (five of which were either jump started by or fully run by four of us on the Downtown Los Angles Neighborhood Council)I was surprised to find no mention of them. And then I found the article that explained why.
They never happened.
Nor will this weeks shows happen since - according to the New York Times - once the last model walked down the last runway in New York - that was the end of the fall runway season.
March 15, 2007
A Wrap-Up of Fall: Reasons to Rejoice
By CATHY HORYN
WHEN the fall runway season ended, a week ago Sunday, there seemed more to consider than to sweep aside. Rare was the first-tier show that clanged like an empty pot — and you wouldn't have said that six months ago, when designers conjured up a cross between a Star Trek groupie and an Elvis impersonator. (See Steven Meisel's spread in February Italian Vogue for details.)
They never happened.
Nor will this weeks shows happen since - according to the New York Times - once the last model walked down the last runway in New York - that was the end of the fall runway season.
March 15, 2007
A Wrap-Up of Fall: Reasons to Rejoice
By CATHY HORYN
WHEN the fall runway season ended, a week ago Sunday, there seemed more to consider than to sweep aside. Rare was the first-tier show that clanged like an empty pot — and you wouldn't have said that six months ago, when designers conjured up a cross between a Star Trek groupie and an Elvis impersonator. (See Steven Meisel's spread in February Italian Vogue for details.)
Cathy Seipp in ICU at Cedars
From LA OBSERVED:
Cathy Seipp in ICU at Cedars
Journalist and blogger Cathy Seipp has been bravely and publicly battling lung cancer for many years. (She was not a smoker.) Her daughter Maia Lazar, a student at UC San Diego, posts today at Cathy's blog that her mother's medical condition has taken a turn for the worse.
The doctor says that right now they're just making her comfortable. She's sedated, with painkillers among other things. Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain. The doctor says she has a couple days left. I want to thank all her readers for reading this blog, her friends for supporting her who made up "Team Cathy." Through you all, I learned what a true friend was. I'm at her bedside now, holding her hand. I tell her she has 292 comments on the latest blog post..her last but she just squeezes my hand. She was very happy with this blog. In honor of her, if you can...support the American Lung Cancer Society and or adopt stray dogs and cats from the pound. Those were her causes. Thank you all so much. Will keep everyone posted.
Stop in over there to leave your best wishes.
Cathy Seipp in ICU at Cedars
Journalist and blogger Cathy Seipp has been bravely and publicly battling lung cancer for many years. (She was not a smoker.) Her daughter Maia Lazar, a student at UC San Diego, posts today at Cathy's blog that her mother's medical condition has taken a turn for the worse.
The doctor says that right now they're just making her comfortable. She's sedated, with painkillers among other things. Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain. The doctor says she has a couple days left. I want to thank all her readers for reading this blog, her friends for supporting her who made up "Team Cathy." Through you all, I learned what a true friend was. I'm at her bedside now, holding her hand. I tell her she has 292 comments on the latest blog post..her last but she just squeezes my hand. She was very happy with this blog. In honor of her, if you can...support the American Lung Cancer Society and or adopt stray dogs and cats from the pound. Those were her causes. Thank you all so much. Will keep everyone posted.
Stop in over there to leave your best wishes.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
First Fashon Week Review For Downtown Shows!
So what happens when four Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Board members decide to go where others downtown have feared to venture - Fashion Week's catwalks - and in just seven weeks put on five nights of shows in two different venues... helping to bring back Fashion Week from Culver City to Downtown Los Angeles?
Well, below is our first review:
Hollywood Today
Film-Star Fashion Week Explodes on L.A.’s Indie Catwalks
Sunday, March 18th, 2007
Red carpet gowns and film-inspired designs the rage at Downtown alternative Fashion Weeks
By Michelle Foody
2.JPG
Fashion Week
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 3/18/07 — On the eve of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, rebel fashion folks flocked to Kitten Fashion Week and BOXeight Saturday night for a slew of alternative shows. The hip Standard Downtown Hotel played host to newbie designers like Lorun and Battalion, along with the always popular KushCush. A few blocks down, the restored Los Angeles Theatre teemed with L.A.’s trendiest for a peek at the Eduardo Lucero Fall 2007 Collection, presented by BOXeight.
But Los Angeles, above all else, is a company town for film & television —a fact inescapable for designers who call sunny California home. Eye-catching, paparazzi perfect gowns slinked down the catwalk at Eduardo Lucero. The designer is fast becoming a favorite with red carpet starlets in need of a gown that unites sex appeal with cutting-edge chic.
The show paid homage to the insanity of a film premier, with the audience on bleachers hooting and hollering, and the models energetically (yes, with emotion and all!) posing for eager photographers. The Saturday night, laid back mood made for a rowdy, engaged group of spectators dappled with famous faces: front row sat Tia and Tamara Mowry and Ugly Betty star Ana Oritz. Even the clothes themselves had energy: highlights included reflective sequins, light-catching metallics, and even LCD screen accessories.
Hollywood Today caught up with Lucero backstage, only moments after taking his bow to a genuinely appreciative crowd. Clad in chucky white New Balance sneakers, and jeans—not distressed demin—just jeans, the designer was startlingly down to earth.
“I’m interested in pushing the envelope, because even fashion gets stale. I want women to have an actual desire to wear the clothing, not just shop for shopping’s sake”, insisted Lucero, clearly aware of the modern world’s hyperactive attention-span.
As far as the flashing lights and eye-popping metallic accents:
“Technology should catch up with clothing. I believe women need to stop wearing what could be from the 1940’s and start dressing like its 2007. Most importantly though, the clothes should look ‘now,’ but not like a costume”.
Lucero’s practical blend of trends and flattering designs make him a favorite among the rich, famous, and photographed. Starlets going for the look-at-me look are eating up his gowns. Lime-light lovers such as Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, and Carmen Electra are all fans.
The film industry oozed its way into Saturday night’s Kitten Week shows at the ultra-trendy Standard Downtown. The collections were shown on a floor-level catwalk running the length of one of the hotel’s small conference rooms, under florescent lights—oh-so-guerilla. Despite its grass roots, L.A.-based Battalion, from sisters Chrys and Linda Wong, took their inspiration directly from the movies.
As Chrys explained backstage to Hollywood Today, “We tried to imagine Sherlock Holmes traveling in time to investigate the mysteries of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. Its actually an idea we had based upon a film from 1968, by Fellini—“Spirits of the Dead”.
A far cry from un-wearable fashion world couture, the sisters have made a point to go as green as possible, using anti-microbial bamboo fabric. Their clothes were beautiful and body-conscious, and could actually be worn without appearing cartoonish.
Organic clothes, film noir inspirations, and celebrity fans—high fashion and Hollywood go together like lights, camera and action,
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Well, below is our first review:
Hollywood Today
Film-Star Fashion Week Explodes on L.A.’s Indie Catwalks
Sunday, March 18th, 2007
Red carpet gowns and film-inspired designs the rage at Downtown alternative Fashion Weeks
By Michelle Foody
2.JPG
Fashion Week
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 3/18/07 — On the eve of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, rebel fashion folks flocked to Kitten Fashion Week and BOXeight Saturday night for a slew of alternative shows. The hip Standard Downtown Hotel played host to newbie designers like Lorun and Battalion, along with the always popular KushCush. A few blocks down, the restored Los Angeles Theatre teemed with L.A.’s trendiest for a peek at the Eduardo Lucero Fall 2007 Collection, presented by BOXeight.
But Los Angeles, above all else, is a company town for film & television —a fact inescapable for designers who call sunny California home. Eye-catching, paparazzi perfect gowns slinked down the catwalk at Eduardo Lucero. The designer is fast becoming a favorite with red carpet starlets in need of a gown that unites sex appeal with cutting-edge chic.
The show paid homage to the insanity of a film premier, with the audience on bleachers hooting and hollering, and the models energetically (yes, with emotion and all!) posing for eager photographers. The Saturday night, laid back mood made for a rowdy, engaged group of spectators dappled with famous faces: front row sat Tia and Tamara Mowry and Ugly Betty star Ana Oritz. Even the clothes themselves had energy: highlights included reflective sequins, light-catching metallics, and even LCD screen accessories.
Hollywood Today caught up with Lucero backstage, only moments after taking his bow to a genuinely appreciative crowd. Clad in chucky white New Balance sneakers, and jeans—not distressed demin—just jeans, the designer was startlingly down to earth.
“I’m interested in pushing the envelope, because even fashion gets stale. I want women to have an actual desire to wear the clothing, not just shop for shopping’s sake”, insisted Lucero, clearly aware of the modern world’s hyperactive attention-span.
As far as the flashing lights and eye-popping metallic accents:
“Technology should catch up with clothing. I believe women need to stop wearing what could be from the 1940’s and start dressing like its 2007. Most importantly though, the clothes should look ‘now,’ but not like a costume”.
Lucero’s practical blend of trends and flattering designs make him a favorite among the rich, famous, and photographed. Starlets going for the look-at-me look are eating up his gowns. Lime-light lovers such as Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, and Carmen Electra are all fans.
The film industry oozed its way into Saturday night’s Kitten Week shows at the ultra-trendy Standard Downtown. The collections were shown on a floor-level catwalk running the length of one of the hotel’s small conference rooms, under florescent lights—oh-so-guerilla. Despite its grass roots, L.A.-based Battalion, from sisters Chrys and Linda Wong, took their inspiration directly from the movies.
As Chrys explained backstage to Hollywood Today, “We tried to imagine Sherlock Holmes traveling in time to investigate the mysteries of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. Its actually an idea we had based upon a film from 1968, by Fellini—“Spirits of the Dead”.
A far cry from un-wearable fashion world couture, the sisters have made a point to go as green as possible, using anti-microbial bamboo fabric. Their clothes were beautiful and body-conscious, and could actually be worn without appearing cartoonish.
Organic clothes, film noir inspirations, and celebrity fans—high fashion and Hollywood go together like lights, camera and action,
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Full Details On Saving Los Angeles Event Sunday March 18th - 10 - 4 PM!!
SAVING LOS ANGELES CONFERENCE!
If you want to save Los Angeles’ history, preserve the historic character of your neighborhood, discover more about your ethnic or cultural roots or find out more about the history of your family – you need to attend the first annual SAVING LOS ANGELES Conference.
The event is free and open to the public.
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA. The program will open with Councilman Jose Huizar at 11 AM speaking on the need to preserve our historic civic resources and, in particular, about how we need to restore the historic theaters of Broadway
He will then introduce the featured speaker, City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, who will discuss how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues.
Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally important, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
There will be a special validated rate of $5 at the Pershing Square Underground Garage (which is less than a block from the theatre) IF you get your parking ticket validated at the Los Angeles Theatre. And the red line subway stop at 5th and Hill (Pershing Square) is 1 1/2 blocks from the theater.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
Speakers And Seminars At Event!
Besides the over 30 tables of exhibitors at the Saving Los Angeles event, below is a list of speakers and seminars in the main auditorium:
“Saving Los Angeles” Conference
Los Angeles Theater • March 18, 2007
Schedule for Main Auditorium
10:00am – Doors open
11:00-11:15am - Welcome and Introduction (City Councilman Jose Huizar)
11:15-11:45am - Plenary Address (Los Angeles City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, AICP)
11:45am-12:00pm - Short break and setup for panel discussions
12:00pm-1:00pm - Citywide Survey (Los Angeles City Planning Department - Ken Bernstein)
1:00pm-1:30pm - Break
1:30pm-2:45pm – Protecting Neighborhood Character: Mansionization & HPOZs
• Proposed Neighborhood Character Ordinance (Erick Lopez, Community Planning Bureau, City of Los Angeles)
• HPOZ Program (Mike Buhler, LA Conservancy)
2:45pm-3:00pm - Break
3:00pm-4:00pm - What can you do in your neighborhood?
• Mills Act (Lambert Giessinger, Office of Historic Resources)
• Case Studies: Presenters on preservation/interpretive/archival projects sponsored by Neighborhood Councils:
o Pico Revitalization Project (Roxanne Brown, Steering Committee member)
o Richard Schave – Building on-line communities for your organization on Blogspot and Flickr
If you want to save Los Angeles’ history, preserve the historic character of your neighborhood, discover more about your ethnic or cultural roots or find out more about the history of your family – you need to attend the first annual SAVING LOS ANGELES Conference.
The event is free and open to the public.
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA. The program will open with Councilman Jose Huizar at 11 AM speaking on the need to preserve our historic civic resources and, in particular, about how we need to restore the historic theaters of Broadway
He will then introduce the featured speaker, City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, who will discuss how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues.
Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally important, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
There will be a special validated rate of $5 at the Pershing Square Underground Garage (which is less than a block from the theatre) IF you get your parking ticket validated at the Los Angeles Theatre. And the red line subway stop at 5th and Hill (Pershing Square) is 1 1/2 blocks from the theater.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
Speakers And Seminars At Event!
Besides the over 30 tables of exhibitors at the Saving Los Angeles event, below is a list of speakers and seminars in the main auditorium:
“Saving Los Angeles” Conference
Los Angeles Theater • March 18, 2007
Schedule for Main Auditorium
10:00am – Doors open
11:00-11:15am - Welcome and Introduction (City Councilman Jose Huizar)
11:15-11:45am - Plenary Address (Los Angeles City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, AICP)
11:45am-12:00pm - Short break and setup for panel discussions
12:00pm-1:00pm - Citywide Survey (Los Angeles City Planning Department - Ken Bernstein)
1:00pm-1:30pm - Break
1:30pm-2:45pm – Protecting Neighborhood Character: Mansionization & HPOZs
• Proposed Neighborhood Character Ordinance (Erick Lopez, Community Planning Bureau, City of Los Angeles)
• HPOZ Program (Mike Buhler, LA Conservancy)
2:45pm-3:00pm - Break
3:00pm-4:00pm - What can you do in your neighborhood?
• Mills Act (Lambert Giessinger, Office of Historic Resources)
• Case Studies: Presenters on preservation/interpretive/archival projects sponsored by Neighborhood Councils:
o Pico Revitalization Project (Roxanne Brown, Steering Committee member)
o Richard Schave – Building on-line communities for your organization on Blogspot and Flickr
Friday, March 16, 2007
St. Patrick's Day Massacre!
I was coming back by bus after shooting my Friday TV show at KNBC News in Burbank, when the bus came off the freeway in Chinatown - and stopped dead.
Bumper to bumper traffic in every direction and nothing was moving. By the time I we finally got to the Civic Center I gave up and got out to walk the rest of the way back to my office and while I was doing that, I encountered the St. Patrick's Day parade marching along Main Street; a parade without an audience since with the people in the parade out numbered the people watching the parade by a ratio of about fifty to one.
And it turns out I am not the only one who noticed the disconnect:
Calendar said March, right?
Downtown's day-early St. Patrick's Day Parade draws scant attention, but it does get motorists stewing over street closures.
By Bob Pool
Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2007
Maybe next year they should hold the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Los Angeles' Little Dublin district.
Except the city has no such Irish enclave — which could explain the leprechaun-size turnout for the day-early St. Patrick's Day celebration Friday between Olvera Street and Pershing Square.
Relatively few onlookers were along the nine-block parade route as bagpipers, school bands and vintage police cars and firetrucks made their way along an empty Main Street. Some office workers heading to lunch sauntered across the route without even casting a glance.
Irish eyes were smiling, of course, among true wearers o' the green.
Councilman Tom LaBonge, the parade's chief proponent, covered the route on foot. And he was enthusiastic every step of the way, calling out to acquaintances he spied on the curb.
"This is our eighth annual parade. It's coming back. It's not as big as the Hollywood Boulevard Christmas parade. But we're getting there," LaBonge said. His Irish immigrant grandfather was a Los Angeles police officer from 1919 to 1949.
Just then, an old firetruck passed by, and LaBonge looked up at a man riding on it. "There's the great Sal Castro, who led the 1968 walkout at Lincoln High!" he shouted to a small knot of onlookers. "There's a wonderful relationship between Latinos and the Irish!"
The parade didn't exactly rivet downtown — it was decidedly casual Friday. At some points along the route, office workers came outside to cheer. On 1st Street, many pedestrians seemed oblivious to the marching bands and other fanfare.
And...
"I think if they'd had this parade on Saturday, on actual St. Patrick's Day, they wouldn't have disrupted downtown traffic," Russak said after hanging up. "But on a Saturday, no one would have shown up."
The parade packed plenty of punch for some. By noon it had tied downtown traffic in a giant Celtic knot.
Sections of nine major streets were closed for nearly 90 minutes. "They're not too happy," said a city traffic control officer who funneled eastbound 1st Street motorists traveling from Bunker Hill to Little Tokyo into a zigzagging detour.
For his part, LaBonge remained upbeat at the parade's end.
"By the time we got to 5th Street, it felt like Fifth Avenue in New York. It was lined with people. I'm estimating 5,000 to 7,000 saw the parade." He then acknowledged: "I'm being very generous."
Maybe... 500 to 700 might be more accurate.
And...
He did express disappointment in the traffic snarl and in the large gaps between the marching units.
And he voiced regret over the parade shutting down access to the federal courthouse's Main Street driveway.
"The plan was to keep all the streets open until the parade got to them. We were going to let buses through on Broadway," LaBonge said.
"But they thought it was in the interest of safety to shut down all the streets at 11:30 and reroute the buses."
Bumper to bumper traffic in every direction and nothing was moving. By the time I we finally got to the Civic Center I gave up and got out to walk the rest of the way back to my office and while I was doing that, I encountered the St. Patrick's Day parade marching along Main Street; a parade without an audience since with the people in the parade out numbered the people watching the parade by a ratio of about fifty to one.
And it turns out I am not the only one who noticed the disconnect:
Calendar said March, right?
Downtown's day-early St. Patrick's Day Parade draws scant attention, but it does get motorists stewing over street closures.
By Bob Pool
Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2007
Maybe next year they should hold the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Los Angeles' Little Dublin district.
Except the city has no such Irish enclave — which could explain the leprechaun-size turnout for the day-early St. Patrick's Day celebration Friday between Olvera Street and Pershing Square.
Relatively few onlookers were along the nine-block parade route as bagpipers, school bands and vintage police cars and firetrucks made their way along an empty Main Street. Some office workers heading to lunch sauntered across the route without even casting a glance.
Irish eyes were smiling, of course, among true wearers o' the green.
Councilman Tom LaBonge, the parade's chief proponent, covered the route on foot. And he was enthusiastic every step of the way, calling out to acquaintances he spied on the curb.
"This is our eighth annual parade. It's coming back. It's not as big as the Hollywood Boulevard Christmas parade. But we're getting there," LaBonge said. His Irish immigrant grandfather was a Los Angeles police officer from 1919 to 1949.
Just then, an old firetruck passed by, and LaBonge looked up at a man riding on it. "There's the great Sal Castro, who led the 1968 walkout at Lincoln High!" he shouted to a small knot of onlookers. "There's a wonderful relationship between Latinos and the Irish!"
The parade didn't exactly rivet downtown — it was decidedly casual Friday. At some points along the route, office workers came outside to cheer. On 1st Street, many pedestrians seemed oblivious to the marching bands and other fanfare.
And...
"I think if they'd had this parade on Saturday, on actual St. Patrick's Day, they wouldn't have disrupted downtown traffic," Russak said after hanging up. "But on a Saturday, no one would have shown up."
The parade packed plenty of punch for some. By noon it had tied downtown traffic in a giant Celtic knot.
Sections of nine major streets were closed for nearly 90 minutes. "They're not too happy," said a city traffic control officer who funneled eastbound 1st Street motorists traveling from Bunker Hill to Little Tokyo into a zigzagging detour.
For his part, LaBonge remained upbeat at the parade's end.
"By the time we got to 5th Street, it felt like Fifth Avenue in New York. It was lined with people. I'm estimating 5,000 to 7,000 saw the parade." He then acknowledged: "I'm being very generous."
Maybe... 500 to 700 might be more accurate.
And...
He did express disappointment in the traffic snarl and in the large gaps between the marching units.
And he voiced regret over the parade shutting down access to the federal courthouse's Main Street driveway.
"The plan was to keep all the streets open until the parade got to them. We were going to let buses through on Broadway," LaBonge said.
"But they thought it was in the interest of safety to shut down all the streets at 11:30 and reroute the buses."
Learn How To Save LA This Sunday!
SAVING LA CONFERENCE
If you want to save Los Angeles’ history, preserve the historic character of your neighborhood, discover more about your ethnic or cultural roots or find out more about the history of your family – you need to attend the first annual SAVING LOS ANGELES Conference. The event is free and open to the public.
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA. The program will open with Councilman Jose Huizar at 11 AM speaking on the need to preserve our historic civic resources and, in particular, about how we need to restore the historic theaters of Broadway
He will then introduce the featured speaker, City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, who will discuss how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues. Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally important, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
AND... we still have eight free tables left if YOUR organization wants to join us! Call me if you are interested - 213-804-8396!
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
Lastly, with validation at the Los Angeles Theater, parking for all day will only be $5 at the Pershing Square underground garage les than one block away. And the Pershing Square Red Line Station is only 1 ½ blocks away.
If you want to save Los Angeles’ history, preserve the historic character of your neighborhood, discover more about your ethnic or cultural roots or find out more about the history of your family – you need to attend the first annual SAVING LOS ANGELES Conference. The event is free and open to the public.
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA. The program will open with Councilman Jose Huizar at 11 AM speaking on the need to preserve our historic civic resources and, in particular, about how we need to restore the historic theaters of Broadway
He will then introduce the featured speaker, City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, who will discuss how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues. Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally important, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
AND... we still have eight free tables left if YOUR organization wants to join us! Call me if you are interested - 213-804-8396!
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
Lastly, with validation at the Los Angeles Theater, parking for all day will only be $5 at the Pershing Square underground garage les than one block away. And the Pershing Square Red Line Station is only 1 ½ blocks away.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
5th And Hill Gang Busted! Heroin Kingpins Jailed!
First the start of the story in the Times - and then after that - the REAL story behind the story:
LAPD announces busts of major heroin supplier
By Richard Winton
Times Staff Writer
7:53 PM PDT, March 14, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- For decades, the Fifth and Hill gang was the biggest drug dealer in downtown Los Angeles.
The leaders lived in the suburbs, where they produced thousands of heroin balloons at their homes and then had middlemen deliver them downtown.Day laborers, homeless people and even some children as young as 12 helped peddle the heroin.
The Los Angeles Police Department had struggled to destroy the gang, frequently arresting low-level dealers only to see them replaced immediately.
But on Wednesday, police announced the results of a months-long crackdown that they contend has dismantled the gang, and with it a main source of heroin in Los Angeles.
Police recovered 45,000 balloons of heroin during the 10-month investigation. They also found 85 pounds of tar heroin -- enough when diluted to fill a half-million balloons.
Officers arrested 31 people they described as the leaders of the gang, as well as scores of street sellers who allegedly worked for them. They finally reached the kingpins, detectives said, thanks to video surveillance tapes that tracked the movement of drugs in and out of downtown.
The LAPD's much touted crackdown on skid row has resulted in 5,400 arrests and a 30 percent drop in crime since it began in September.
And...
The arrests come as the LAPD enters the seventh month of a major crackdown on drugs, crime and blight downtown. It's part of a larger effort by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton to revive the skid row area, which has the largest concentration of both homeless people and drug dealing in the city. More than 20 percent of all Los Angeles drug arrests occur on skid row.
The LAPD assigned 50 extra officers to downtown in September, and this deployment helped the efforts to attack Fifth and Hill, Smith said.
Police started arresting hundreds more suspects a week. And slowly, Smith said, they got low-level dealers to identify middlemen, who then ultimately connected them to top leaders.
Detectives got lucky thanks to the growing number of surveillance video cameras in downtown.
Once they got a line on middlemen driving the drugs into downtown, police used two dozen video cameras connected to the Central station to find the car license plates and track their movements. This eventually led them to the kingpins, Smith said....
Now don't forget to go to the link and read the rest of the article.
Ok - as the real story.
First, Ramona Ripston and the ACLU fought the cleaning up of Skid Row every step of the way and they are still trying to stop the cleaning up of Skid Row and making it safer for the real homeless (as opposed to the drug dealers posing among them) and the people who live there. And if the city had settled their lawsuit - none of this would have been able to happen which means if the two groups who met with the LA Times editorial board on one day had not convinced them to oppose the settlement, the lawsuit would have likely been settled and Skid Row would still be in the hands of the drug lords.
Second, the cameras that solved the problem were a long time coming and almost didn't happen and even then, they almost didn't get installed correctly.
I first got involved in the cameras some years ago when the CRA was doling out grants in the Old Bank District and I managed to get some money funneled not to buddies of the people in power (for a rare change) but to instead pay to install security cameras in the area. Unfortunately, the local BID (Business Improvement District) did not agree to take ownership of the cameras, and the project died.
Then almost two years ago, the camera proposal came back due to the success of the cameras in MacArthur Park and then, later, Hollywood - the latter cameras which, of course, were attacked by Ramona Ripston and the ACLU.
Now, though, I was on the BID Board as a rep and several of us pushed for buying the cameras. Most of the others wanted to apply for grants, but we argued there was not the time to spend another two years waiting for grants. Some of the others then suggested we tax all the property owners evenly but that would require a special election and, again, at least a full year would be lost, and if 51% of the property owners voted no, then we'd be back where we started.
So several of us pushed for voluntary assessments of $10,000 for larger buildings and $5,000 for smaller buildings for the down payment - with the rest being financed and we were given the go ahead. And in a matter of weeks we got the pledges and in a few months, we had the money for a couple dozen cameras (more or less, but that's a whole another story...).
But that's when the real problems started.
First, we had to convince property owners to allow the cameras on their buildings and then we had to place them where the police had advised the camera company they wanted them. But mid-way through that process, I started looking at the recommended camera positions and realized that many of them had their sight lines blocked by trees and awnings and that others were on buildings that had no view of the sidewalk up the street since the building across the street stuck out further than the building the camera was on, but no one had noticed this.
It then required three of us to walk and check the site lines of every building on every corner in the area (and at multiple heights on each building) and then convince the police to allow the camera company to correctly install the cameras after which we had to convince a whole new set of property owners to let us install the cameras on their buildings.
After that, came the endless months and months of technical problems and structural problems and political problems and having to find new solutions on a weekly (if not daily) basis to protect the proper sight lines for each of the cameras.
Then a year later - they flicked on a switch at Central... and the non-stop drug busts started.
So the article says all it took was installing a couple dozen cameras.... but as you can see, in many ways and at many times, it almost didn't happen.
LAPD announces busts of major heroin supplier
By Richard Winton
Times Staff Writer
7:53 PM PDT, March 14, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- For decades, the Fifth and Hill gang was the biggest drug dealer in downtown Los Angeles.
The leaders lived in the suburbs, where they produced thousands of heroin balloons at their homes and then had middlemen deliver them downtown.Day laborers, homeless people and even some children as young as 12 helped peddle the heroin.
The Los Angeles Police Department had struggled to destroy the gang, frequently arresting low-level dealers only to see them replaced immediately.
But on Wednesday, police announced the results of a months-long crackdown that they contend has dismantled the gang, and with it a main source of heroin in Los Angeles.
Police recovered 45,000 balloons of heroin during the 10-month investigation. They also found 85 pounds of tar heroin -- enough when diluted to fill a half-million balloons.
Officers arrested 31 people they described as the leaders of the gang, as well as scores of street sellers who allegedly worked for them. They finally reached the kingpins, detectives said, thanks to video surveillance tapes that tracked the movement of drugs in and out of downtown.
The LAPD's much touted crackdown on skid row has resulted in 5,400 arrests and a 30 percent drop in crime since it began in September.
And...
The arrests come as the LAPD enters the seventh month of a major crackdown on drugs, crime and blight downtown. It's part of a larger effort by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton to revive the skid row area, which has the largest concentration of both homeless people and drug dealing in the city. More than 20 percent of all Los Angeles drug arrests occur on skid row.
The LAPD assigned 50 extra officers to downtown in September, and this deployment helped the efforts to attack Fifth and Hill, Smith said.
Police started arresting hundreds more suspects a week. And slowly, Smith said, they got low-level dealers to identify middlemen, who then ultimately connected them to top leaders.
Detectives got lucky thanks to the growing number of surveillance video cameras in downtown.
Once they got a line on middlemen driving the drugs into downtown, police used two dozen video cameras connected to the Central station to find the car license plates and track their movements. This eventually led them to the kingpins, Smith said....
Now don't forget to go to the link and read the rest of the article.
Ok - as the real story.
First, Ramona Ripston and the ACLU fought the cleaning up of Skid Row every step of the way and they are still trying to stop the cleaning up of Skid Row and making it safer for the real homeless (as opposed to the drug dealers posing among them) and the people who live there. And if the city had settled their lawsuit - none of this would have been able to happen which means if the two groups who met with the LA Times editorial board on one day had not convinced them to oppose the settlement, the lawsuit would have likely been settled and Skid Row would still be in the hands of the drug lords.
Second, the cameras that solved the problem were a long time coming and almost didn't happen and even then, they almost didn't get installed correctly.
I first got involved in the cameras some years ago when the CRA was doling out grants in the Old Bank District and I managed to get some money funneled not to buddies of the people in power (for a rare change) but to instead pay to install security cameras in the area. Unfortunately, the local BID (Business Improvement District) did not agree to take ownership of the cameras, and the project died.
Then almost two years ago, the camera proposal came back due to the success of the cameras in MacArthur Park and then, later, Hollywood - the latter cameras which, of course, were attacked by Ramona Ripston and the ACLU.
Now, though, I was on the BID Board as a rep and several of us pushed for buying the cameras. Most of the others wanted to apply for grants, but we argued there was not the time to spend another two years waiting for grants. Some of the others then suggested we tax all the property owners evenly but that would require a special election and, again, at least a full year would be lost, and if 51% of the property owners voted no, then we'd be back where we started.
So several of us pushed for voluntary assessments of $10,000 for larger buildings and $5,000 for smaller buildings for the down payment - with the rest being financed and we were given the go ahead. And in a matter of weeks we got the pledges and in a few months, we had the money for a couple dozen cameras (more or less, but that's a whole another story...).
But that's when the real problems started.
First, we had to convince property owners to allow the cameras on their buildings and then we had to place them where the police had advised the camera company they wanted them. But mid-way through that process, I started looking at the recommended camera positions and realized that many of them had their sight lines blocked by trees and awnings and that others were on buildings that had no view of the sidewalk up the street since the building across the street stuck out further than the building the camera was on, but no one had noticed this.
It then required three of us to walk and check the site lines of every building on every corner in the area (and at multiple heights on each building) and then convince the police to allow the camera company to correctly install the cameras after which we had to convince a whole new set of property owners to let us install the cameras on their buildings.
After that, came the endless months and months of technical problems and structural problems and political problems and having to find new solutions on a weekly (if not daily) basis to protect the proper sight lines for each of the cameras.
Then a year later - they flicked on a switch at Central... and the non-stop drug busts started.
So the article says all it took was installing a couple dozen cameras.... but as you can see, in many ways and at many times, it almost didn't happen.
'Saving Los Angeles' Speakers And Seminars For This Sunday!
Besides the over thirty tables of exhibitors, here are the list of the speakers in the main auditorium of the 1931 Los Angeles Theater at 615 S. Broadway. More details and parking info at www.savingla.blogspot.com.
“Saving Los Angeles” Conference
Los Angeles Theater • March 18, 2007
Schedule for Main Auditorium
10:00am – Doors open
11:00-11:15am - Welcome and Introduction (City Councilman Jose Huizar)
11:15-11:45am - Plenary Address (Los Angeles City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, AICP - confirmed)
11:45am-12:00pm - Short break and setup for panel discussions
12:00pm-1:00pm - Citywide Survey (Los Angeles City Planning Department - Ken Bernstein)
1:00pm-1:30pm - Break
1:30pm-2:45pm – Protecting Neighborhood Character: Mansionization & HPOZs
• Proposed Neighborhood Character Ordinance (Erick Lopez, Community Planning Bureau, City of Los Angeles)
• HPOZ Program (Mike Buhler, LA Conservancy)
2:45pm-3:00pm - Break
3:00pm-4:00pm - What can you do in your neighborhood?
• Mills Act (Lambert Giessinger, Office of Historic Resources)
• Case Studies: Presenters on preservation/interpretive/archival projects sponsored by Neighborhood Councils:
o Pico Revitalization Project (Roxanne Brown, Steering Committee member)
o Richard Schave – Building on-line communities for your organization on Blogspot and Flickr
“Saving Los Angeles” Conference
Los Angeles Theater • March 18, 2007
Schedule for Main Auditorium
10:00am – Doors open
11:00-11:15am - Welcome and Introduction (City Councilman Jose Huizar)
11:15-11:45am - Plenary Address (Los Angeles City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, AICP - confirmed)
11:45am-12:00pm - Short break and setup for panel discussions
12:00pm-1:00pm - Citywide Survey (Los Angeles City Planning Department - Ken Bernstein)
1:00pm-1:30pm - Break
1:30pm-2:45pm – Protecting Neighborhood Character: Mansionization & HPOZs
• Proposed Neighborhood Character Ordinance (Erick Lopez, Community Planning Bureau, City of Los Angeles)
• HPOZ Program (Mike Buhler, LA Conservancy)
2:45pm-3:00pm - Break
3:00pm-4:00pm - What can you do in your neighborhood?
• Mills Act (Lambert Giessinger, Office of Historic Resources)
• Case Studies: Presenters on preservation/interpretive/archival projects sponsored by Neighborhood Councils:
o Pico Revitalization Project (Roxanne Brown, Steering Committee member)
o Richard Schave – Building on-line communities for your organization on Blogspot and Flickr
Monday, March 12, 2007
Nicolai Ouroussoff Still Doesn't Know Squat About Los Angeles - Or Architecture!
In tomorrow's New York Times, architecture critic Nocolai Ouroussoff writes a not completely dumb article about Michael Maltzan's latest project on LA's Skid Row. Still, many of his rhetorical excesses and speculations make me wonder if he's even seen the same excellent building I have been in. Even worse are his mindless attempts at social commentary - the worst example being comparing the homeless with the 'mindless zombies" of a George A. Romero movie
But - to begin - we'll start with the first few paragraphs where he gets things right.
March 13, 2007
Architecture Review
Defying the Odds on a Project in Skid Row
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
LOS ANGELES — It’s a short trip from the excesses of Beverly Hills to the despair of skid row. Few architects bother to make it.
Michael Maltzan is an exception. Long a darling of wealthy art world patrons, he is now laboring on the most extravagant project of his career: a 28,000-square-foot glass house for the former Hollywood powerbroker Michael Ovitz. But since opening his office here in 1995, Mr. Maltzan has also devoted part of his creative energy to a string of projects in a derelict section of downtown Los Angeles that has become one of the nation’s most notorious homeless encampments.
His first solo project there, Inner-City Arts, completed in 1995 and expanded in 2002, was an entrancing enclave of sculptured stucco-clad buildings — a theater, library, teaching spaces and ceramics studios — for after-school arts programs at the edge of skid row. Now, he has returned with two new housing complexes for the area: a recently completed 89-unit project for the chronically homeless and mentally ill and a 100-unit apartment complex for the homeless elderly and physically disabled that is scheduled to break ground this summer.
And, then, to close, as always, an example of how he just has to hang himself with a major factual blunder that makes one question his knowledge of everything he writes about.
The building’s general layout is a loose interpretation of the Spanish-style courtyard apartment buildings that have been a staple of Los Angeles architecture since the late 19th century.
Well, Spanish-styled courtyard apartment buildings have been a staple of Los Angeles architecture, particularly back in the 1920's and 1930's. And there are even some dating from the WW I era and in the many books and articles written on the subject I have found exactly ... one... example from the 1910 era.
But as for even... one ... from the 19th century - much less it being a staple of late 19th Century Los Angeles architecture?
Nope. Not even one.
But - to begin - we'll start with the first few paragraphs where he gets things right.
March 13, 2007
Architecture Review
Defying the Odds on a Project in Skid Row
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
LOS ANGELES — It’s a short trip from the excesses of Beverly Hills to the despair of skid row. Few architects bother to make it.
Michael Maltzan is an exception. Long a darling of wealthy art world patrons, he is now laboring on the most extravagant project of his career: a 28,000-square-foot glass house for the former Hollywood powerbroker Michael Ovitz. But since opening his office here in 1995, Mr. Maltzan has also devoted part of his creative energy to a string of projects in a derelict section of downtown Los Angeles that has become one of the nation’s most notorious homeless encampments.
His first solo project there, Inner-City Arts, completed in 1995 and expanded in 2002, was an entrancing enclave of sculptured stucco-clad buildings — a theater, library, teaching spaces and ceramics studios — for after-school arts programs at the edge of skid row. Now, he has returned with two new housing complexes for the area: a recently completed 89-unit project for the chronically homeless and mentally ill and a 100-unit apartment complex for the homeless elderly and physically disabled that is scheduled to break ground this summer.
And, then, to close, as always, an example of how he just has to hang himself with a major factual blunder that makes one question his knowledge of everything he writes about.
The building’s general layout is a loose interpretation of the Spanish-style courtyard apartment buildings that have been a staple of Los Angeles architecture since the late 19th century.
Well, Spanish-styled courtyard apartment buildings have been a staple of Los Angeles architecture, particularly back in the 1920's and 1930's. And there are even some dating from the WW I era and in the many books and articles written on the subject I have found exactly ... one... example from the 1910 era.
But as for even... one ... from the 19th century - much less it being a staple of late 19th Century Los Angeles architecture?
Nope. Not even one.
Neighborhood Council Nighmare Over! Sanity Returns to DONE!
In the final week of Lisa Sarno's troubled reign at the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, increasing bizarre directives were issued - culminating in a completely illegal demand that we must all file form 700's detailing all of our financial interests even though we are only an advisory in nature.
Then this appeared today only hours after Carol Baker Tharp took command:
Date: March 12, 2007
To: Neighborhood Council Leaders and Stakeholders
From: Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Subject: Statement of Economic Interest Filing
Please do not respond to the request regarding the filing of Form 700 recently issued by our office. We apologize for any misunderstanding and wanted to remind all parties that Neighborhood Council board members do not have to file Form 700.
As some of you are aware, the City Council adopted an ordinance exempting Board Members of Neighborhood Councils from filing Statements of Economic Interests. That determination is reflected in Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 2.20.1. This exemption remains in effect and has not changed.
At this time, the City Ethics Commission is not requesting that any Neighborhood Council Board Member file a Statement of Economic Interests by virtue of holding a Neighborhood Council board seat.
Although Neighborhood Council Board Members are not required to file a Statement of Economic Interests, please keep in mind that the Political Reform Act and Government Code 1090 still apply.
It is also important to note a Neighborhood Council Board Member who is also a member of another City board may be required to file a Statement of Economic Interests for that other City position.
Again, we apologize for any and all inconveniences this may or may not have caused.
Then this appeared today only hours after Carol Baker Tharp took command:
Date: March 12, 2007
To: Neighborhood Council Leaders and Stakeholders
From: Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Subject: Statement of Economic Interest Filing
Please do not respond to the request regarding the filing of Form 700 recently issued by our office. We apologize for any misunderstanding and wanted to remind all parties that Neighborhood Council board members do not have to file Form 700.
As some of you are aware, the City Council adopted an ordinance exempting Board Members of Neighborhood Councils from filing Statements of Economic Interests. That determination is reflected in Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 2.20.1. This exemption remains in effect and has not changed.
At this time, the City Ethics Commission is not requesting that any Neighborhood Council Board Member file a Statement of Economic Interests by virtue of holding a Neighborhood Council board seat.
Although Neighborhood Council Board Members are not required to file a Statement of Economic Interests, please keep in mind that the Political Reform Act and Government Code 1090 still apply.
It is also important to note a Neighborhood Council Board Member who is also a member of another City board may be required to file a Statement of Economic Interests for that other City position.
Again, we apologize for any and all inconveniences this may or may not have caused.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Baudrillard Still Alive - At Least In The Pages Of The LA Times!
On March 7th, the New York Times published the obituary of Jean Baudrillard who died on March 6th. It is now March 10th, six days after his death - and there is still no mention of it in the LA Times.
Friday, March 09, 2007
SAVING LOS ANGELES CONFERENCE!
SAVING LOS ANGELES CONFERENCE!
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a free conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA.
City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, will speak in the main auditorium of the theater at 11:15 AM on how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues. Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally importantly, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
On Sunday March 18th, 2007 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council will hold a free conference on how to save Los Angeles’ physical, cultural and social history. It will be co-sponsored by citywide Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress (LANCC), the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and the Los Angeles Conservancy with the aid of the Getty Institute.
The conference will be on Sunday March 18th from 10 AM – 4 PM in the historic 1931 Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown LA.
City Planning Director, Gail Goldberg, will speak in the main auditorium of the theater at 11:15 AM on how the city can assist neighborhoods in preserving their historic elements among other pertinent issues. Ken Bernstein – head of historic preservation in the city’s planning department - will next discuss the citywide historic resources study funded by the Getty Institute. Other seminars will cover neighborhood preservation issues such as HPOZ’s, Mansionization and financial incentives for historic preservation.
Equally importantly, there will be dozens of booths where every aspect of historic preservation will be discussed such as how to preserve the histories of all the ethnic, racial and cultural groups of Los Angeles along with how to record and preserve individual, family and neighborhood histories.
Books on LA’s history and historic preservation will be for sale, books signings will held, and several displays of Los Angeles historic memorabilia will be on view – including a the first sneak mini-preview of the new Los Angeles Museum – the first museum in the city’s history devoted to the history of all of Los Angeles.
For more information and updates, go to www.SavingLA.blogspot.com or contact Brady Westwater at bradywestwater@gmail.com.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Understatement of the Year In LA Times!
The story is that the iconic theme restaurant at LAX had be closed today after building inspectors 'uncovered' a problem. And the use of the word 'uncovered' would seem to suggest they discovered something that was covered up, but that they still managed to - somehow - discover.
Well... not exactly...
Inspectors uncovered the problem after a 1,000-pound piece of white stucco fell off the underside of one of the arches and smashed into the eatery's roof.
Well... not exactly...
Inspectors uncovered the problem after a 1,000-pound piece of white stucco fell off the underside of one of the arches and smashed into the eatery's roof.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Los Angeles THIRD Richest City In The World!
Who knew?
The Gross Domestic Product of Los Angeles is third to only Tokyo and New York - and well above both London and Paris.
London is moving up the league of the world's richest cities, although it remains behind Tokyo and New York at the top of the wealth list, a new study said Wednesday.
Fast-growing cities in emerging markets are also making their presence felt on the global wealth stage, according to the research paper on UK Economic Outlook by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PCW).
In 2005 London, where vast City bonuses are once again fueling property markets and other conspicuous spending, was sixth place in terms of Gross Domestic Product using purchasing power parities (PPP), according to the study.
But by 2020 it will be in fourth place, overtaking Paris and Chicago -- and while Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles will remain above it, "Londons economy is projected to grow faster than any of these cities, driven in particular by strong growth in business and financial services," said the research.
"It seems likely that the most successful cities of the future will be those that have comparative advantages in intangible business, financial and consumer services that are not so easily emulated by the rising stars of China, India or Brazil," said PCW head of macroeconomics John Hawksworth.
"London and Frankfurt should benefit from the increased financial services trade and Paris and Milan should find new markets for their fashion industries," he added.
According to the study, Tokyo topped the list in 2005 with a GDP using PPP of 1.2 trillion US dollars, followed by New York on 1.1 trillion. Los Angeles was on 639 billion, Chicago and Paris 460 billion and London 452 billion.
In 2020 the Japanese capital will have increased to 1.6 billion, followed by New York on 1.56 billion, Los Angeles on 886 million and London 708 million US dollars.
One striking detail of the projected 2020 rich list is that none of the top 30 fastest-growing large cities will be from the major advanced economies, with emerging economy cities rising up the rankings.
Five emerging economy cities are currently in the top 30 -- Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro -- and will be joined in 2020 by Shanghai, Mumbai, Istanbul and Beijing.
The PCW study is believed to be the first of its kind covering the world's biggest 100 cities in terms of GDP while taking into account both population and average per capita income levels.
The Gross Domestic Product of Los Angeles is third to only Tokyo and New York - and well above both London and Paris.
London is moving up the league of the world's richest cities, although it remains behind Tokyo and New York at the top of the wealth list, a new study said Wednesday.
Fast-growing cities in emerging markets are also making their presence felt on the global wealth stage, according to the research paper on UK Economic Outlook by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PCW).
In 2005 London, where vast City bonuses are once again fueling property markets and other conspicuous spending, was sixth place in terms of Gross Domestic Product using purchasing power parities (PPP), according to the study.
But by 2020 it will be in fourth place, overtaking Paris and Chicago -- and while Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles will remain above it, "Londons economy is projected to grow faster than any of these cities, driven in particular by strong growth in business and financial services," said the research.
"It seems likely that the most successful cities of the future will be those that have comparative advantages in intangible business, financial and consumer services that are not so easily emulated by the rising stars of China, India or Brazil," said PCW head of macroeconomics John Hawksworth.
"London and Frankfurt should benefit from the increased financial services trade and Paris and Milan should find new markets for their fashion industries," he added.
According to the study, Tokyo topped the list in 2005 with a GDP using PPP of 1.2 trillion US dollars, followed by New York on 1.1 trillion. Los Angeles was on 639 billion, Chicago and Paris 460 billion and London 452 billion.
In 2020 the Japanese capital will have increased to 1.6 billion, followed by New York on 1.56 billion, Los Angeles on 886 million and London 708 million US dollars.
One striking detail of the projected 2020 rich list is that none of the top 30 fastest-growing large cities will be from the major advanced economies, with emerging economy cities rising up the rankings.
Five emerging economy cities are currently in the top 30 -- Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro -- and will be joined in 2020 by Shanghai, Mumbai, Istanbul and Beijing.
The PCW study is believed to be the first of its kind covering the world's biggest 100 cities in terms of GDP while taking into account both population and average per capita income levels.