A Return to Harmony in N. Hollywood : Transformation in Works for ‘Worst Little Street’

The scene on Harmony Avenue in North Hollywood belies its sweet name.

Dilapidated, ramshackle houses alternate with squat, aging apartment complexes on both sides of the street. A large vacant building, once a preschool, is now a flophouse for drug dealers and prostitutes.

The street is so narrow that there is only room enough for one-way travel. And, most of the time, the travel is done by 18-wheelers. The massive trucks squeeze through all day because it is the only route to an industrial firm at the end of the block.

Schoolchildren and other pedestrians are forced to compete with cars and trucks for a slice of the avenue. There are no sidewalks.

“Harmony is the worst little street in North Hollywood,” said one city official.

Improvements in Works

But dramatic improvements are in the works to transform this sliver of blight. Harmony Avenue is the newest target for revitalization in the North Hollywood redevelopment zone.

“It’s a priority area for us,” said Jerry Belcher, project manager of the North Hollywood Redevelopment Agency. “This is the area that now needs the economic stimulation of redevelopment.”

Longtime resident Kathy Marick remembers a different Harmony Avenue.

“It used to be such a beautiful little street with cottages and rose gardens,” said the 65-year-old Marick. But now she is frightened to even drive down the street.

“Trucks come by every 10 minutes,” she said. “The streets are dirty. The houses are bad.”

Modern Apartments

The plan now is to return Harmony to a pleasant street. But instead of little garden cottages, this time around, the avenue will be lined with modern three-story apartment buildings.

Since plans for the Harmony make-over were approved in early 1987, two of the complexes already have been built. Work is expected to begin this summer on a third large development. A fourth is in the planning stages.

Each time a new building is constructed, the street in front will be widened. Also on the drawing board is a plan to build a new street leading out of Harmony to reroute the noisy truck traffic.

With these projects, the east side of the half-mile-long street should be sporting a new face in about two years, city officials said. Although a total rebuilding of Harmony Avenue may be 10 years away, Belcher said he expects the next projects to be “showcases” that will quickly draw other developers to the street.

“We’re going to do this as fast as we can,” Belcher recently told the North Hollywood Project Area Committee, the residents’ advisory group that monitors redevelopment of the area. In approving the street and apartment construction projects, the group had urged the agency to move swiftly.

350 Units

The overall plan for Harmony calls for a neighborhood of about 350 apartment units. Developers who receive financial assistance from the redevelopment agency are required to reserve at least 25% of their units for low-income tenants.

The Harmony plan is just one part of the overall redevelopment of North Hollywood’s commercial area and adjacent residential neighborhoods.

The North Hollywood redevelopment zone--generally bounded by Tujunga Avenue, Cahuenga Boulevard and Hatteras and Camarillo streets--is the second largest in Los Angeles, ranking behind the downtown central business district. The zone, adopted in 1979 by the Los Angeles City Council, is the city’s only redevelopment area in the San Fernando Valley.

Major projects completed thus far include the $25-million Hewlett-Packard Co. building at the southwest corner of Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards and a 200-unit senior citizens housing complex at the northwest corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Vineland Avenue.

The Academy, the largest commercial project in the zone, is in its final planning stages. It is slated to include an 8- or 10-story office building, small shops, an apartment complex and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, an outdoor plaza to honor television personalities.

Street Rebuilt

So far, the Harmony redevelopment is the largest residential project in the North Hollywood area. The entire street essentially must be torn down and rebuilt, city officials said.

“Harmony has the single worst case of blight and substandard housing conditions in the entire project area,” said Michael Craycraft, a senior housing finance officer for the redevelopment agency.

Under redevelopment law, the agency is empowered to force property owners to sell at market value, enabling the city to assemble large parcels of land for private developers who might otherwise encounter unwilling sellers. The city pays the cost to relocate displaced residents and tenants.

On Harmony, residents have been going willingly. Generally, they have been eager to sell their land to developers at prices that average about $130,000, several homeowners and developers said.

“There is not much harmony on Harmony. I don’t want to live here anymore,” said Marick, who is in the process of selling her 59-year-old, wood-frame home.

Country Ambiance

Some of the oldest houses in the Valley--many of them built in the 1920s--line Harmony. In those early days, the narrow road fit nicely into the country ambiance of the little neighborhood. Several longtime and former residents said many of the cottages were weekend retreats for people in the film industry.

By the 1940s and ‘50s, Harmony had become a quiet, working-class neighborhood. “I remember it was really a pretty little place for families,” said Norman Gonzalez, whose family left the area in 1949.

But its character started to change in the 1960s when small apartment complexes began to replace the houses.

Guy McCreary, a longtime North Hollywood activist who serves on the residents’ advisory committee, blamed “helter-skelter zoning” in the neighborhood for allowing the construction of apartment buildings and an industrial firm on the same street as single-family homes.

“Harmony has been a real problem for more than 15 years,” McCreary said. “It’s just a mess, just a mess. It got so bad people just started to move out.”

Illegal Add-Ons

The exact number of dwellings and residents on Harmony is difficult to pinpoint because many illegal add-ons and garages are used for living quarters, city officials said. Many of the 57 small, subdivided parcels along the street have at least a house with a second unit in the back. It is estimated that 90% of Harmony residents are low-income renters, Belcher said.

“The buildings are very old and just tired,” he said. “Their life has expired now.”

Julio Sanchez, 33, has rented a two-room, $225-a-month unit attached to a house for seven years. Although the apartment he shares with his wife and three children is crowded and in disrepair, “I don’t complain because the rent is cheap,” he said.

But Sanchez said he has no objection to moving on. As long as the city helps him find another place to live, “I would like to move to a nicer area.”

Gloria Goddard, 56, of Sylmar moved out of the North Hollywood neighborhood in 1978 because “nobody cared anymore. People were forced to leave because we felt it just wasn’t safe anymore.”

Crime Problems

Police said crime problems have persisted on the street.

In the past year, the one-time preschool became a haven for crime, police said.

“Someone was always in there,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Thomas Toutant. “Small-time drug dealers, transients, hookers. It was a real problem.”

Almost four dozen arrests, mainly on drug-related charges, were made at the site during a four-week police crackdown in December and January, Toutant said. Since then, the building has remained “pretty much cleaned out,” he added.

Although they have accepted the need for rebuilding Harmony, longtime residents like Marick and former residents lament the loss of their little street.

Lion Tamer

Helen Vela, 57, grew up on Harmony in a house her father built in 1929. She remembers a neighbor who tamed lions in a back-yard cage for a show.

“I remember we would hear the lions roar at night,” said Vela, who now lives in Sun Valley. “It was such a friendly little street. Everyone had gardens and it was real pretty. Maybe that’s why they named it Harmony.”

Her childhood house will likely be demolished this summer to make room for a new apartment complex.

“I think I’ll go see it one more time,” Vela said. “But it looks so bad now. I guess the new apartments are all for the best.”