PERSHING SQUARE : Rebirth of Park Fizzles as Downtown’s Derelicts Return

The flowers have died in Pershing Square.

Derelicts and drug dealers again dominate the historic downtown park and the hopeful, festive renaissance launched amid much fanfare last summer has fizzled.

“It’s not good,” said 82-year-old Helena Aksenow, as she passed slowly through the park one day recently. Aksenow, who lives in a downtown senior citizens’ complex, said she had begun to enjoy the park during its Summer Olympics revival. But now “it’s too much bums,” she said in a thick Polish accent. “I’m scared.”

“It’ll be the same sewer it was in no time,” said a Los Angeles Police Department patrolman, pointing out the loitering street people, drunks passed out on the lawns and office workers avoiding the center of the square.

Beset by financial problems, the Pershing Square Management Assn., which represents influential downtown businesses, last week discontinued the maintenance, entertainment and security services it has provided since July, when a hurried, $1-million face lift of the chronic eyesore was unveiled for the Olympics.

But the rebirth faltered shortly after the Games and several attempts to adjust the activities, including adding international food booths and al fresco dining, failed to generate the cash flow needed to make the program self-supporting.

“We just didn’t realize how big an undertaking it was to get that thing ready by the Olympics,” said Christopher Stewart, president of the Central City Assn. and a director of the Pershing Square management group, which is facing several hundred thousand dollars in debts. “When we got done, we realized we didn’t have a long-range plan to implement.”

Despite financial setbacks, the Pershing Square group is not giving up. They now are pushing a far more ambitious, $12-million proposal to build a retail plaza in the park. The group is seeking an additional $1.7-million loan from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which last year guaranteed a $450,000 loan for the initial refurbishment, including colorful landscaping, new benches and a bandstand.

A selling point of the new plan is the expected involvement of James Rouse, a nationally recognized expert on urban “festival retail” projects. Rouse, who gained acclaim as the developer of the new town of Columbia, Md., is credited with turning around Baltimore’s rundown waterfront area and developing Boston’s Faneuil Hall marketplace. More recently, Rouse has received acclaim for funneling profits from his commercial projects into creation of low-cost inner-city housing.

An Activity Center

Wayne Ratkovich, a downtown developer and chairman of the Pershing Square management group, said the participation of office workers and tourists in Pershing Square programs during the Olympic period showed that it is possible to make the park an important activity center.

“Something can be done with Pershing Square, but it has to be done with a much more together and thoughtful plan. . . . We felt the best remedy was a larger view and larger program,” he said.

The larger program, which has been given a preliminary endorsement by Mayor Tom Bradley, would include a complete overhaul of the square and the addition of restaurants and shops, covering as much as 25% of the park. If the redevelopment agency approves the additional loan, the square’s management group hopes to break ground in 1986.

Income from the retail development, which is expected to have a theme incorporating the ethnic diversity of the city, would be used to maintain the park and to pay off loans.

‘Retain Its Character’

“If it’s done sensitively and we have the best people around to do it, then you can retain its character as a park,” Ratkovich said.

However, even the relatively small-scale improvements at the park during the Olympics drew some criticism from those who said it was driving the homeless from one of the few pleasant refuges in the heart of the city.

Still others are concerned that the square may no longer be a park.

Jim Wood, chairman of the redevelopment agency board, said it appears likely that the agency will provide additional funds for Pershing Square. And he acknowledged that how the park is developed is critically important. “At what point does a park no longer remain a park and become a mini-shopping center?” he asked.

Joel Breitbart, assistant general manager of the city Department of Recreation and Parks, said that while commercial development of the park appears to be a “logical extension” of the management group’s initial efforts, “it’s most definitely a philosophical question” for the city’s Parks Commission to weigh.

Not All Agree

And not all downtown residents share Helena Aksenow’s view that the Olympic period was better in Pershing Square.

Veda Vaile, a senior citizen who has lived in a downtown hotel for eight years, said she preferred the park before the Olympic refurbishment. She said she never had trouble in the square and has met interesting drifters “from all over the world.”

Activities designed to attract office workers and tourists may mean “a ‘No Welcome’ sign for the down-and-outers,” she said. “These derelicts have to have somewhere to go.”