Little Tokyo Takes on City Hall Again

Time has peeled the paint and rotted the plaster from the yellowed walls of Mitsuko Shimoda’s three-room Little Tokyo apartment. But it is still home, and this 71-year-old is not moving without a fight.

“I am an elderly woman, and it’s very comfortable here. I don’t want to leave,” she said firmly in bullet-quick Japanese.

She may have no choice. A mere eight months after residents battled City Hall to save the last remaining stretch of original Little Tokyo buildings--and thought they won--the fight is flaring anew.

At stake this time is the three-story, city-owned brick building that houses Shimoda and more than a dozen other elderly Japanese-Americans, as well as an assortment of quiet businesses. Dating from the 1920s, it is one of 13 buildings revered by Little Tokyo activists as the last visible link to the beginnings of Los Angeles’ Japanese-American community.

The San Pedro Firm building in which Shimoda lives and the 12 adjacent buildings are awaiting designation on the National Register of Historic Places. The Union Church and Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, which anchor the block, have been declared city historic sites.

But in recent conversations and letters, city officials promoting redevelopment have placed the Firm building’s future in doubt. Beyond the single building, local activists fear a renewed attempt to remove more historic structures to make way for a massive office development and Civic Center expansion north of 1st Street.

The development, scheduled to be built before the end of the decade, will take place on an 11-acre city-owned quadrant north of 1st Street between San Pedro and Alameda streets. The acreage, now used largely for city employee parking, has long been targeted by city officials who have outgrown their existing buildings.

City officials, while saying that the Firm building where Shimoda lives may have to be razed to ensure that the planned development is profitable, insist that other structures will remain standing.

But many in Little Tokyo stopped believing city officials long ago, as the wrenching war over the fate of North 1st Street dragged on. Chiefly, their anger is directed toward Mayor Tom Bradley and the area’s city councilman, Gilbert Lindsay, who Little Tokyo residents contend have broken promises made as late as last spring to protect the historic buildings.

“As long as there are elected officials that make those decisions, I don’t think it’ll ever be set in concrete,” said Kenzo Okubo, incoming chairman of the mayor’s Little Tokyo Community Development Advisory Committee, which supports restoration of the building.

The Little Tokyo Service Center, which assists elderly Japanese-Americans, this month began circulating petitions aimed at persuading the city to save the apartments and the rest of the historic tract. And Mitsuko Shimoda shrugged off a case of bronchitis to gather names of people supporting her home.

“If Little Tokyo is ever going to evolve as a true community, then the fact that people live here is an important factor,” said Bill Watanabe of the Little Tokyo Service Center. “These are folks who have lived here for a long, long time. We feel they have a right to try and stay here.”

To longtime Little Tokyo residents, the present turn of events merely mimics the past. As far back as 1974, city plans targeted the North 1st Street area for destruction, but local protests delayed the demolition.

Because of overwhelming public support for the aged buildings, the Community Redevelopment Agency’s staff recommended last fall that any development of the 11-acre city-owned plot north of 1st Street spare 13 buildings along 1st and San Pedro streets.

Then developer J. H. (Jerry) Snyder and his influential lobbyist, H. Randall Stoke, began talking to city officials about demolishing the entire tract, including the privately owned storefronts along 1st Street and the Union Church on San Pedro Street.

A potent display of political arm-twisting, in which Little Tokyo community leaders emotionally confronted Lindsay in his office, quashed the attempts to raze the buildings. In what they thought was their successful effort, the community activists welcomed the support of Bradley, who wrote a letter backing restoration of the historic district.

‘Historic Significance’

“The buildings along San Pedro Street and the north side of 1st Street . . . have a special cultural and historic significance, not only to the Little Tokyo community and to Japanese-Americans nationwide, but also to the city of Los Angeles,” Bradley wrote April 1 to his own Little Tokyo Community Development Advisory Committee.

Since Bradley seemed in conversations and in his letter to support restoration of the entire block, community leaders say they thought that put the matter to rest.

So it came as a surprise when, a few months later in another letter, Bradley advocated demolishing the Firm building on San Pedro Street between the Union Church and the 1st Street storefronts. Bradley’s statement followed the Little Tokyo Service Center’s request that redevelopment officials renovate 12 vacant apartments in the Firm building to house tenants who lost their homes when other local hotels were razed during redevelopment.

In the letter that left Little Tokyo activists stunned, Bradley called the building one “which has clearly survived far beyond its useful, economic life” and said the property should be used for Civic Center expansion.

Unsuccessful in their efforts to meet with Bradley, who was then running for governor, community leaders asked Lindsay to oppose demolition. At Lindsay’s suggestion, they searched for and found a senior citizens housing company, Keiro Services, which agreed to put up $300,000 to $400,000 to restore the building. The Community Redevelopment Agency staff likewise had earmarked money for the building’s refurbishment, which is expected to cost more than $1.1 million.

The community leaders returned to Lindsay, only to be told that the mayor opposed the restoration.

Bradley’s press secretary, Ali Webb, said the mayor never “signed off or agreed to” the saving of the San Pedro Firm building, despite lauding the historic district in his first letter.

‘No Such Commitment’

“The mayor doesn’t see any inconsistency between the two letters,” she said. “He feels no such commitment to the San Pedro building.”

Lindsay, for his part, said in an interview that “the whole area should be demolished” and said he would defer to Bradley on the fate of the San Pedro Firm building.

“I’ve thrown the ball to the mayor,” he said.

Lindsay added that he will not lobby Bradley on behalf of his constituents.

“That’s their hard luck,” he said, laughing. “If they can’t convince the mayor, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

A draft request for proposals, which city officials will send out to prospective developers of the site, gives the developer the option of restoring or razing the Firm building. But Lindsay said he will demand that the building’s fate be determined by him and the mayor and not be left to a developer.

The suggestion that the building should be demolished sparked anxiety among San Pedro Firm residents and the larger Little Tokyo community.

The possible demolition comes on the heels of the destruction of two hotels, the Allen and the Masago, which were torn down earlier this year. About 180 residents of those buildings, mostly elderly and poor, found it nearly impossible to find comparable housing they could afford. Some ended up far from Little Tokyo; others were forced by economics to live on Skid Row.

“Those of us in the lower (economic) section are being wiped out and ignored,” said Mo Nishida, a resident of the Allen Hotel until it was torn down last spring. “They keep talking about the homeless, and they’re making them.”

The Firm’s possible demolition also casts doubt on the future of other buildings in the historic strip.

In addition to owning the Firm building, the city also owns a storefront two doors down. Although that building is not included in the North 1st Street redevelopment plan, Little Tokyo activists fear that if the Firm building is torn down, the city will seek to tear down the second building--and the privately owned store between them--to provide an entry to the development. Earlier proposals for the Civic Center expansion placed a high-rise office building and pedestrian entrance near the location of the city-owned buildings.

Okubo of the mayor’s advisory committee said that if the San Pedro Firm building is demolished, he expects other buildings to fall like dominoes.

“It’s just the beginning of whatever they have in the back of their minds,” Okubo said. “If they remove that building, they’ve got their feet in the door.”

The formal request for proposals that will determine the Firm building’s fate will be sent to the mayor and City Council for discussions early next year. If current timetables are met, construction of the 11-acre development will begin a year later.

But whatever the outcome, the constant battles with City Hall have already demoralized residents.

“This has been going on for so long now, back and forth,” said Sumiko Akashi. “They tell me the city doesn’t want it, and I’m relieved for a while. Then they come up with something else.”

50 Years on 1st Street

Akashi owns the lot next door to the Firm building that many believe will be squeezed out if the Firm building is torn down. She has spent her life on 1st Street, coming there 50 years ago to work with her husband in his pharmacy. She brought her five children and her grandchildren to the pharmacy to play. And after her husband’s death several years ago, she found solace in the familiarity of old-fashioned Little Tokyo.

“I was so unhappy and lost, but I still have that corner store,” she said the other day. “I can go there and visit and shop a little and come home and I feel better.”

Just discussing the future of her property brings a nervous quiver to Akashi’s throat.

“This has been going on for so long. I’m really worn out,” she said. “It’s my whole life. . . . I just feel that I’m just going to die if I lose it.”