Another Day! Another Asian Community Attack! LA Times Disses Chinatown!

Below is a description of Los Angeles's 19th Century Chinatown on the Chinese American Museum website:

http://www.camla.org/history.htm

From the 1870s, Chinese were the dominant group in agricultural produce as growers, vendors and market proprietors. They distributed their produce from carts around the Plaza. They also operated laundry businesses. In 1888, a laundry operated at the Plaza Substation site. Later others ran restaurants, meat markets and groceries. Merchants owned stores and sold goods for both Chinese and non-Chinese customers along Main, Los Angeles, Alameda and Marchessault Streets.

Although professionals were small in number, Chinese also worked as herbalists, dentists, a doctor, a lawyer, interpreters, jewelers, a movie renter and even actors.

By the 1880s, Chinese occupied three sides of El Pueblo Plaza and areas south and east. In its heyday around 1900 with a population of 3,000, Old Chinatown had eight streets, hundreds of buildings and stores, several restaurants, three temples, eight missionary churches, a Chinese school and a theater for Chinese operas. It became an urban center for laborers and farm workers.

Below is a sample of LA TIMES' purple prose at its most... purple... on the same subject:

Reminders of Bigotry Unburied By David Pierson

Times Staff Writer 9:07 PM PST, March 14, 2006

They could not marry, they could not own property, and they performed the most undesirable jobs: ditch diggers, canal builders, house boys. They were banned from most shops and public institutions and were the target of racist violence that went unpunished. Los Angeles was home to an estimated 10,000 Chinese in the late 19th century - almost all men who came to America to work on the railroads and ended up in desperate straits, crowded into a filthy Chinese ghetto near what is now Union Station.

Other than it's clear that someone missed school the day distemper shots were given out, it's stunning that the LA Times would print such a racist and narrow-minded attack on a entire community. Most of the Chinese lived in conditions that were far from 'filthy' and far from all of them ended up in 'desperate straights'. I will not go into the other inaccuracies.

Ironically, the real world situation of the Chinese was horrific enough in 19th Century America without having to slur an entire race.

LA Times Disses Little Tokyo!

One of the most vibrant - and rapidly growing communities - in Downtown Los Angeles is Little Tokyo. Almost every block in it has new construction going up or about to break ground and it easily has the most active night life of any section of the downtown.

So what does the LA Times have to say about this?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-japantown14mar14,1,3488496.story?coll=la-headlines-california

... Once the largest Asian nationality in California, Japanese Americans are now fourth, after Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans. In 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 315,500 Japanese Americans lived in California, including 13,300 in San Francisco and 50,500 in Los Angeles.

Only three of the nation's Japantowns remain, including Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and Japantown in San Jose. All three are in small, largely commercial areas that have declined over the decades and face uncertain futures as non-Japanese residents and businesses encroach....

Small? Largely commercial? Uncertain future?

Not only is the area no longer contracting, but it is spreading out into areas that have not been apart of Little Tokyo for decades. The Little Tokyo Public library was just finished at 2nd and Los Angeles, the Linda Lea Theater on Main is about to be restored and the Little Tokyo Gym is going to be built on Los Angeles Street.

Plus the old Mangrove site at First and Alameda is also planned to be integrated back into the Little Tokyo community. Lastly, the numbers of Japanese buying condos in the area is dramatically increasing the Japanese population in the heart of Little Tokyo.

LA Weekly's Lies About Kids On Skid Row!

http://www.laweekly.com/features/12829/coming-of-age-in-the-mouth-of-madness/

So I pick up a copy of this week's LA WEEKLY and on the cover is a familiar looking kid I have seen around. Then when I saw his name, I recognized him as the kid who had made a film about Skid Row. I then started to read the article by Sam Slovick and while I had some misgivings about the first line - more on that later - when I saw that the article opened talking about the kids at the Union Rescue Mission - I thought - great!

The local media was finally going to talk about what is going right on Skid Row.

This is because the Union Rescue Mission last year closed escrow on an incredible ranch in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest - over 70 acres of heaven. And the 10 buildings on the ranch are going to be converted into transitional housing for up to 250 single mothers and children where they can live off of Skid Row before they are transitioned back into permanent housing.

http://www.urm.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID312006CHID630778CIID2103146,00.html

But since a handful of NIMBY's who live miles - yes, miles - from this secluded canyon ranch are giving the project some grief - I felt it was great that the LA Weekly was going to tell LA about this wonderful project and how it should be supported.

So I started reading - and reading - and reading - and reading... and there was - nothing. Absolutely - nothing about this project.

Instead, the entire article was devoted to bemoaning the fact that there was zero - yes - zero - political will to do anything to get women and children off of Skid Row. And not a single word about the URM program that is about to get so many of the kids and their mothers off of Skid Row - even though the Union Rescue Mission was the setting for both the opening - and the closing of the article.

Then, besides completely ignoring the single most important aspect of kids on Skid Row - the story was also filled with so many factual inaccuracies that it calls into question everything in the story.

To list just a few errors (and I am being more than charitable in calling these 'errors'):

Some live - off the radar - in makeshift apartments - small 10-by-10-foot rooms with no kitchens or bathrooms in buildings that don't require IDs, credit checks or security deposits. These are usually shared by a couple of single moms with four or five kids each.

The article states that single moms not staying in shelters usually share 10-by-10 rooms with other single moms with an average of 9 to 10 people in each of these ten-by-ten rooms with no kitchen or bath.

Well, other than the sheer physical impossibly of this being usual - the amount of money single moms with four or five kids have can get would allow each of them to get a lot more than a 10-by-10 room. And when I asked around today if this type of arrangement was at all 'usual' - I was met with laughter.

You could throw a rock from the Ford Hotel where Franklin stays and hit a sleeping senator in silk pajamas staying at a five-star hotel if the window was open and your aim was true... well, you might need a slingshot, but you get the point.

Well, yes, I DO get the point. The nearest hotel that any senator might stay in - much less a five star hotel - is the Biltmore. And that is well over one mile - about sixteen blocks - from the Ford Hotel. Now if he had just said a stone's throw and meant that as a metaphor, that would be wrong - but at least barely understandable as hyperbole. But to them modify that you might need a sling shot to propel a rock for - 16 blocks, is clearly meant to deceive the reader about the geography of Skid Row.

But what about my friend Joey camped out in the Midnight Mission's courtyard in the middle of the festering wound known as City Central?

City Central? There is no such neighborhood in Los Angeles. The business center of the downtown is called Central City and the larger Skid Row area is called Central City East.

In discussing the people he sees in the courtyard of the Midnight Mission:

All appear to be in need of a bath and a good 10 years of intensive psychiatric treatment, and even then you probably wouldn't want to leave them unsupervised around the kids.

Now I know a number of these people - and while they have battled alcohol and drugs, most of them do not need - nor do they appear to need - the 10 years of intensive psychiatric treatment the writer claims they need. And to suggest that even then, it would be unsafe to allow your kids around any of them after ten years of treatment is absurd. But this is typical of the way the writer unfairly demonizes the homeless in this article.

Another example of that is when he tags the kids of Skid Row as - 'Skids' - a term I have never heard before and a term none of the people I talked to today who work with these kids has ever heard before. However, one woman who does work with these kids on a daily basis, said it was shameful that the writer would tarnish these kids with a slur like that. Later, when he talked about the mother of one of the kids he profiles - he referred to her as - 'a walking disaster'.

Now you imagine how traumatized that kid will be when he reads that description of his mother in the LA Weekly? If that does not qualify as child abuse - I don't know what does.

His description of the project - Safe Sleep Room - at the Midnight Mission: It's relatively clean, but it's stinky and creepy and dank.

I have been in that room many times, and it is not relatively clean - it is immaculately clean and it is less than a year old. Granted many of the homeless have not showered, but the room itself is clean and odorless - and this spacious, beautifully designed room is in no way - creepy - unless you feel that just being around the homeless is creepy (which he evidently does) - and the room is in no way the dank, which means, overly damp or humid.

But, lastly, his biggest lie is to hide from the reader the truth of what is happening on Skid Row; a new program large enough to hold every single mother and her children currently sleeping in shelters on Skid Row. And yet - here are his quotes about the lack political will to do anything about getting kids off of Skid Row:

... compassion in lieu of any legitimate political will to get children off Skid Row.

It's going to take lots of that famous political will. I've been living down here for a while now. I'm not sure the prognosis is good.

Eleanor Roosevelt once famously made a distinction between those who merely curse the darkness and those willing to light a candle.

Well, cursing the darkness is no longer enough for the LA Weekly.

When the Weekly discovered someone has at last lit a candle for the children of Skid Row - they feel compelled to blow it out.

The LAPD, The LA Times, Skid Row and San Julian.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-skidrow10mar10,0,4697903.story

http://www.laist.com/archives/2006/03/10/am_news_cleaning_up_all_over_town.php

First, the opening graphs of the story:

THE STATE

LAPD's Skid Row Divide

The more radical of two proposals under debate would rid area of 'box cities.' The other would target crime. Bratton is expected to decide soon.

By Cara Mia DiMassa and Richard Winton Times Staff Writers March 10, 2006

Los Angeles Police Department officials are divided over two proposals for cleaning up skid row - one an ambitious and controversial effort to move thousands of homeless people off the streets, the other focused primarily on reducing crime.

The debate comes as the city struggles to develop a comprehensive strategy for solving the downtown district's many long-entrenched problems. Despite the intense focus on skid row in recent months, progress so far has been hard to measure.

Last week, the LAPD declared one of skid row's most notorious sections - the 600 block of San Julian Street - a "drug-free zone" after a series of altercations between homeless people and officers. With increased patrols, San Julian's large homeless population scattered, and for the first time in years the street looks largely like a ghost town.

But officials acknowledge that it was far from a long-term solution, noting that most of the transients simply relocated elsewhere downtown. The more radical of the two master plans under consideration by the LAPD is being pushed by Asst. Chief George Gascon, who is calling for the department to permanently rid the area of its ubiquitous tent and box cities.

Gascon, one of Chief William J. Bratton's top deputies, argues that the department's efforts so far simply have not had a strong enough effect on the homeless problem. His plan is similar to Bratton's original policing idea for skid row when he arrived in 2002. The chief called for removing the tent cities, but the department scaled back its plans after the American Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the practice violated homeless people's civil rights.

But others in the LAPD are backing a blueprint for skid row drafted by George Kelling, the noted Rutgers criminologist who is a co-author with James Q. Wilson of the "broken windows" theory of policing that Bratton has adopted.

The theory holds that punishing lesser offenses leads to reductions in major crimes. Kelling argues that rather than removing homeless people wholesale from the streets, the LAPD should focus on criminals, including drug dealers and prostitutes, who he says create a "culture of lawlessness" in the area.

The divide is generating anxiety among service providers and officials. Bratton has said he is mulling what approach to take, with a decision expected in the next few weeks.

OK - deep breath. All the article tackles is how do we solve the problems of crime, drug usprostitutionion and homelessness - and we are given two options to chose from.

Option A or option B.

To begin with, my one small quibble with the otherwise excellent article is that it says that San Julian now looks like a ghost town.

I strongly disagree.

It now looks a like a normal street. The kind of street that the residents of any neighborhood in Los Angeles deserve to have - including the residents of Skid Row, the vast majority of whom do NOT sleep or camp out on the streets.

My second comment is that Skid Row has the largest population of people in Los Angeles who are trying to either stop drinking or stop using drugs - or who have already stopped and who are trying to say sober and/or clean.

But every time they walk out their doors, a flood of dealers comes up to them to give them free drugs to get them hooked again. And many of those dealing live in the government subsidized non-profit SRO's. A walk up and down Main Street every night will see drug dealers openly conducting business out of the front doors of at least four of these taxpayer subsidized hotels - and some of these hotels have even had in the past managers and security guards who were doing the drug selling.

For this reason alone, all of Skid Row must be made a drug free, zero tolerance zone.

Now as for the methods to use, first, San Julian is a unique situation. It borders some of the major missions in the area and it is as close to a literal hell on earth as exists in this country. There is no question that when any streets gets as out of control as it has, that drastic actions need to be taken.

San Julian, though, is a rare exception and it is not typical of the rest of Skid Row.

As for the short term methods to be used by the LAPD, I far more strongly lean towards the Broken Windows approach. Get rid of the drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps and other criminals from the area so we can deal with the problems of the people who are truly homeless and who not just using the streets as a cover to conduct illegal businesses.

I might add that of the fifty people I have helped get off the streets in the past five or six years - every single one of them has to leave Skid Row to get off the streets. Of all the homeless I have gotten housing on Skid Row - 100% of them have ended up back out on the streets.

I can not report a single success story in five or six years.

It is also clear to me that any new SRO built in downtown should never, ever house anyone who has ever - even once - sold drugs in the past. And mandatory drug testing should be required of anyone who has taken drugs in the past. And the Huntington Hotel - where the security staff is still allowing the sale of drugs and where drugs dealers are still openly operating - should be where this policy starts.

Now as for more long term solutions, I have a number of conflicting opinions.

First, being homeless has been made far too easy in this city. A few politically powerful organizations are more concerned with people having the 'right' to live in their own filth, camped out on the street as opposed to working to get them off the streets.

If you live on Skid Row you can give five or six free hot meals a day (no one ever goes hungry on Skid Row), take showers, use public rest rooms, have your stuff stored for free on a daily basis, get free medical treatment - if you avail yourself of the services, sleep in a shelter on nights when it is raining or too cold - and you are not held accountable for any of your actions out on the streets when you receive any of these services.

There are also misguided people out there who give away tents, shopping carts and sleeping bags to the homeless that help them stay out on the streets rather than seek help in one of the shelters. There are also good-hearted people who give pan handlers money on a daily basis that enable them to buy drugs and get drunk. In my opinion, a special place in hell should be reserved for each and every one of these people.

For too many people, being homeless has become the easy default when an army of enablers is giving them what they need to be able to continue to live on the streets and endanger the health of themselves and others.

As an example, right now I am regularly working with eight homeless trying to get them off the streets. One of them might - and with a little luck will - come in tonight and have his own room for the first time in over eight years.

This is Ernest Adams, the man who was almost beaten to death last year.

But it has taken a small army of us to get him to this point and at every turn we have been thwarted by all the well meaning people who have made it easier for him to live on the street than for him to go into an apartment and get the help he needs. And even now, he is starting to turn against the lead person in this week's effort because so great is his fear of giving up the security of living on the street - a street he was almost beaten to death on - for the unknown world he will face living in his own apartment.

Because of this five or six years of dealing with this, it is clear to me that in some ways, the police making it harder and harder to live on the streets is the best thing that could happen to Skid Row. It HAS to be made more attractive to seek shelter than to live out on the streets to get the shelter resistant into housing.

But just sweeping people off of every street is also not a solution. There needs to be a balance. Carrots and sticks.

And this leads us to what the real solution is. Each person who is gotten off the street does so when they are treated as an unique individual with unique problems - and unique qualities.

That is the secret. And it takes a special breed of person to work with those people and obtain their trust so that that will - finally - do what they know is best for them despite all of their fears about a future off of the streets. And many times that can only happen when life on the streets becomes too hard to deal with - and it will take tough love on the part of the LAPD for that to happen.

But we also need to restructure the vast - and competing array - of services and service providers that have flooded Skid Row. Right now, each of the homeless can come into contact with literally dozens of different providers each year - and none of them is communicating with each other on what they have done for each client - or have communicated what they have learned about each of their clients.

Yes, we are all sitting in rooms and talking to each other (to the point that twice in the past month it has been suggested to hold a meeting about how to have - fewer meetings) - but we are just talking about who we are and what we are doing. We are not talking about the individuals we are trying to help so that we can work TOGETHER on each person's case.

We somehow need to find a way to collectively work with each person as an individual. Far more can get done if there was only organization for each of the five or ten that exist now. Right now there are simply too many options, too many safe harbors competing with each other for a rational distribution of services.

And then there are those handful of organizations funded by brain dead Westside foundations that do not provide services, but instead see it as their mission to 'protect' the rights of people to shoot up drugs and sell heroin and live on the streets to further complicate the situation.

So - getting back to the article - which 'solution' do I agree with?

I agree with both of them in parts - and I disagree with both of them in part. But the real crime out there is that this has been allowed to become a problem that the LAPD has been forced to address.

Plague Carrying Fleas Threaten Santa Monica!

Or....not.

From today's LA Times:

Plague precautions — The "L.A. Then and Now" column in Sunday's California section incorrectly said Santa Monica had killed squirrels in Palisades Park "to reduce the number of plague-carrying fleas." It should have said the squirrels were killed "in part to reduce the potential threat of plague-carrying fleas."

KCBS Crime Spree! Or - Morons On Parade!

While I try to avoid local TV news - since both the local and the news parts are usually lacking - watching the first few minutes of KCBS tonight was a non-stop list of murders, road rage and kidnappings... in Detroit... El Cajon... and New Jersey.

Granted there were also a few crimes in LA - but why? - why?? - would a local news station find crimes that have nothing to do with LA far more important than anything that happened in LA today?

And why would every single one of the first stories be about violent crime?

Easy. Cheap video tape from other CBS stations and no need for any actual reporting.

No wonder CRASH won for best picture.

Dysfunctional LA Times Website Continues To ...Dysfunction!

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/03/is_he_in_la.html

The concept of... news... continues to evade the LA Times website...

This just in over at LAOBSERVED:

Is he in L.A.?

Reader Louis just emailed:

It's 8:25pm, and the Kings made a major trade today....it was announced hours ago. So I go to the Times' sports on the web, and not only is there no mention of the trade, but they actually have a story on ANOTHER trade (Colorado and Montreal) in the AP headline section. Hello?? Am I in Los Angeles?

I couldn't find anything either, even digging around into older LATimes.com wire stories. The news was first posted on the LetsGoKings.com bulletin board at 3:24 pm and has been on ESPN.com all afternoon.

Los Angeles's Eastside Hills - Parks Or Housing - Or Both!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-develop7mar07,0,4044844.story?coll=la-home-headlines

A Battle for the High Ground

In the hills of northeast L.A., debate flares over property rights and preserving open space.

By Jim Newton Times Staff Writer March 7, 2006

The hills north and east of downtown Los Angeles are a mishmash of small homes, narrow streets, hidden valleys and long views. A few have streetlights; others go dark at night, quiet swatches of countryside less than 10 miles from City Hall. Some of the city's last big undeveloped parcels - places like Flat-Top, Mt. Olympus, Rose Hill, Paradise Hill - frame the horizon. Now those inviting green spaces have become the staging ground in a bitter, protracted dispute, with distinct class and racial overtones, that is a microcosm of the exploding development struggles across Los Angeles.

Each side has its devoted advocates. There is Clare Marter Kenyon, a librarian with a soft British accent and a keen determination to protect plants and wildlife from encroaching development; when she drives around El Sereno, she sees the stumps of felled California black walnuts and winces.

There is James Rojas, an urban planner who lives downtown but covets the relief of the open spaces and is closely allied with Kenyon. "West L.A.," he said, "has their ocean. We have our hillsides."

And there is Tomas Osinski, a Polish emigre and architect with a critical eye, an adamant belief in the rights of property owners and an intolerance for government hypocrisy....

The problem here is they are all right.

We need to find a balance between housing and parks and to also find a way to balance the rights of property owners and the needs of the public. But instead of trying to find that balance, the city has - as it too often does - has taken easy way out. The end result is that no one is satisfied and everyone is going to get screwed over.

And the irony is that doing the right thing would be a lot easier than the recently enacted/proposed half-measures which will not preserve any meaningful park land, and will also create less housing and also continue to make all housing more expensive for everyone.

A perfect lose, lose situation.

What makes a viable solution for the largest of the parcels in question possible is that they are owned by developers who are only interested in building a certain number of housing units and, more importantly, making a certain level of profit.

Now the proposed solution can be done in one of two ways. The first would take each of the parcels as separate project, the second would bundle all of the largest, developer owner parcels that would agree to participate into one development project.

The properties would then be examined from geologic, topographic, financial and social points of view and each developer would be given one or more parcels of land (regardless of who owns them) with entitlements for higher density than single family housing in exchange for donating the rest of the land to the city as park space.

This would reduce the developer's costs (and the impact upon the environment) as they would not have to build roads and utilities into steep hillside areas, and this would also allow for more units to be built at lower prices than if only single family homes were built.

More parks, more housing, and lower housing prices.

And it won't cost the taxpayers one cent.

A real world solution.

And a real world challenge for our new planning director - Gail Goldberg to tackle.

Personal Political Agendas Being Pushed On LA Times Website?

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/03/different_rules_for_lat_w.html

I don't know if I have ever posted a comment on the below practice of the LA Times website exposed in first the USC Online Journalism Review - and then picked up on LA Observed, but I know I wrote a number of posts I might not have finished due to my dopamine related typing problems of the past months:

Different rules for LAT website?

Robert Niles at USC's Online Journalism Review blog picked up an exchange in which the Los Angeles Times readers' representative seems to say that headlines on LATimes.com are encouraged to be less neutral or accurate than in the printed paper: "...pushing the facts a bit more than [newsroom] editors want."

The heds that prompted the exchange:

Online edition: 'Book: Bush Proposed Provoking War'
Paper edition: 'Book Casts Doubt on Case for War'

I have seen a number of stories pop up around midnight in which the headlines were so slanted that they amounted to literally lying about what the story actually said, much less the truth of what really happened.

I also recall stories that didn't even make a pretense of being journalism - but were instead partisan attacks that within an hour would be moderated, and then by the time the story actually appeared in the paper, they would actually be able to pass as journalism.

But mainly it is the headlines that all too often slant and distort not just the news, but the actual story itself - which are, of course, two different things. Now as for who is responsible for using the website - particularly at night - for their personal political view points - I don't know. The night editor? The guy who runs the website?

Enquiring cowboys want to know.

Norman Foster Lays Egg At Top Of Hearst Building!

http://gutter.curbed.com/archives/2006/03/07/hearst_tower_spy_shots.php#more

Below is the comment I left about the top photo at the above linked site of about Norman Foster's under construction Hearst Tower in New York:

Much as I like Stormin' Norman Foster, he totally blows the view with way too many mullions. And can there really be the need for that kind of 'structural' steel at 'the top of the house'?

The crowning blow, though, is how badly the mullions and the steel intersect. It's the structural equivalent of painting oneself into a corner.

What should have been the penthouse now looks like the utility room above the penthouse. It is inconceivable that this kind of sloppy design will not be corrected.

Why LA County Needs A Laura Chick!

At a time when Los Angeles is running a major structural deficit, it is time to reexamine the idea of having a Little Hoover Commission look at how every dollar is spent in this city. Laura Chick has already gotten off to an excellent start in this and - as the below article shows - LA County also desperately needs its own fiscal watchdog.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bioterror6mar06,0,3160787.story?coll=la-home-headlines

County Aims Anti-Terrorism Cash at Some Unusual Targets By Charles Ornstein Times Staff Writer

March 6, 2006

Los Angeles County has spent at least $2 million in taxpayer dollars intended to prepare for bioterrorism on buffing up the health department's image, responding to unrelated health scourges and buying questionable supplies and services, a Times review has found.

When public health officials couldn't round up enough volunteers to take part in a smallpox vaccination drill, for instance, they turned to actors from an old Hollywood standby: Central Casting.

To hire extras to play the role of patients in the half-day drill, the county's Department of Health Services in 2004 paid the aptly named firm $57,045.

That's not counting what the department ponied up to thank the paid actors and volunteers: $10,000 for gift certificates, $13,600 for pens, digital thermometers and bags to hold the gifts, and thousands more for food and transportation.

And that is only the start.

Jon Stewart Not Yet Ready For Prime Time!

While he was not the disaster that Chris Rock was last year, it was clearly a case of sending a boy to do a man's job. Most of the time he looked like someone who had just wandered in off the street. There is an immense difference between inertly standing on a stage and telling jokes and commanding a stage and knowing how to work an audience as does Billy Crystal or Eddie Murphy - or even a Joan Rivers or a Rodney Dangerfield.

New York Times Can't Tell Difference Between Hollywood - And Downtown Los Angeles!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/movies/redcarpet/06fash.html?pagewanted=print

March 6, 2006

Fashion Diary

For Designers, an Image-Making Bonanza That Is Priceless

By GUY TREBAY

The roof of the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, several stories above the limo drop-off on Hollywood Boulevard, probably offers the best possible view of what Isaac Mizrahi on Sunday night called "the glamour vortex of the world." From that perch, the vista was of a 500-foot-long red carpet packed densely with celebrity caviar, and also a long view on the annual apotheosis of product placement, freebie-hustling and surface obsession that is the Oscars.

Anybody who has ever been in downtown Los Angeles on Oscar day knows how easy it is to walk three blocks in any direction from the Kodak Theater and escape Hollywood's glamorous pull....

It is one thing for a reporter who has clearly never been west of 7th Avenue in his life to get where... Downtown Los Angeles is... wrong by about ten miles but I wonder how many editors read this bone head error before it got published.

And that reporter also is clearly incapable of walking three blocks or he would have been in the hills above the Kodak Theater where the glamour of Hollywood is alive and well with million dollar plus homes with sweeping views, the Magic Castle, and the Yamashiro Skyroom. But don't hold your breath for any correction. The New York Times stopped correcting its Los Angeles errors a long time ago.

UPDATE!

http://www.granneman.com/personal/journals/2003westcoast/20030809/

The writer also states that the Ripley's museum is 'several stories' high. But as the below linked photo shows - it is only one story high - not the three or four or more that several stories implies. Error number three.

I'm Back.... Maybe....

My dopamine deficiency problems have lately taken a turn for the worse and for some reason I have lost a lot of my motor control functions along with a lot of other odd skills including the ability to swim, play poker, play chess, ride a horse - or even tie my shoes. But lots of other stuff seems to be working fine. So I finally took some pretty drastic action and I seem to be able to be typing again more than a few words at a time, at least for tonight.

Steve Lopez Reports On Nathaniel's Progress

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez22feb22,0,6772038.column?coll=la-headlines-california

Nathaniel's gradual return to society has begun and both what is happening to him and to Ernest Adams and to dozens of others each week is that there comes a time when people living on the streets are ready to come in off the streets.

But no one can make them them do this, only they can make that decision themselves.

Sometimes, though, it takes a little help.

Below is the close:

I asked if maybe Nathaniel was one of the lucky ones who seem to rebound from schizophrenia in middle age. He might be in the long run, Ragins said, but that type of recovery occurs over a much longer stretch.

Instead, he said, he thought Nathaniel's new friendships — with me, Stuart Robinson at Lamp and others — have driven his recovery."Relationship is primary," Ragins said. It doesn't have to be more than once a week, and it doesn't have to be someone with an advanced degree in therapy.

"It is possible to cause seemingly biochemical changes through human emotional involvement. You literally have changed his chemicals by being his friend."I wasn't alone on this, but his point is an important one. Mentally ill people often wear out the patience of friends and family. Unless someone else comes along to take up the slack, they can become completely untethered.

Nathaniel has a long way to go, Ragins reminded me. Acknowledging your mental illness is frightening, he said, and so is coming to grips with the lost years. It takes tremendous courage to get through the day, let alone design a new world for yourself — a world of new possibilities also presents new risks.

Don't push him into therapy right away, Ragins suggested. He advised me to remind Nathaniel of the discrepancy between the life he envisions and the hurdles that stand in the way, and gently guide him toward therapy or whatever else might help.

Just before we left his apartment, Nathaniel said it was many months ago that he first considered coming in off the streets. "When you gave me the Beethoven sonatas," he said, "it gave me the idea of living in a house for the sole purpose of having a piano and learning something from the Beethoven statue" in Pershing Square. "The Beethoven statue encourages me to carry on with the most difficult challenges of my life.

"Professionalism, courtesy and respect. I read that on a police car door."

He never disappoints.As I began to leave, Nathaniel called me back and gave me a long, firm handshake. He held me in his glance and sealed something there, too.

My smile followed his, and neither of us needed to say a thing.

Los Angeles Times Publisher's Forum On Homelessness

What a difference a year makes!

Last night Los Angeles Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson hosted the first of a series of forums on the critical issues facing Los Angeles. The problems of the homeless on Skid Row - and other parts of our community - was the lead-off topic.

Now most talking heads panels are a waste of time and deadly dull. So imagine my surprise when the each speaker and each panelist discussed real world solutions to this problem and also brought relevant facts and figures to the audience.

As for who they were and what they have to say, I will link to other people on that topic for the moment as this is a subject I will be going into in much greater detail future posts and articles published elsewhere.

What I do want to address now are the beginnings of major change at the culture of the LA Times, starting with the new publisher.

When I first him speak last year, I was surprised by the passion he seemed to have developed for his new home and I felt that could auger well of Los Angeles. And in the short period he has been here, the focus of the LA Times has once again - more and more - become... Los Angeles. And last night I was struck by the deep concern he has for his subject and it is clear this is an issue that is not going to be a seven day wonder or just a series of articles to get some prizes.

Now as for Johnson's butchering the Mayor's name in his opening remarks (for which I expect he will get a lot of blogger grief this morning), I myself never even attempt to pronounce his name in public - I just call him the Mayor or refer to him by his first name.

The next speaker with LA Times Editor Andres Martinez, who now heads the finest editorial page in the county about which I will talk more later, and he expertly questioned the panelists, starting with Steve Lopez who properly deflected much of the praise of the LAT's coverage to his colleagues at the paper, particularly Cara Mia Massa and Steve Winton.

Steve also graciously mention me - to considerable laughter as he mentioned that my writings about him have not always been completely favorable in the now distant past - as he recounted his own personal efforts at getting Nathaniel and now Ernest Adams off the street and how much each of these two gentleman have taught us both.

I might add that my name badge for the evening rather than my normal Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood affiliation - read - LA COWBOY - to the quite vocal amusement of everyone at the Times who read it.

Much more later, but right now I am late for a meeting on Project YIMBY at PATH and then have an appointment with a gentleman enrolling in a drug clinic...

http://blogging.la/archives/2006/02/live_on_tape_blogging_of_the_l_1.phtml

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/02/first_thing_wednesday_215.html

Correcting The Corrections Day At The Los Angeles Times!

If at first you don't succeed....

Solar subsidy plan — An article in the Jan. 13 Business section about California's new solar energy program cited past and new subsidy amounts "per megawatt" of production capacity; a correction Jan. 14 referred to subsidies "per kilowatt." The numbers cited should have been stated as the subsidies paid "per watt."

And...

Washington lobbying — A Monday correction dealing with a Feb. 8 Section A article on a lobbyist's ties to Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) said the House had held hearings on a mining reform provision backed by Pombo but had not debated it on the House floor. A House member held hearings on mining reform in general, but not on the provision.

Plus under this is way too much information category....

Enron trial — An article in Friday's Business section about the trial of two former Enron Corp. executives said attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli wore Chocolat cologne, based on his own account. Petrocelli, who is representing former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, said Monday that he was mistaken and that the cologne was Tabac.

Job Number One At Tribune Company - Fixing The LA Times!

Courtesy of Romensko, is the below article in Crain's Chicago Business. It describes the Tribune's frustration with the rapidly declining circulation and advertising revenues of its biggest paper - the Los Angeles Times.

Ironically, just when the Times has begun to actually cover... Los Angeles... and fixing many of its weaknesses, those of us who have been critical and were prepared to start cheering on the Times are now confronted with the disastrous new LA Times Magazine - WEST; a publication that so totally misses the mark in every conceivable way- from design to content - that it seems to be specifically created to drive away any readers who might otherwise be tempted to re-subscribe to the Times.

More on that later, but here are some quotes from the article:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=19508

Tribune Chairman and CEO Dennis J. FitzSimons faces no bigger task in reversing his company's long slide than repairing its flagship newspaper, the Los Angeles Times.Circulation and advertising at the Times, which account for nearly 20% of the Chicago-based media conglomerate's total revenue, have fallen sharply since Tribune acquired it in 2000.

Now, Mr. FitzSimons and his L.A. management team — the second Tribune has installed there since the $8-billion Times Mirror Co. merger — need to find a solution before Wall Street loses patience."They've been throwing anything they can think of at that paper and nothing seems to work," says media analyst Edward J. Atorino of New York-based Benchmark & Co. "Wall Street likes the company, and we love Dennis, but if results don't start improving . . . it's going to be merciless."

For Tribune executives, the Los Angeles problem is "critical, and it's the most troubling kink in the turnaround story," says Eric McKissack, CEO of Chicago-based Channing Capital Management LLC, which holds more than 600,000 Tribune shares. "It'll be very difficult to turn the company around without turning the Times around."While the Chicago Tribune has suffered circulation and ad declines, its losses have been smaller.

Total ad lineage at the Tribune was flat during 2005, and weekday circulation during the six months ended Sept. 30 dropped 2.5% compared to the year-earlier period.

And...

"Well, it's six years later, and I think they're beginning to understand why Times Mirror couldn't figure it out."In July, Tribune installed a new management team in L.A., headed by Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson, a Tribune veteran. He has continued aggressive staff and cost cuts, reportedly lopping off 8% of editorial department jobs and replacing much of its ad sales staff. The paper also announced some key editorial changes, eliminating the critically acclaimed Outdoors section because of a lack of advertising and relaunching its Sunday magazine as an upscale title called West.

But those moves have yet to improve results — or even stem declines. On a recent conference call with Wall Street analysts, Tribune Publishing President Scott Smith said the pace of advertising revenue growth in L.A. slowed in the first nine months of 2005 and declined 3% during the fourth quarter, when total ad lineage dropped nearly 13%. (He didn't provide specific numbers.) Mr. Smith blamed the declines on a few troubling categories, particularly movie advertising, which analysts estimate accounts for between 10% and 15% of the Times' total, compared with 6% for Tribune's entire newspaper group.

And...

"Our ad revenues grew 8% last year and our movie category grew, too," says LA Weekly Publisher Beth Sestanovich, a former advertising director at the Times. "We've got a lot of advertisers defecting from (the Times) and sending a piece of what they were spending there to us."

Ms. Sestanovich attributes the Times' advertising problems to ad rates that have become more expensive relative to the Times' sinking circulation. Ad buyer Kathy Gardner of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Palisades Media Group shares those pricing concerns: "I don't think the circulation justifies what they charge.

The circulation story isn't much happier. The Times' declines have outpaced those seen at local rivals the Orange County Register and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Weekday and Sunday circulation numbers at the Times have dropped about 9% since 2003, despite an industry-leading 10 Pulitzer Prizes during that time...

The good news is that despite all the cuts since last July - almost all the good news from the Times in its actually covering... Los Angeles... has come since Jeffrey M. Johnson came on board last July.

So I assume the train wreck called WEST Magazine was sent speeding down the tracks long before his tenure and - hopefully - he will either quickly pull the plug or take the drastic steps necessary to fix it.

Why I Live In Downtown Los Angeles....

At last night's Create-Fixate art opening/party in the Spring Arts Tower, I reminiscenced with one artist about the glory days of Buenos Aires and with another person about a particularly infamous/famous brothel in the Recoleta section of the same city. I also spoke with a collector about an equally famous infamous street (for other reasons) on the outskirts of Beirut in the early 1970's, with a lady from Slovenia about hanging with the artist collective IRWIN in the East Village in the late 1980's and the early 1990's, with another lady about theater in London in the 1990's and with all of them - and quite a few others - on why they are all now living or working - or both - in Downtown Los Angeles.

Speaking of Corrections --

When one considers that the Los Angeles Times has yet to correct Mike Davis' lie about the San Francisco housing market, the fabricated quotes in the LA Times Magazine article on Wyatt Earp and their getting every possible fact wrong in the Katrina/San Francisco earthquake editorial - plus the hundred other blatant but still uncorrected factual errors of just the past year - I am always amused at the minor details that the Times does see fit to correct...

Reiner novel — An item in the Words listings in Thursday's Calendar Weekend previewing a book reading by Carl Reiner at the Skirball Cultural Center on Feb. 16 misspelled the title of Reiner's latest novel. It is "NNNNN," not "NNNN."

Ganesha High — The two photographs that ran with the article on Pomona's Ganesha High School in Friday's California section were portraits of students taken after class, not during a class presentation as the captions stated.

Does At Anyone At The LA Times Corrections Page Ever Read the... Corrections Page?

For at least the tenth time in the past year, an article about 'corrections' - i.e., the penal system - appears on the Corrections Page. Now granted this error is computer generating, but seeing as the Corrections Page is generally updated only ONCE a day - how hard would it be for someone - anyone - to bother to read the page after it is posted to see if the corrections are actually ... correct?

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/corrections/

UPDATE!

It's now almost 4 PM - and the corrections article is still on the Corrections Page since last night. Mistakes on one thing (hell - even I made one.... once), but for no one at the Times to bother even to even look at the website to proof read it is embarrassing.

NOW ALMOST MIDNIGHT --

And still not fixed...

MUNITZ RESIGNS FROM GETTY?????

That's what a tipster tells me!

To all Getty Staff: I wanted to let you know before we send out our news release that the Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust will announce today that Dr. Barry Munitz, president and CEO for the past eight years, has decided to resign, effective immediately. He indicated that he made this decision after lengthy consideration so both the Getty and he can move forward. THANK GOD!!!!(I feel like singing a round of "Ding dong the witch is dead...")
--Posted by Anonymous to LA Cowboy at 2/09/2006 06:53:17 PM\n",0]

Duplicating Dromedary Daguerreotype** Development!

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/2283051.html?showAll=y&c=y

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/02/first_thing_thursday_2906_1.html

As seen in my previous post...

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7182022&postID=113925729519263444

.... responding to a post a LAOBSERVED, the unique image of camel in Wilmington - as opposed to the mislabeled San Pedro - have all come from one original image which may - may - now be about to be in the hands of the Drum Barracks Museum in Wilmington:

A camel is returning to Wilmington museum

Director spends $4,569 on e-Bay for Civil War-era photograph showing the beast of burden outside the Drum Barracks.

Josh Grossberg Daily Breeze

Where it's been the past 143 years, nobody knows. But a rare Civil War picture that proves camels once served in the U.S. Army is finally heading home to the place it was first photographed: the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington.

"I found out about it the minute it went on eBay," Ogle said. "I got six phone calls the first day. 'Have you seen? Have you seen?' "

The picture didn't come cheap. Competition was stiff and late bidding pushed the selling price to $4,569.63. But Ogle said it was worth it.

The image itself is well known around town. A copy already resides in the Drum Barracks, and versions of it also exist at USC, the Los Angeles Public Library and the Huntington Library. But the one Ogle bought may be the one all the others were copied from, making it both historically and aesthetically important.

"If you've ever looked at these old pictures, they have a unique quality to them," Ogle said. "There is a depth and richness to the print. It's like looking at a print of the Mona Lisa and then at the original. It's two different things."

Ogle, who has a master's degree in art history with a concentration in photography, won't know for sure until she examines the photo. But she said the seller is reputable and she has three days to return the photograph if it turns out to be a copy.

"I won't know until I get my hands on it," she said. "But from what I've seen (all the others) look retouched. The eBay one doesn't look retouched. We have to compare the images and try to see what came from where. All these little strings will pull together."

The grainy, splotched, black-and-white image measures a scant 4 ¼ by 2½ inches. But when museum director Susan Ogle heard it was being sold on an Internet auction site, she knew she had to have it.

And...

After moving around a bit, three dozen wound up at the Drum Barracks in early 1862. They left a little more than a year later and were auctioned off to private parties.

The back of the photo incorrectly identifies the location as "quartermaster department, San Pedro." And it was once in a collection owned by photographer C.C. Pierce, who claimed to have taken it, but he didn't arrive in Southern California until years after the camels left.

"He would copy negatives and would publish them," said Jennifer Watts, curator of photographs at the Huntington Library.

Ogle believes the image was probably not taken by a professional.

"I'm thinking it's a good possibility it was taken by a military photographer, but we don't have any information anywhere that nails the photographer down."

As far as spending thousands of dollars for the image, Watts said it was money well spent.

"Given what it is and in terms of the unusual subject matter and the early date of the image, that's quite reasonable," she said. "You get to see if someone made alterations to the negative at the time or if things have been cropped out over the years."

Los Angeles historian Brady Westwater did his own research on the image. He said that even though he has books with the picture in it, he'd love to have the original.

"If it's the only Civil War camel photo around, you want to own that," he said. "If I had the money, I would have bought it."

The great news is that if the photo is THE original - it is now in a local museum. And this will give local historians a chance to compare all the various images - now that we all know who has all the various versions - to see which is the original and also how the image has been retouched over the years.

As for the article saying that Pierce claimed to have taken the photo, I suspect that came from a library saying it is from the Pierce collection as I doubt Pierce would have claimed to have taken a photo that was taken over twenty years before he arrived in Los Angeles.

Hopefully, though, now that too can be corrected when the photo arrives in Wilmington and it can be verified if it is the original and if all the other prints have been made from it

The article also clarifies that the photo might not have been taken in 1865 as was stated in Robinson's TICOR book - Panorama - that I quoted from as the camels were only in Wilmington from 1862 - 1863 unless of course - one camel remained behind. And I have read stories about what people who bought the camels later did with them so that would seem to preclude any of them being left behind in Wilmington. But as just one camel was in photo, that possibility can not be totally foreclosed upon.

** Read the comments section to find out what kind of photograph this really is....

Confounding Camel Confusion! EBAY Camel In 'San Pedro' Photos Multiplying Like... Rabbits!!

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/02/baca_has_a_problem.html

When LA OBSERVED linked to the 'unique' camel photo from c. 1863 - which was taken in Wilmington and not San Pedro - I thought it looked familiar. I quickly found it in W. W. Robinson's 1953 book - PANORAMA. And every detail down to the shadows is identical in each image, though the book's image appears to be a clearer print and it is dated 1865, and not c. 1863.

Then checking back with LAO, Kevin now links to that same photo at the LA Library collection, crediting it as C. C. Pierce image.

And it is from the pioneer photographer C. C. Pierce's Collection part of was sold to the Huntington Library but the bulk of it - including this image - was then later sold to the Title Insurance Company. The TI collection was still later donated to the USC Library. The image, though, was not taken by Pierce, though, as he arrived in LA in 1886, but he did buy many earlier collections.

UPDATE -

Finally followed Kevin's link to LA Public Library and it does credit the same photo as the one on the eBay site - which APPEARS - to be less clear of a print than the one in the Robinson book. But the TI collection is now at the USC library and not the LAPL collection. Are there THREE prints out there?

UPDATE -

While TI collection was never acquired by the LAPL - the LAPL did independently acquire 3,000 prints from the Pierce Collection. Now if they were originals, or copies made from the TI collection of negatives of photos taken by Pierce - which the camel was not - I do not know.

UPDATE -

Finally found image at California Historial Military Museum the eBAY seller referred to - and it appears to be same image once in the TI collection and it does appear to be possibly somewhat retouched to make the camel image (and the men standing by the camel) clearer, but equally as likely may not be retouched.

But this photo is credited to a private person, Herbert M. Hart, and not TI or any library. Is it a fourth image?

http://www.militarymuseum.org/DrumBks.html

http://www.lapl.org/catalog/photo_collectioninfo.html

Nathaniel Comes Home!

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-lopez5feb05,1,3496297,print.column?coll=la-story-footer

More on this later, other than to say that Lopez gives more me credit than I deserve and gives himself far less credit than he deserves.

Senior Lead Officer Kathy McAnany Makes New York Times!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/arts/dance/05kine.html?pagewanted=all

All Units, We've Got Cops Dancing at the Academy

By ERIKA KINETZ

LOS ANGELES - In six years with the Los Angeles Police Department, Officer Mike Fernandez has seen many things. Modern dance, not surprisingly, is not among them. "I've seen guys' arms blown off with AK-47's," he said. "I've seen kids molested to where they can't walk."

He and his partner, Officer Kathy McAnany, were cruising past the dirty hotels with half-lighted neon signs at the heart of downtown here. They watched as sprightly men in wheelchairs (who were probably sitting on weapons or drugs, Officer McAnany said) and women with no front teeth watched them.

"I did see the original cast of 'A Chorus Line' a million years ago," Officer McAnany said.
Souls audacious enough to consider dance and the Los Angeles Police Department in the same breath are most likely to level a single, rough judgment: incompatible.

But Heidi Duckler, the artistic director of Collage Dance Theater, a multidisciplinary performance group based here, thought differently. Her newest work, "C'opera," is a piece for seven dancers, one singer, one actor, three musicians and a number of special guests from the Los Angeles Police Department. Performances run from Thursday through Feb. 19 at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, about 10 minutes from downtown.

The article is an amusing look at the intersection or, more properly, the almost complete lack of an intersection between two contrasting cultures. But the more interesting part of the article is the part that talks about what it is like to be a police officer down here on the Nickel...

Officer Fernandez said he would see "C'opera," schedule permitting. Officer McAnany said she would be out of town. Dance was really the last thing on her mind. She had been up since 4 ahoy and had a number of pressing issues to consider, first among them finding Lionel Johnson, 54, a place to sleep.

Mr. Johnson had just been ejected from the hotel where he had lived for eight years, and the sum of his earthly possessions spilled forth from five large garbage bags at his feet. "If we leave that guy on the street, he will get killed," said Officer McAnany, who managed to negotiate a bed for him before sundown.

The one overtly artistic moment of her day came at dinner. "I want to 'Be an Artist,' " she said, reading from a pizza menu. "I'll make my own pizza: mushrooms, olives, garlic, anchovies, pepperoni. And a Sprite."

The last time I saw Kathy was a little before 3 AM one morning a few days ago as I was dropped off the latest flier of a missing woman around Skid Row. Kathy had just signed off after an 18 hour shift and she was heading home and I was the very last person on this planet she wanted to see. But she still did look at the picture and said she had not seen her.

The point is that the above paragraph from the New York Times tells the truth what is is like to be a police officer or any other kind of worker down here on Skid Row. Half your job is doing your job you are paid to do - the other half is being a social worker.

And few do both those jobs better than the LAPD officers and the BID security forces whose job it is to keep the peace on the streets of Skid Row.

UPDATE!

LAOBSERVED also observed this article...

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/02/weekend_shorts_10.html

Brilliant Christopher Knight Article In LA Times On Getty Museum Future!

It's getting kind of scary. Almost daily the LA Times has articles about... Los Angeles. It's as if Martians have landed and taken over the LA Times.

OK - now for Knight's article. First read it. Then read my take on... his take.

http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-getty5feb05,0,2335413.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels

To begin with, Knight says the Getty now has two secluded tourist attractions and that they are separated from the daily rhythm of the city's urban fabric.

However, I don't feel this is necessarily a bad thing. We may not daily visit these places, but we now have two magnificent groupings of buildings complete with bucolic gardens and spectacular views and art collections; two unique escapes and respites from urban LA that are within the city.

Now for the first of Knight's five ideas on reforming the Getty. He feels the photo collection needs to be in a more visitor friendly location for several excellent reasons. What he does not say is since the Getty Center's building permit's restrictions prevent even a single square foot being added to the main campus, any new building for that collection has to be built off-site.

He suggests two sites and Grand Avenue is by far the better of the two locations. The problem, though, is that with the existing plans for Grand Avenue and the price of the land, it might be hard to fit the Getty in. Plus there is the pesky problem of what to do with MOCA since despite its two buildings - it still has no room for a serious permanent collection and barely enough room for the traveling and MOCA originated shows. So if there is going to be room for only one museum - it needs to be MOCA.

Additionally, MOCA does wish to expand along the Grand corridor, but it does not have the money to buy the land - and, additionally, raising the necessary funds will not be easy with so many competing capital campaigns for cultural and educational institutions.

So we need to find (essentially) free land for both, to develop a businesses plan to help finance the new buildings - and to find a way to have both institutions to expand within easy walking distance of Grand Avenue.

Now those of you who have attended my walking tours of Grand Avenue over the years know that the DWP Building(across from the Music Center) is surrounded by acres and acres of parking lots, parking garages and hillsides - along with a lengthy access road. You also know that this property runs all the way down to Figueroa from Hope Street.

This is the unspoken for site in the areas that contains acres and acres of unused or highly underutilized land. Plus the topography of this land can easily allow for far over a million square feet of new buildings WITHOUT obstructing the view from the wrap around terraces of the DWP building which are now the second greatest public space in LA since the Getty Museum was built.

So now we have the land. And I can already see a Pei styled Louver entry directly across from Disney Hall as the entrance of a sprawling megastructure wrapped around the DWP - all the way down to Figueroa and then over to Temple on three sides of the existing DWP Building. I can also see a hotel, shops, restaurants, art galleries and condos that would help pay for two museum's construction costs - along with added office space to cover future DWP's office needs, some of which might even be developed by the project developers in payment for the land.

Knight's second idea - which I can only hope is a joke - is to use an increase in the art buying budget - which is really just a return to previous way too low levels - to buy Contemporary and Asian & Latin American art instead of expanding its current inadequate collections.

Now this is just so... wrong, wrong, wrong.

First, there countless collectors buying these types of art (and the newly developing collectors also tend to buy this kind of art) - and there is no shortage of art to buy in these categories. Additionally, virtually no one in LA is buying what the Getty currently - or I should say - used to collect and every few months the last major - or even only - example of a great master's work vanishes into a museum, never to again reappear on the open market.

For this really, seriously bad idea, let us tightly roll up a copy of The Art Newspaper and strongly apply it to a certain art writer's snout.

Bad Christopher! Bad Christopher!

Third CK idea; have the Getty publish an international arts journal.

Agreed and I have opined on this before. I have nothing further to add to Knight's ideas here.

We'll now skip CK's fourth idea for the close and instead address Knight's fifth idea - the Getty holding an international art fair in Los Angeles. I have three additional takes on this.

First, invite ART COLOGNE do what ART BASEL is doing in Miami - an American branch that is ready to go. Then enlist LA INC. and Eli and the others to help bring that fair to LA and the convention center.

Second, also develop our own version of a non-profit DOCUMENTA type of event independent of the Cologne art fair at scattered venues all over the city and then also have a quirkier commercial side fair during that event.

Third, develop some art spaces to show what is going on in the rest of the world 365 days a year; shows such as what is happening in all the top galleries and non-commercial spaces in one city - or works by the top graduates of all the art universities of China or whatever strikes the fancy of the curators.

Lastly, there is Knight's fourth idea - and this starts to get scary as this is the fourth of his five ideas that I have also been proposing for the past ten years for the Getty.

He wants the Getty to purchase, restore and rent out to students and teachers some of the great residential structures in LA.

Now this is a wonderful concept, but, unfortunately, it does lack anything resembling a business plan and it only addresses the most easily saved type of structures in Los Angeles, single family homes. This is particularly so since so many buyers are now willing to buy and carefully restore those homes. Plus it misses out on a superb opportunity for the Getty.

First let's considered threatened single family homes in single family neighborhoods areas; the Getty can still buy these endangered homes, restore then, and then covenant both their exteriors and any interior features worth preserving and then resell those homes with the proviso that the covenanted features can not be changed and that the house would be examined each time title closes and that once or twice a year, each home must be held open for the public.

Now this might reduce the price a little (or not), but by doing this, the Getty will not have hundreds of millions tied up in essentially non-revenue producing properties which are still not on public view plus it will also not have the responsibility for maintaining these homes or paying property taxes on them which alone would come to far more than the rents collected under Knight's proposal.

Now my primary proposal in this vein was for the Getty to either buy threatened historic buildings of all kinds in situ or to move them when they are going to be demolished (and there is almost nothing that can not be moved) and then develop mixed use projects around them (using the finest upcoming architects) and have the historic building's qualities add value to the overall project.

The Getty would then keep the more income producing parts of the project and sell off any elements - such as the historic buildings, possibly - that will not create as much income in the future - but only after landmarking the historic buildings, of course

This way the Getty can re-fi these properties with 15 year mortgages that will be low enough to ensure cash flow and within 15 years not only will the buildings have appreciated - but the properties will also be completely paid off.

So we get historic preservation and an increase in the quality of the built environment in Los Angeles - and Getty Trust makes a ton of money.

Plus the Getty can also develop examples of specific LA building types - the two story apartment house, the hillside canyon hanger, a gas station, a small retail strip and infill condos - and have the best architects in LA demonstrate how great architecture can be created on a budget - and thus help elevate the level of spec building in LA.

Then with the fifteen year mortgages, the equity will build up faster than in stocks since there will be a cash flow higher than mere stock dividends plus depreciation plus there is leverage since on real estate you only have to put part of the cash down and - as the final bonus - if you trade up to another, larger property - if you do an 1031 exchange - you never have to pay one cent in capital gains taxes. And if the Getty needs money beyond the cash flow to run the Trust, they just refinance to pull out the cash.

Better art through better financial planning.

Works for me!

A Good Day On Skid Row! The Cowboy And The Columnist!

Steve Lopez's column today describes one small step in getting one more person off the street. He also hints at another possible success and not long his column went to press, I got another phone call from a mother recounting yet another small miracle.

Three miracles in one day.

Now if I can only get Stevie to quote me properly...

When he asked me to describe myself - I called myself a 'pain in the ass', even though I expected that to get edited to being a 'pain in the butt'. Alas - he went for a totally different and far less accurate physical description.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez1feb01,0,6301786.column?coll=la-headlines-california

STEVE LOPEZ / POINTS WEST

A Homeless Man Needs Pushy Friends Steve Lopez Points West February 1, 2006

They camp at the western ends of two downtown Los Angeles tunnels. Nathaniel on 2nd, Ernest on 3rd, and occasionally their paths cross. This week, each man's story took a turn.

I'll start with Ernest Adams, who has been living at the spot where he was nearly beaten to death last August by two animals inspired by a bum-bashing video. Adams didn't want to go to a scheduled doctor appointment Monday morning, but his pal Brady Westwater was trying to talk him into it."

Feel free to step in here at any time," Westwater, president of the Downtown Neighborhood Council, said to me.

I might add that in describing that exchange, Mr. Lopez has (charitably) chosen not to reflect the extreme degree of sarcasm in my voice as after I had given him a second - if not third - cue to offer Ernest a ride to the doctor's - totally clueless Lopez was still standing there like a bump on a log.

Other than that, though, the rest of his story is pretty accurate.

101 Year Old Actor Suffers Age Discrimination!

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/01/face_of_an_actor.html

Kevin over at LA OBSERVED blows the top off the latest Hollywood scandal.

Ageism!

To being with, Kevin starts with the news that 101 year old Charles Lane - one of the greatest Hollywood character actors of all time - whom I had assumed has been dead for 20 years at least - is still alive!

To give you an idea how old this man is, I was born in 1948 and even BEFORE I was born - he was already playing old men type parts.

He not only lived through the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, but also the sinking of the Titanic, the Lusitania and John Gilbert's career.

So go to Kevin's post, hit his links and then read more about this remarkable gentleman. And then Hollywood casting agents - for God's sake - give this man a job!

He hasn't worked for more years than some of TV's current stars have been alive! It's a sign of clear age discrimination when Hollywood hires 90 year old youngsters to play 100 year old men when there are clearly more age appropriate actors capable of playing those same roles.

Glendale Now A Working Class Suburb According to New York Times!

Anyone who has recently tried to rent an apartment or buy a house in Glendale will be surprised to discover that the community is not only not an upper-middle income city, it is not a middle-class or even a lower middle class suburb. It is now a... working class suburb - right along with Pico Rivera, Maywood and El Monte.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30sher.html

Memoir Becomes Novel, Secret Remains Secret

By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28 - Martha Sherrill was ready to write a memoir. She had the subject: her father, Peter, a well-known polling expert and software company founder; she had the book contract, with Random House, which paid her a healthy advance.

Then, the truth intervened.

"Within four or five months of getting the money and beginning to spend it, a massive skeleton popped right out of the closet," Ms. Sherrill said in an interview here. "It was not anything that reflected really badly on my father," she said of the secret, which she has steadfastly refused to reveal. "Actually it reflected really well on him. But it was something that just couldn't ever be put in a book. It colored everything. It just changed the way I saw him."

Ms. Sherrill has written a book about her father, "The Ruins of California," published this month by the Penguin Press. But it is not a memoir. It is a novel, a heavily researched but fictional portrait that has left many of her father's ex-girlfriends - eight of whom posed for a group portrait at his memorial service - as well as friends and family members wondering what exactly is true and what is fiction.

And...

Ms. Sherrill is a daughter of Southern California. She grew up in Glendale, a working-class suburb here, and often visited her grandmother in San Marino. Those places appear in fictional form in "The Ruins of California," as Van Dale and San Benito.

The wonderful irony here, of course, is that in an article about the 'truth' - the New York Times ... can't get its facts correct. Now while there are a number of ways to separate the working class from the middle and lower middle class, no matter which one you choose - Glendale is at the very least - very solidly... middle class.

Which reminds me - did the New York Times even gets its facts right in that now infamous Watts article in which they got practically every 'fact' wrong?

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7182022&postID=113071343793963090

Fifth & Main Secret Service Raid Explained?

Not long ago, a posse of black vehicles from the Secret Service showed up at 5th and Main. No one was talking, but the obvious reason for the raid seemed to be counterfeiting. That possibility now seems more likely after today's LA Times article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bogus29jan29,0,4609366.story?coll=la-home-headlines

$400 Lap Dance Trips Up Counterfeiting Ring

By H.G. Reza Times Staff Writer 10:12 PM PST, January 28, 2006

It was a three-hour lap dance and a stripper with a nose for money that finally led to the counterfeiters' undoing. Fifteen people have been indicted in the ongoing investigation. And Secret Service agents have discovered that Southern California street gangs teamed with a Mexican counterfeit ring and a drug cartel to bring phony $100 bills into the United States - $7.5 million worth since last January alone...

While the ring was headquartered in Santa Ana, Mexican street gangs throughout Southern California were passing the counterfeit bills... and may have been doing this at one or more of the businesses and organizations located on or near the NE corner 5th and Main that are operated by gang members or who by those protect gang members.

Relative Related Company of Related Grand Avenue Developer Cancels Las Vegas Project!

I suspect the cancellation of two major condo towers in Las Vegas by a partnership of two branches of the Related Empire (a combination different than the make-up of the Related building our local projects) will become big news in LA.

Both tea leaves and entrails will likely be carefully read by local pundits.

But - first, our good news - then... other people's... bad news.

The good news is that the Las Vegas condo boom was... insane - just as the Miami condo boom is - still - insane. Both markets thrived on the selling and reselling of unbuilt units by speculators and far, far more units were built per capita than in Los Angeles (and also New York).

In LA we are still seriously under built compared to demand and sales downtown are still strong even with the comparative lack of nightlife - or even day life. However, as all the new amenities start to appear in the next few months, and once the hundreds - yes - hundreds - of new shops, restaurants, bars, clubs, theaters, art galleries, museums and many other amenities being built open, the demand for downtown will become far stronger than it is now.

Downtown is about to become a unique environment unlike any that has ever existed in this city.

Secondary good news is that with first the China, then Vegas - and soon Miami markets start to slow - materials and labor costs should - hopefully - peak and then start to decline, making it cheaper - again, hopefully - to build in the future than now.

Now as for the bad news... if you are a Las Vegas condo owner or builder....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/realestate/29nati.html?pagewanted=2

The Disappearing Las Vegas Condos

By FRED A. BERNSTEIN

THREE weeks ago, Eli Verdnikov, an engineer in Los Gatos, Calif., received a letter saying that the apartment building he planned to retire to — Icon Las Vegas — would not be built. In the envelope was a check for $73,672.81, the 10 percent deposit Mr. Verdnikov had paid, plus interest.

The developer of the building, Related Las Vegas, a partnership between two large and well-known companies, expected Mr. Verdnikov to accept the refund as payment in full. (Its letter explained that, by depositing the check, Mr. Verdnikov would be waiving any further rights.)

But Mr. Verdnikov wants more than the $73,672.81. Since he agreed in May 2005 to buy the 1,400-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment near the Las Vegas Strip for $728,900, its value, he says, has increased. "To purchase something similar, we would need to pay $200,000 more," said Mr. Verdnikov, who has been looking for a new apartment with his girlfriend, Gitty Stone.

So Mr. Verdnikov is suing for the gain he would have realized if the apartment had been built. "He deserves to get the benefit of the bargain," said Will Kemp, a lawyer with Harrison, Kemp & Jones in Las Vegas, who is representing Mr. Verdnikov and a dozen other Icon buyers.

As the market for high-end condos levels off, more and more people may find themselves in Mr. Verdnikov's position: with contracts to buy condos that will never be built. And some hope to recover the profits they believe they would have made.

In Las Vegas alone, developers have canceled at least four other buildings in the last year, including one called Aqua Blue that was to contain a Michael Jordan health club. Dozens of other buildings, in which units have been sold, may never break ground, said Brian Gordon, a principal at Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas consulting firm. Mr. Gordon said there are 97 condo projects in the works in greater Las Vegas, representing more than 52,000 units.

"I don't think anyone would expect that all these projects will move forward," Mr. Gordon said. He predicted that fewer than half of them would be built in the next five years. Of course, if the market cools enough, some buyers may be happy to get their deposits back.

The pitfalls for condo buyers may be particularly deep in and around Las Vegas, where construction prices have been skyrocketing. Mr. Gordon says some of his clients who are developers have reported a 30 percent increase in the cost of labor and materials in the last year alone. That means that developers who pre-sell apartments may find construction costs wiping out profits even before they break ground.

In the letter to Mr. Variationsov and the other buyers, Related Las Vegas said that the rise in labor and material costs had affected the viability of the project.

Still, the Icon cancellation came as a surprise, in part because its developer is a partnership of two giants: the Related Group of Florida, which calls itself the nation's leading condo developer, headed by Jorge Perez, and the Related Companies, headed by Stephen M. Ross, the developer of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan. Icon's two 48-story towers were expected to be completed in 2007 and 2008.

Mr. Perez was out of the country and could not be reached for comment, a company spokesman said. Reached on his cellphone, Martin Burger, the president of Related Las Vegas, hung up.

In contrast to its current silence, "the company relied heavily on its own reputation in marketing the building," said David Ezra, owner of Ezra International Realty, which sold some 60 units in the building. He added that he thought the excuse of higher construction costs "might work for a first-time developer, but it doesn't work for Related."

Mr. Variationsov, who is 62 and plans to retire just around the time Icon would have been finished, said he walked away from another project to buy from Related. "We switched it because of their very heavy advertising," he said. "They convinced us they were better."

But whether Mr. Variationsov — or any buyer — can receive more than a refund of his deposit depends on a number of factors. Some contracts for unbuilt condos allow the seller to back out if it cannot obtain proper financing (a phrase sometimes so vague as to constitute a get-out-of-deal-free card, lawyers say).

The contracts for Icon Las Vegas contained no such financing contingency. Related did claim the right to back out if it failed to sell at least half of the units in the project. But observers say the company far exceeded the 50 percent goal, and statements made last year by Mr. Burger support that view.

After that... things go downhill... fast.

The rest of article should only be viewed by adults as it qualifies as litigation lawyer porn - of the Triple XXX variety.

Chris Penn Dead At Age Forty.

My memories of Chris Penn are of a big-hearted goofy teenage kid running around Point Dume, annoying my kid sister on the school bus and, later, starring in Footloose. Yet, I couldn't even recognize the face on tonight's news. Even now, it seems impossible he had somehow reached forty years of age, much less that he has passed away at such an early age.

My condolences to the entire Penn family.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-penn25jan25,0,1859092.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews

UPDATE

Now ALL reports say Chris Penn was 40 when he passed away. Last night many articles said he was 43 as opposed to the 40 I originally quoted and the LAT still had both ages at the same time at different places on its website.

Matt Welch Made Assistant Editorial Page Editor Of LA Times Despite Shocking Hidden Past!

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/01/more_hires_at_times_edito_1.html#more

Below is the copy of the internal LAT memor about the hiring of Matt Welch, courtesy of Kevin over at LAOBSERVED:

Matt Welch today joined the editorial board as the assistant editorial page editor. Matt, a native of Long Beach, comes to us from Reason magazine, where he was an associate editor, and from his own 4-year-old blog.

Prior to that, Matt was a U.S.-based correspondent for Toronto's National Post, and he has also been a prolific freelance contributor to other publications, including our newspaper. Matt worked with former Mayor Richard Riordan on the prototype issue of the still-born L.A. Examiner.

In the early 1990s, Matt was the founder and editor of Prognosis, the first independent English-language newspaper in Prague. He then moved to Budapest, where he was the managing editor of the Budapest Business Journal.

What the memo does not address is that dark secret that Matt Welch has - until now - been able for so long to hide....

And that damning secret can be found in the very first line of the very first post clear back in 2004 on... LA COWBOY:

http://lacowboy.blogspot.com/2004/06/la-cowboy-politics-culture-and-art-in.html

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

LA Cowboy - Politics, Culture and Art in LA

Accepting a dare from Matt Welch of the late, lamented (other than by the LA Times, of course), LA Examiner - I am going to take a stab (which may prove to be an all too relevant verb) at starting a debate about politics in in Los Angeles, along with all the other aspects of life in LA that make life here both exciting and despairing.

Yes!

LA COWBOY exists only because of Matt Welch....

Steve Lopez Public Pension/Health Benefit Story Too Hot To Handle?

Surfing the web this AM to read the blogger response to Steve Lopez's (hopefully) first salvo in the necessary battle to have to a fully informed public debate about the impending bankruptcy of government agencies due to out of control pension and health care benefits packages, I found... nothing.

Worse yet, on the LA Times website, there is not even a mention of his story on the opening page, despite this being the single most important story the paper could cover this year. And even when when you click on the California section, Lopez's story is buried as item number six and both the title and the lead do not give even the slightest hint about the true content of the story.

So I guess my misguided hopes that the Los Angeles Times might grow some balls and finally address this urgent issue in depth were... as usual... misguided.

See my previous post for my prior comments on the below story:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez22jan22,0,1393497.column?coll=la-headlines-california

Nixon Goes To China! Steve Lopez Tackles (Kinda) Public Pensions!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez22jan22,0,1393497.column?coll=la-headlines-california

In today's Sunday Times, LA Times investigative reporter Steve Lopez takes a break from his regular column and tackles the two biggest issues facing California.

Runaway public pensions and health care costs.

Now there are those who may disagree about these being the biggest issues facing us. Some may claim that education or police or fire or.... whatever.... is more important.

The problem is that in a surprisingly few number of years we are going to be paying more money to people who are no longer working for government than we are paying those who are actually working for us. And in time - 100% of the budget of every level of government will be required to pay for just the pensions and health care costs of former public employees unless there is a drastic change in the rules.

The only other option is wait until the day comes we have to close all the schools, lay off all the police and the fire fighters and fire every government worker- other than those who collect the taxes to pay for those pensions, of course.

Now today's column raises this problem - but offers no solutions and not near enough raw data - or enough real world projections to see where will will be in 20 or 50 or 100 years from now so the public can have the information it needs to understand how serious the situation is.

So after spending a week on Skid Row - maybe Steve Lopez should spend much of the next month talking to and reporting on all sides of this issue.

It's about the only thing he can report on that's even more frightening that what he saw on Skid Row.

Below are only a handful of the horror stories Steve recounts:

In other words, a firefighter who averages $80,000 a year on active duty can retire at $100,000 or more by basing it on a year in which his salary was inflated by overtime, accrued vacation, shift differentials and other factors."

And then he gets cost-of-living adjustments on top of that," said Richman. "We are currently paying for two police departments or two fire departments" in many cities, Richman added, meaning that the total payout to retired public safety employees is as much as the pay for active employees."

And it's going to get worse, because the retirement age has been lowered to 50 over the past few years, and at the same time people are living longer."

Another problem is that it's the most experienced employees who leave. Why continue working if you can sit on a beach at 90% of your salary, or get a job somewhere else and double your money, as hundreds of cops have done?

John Welter was assistant police chief in San Diego when, at 55, he became chief of police in Anaheim. Now 56, he's got a $100,000 pension from San Diego and $175,000 salary in Anaheim.

There are a lot of hard questions that need to be asked - and a lot of far harder answers that need to be produced.

So let the debate begin. No politician with any future plans to run for office will ever dare tackle this subject - so it's all up to you Steve....

LA Times Decline Continues!

The Los Angeles Times is a marginally better paper than it was a year ago; yet its advertising revenues continue to not just decline, but plummet.

The problem is that the improvements - other than the occasional blockbuster expose - are too subtle for the average reader will observe and there are so many physical and structural barriers to reading the printed paper, that the paper's physical design drives away readers.

Unless dramatic change starts now, it is hard to imagine anything resembling the present paper being published five years from now.

From the Los Angeles Business Journal:

http://www.labusinessjournal.com/article.asp?aID=22578363.7181713.1250782.3129355.7888358.805&aID2=96205

L.A. Times Drags on Tribune Revenue

Tribune Company's December newspaper ad revenue fell 4.5 percent to $333.2 million, the company reported Thursday, reflecting a 9.6 percent slump from national advertising that was blamed on weak ad sales at the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago-based company's largest paper.

And...

Full-run ad volume at the Times plunged 13.9 percent from December of last year. In addition to the Times and Newsday, Tribune owns its namesake paper in Chicago.

More details are in the Tribune's press release:

http://www.tribune.com/pressroom/releases/2006/01192006.html

National advertising revenues declined 9.6 percent, due largely to declines at the Los Angeles Times. Movie, technology and wireless categories were down, partially offset by gains in the health care and package goods categories.

Classified advertising revenues rose 2.5 percent due to gains in help wanted and real estate, which rose 13 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Automotive classified advertising fell 16 percent. Interactive revenues, which are primarily included in classified, were $15 million, up 33 percent, due to strength in all categories.

Circulation revenues were down 3.5 percent primarily due to volume declines at most of the company’s newspapers and selectively higher discounting.