Readers React: If we save L.A.’s history, tourists will come

Tuesday’s great editorial arguing, in part, for the creation of more Historic Preservation Overlay Zones in Los Angeles communicates the urgency of implementing these preservation areas. Because of the burgeoning housing market, mansonization and more, many important historic buildings and unique old neighborhoods are being lost. (“L.A. is bogged down in trying to save its historic structures,” May 13)

What many residents and city officials don’t realize is how crucial historic preservation is for our economic future.

L.A. doesn’t build automobiles anymore or as many airplanes as it once did. We have lost a lot of the economic power that once made L.A. great.

Many believe, as I do, that our economic future depends increasingly on tourism. A large part of the tourism worldwide comes from people wanting to see remnants of the past.

Let’s save our historic past and give more tourists a reason to come to Los Angeles.

Murray Burns

Los Angeles

The writer is past chairman of the HPOZ Alliance.

Thank you for this editorial. The fact that neighborhoods have been waiting years for HPOZ status simply because there is no one to fulfill the city’s obligations in the process is an embarrassment.

Our city officials need to realize that being a world-class city involves more than just rubber-stamping every mixed-use development, hotel and mini-Hearst Castle that comes down the pipeline. It involves respecting and preserving those elements that are part of a city’s history and that make it unique.

Sandra Willard

Los Angeles