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Posted Jun 4, 2016, 4:39 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,710
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wilcal
I, for one, am deeply offended by this....For some reason these people feel the need to shit on or lift their leg on something--very much like a dog. Only the dog has more sense of purpose. And for some people, please stop calling it art. It is not art when its form is vandalism.
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The old may co bldg, even though it's surrounded by barricades & presumably somewhat well guarded, has been repeatedly tagged for quite awhile. That means ppl with spray cans....who are presumably younger rather than older....are so committed to defacing the walls of bldgs like that or the old pantages, they're traveling to dtla & taking the time & trouble of breaking onto private property & doing something that's potentially lethal. one false step & they'd be a big splatter on the sidewalk. If that happened, I wouldn't put it past their surviving family members to sue the bldg owners & city for negligence.
similarly exasperating.....
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The anti-development movement has seeped into many pockets of Los Angeles, where activists have become convinced that taller buildings inexorably lead to more traffic. But downtown Los Angeles, where construction cranes line the horizon and subway trains rumble below, has mostly remained pro-growth. Until now.
An advocacy group calling itself the Society for the Preservation of Downtown L.A. (or SP–DTLA, as it is referred to on its suspiciously thorough Wikipedia page), is fighting three proposed developments in or around downtown's Historic Core district, where most buildings are, you know, old.
"I’m a longtime downtown L.A. resident," says Alex Hertzberg, SP–DTLA's executive director. "There was a time when it was just a wasteland. We had a flag out for anyone to come and develop. And that was great. But it was a long time ago. The pendulum has really swung very far in the other way."
SP–DTLA has singled out three projects that they say offend the character of downtown's Historic Core: a 33-story tower on Fourth and Hill; a 32-story mixed-use tower to be built on a parking lot on Hill just south of Ninth Street; and, just to the north, a 26-story tower called the Alexan Broadway. That $140 million building will loom over its next-door neighbor, the Eastern Columbia, famous for its emerald hue and beloved art deco clock tower.
The new glass building, opponents say, will obstruct people's view of the clock, hence the cry, "Don't block the clock."
One SP-DTLA member is Harry Chandler Jr., scion of the Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles Times for more than 100 years and was, in many ways, responsible for developing the character of Los Angeles (in the words of David Halberstam: "They did not so much foster the growth of Southern California as, more simply, invent it").
"Obviously the character of the historic core is such that there's been decades and decades of height limits that have kept it charming," Chandler says. "The last thing we want is to turn it into a high-rise city and take out all of the parking and charm."
"We don’t need more rental units, I’ll tell you that much," Hertzberg says. "Those statistics are predicated on the existing [housing] inventory. But we’ve had eight solid years of construction, so we don’t know what effects that inventory will have."
Another group of anti-development activists, led by AIDS Healthcare Foundation CEO Michael Weinstein, is gathering signatures for a ballot measure, dubbed the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. Its aim is to make it much more difficult for developers to obtain zoning variances — exceptions to the city's general plan that often pave the way for taller or bigger developments than would typically be allowed.
"We have not taken a position on [the initiative] as an organization," Hertzberg says. "But many of the folks we represent are very much in favor of it, even though it is a very blunt tool. I definitely could see the use of it. I think, just speaking for myself, I wish that it weren’t necessary. But it may be the only possible resort."
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Quote:
I'd like to tell you I’ve been waiting for the subway to the sea all my life, except I never believed it would happen, so I never wasted a moment in anticipation.
This week, after the hoopla died down, I decided to take the Metro’s new Expo Line to work, from seaside Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles. Maybe this could become a habit. Over the years, the daily freeway commute has gone from annoying to soul-crushing. The idea of cruising along Exposition Boulevard parallel with the Santa Monica Freeway at speeds approaching cheetah was irresistible.
There is something exhilarating about seeing familiar scenery, even mundane stuff, from a different vantage point. The Expo Line sailed east, past Santa Monica College, past Bergamot Station. Some stations were elevated, some were ground level.
Earlier that morning, as I boarded the Expo Line in Santa Monica, I ran into my colleague, Christopher Hawthorne, The Times’ architecture critic. We talked about the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We gossiped about colleagues. And we agreed that for us, anyway, the Expo Line was probably impractical for a daily commute. On Monday, it had taken me nearly an hour and 40 minutes to get from my door to my desk. That compares to my usual 45 minutes or so in the car.
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