Pershing Square: Brown Baggers Move In Where Drug Dealers Fear to Tread

Downtown Los Angeles office worker Greg Caraveo Sr. was doing something Wednesday he has never dared to do before. He was eating lunch in Pershing Square.

It was a pleasant lunch, too. Gone were the drunks, drifters and drug dealers who in recent years have overrun Los Angeles’ historic 5-acre Central City park and made it as unsafe as it was unsavory.

The derelicts have been chased out by a seven-week police park patrol that is making hourly sweeps among the fountains, rose bushes and World War I statues that dot the 122-year-old square.

Moving in cautiously to take their place are the lawyers, secretaries and clerks from nearby high-rise offices and tourists staying in downtown hotels.

“I’m surprised how really nice this place is,” said Caraveo, a medical claims consultant. “You can come here now and not be harassed by transients. There’s no way I’d come here before.”

As Caraveo munched on his sandwich, the police officers who patrol Pershing Square on foot were across the street at the Biltmore. They were being treated to champagne and a filet mignon thank-you luncheon by grateful hotel operators.

“Now you can walk out in Pershing Square and feel comfortable,” said Lee C. Jenks, the Biltmore’s general manager. “Our guests are noticing it. They can walk outside now without being accosted.”

In the past, panhandling and purse-snatchings were the norm. Stabbings and drug busts occurred often enough to send shudders through out-of-town visitors staying at the tony, 65-year-old Biltmore.

The park patrol was created after Jenks and members of the Olive Street Merchants Assn. complained of the growing crime and transient problems to Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay.

The park foot patrols cost about $1,000 a week and are being financed by council-authorized overtime pay, said Capt. Greg Berg, patrol commander for the Police Department’s Central Division.

Authorities believe the funding will last until a long-planned $13.5-million Pershing Square redevelopment project begins this fall. Contracts for design and construction of a freshly landscaped park that will feature food kiosks and a performance area are expected to be signed in September, said Janet Marie Smith, president of the nonprofit Pershing Square Management Assn.

Police said they hope to turn foot patrol duties over to association-financed security officers when the rebuilt park opens sometime in 1990.

125 Arrested in Sweep

The current crackdown began Feb. 20, said Capt. Jerry Conner, area commander for the Central Division. Dozens of officers swept in and arrested 125 people on various charges when they were found loitering after the park’s posted 10:30 p.m. closing time.

Although all Central Division officers are now being asked to stop at Pershing Square when they have time, a two-man foot patrol is in the vicinity of the park daily, said Officer Bob Goeckner.

“The drug dealers may sit down on a bench to wait when they see us. But they realize they can’t do any business when they see that we’re still in the park an hour later,” Goeckner said.

Officer Robert Leon, Goeckner’s foot patrol partner, said a park anti-camping ordinance is being used to prevent transients from taking up residence on the square’s lawn. The homeless are referred to the Central Division station, where they can obtain passes for a week’s free lodging in designated shelters.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who presented citations Wednesday to Goeckner, Leon and other officers involved in the park patrol, praised Pershing Square’s turnaround.

“It’s most essential that your front porch be inviting,” Bradley said. “Pershing Square is our front porch.”