City Attempting to Dispel Concept of Two Glendales : Attention Focusing on Depressed South Area

When some people talk about the neighborhoods in Glendale below Colorado Street, they are very careful about the geographic adjective they use. After all, delicate sensibilities can be offended by the use of the word “south” instead of “southern.”

The point is small, but important, residents say. To say “South Glendale” may give the impression of a separate city, of a world inherently different from the more affluent and powerful neighborhoods to the north. To say “southern Glendale” connotes an area that is part of the overall community, albeit an area possibly deserving special attention, they claim.

“When people say ‘South Glendale,’ I tell them that I’m hoping that someday we are united,” said Carol Jean Felkel, a longtime resident of southern Glendale who sometimes speaks for the neighborhood’s interests at City Council meetings.

An ‘Unwarranted Reputation’

“When I tell some people from the northern part of town where I live, some of them tell me that they never go down here, like they never go to Watts,” she added. “They seem to think we are second-class citizens.

“Somehow we’ve gotten this unwarranted reputation. I’m sure there are places here that need work and need to be cleaned up, but there are so many nice homes and fine people here too.”

The reputation, unwarranted or not, according to many residents and officials, is that southern Glendale is the other side of the tracks in an otherwise booming city of expensive homes and condominiums, sparkling glass office towers and an enormous shopping center.

“I sometimes sense there are two Glendales,” said Lt. Rick Peacock, commanding officer of the Salvation Army mission on Windsor Road.

Among the the areas of the city, southern Glendale, particularly west of Glendale Avenue, has the greatest concentration of low-income families, new immigrants and unemployment. It also has the most crowded schools, the most pre-World War II buildings and the most housing units and utilities in need of repair, city officials say.

But, despite pockets of run-down and crowded housing, the overall area is far from being a slum. It might not even be considered a distressed area when contrasted with other parts of Los Angeles County.

Most of its pleasant, well-treed side streets are lined with modest wood-frame houses and a growing number of small apartment projects. Most of its main business avenues are healthy, with auto dealerships and repair shops, supermarkets and ethnic groceries, warehouses and light manufacturing plants.

Immigrants Consider It a Step Up

Latino, Asian and Armenian immigrants generally say they are happy they live in that part of Glendale, which they consider a step up from Hollywood or parts of south Los Angeles. And real estate developers say the area could be ripe for a boom in new apartments if the city does not go through with its plan to put new limits on density there.

Nevertheless, compared to the generally upwardly mobile, well-scrubbed environment of the rest of the city, southern Glendale, especially southwestern Glendale, has some scruffy edges. In areas near San Fernando Road, some immigrant families are packed into tiny, ramshackle bungalows and motel-like apartments, poorly maintained by absentee landlords.

Peeling paint, dirt yards, abandoned cars and homeless people--considered outrages in plusher parts of town--can be seen. Some residents complain about the noise and pollution from nearby factories and car shops. And police and educators worry about a possible resurgence of gang activity because of a lack of jobs for youths.

So, the city this year is considering using much of its expected $1.5 million federal block grant on improving what is considered the most depressed area of southern Glendale. That is the Riverdale neighborhood, bordered by Colorado Street to the north, Palmer Avenue to the south, San Fernando Road on the west and Glendale Avenue to the east.

The project may include water-main reconstruction, street resurfacing, low-interest loans for housing rehabilitation and a youth employment program in which participants would beautify the neighborhood by planting trees and flowers.

Block Grants

Also under study is construction of an extra permanent classroom building at the most crowded school in Glendale, Theodore Roosevelt Junior High, which is now surrounded by 17 temporary classroom bungalows considered to be fire hazards.

In the past, the block grants usually were used for projects all over town, including southern Glendale. “This year, we thought we would take a bit more directed approach,” Mayor Jerold F. Milner said. “Little by little, blight can grow in the portion of the community that needs the most help. It can spread out like a cancer.

“But, if we direct a well-defined effort, we ought to make a significant change in that portion of the community. That’s not to say that southern Glendale is blighted, but I think there are areas, not only there, that are older and have been less well-kept and can benefit from an influx of money. No matter where you go, the oldest portions of a community are the ones that need replacement and rejuvenation more.”

The city also has asked the state Department of Commerce to designate the industrial strip of southwestern Glendale as one of 10 enterprise zones across the state, giving businessmen tax breaks for creating new jobs there. City officials say there has been little business expansion and much physical deterioration in that area, bounded by Windsor Road to the north, Columbus Avenue and San Fernando Road to the east, Brand Boulevard to the south and Los Angeles to the west.

Attracting High-Tech

“It is typical to find a completely dilapidated single-family home surrounded by commercial and industrial uses, still being used as a residence, or a single-family home shoddily converted to industrial or commercial use,” Madalyn Blake, Glendale’s community development administrator, said in a report to the council. The city particularly wants to attract high-technology firms, she said.

The attention seems to please residents of southern Glendale, some of whom have complained over the years that their political clout is less than that of wealthier homeowners and business interests in the central and foothills parts of the city.

Glendale does not have council districts, and none of the council members live in southern Glendale. But council members say that does not mean they don’t care about the area.

City officials strenuously deny that the neighborhood receives fewer services than others. They point to such major projects in recent years as the rehabilitation of Pacific and Maple Parks as proof that southern Glendale gets its fair share, if not more than its share, of attention, federal grants and local tax dollars.

Some Feel Isolated

“From time to time we have been accused of treating southern Glendale as a stepchild, “ City Manager James Rez said. “Glendale is all one city, and I don’t like to sectionalize it. I am just as sensitive to any inference that one area is not quite as good as another. It’s just not true.”

Nevertheless, some southern Glendale residents and community leaders seem to feel isolated from the rest of Glendale.

“This neighborhood is a lot nicer than parts of Los Angeles,” said Carlos Reyes, director of the Catholic Youth Organization on San Fernando Road, the community center whose recreation programs for Latino youngsters are often praised by officials.

“There’s no drive-by shootings or anything like that,” Reyes continued. “It’s not as heavy. But still, it’s almost like a different city from the rest of Glendale, with people speaking different languages,”

“The rest of the city doesn’t hear that much about us, but we have such obvious sores that business, education and social service leaders bring it to the city’s attention.”

Housing and Jobs Needed

The community, Reyes said, most needs decent, reasonably priced housing, job training and jobs, particularly for the increasing number of Central Americans fleeing political troubles in their homelands.

Sarkis Ghazarian, director of the Armenian Relief Society Social Services office in Glendale, which also serves many new immigrants, said that in southern Glendale, “I think people feel that in comparison they haven’t had the same attention to focus on their needs.

“People who don’t speak English and are poor generally do not have the same political clout as people who live in better neighborhoods and who are better able to understand the political process, or the big corporation who wants to build an office building.

“People in the neighborhood tend to be busy making a living and are just happy to be here because things are better than where they came from.”

There are many more non-citizens, some of them illegal aliens, in southern Glendale, than in other parts of the city, officials say. There is also a tradition of much lower voter turnout and, altogether, less of a political presence than, for example, wealthier neighborhoods such as Verdugo Woodlands or Scholl Canyon.

Auto Dealerships

An exception to the history of political inactivity came after the recent proposal to create a special zoning district to make it easier for the many auto dealers along Brand Boulevard to expand into blocks now zoned residential. After living for years with the blare of loudspeakers and illegal parking by auto dealers, people who live near “Auto Row” have recently flocked to a series of public meetings to protest plans to give the dealers more room.

“It is kind of crowded down here with so much commercial stuff coming in on us, and sometimes people feel stepped on,” said Harry Sheldon, who has lived near Auto Row since 1938. But he said he has always enjoyed living in southern Glendale, which he described as a close-knit community.

Data from the 1980 federal census show that, by many socioeconomic measures, a gulf does exist in Glendale.

For example, according to the 1980 census, the citywide mean family income in Glendale was $26,742. Most of the city’s 27 census tracts showed mean family incomes of at least $20,000, with several neighborhoods in the foothills topping $40,000.

Lowest Incomes

The two tracts with the lowest mean family incomes were in southern Glendale.

The lowest--$14,461 a year--was found in the area bounded by Chevy Chase Drive and Maple Street, Brand Boulevard and Adams Street. The next lowest--$15,463--was in the tract below Maple Street and west of Brand Boulevard.

Those two areas were, according to the census, the only ones in Glendale to have more than 20% of their families living with incomes below the federally defined poverty level, at the time $7,412-a-year for a family of four. Citywide, 9% of all families were below the poverty line.

More than 80% of the residents south of Broadway and east of Adams Street rent apartments or houses, contrasted with a citywide average of 57%. In most northern areas, more than 90% of the residents own their homes, according to census studies.

Income rankings and home ownership statistics appear to parallel the distribution of ethnic minorities. In 1980, Latinos constituted at least 30%, and in some parts more than 40%, of the population in southern Glendale neighborhoods, and local officials say the percentages have increased since. The Latino presence drops in areas to the north, so that Latinos represented less than 10% of the population in neighborhoods north of the Ventura Freeway in 1980.

Waves of Asians

Asians are most heavily represented in the southeastern side of town. In 1980, they were about 6% of the population of those neighborhoods, but more recent waves of immigrants from Southeast Asia are thought to have swelled the percentage.

There were only 431 blacks in Glendale out of a population of 139,060 in 1980, according to the census, too few to make a significant statistical dent in any neighborhood.

Armenians, considered Caucasians, do not have a separate census listing. According to school officials, however, about 15% of the children in southern Glendale are Armenian, with the number increasing as immigration continues from Iran.

“There are different cultural enclaves all over south Glendale,” said Martin Pilgreen, principal of Theodore Roosevelt Junior High, which is itself a crowded melting pot. “People come here because Glendale is typically viewed as a safe, comfortable, well-run community, which it is, especially compared to parts of Los Angeles.”

But within Glendale, he said, “Roosevelt for years has had a nefarious reputation as that tough school on the other side of the tracks. It’s undeserved. Yes, there are some tough nuts to crack here. But the majority of the people who live in this area are hard-working, industrious folks, and the children are typically very respectful.”

Generally Peaceful Area

Rick Reyes, who is the police resource officer at Roosevelt and the principal of its busy adult night school, which emphasizes teaching English, said southern Glendale is generally a peaceful area but that he is always watching for a spillover of gang activities from Los Angeles.

He and other community leaders said it is not uncommon for two or more families to share a small apartment in southern Glendale, with youngsters sleeping on the floor and hanging out on the streets.

In interviews with southern Glendale residents, including recently arrived Latino immigrants, the need for decent, reasonably priced rental housing is frequently mentioned. Getting onto the federally funded Section 8 rent-subsidy program is discussed as though it were tantamount to winning a jackpot in Las Vegas.

Rene Castro was a construction engineer in El Salvador, often working on government contracts, until he became the victim of a political kidnaping, was held for 19 days and finally ransomed, he said. Fearing further retribution, he quickly moved to the United States, staying in Olympia, Wash., for a few months before moving to Glendale at the urging of a friend.

Because of his age, 61, and his inability to speak English well, Castro has been unable to get another construction job. So he holds two part-time jobs as a maintenance man and a kitchen aide, and his wife has a part-time clerical job at the CYO.

Section 8 Program

The Castros share a $425-a-month, one-bedroom apartment with their son and daughter-in-law, who are unemployed, near the corner of Glendale Avenue and Colorado Street. They are on a long waiting list of families hoping to be able to afford a larger, better apartment with the help of the Section 8 program.

Without such help, renting a two-bedroom apartment is almost impossible for them in southern Glendale, where rents for most such units start at $500 a month. Msgr. Arthur Lirette of Holy Family Roman Catholic Church described most of his parishioners’ rental housing in southern Glendale as being “what we used to call adequate low-income housing, except it’s expensive now.”

Those rents, some officials and real estate brokers say, prove the area is popular even if, in the words of one realtor, “there has been sort of a stigma as far as buying property south of Colorado.”

They say that southern Glendale, with all its aging one-family homes, is ripe for a boom in apartment construction or an infusion of young families who cannot afford to buy homes elsewhere in Glendale. Many houses can still be found in southern Glendale for under $100,000, a price that is a rarity north of the Ventura Freeway in Glendale.

Rehabilitation of Homes

“There is a tremendous avenue to buy homes in southern Glendale,” Councilman Larry Zarian said. “There are many homes at reasonable prices, fixer-uppers that can be beautiful, livable homes.” He said he would like to see more emphasis given to using block money for low-interest loans for private home rehabilitation.

Carl Raggio, the former school board president who was elected to the City Council last week, has suggested that the city might extend the Redevelopment Agency’s authority from commercial projects in the central business district. He would like to see it work with developers on a pilot project below Colorado Street to demolish substandard housing and build townhouses affordable to young families.

“The city’s concentration has been on central Glendale, and if this is going to be a full and complete city, southern Glendale is next,” Raggio said.

But developers complain that rezoning proposals for southern Glendale would make it tougher to build new housing there. Although the one-family house is predominant, much of the area is now zoned to permit three-story apartment buildings, with one unit allowed for each 750 square feet of property.

‘All Areas Not Slums’

Under a plan designed to cut future density throughout the city, much of southern Glendale would be changed so that more land--usually 1,750 or 1,250 square feet--would be required for each apartment.

“All areas of south Glendale are not slums, and normal development will in time replace many of the substandard buildings,” said James Pollard, president of the Glendale-Burbank chapter of the Building Industry Assn.

Pollard said that proximity to freeways, downtown Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley makes the area very desirable. But to downzone at a time when development is beginning to take off, he said, doesn’t make sense.

Some neighborhood activists worry that new development will inherently be higher-priced than current housing and will force out low-income households.

“It seems like every week another house is being demolished and apartments going up,” said Peacock of the Salvation Army. “They keep leveling all the houses which may have low rent. They slowly but surely will be going out.”

‘Back to L.A.’

Asked where the families would go, Peacock said: “Back to Los Angeles.”

The Glendale council has never passed a rent-control ordinance and does not appear likely to require that any part of new housing be for low-income families.

“It is a cold, hard, cruel fact of life,” Mayor Milner said of the possibility that some residents may be forced out of the area. “But we should not try to stop any new construction that will bring a better use of the land. Of course, South Glendale has always been a good place to start up the economic ladder.

“All we all want it to be is a good, clean, attractive neighborhood. But if we set aside a portion of the city and say this is to be the ghetto, I think we are doing a disservice to ourselves and to the people whom we mistakenly think we are helping.”

‘When people say “South Glendale,” I tell them that I’m hoping that someday we are united.’