Parkway Fight a Reflection of Changing City

When Harvel Guttenfelder was recently presented a petition asking the city of Torrance to do something about litter, noise and loiterers on the parkway in front of his house, he scoffed.

“I’m not going to sign that thing,” said Guttenfelder, 89, who has lived in his home for 65 years. “There are enough restrictions on people’s lives.”

But Guttenfelder is an exception in his neighborhood.

Thirty-five residents of the downtown Torrance area have signed the petition, which complains to the City Council that the 3-block-long parkway in the middle of El Prado Avenue attracts transients, litter, noisy teen-agers and workers who play soccer there in the afternoons.

“Until I got this petition I thought things had improved there,” Mayor Katy Geissert said in an interview. The council is expected to discuss the petition at one of its meetings this month.

New Look in Old Downtown

The complaints reflect the changes--ethnic and economic--taking place in Torrance’s old downtown, which was once the center of business and civic activity in Torrance.

Its decline began in the early 1950s as the city rapidly expanded west to the ocean, leaving the old business district on the east side dominated by smokestack industries such as U.S. Steel and Armco, which have since closed. Much of the business activity that once thrived on streets like Craven, Post, El Prado and Marcelina moved toward the malls and shopping centers along Hawthorne Boulevard, now the city’s commercial hub.

Civic activities began to move out after 1956, when City Hall was moved to a new and larger location on Torrance Boulevard and Maple Avenue. The public library on Post Avenue and the civic auditorium on El Prado followed soon afterward. The old city hall building became Home Savings & Loan, the old civic auditorium was demolished and the former library became the Torrance Historical Museum.

Some of the aged storefronts downtown are now occupied by thrift shops, small restaurants, bookstores and pawn shops. Low-income families have moved into old hotels and apartment buildings.

Although redevelopment is under way at the old industrial sites, it hasn’t had much impact yet on the downtown area.

In the middle of the old downtown is the El Prado Avenue parkway, a 100-foot-wide grassy strip that forms a promenade from Cravens Avenue to Torrance High School. Many of the residents around the parkway have lived in the area for decades and have expressed a sense of helplessness as they watch the neighborhood deteriorate.

Some have aimed their frustration at the Latinos who play soccer on the parkway a few times a week. Neighbors accuse them of yelling obscenities, littering and urinating in public.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” said one resident. “We just want to keep it that way.”

Low-Income Tenants

According to Torrance Police Lt. Noel Cobbs some of those the residents complain about may come from hotels and apartment buildings that cater to low-income families. He said some may be transients from the Brighton Hotel on Cabrillo Avenue, which the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services uses to house homeless people.

Cobbs said most of the soccer players work at the nearby refineries or service industries.

“They are not there to bother anyone,” he said. “They are no problem to us. They are mostly hard-working people.”

Parks and Recreation Director Gene Barnett, who received the petition from downtown residents recently, said he is not sure what the city can do.

“I’m sure it’s very hard for these people to recapture the old days,” Barnett said. “Times have changed.”

Littering, disturbing the peace and vagrancy are already against the law in public places, he said. The only complaint that the law does not address is the soccer games. But he said the city is not likely to ban soccer or any other sports on a large piece of public land.

Rules Unclear

It is unclear whether the parkway is governed by the same rules as other city parks. If it is, then soccer would be allowed, Barnett said.

“We need to discuss that in more detail,” he said.

Residents demand action, but few have suggestions.

One woman who signed the petition acknowledged that she does know what the city could do. “That is their problem,” she said. “We tell them what our problem is and they are supposed to take care of it.”

The woman said she signed the petition because those who play soccer on the grassy strip in the afternoon make too much noise, leave trash on her property and sometimes urinate in public.

Like some of her neighbors, she said she did not want her name known for fear of retaliation. And her comments revealed an ethnic element in her fears.

“I don’t want to see my name in the paper,” said another resident during an interview. “They look Hispanic. . . . You don’t know what they’ll do if they find out.”

She asserted that the parkway is meant to be used only by nearby residents and not by “anybody who wants to come over here.”

Another woman across the street expressed similar fears about the men.

“They have dark complexions; I think they are Samoan,” she said. “You don’t know what they’ll do.”

Asked if her fears were based on race, the woman said: “Oh, I’m not prejudiced.”

Five Latino laborers who were sitting in the grass of the parkway last week said they were unaware that a petition was being circulated. They said they live in low-rent apartments nearby, and all denied that they or others litter or bother residents when they use the park.

“No, I always throw my trash in the can,” one man said in Spanish. “We don’t bother anyone.”

Leslie Kiefner, who has lived across the street from the parkway for three years, said she is primarily concerned about transients sleeping on the grass and sometimes coming onto her property.

Recently, she said, she had to chase away a man she discovered sleeping in her back yard on a cushion he had brought with him.

Kiefner said she is also concerned about young people who have sex on the unlit parkway at night. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” said Kiefner, who added that she once stumbled upon a couple having intercourse on the grass in front of her house.

The parkway was first conceived by the designers of the old downtown in 1912. John C. and Fredric Law Olmsted, the architects who also designed Central Park in New York City, wanted the parkway to run from the high school toward the former Pacific Electric Depot. That way, according to the book “Historic Torrance,” people sitting on the steps of the high school could gaze northeast and see the San Gabriel Mountains forming an impressive backdrop.

Geissert said the city is working to bring new life to the area by offering street and utility improvements along with rebates and low-interest loans to merchants who want to refurbish their stores. For example, she said, the old Pacific Electric Depot, built in 1912, was recently purchased for renovation as a restaurant.

A year ago the city announced that it was begining to use redevelopment money to acquire property and prepare it for developers. Among examples are the old Murray Hotel, which was demolished to provide more off-street parking, and the site of the abandoned Stone & Meyers Mortuary, which will be used by small businesses.

“There are definitely positive things happening there,” she said.

But Geissert admitted that there are problems.

“You can go down any alley or behind trash bins over there and find” transients, she said. “That is a problem.”