Rebirth of Little Tokyo: It’s Sayonara for Some
Nancy Takasugi and Mas Umemoto approach each day as if nothing has changed in Little Tokyo--she behind the counter of a hot dog stand and he with his auto repair garage next door.
But change is the name of the game in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo these days. Imposing new office towers, hotels and shopping plazas are closing in, and for Takasugi and Umemoto, the days of serving hamburgers and tuning up cars at the same old spot are running out.
The concrete-block hot dog stand and Umemoto’s tiny brick garage are anachronisms in the fast-paced whirl of today’s emerging new Little Tokyo.
They are among the last of nearly 170 businesses to face relocation as modernization has swept the Japanese community next to downtown’s Civic Center. Surprisingly, fewer than half--71--have decided to relocate in Little Tokyo. About one in four simply went out of business, and about one in three moved out.
The hot dog stand and the garage are targeted for bulldozing, probably by the end of the year.
And the years of hard work that Takasugi and Umemoto have put into their East 2nd Street businesses will become a memory. Both are resigned, having seen urban renewal--in Little Tokyo it is done in the name of redevelopment--wipe out far larger structures, even entire blocks.
“I hate to see the hot dog stand go, but you can’t stop progress,” said Takasugi, a smiling, gracious Little Tokyo fixture for 32 years. “They’ll say you’re an eyesore. But it’s for the good, I guess. . . .”
Nancy’s Stand, as the place is called, turns out the Civic Center’s best hamburgers, chili burgers, tacos and chili beans, according to her customers. There’s no sushi or tempura shrimp on the menu.
Takasugi runs the stand for its owner--it was named after her--but Umemoto has owned and operated the place next door, George’s Garage, since 1962. It is the last of three automobile repair shops that once catered to Little Tokyo in the old days before and after World War II. During that lull, Little Tokyo’s businesses were virtually shut down, and Takasugi and Umemoto--both second-generation Japanese born in the United States--were interned with their parents, she in Arkansas and he in Wyoming.
George’s Garage, its narrow entrance fronting on the sidewalk, is crammed with old car parts and looks like a garage more suitable to a country town, not an establishment a few blocks from Los Angeles City Hall. Even so, Umemoto’s skill draws customers from as far away as the San Fernando Valley.
His lease, like the one for Nancy’s Stand, is on a month-to-month basis, which means that he has to be ready to move. But, he said, “you can’t be angry” about the high-rises taking over Little Tokyo and crowding out the small businesses. Through a formal 1970 City Council designation, the redevelopment area encompasses eight blocks.
“What the hell!” Umemoto said, agreeing with Takasugi. “You can’t stop progress. You can’t fight. Big business usually wins. People are fools to go against big companies.”
Sandwiched between a parking lot and an old brick warehouse, the hot dog stand and service garage will give way to a $7-million, three-level shopping and travel office building.
Relocation Payments
Meanwhile, whether serving a customer at her sidewalk counter or working on a car behind his garage, Takasugi and Umemoto already have a sense of being overwhelmed by the buildings going up around them as part of the $250 million invested so far in Little Tokyo’s rebuilding.
It is unlikely, though, that either will remain a part of the new Little Tokyo.
Both the hot dog stand and garage qualify for relocation payments, which can be substantial.
In fact, payments to businesses affected by Little Tokyo redevelopment have ranged from $2,500 to nearly $250,000.
Most establishments, although their owners may have objected strenuously at first to being uprooted, seem to have benefitted from the moves, which put them in larger and usually better quarters, according to Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency officials.
“There’s no limit to what we can pay in relocation costs--so long as they’re eligible costs,” said Harvey Kaplan, the agency’s rehousing/property management chief.
‘No One Likes to Move’
For example, a firm that manufactured mattresses, comforters and other bedding items was relocated to South Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. The agency helped it move its heavy machinery and electrical equipment into larger quarters at a cost of nearly $250,000, which included, among other things, expenses for a specialist from the Midwest to install a tricky piece of machinery.
At the time of the move, the firm had 50 employees. It has expanded since then and now employs 130. “It’s worked out fine,” a plant official explained. “We’re in better quarters but in a worse neighborhood. . . .”
On a smaller scale, Magic Radio, a familiar Little Tokyo name since shortly after World War II, elected to remain in the Japanese-American community when the space it occupied was needed for Weller Court, the restaurant-shopping complex next to the New Otani Hotel.
Hiroshi Saisho, Magic Radio’s owner, said he waited for the new Japanese Village Plaza’s completion and then moved into a shop there, receiving a $10,000 relocation payment from the CRA. He said the payment more than covered his moving costs. “No one likes to move,” he said. “We were happy in the old location, but we’re happy here (in the Japanese Village Plaza), too.”
As for Nancy’s Stand, Takasugi said she has worked long enough and probably will retire when it goes. The stand’s owner, George Matsumoto, a downtown car salesman, said he also is planning to quit the food business even though Little Tokyo’s master plan would permit a similar establishment elsewhere in the redevelopment area.
Umemoto plans to set up a new garage with his relocation payment, but it will be elsewhere because “there’s no space left in Little Tokyo.”
