THE LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE : Burglar Alarms, Run on Coffee, Pizza Part of Street Scene

Keun Bae Pak thought his end had come when the ground pitched beneath his feet while he poured water into the coffee maker at his downtown hamburger stand. The temblor was followed by an afterthought: “This could be good for business.”

Indeed it was. Hundreds of employees were evacuated from the nearby State Office Building, City Hall, the courts and storefronts along Broadway and Spring Street. Forced to mill in the streets for hours Thursday morning, they lined up five deep behind the five stools at Pak’s Husky Boy stand on 2nd Street.

They talked of glass vases falling off tables and shattering, of computer terminals falling over, of long cracks appearing in walls. And they shouted for Pak, his wife and his helper to serve them coffee or soda.

“The earthquake helped me,” Pak said. He had been so busy that he didn’t even have time to count his profits.

He was capitalizing on an unusual phenomenon. For hours after Thursday’s quake, the Los Angeles area was filled with an unfamiliar kind of congestion: people and debris on the sidewalks instead of cars and trucks on the roads.

By mid-afternoon, downtown was eerily deserted again. But all morning long, from Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the streets of Southern California bore testimony to the tremor.

In Pasadena, an auto repair shop that collapsed, piling bricks onto a line of parked cars, became a tourist attraction, luring dozens with their cameras. A pizza parlor nearby put up a sign on a chain-link fence with a scrawled addendum: “We’re still shakin’, quakin’ and bakin.’ ”

In the aging industrial area east of downtown, artists in the streets watched their lofts crumbling and mourned the loss of their handiwork. “Now I’ve got just half of a show” for an opening at a Santa Monica gallery next week, said sculptor Daniel Martinez. Five of his pieces were destroyed in the quake.

In Hollywood and Echo Park, large family groups congregated outside old brick apartment buildings on corners, in parking lots and driveways, afraid to go back in because of wall and ceiling cracks in their homes.

Retrieved Necessities

“We’ll stay out here all day if necessary,” said Magalin Perez, 22, who sat on a patch of grass with her husband, their two children and about 30 neighbors down the street from their damaged four-story building in the 3400 block of Sunset. “We don’t feel safe going back in.”

She had returned to her apartment after the quake just long enough to retrieve blankets, baby strollers, lawn chairs and milk, in preparation for spending a good part of the day outdoors.

Along Whittier Boulevard, most storekeepers took the damage in stride, nailing boards over broken windows and picking merchandise off the floor.

“We’re already recovering,” said Joseph Chen, manager of Jonson’s Market. He had posted a sign on the door: “Closed for Cleaning. Will Open . . . ?”

In Beverly Hills, city workers ordered a luxury men’s clothing store to close for the morning while work crews pushed out the weakened windows from a parking structure on the floor above. Clerks stayed inside taking inventory to the sound of crashing glass, while, outside, pedestrians were ordered to the other side of the street.

Filming for a few television programs was interrupted by the quake. At a warehouse north of downtown, “Cagney and Lacey” production was delayed for nearly three hours, costing the show more than $8,000. “There was lots of hugging,” said Jackie Cooper, who was directing the episode. “The quake brought everyone closer together.”

Downtown, sirens blared as fire engines, some from as far away as Mission Hills, responded to alarms, most set off by broken water pipes. Burglar alarms also squalled at several stores. Lines formed at pay telephones as those forced outside called home or, in the case of lawyers with hearings, the courts.

Some waiting outside the State Office Building had traveled long distances for special appointments and arrived downtown without any knowledge that there had been a quake.

Bill Rodarme, a GTE analyst, had traveled from his company’s headquarters in Thousand Oaks for a hearing before the Public Utilities Commission. “We saw all the people out here and said, ‘God, they must be giving away free cheese.’ ”

Alonzo Giron had left San Bernardino at 5:30 a.m. and traveled by bus to take an exam for a state accounting clerk job. He showed up on time at 8:30 a.m., but was not allowed in the building. “They told me to stay until noon,” he said. “I guess I will. I came all the way here and I need that job.”

At Angelus Plaza, an apartment complex for the elderly, residents on the 17th floor of one building could not get out until maintenance crews ripped the locks off jammed doors.

Henry M. Gallego, 67, was shaving in his third-floor apartment when the quake hit. A cut on his chin was still bleeding 20 minutes later.

‘Last Shock Scared Me’

He sat down and strapped on his artificial leg, just in case, but hoped to stay indoors. “That last shock scared me outside,” he said, leaning on his crutches in front of the building.

Trini Aranda, 71, who lives on the 16th floor, ran downstairs as soon as she realized she couldn’t fit under her bed. “But,” she said, smiling, “I had time to take the rollers out of my hair. And I had time to pray.”

Life at the beach went on, though, as if nothing had happened. Gary Coleman was walking out of his Manhattan Beach home with his surfboard when the earthquake hit.

He hesitated for a moment, then proceeded as planned to the sea. “If the buildings were going to fall,” he explained, “I was going to watch them from the water.”