A Lesson for Pershing Square

The now-classic photo of the 1972 demolition of two buildings in St. Louis is one of the more ubiquitous illustrations used in various planning texts to dramatize the failure of design. Trashed by its tenants, the buildings in a project known as Pruitt-Igoe had become a high-rise slum.

Actually, the buildings by architect Minoru Yamasaki were quite well designed, incorporating the then-latest theories of making high-rises more attractive to families, such as wide, open hallways and express elevators. The effort won several awards for Yamasaki.

Subsequent studies indicated that Pruitt-Igoe’s problems had not been caused by design, but by the landlord, the St. Louis Housing Authority. It had put too many troubled, migrant families together in select buildings while offering them little if any social services.

If the debacle of Pruitt-Igoe had any lessons to teach, it was that while design might have some effect on a particular environment--perhaps making the lives of some occupants more pleasant--it will not solve the more severe of society’s ills.

Tampered With Enough

The lesson apparently has not been learned in Los Angeles, at least not by those at present hovering over Pershing Square. Once again, a major effort is being mounted--at a major expense totaling $1.6 million--to come up with a design solution to the social problems that haunt the historic downtown park.

It is not as if the forlorn park has not been tampered with enough over the last few decades. Many of its obvious design problems, such as the ramps to its underground garage that isolate critical edges of the park from the surrounding streetscape, are a result of past “improvements” that were really veiled efforts to drive out itinerant undesirables.

Certainly, the effort last summer during the Olympics by the Pershing Square Management Assn., an offshoot of the Central City Assn., to sanitize the park with a tacky commercial festival and a few plantings--at an estimated cost of $500,000--was a bust, except for the planning consultants involved who picked up healthy fees.

But the real estate interests with investments surrounding the park, who belong to the nonprofit association are persistent. Once again, they seem quite willing to risk yet more funds underwritten by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to come up with something, anything that hints at an “improvement.”

Park Needs Tender Loving Care

It is not that the park does not need help. Its open space can be made more attractive, its edges softened to become more inviting, its plantings cultivated and its facilities repaired and policed, among other things. Pershing Square needs tender loving care, as do its denizens. Though they don’t drink with the yuppies and tourists at the bar in the Biltmore, they are citizens too.

But one has to be concerned about the current effort now gaining momentum. Judging from the association’s recent remarks before the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission and a review of its generous budget being underwritten by the CRA, there seems to be an overemphasis on a costly design process and no real open discussion about its goals.

Indeed, the impression is that the design process will be full of sound and flurry that--when the smoke settles--will benefit only a select public, while not changing the fate of one blade of grass in the park.

There have been so many failures in the past to improve Pershing Square that it would be terribly sad if, because of a lack of goals, this latest effort only produces a thick set of plans to be filed away somewhere and some nice press clippings for those involved to use elsewhere. Given the past failures to revive the park, no one is going to be blamed if the effort fails. The only loser, of course, will be the city.

Never Paid Back the City

Perhaps, that is why the city should just leave Pershing Square alone for awhile--maybe it will rejuvenate itself as the surrounding area slowly improves itself--or at least not be in such a rush to “lend” the park group the $1.6 million.

After all, the group never did pay back the city the $500,000 it said it would when it launched the summer project, despite statements then by its parent Central City Assn. If the area’s private interests are so anxious to “improve” the park, perhaps they should come up with funds up front, as they said they would when this process began a few years ago.

Certainly, the city could apply its meager resources elsewhere; a thought prompted by a review by the Cultural Affairs Commission of a few other city programs and projects held at the same session when the “action plan” for Pershing Square was discussed.

Reviewed was ... the city’s grants program to nonprofit arts groups, which has been increased in the coming city budget from $250,000 to $405,000. The Cultural Affairs Commission was hoping to receive $1 million for the program that now benefits about 100 groups. The difference of $600,000 is just about equal to the allocation for design services in the $1.6-million Pershing Square budget.

The commission also heard that the recently formed Watts Tower Community Trust is seeking funds for an ambitious program to not only restore and maintain the authentic Los Angeles landmark, but also to use it as a focal point to generate commercial and cultural development and pride in the surrounding South-Central neighborhood.

Now, there is a worthy cause, if it is not used by the groups involved for self promotion. It would be sad to see the tower turned into a billboard.

The commission’s session turned out to be quite interesting. In addition to hearing presentations, it reviewed various architectural submissions. Among them was a particularly dull plan for a massive, uninviting Department of Water & Power building downtown.

The commission rejected the plan, sending the department’s architects back to the drawing board to come up with something that will be more pleasant for those who will work there, and more sensitive to the surrounding streetscape. The action was a welcome indication that the commission, under the direction of Alan Sieroty, is not just going to be a rubber stamp, but intends to impose some needed design standards.