Opening the Flood Gateways for Arty Images of Civic Pride

A Burbank official once suggested placing giant replicas of phonograph records and a giant “B” made of ersatz film along an adjacent stretch of the Ventura Freeway to let tourists (and perhaps some residents) know where they were.

No doubt fearful of what Johnny Carson would say, the city rejected that idea.

But now Burbank lawmakers are considering dressing up the town with smaller civic artworks depicting cameras, palm trees and airplanes as well as a sign spelling the city’s name in pink and blue neon.

The plan is titled the Burbank Gateway Study, not to be confused with Los Angeles’ proposed West Coast Gateway over the Hollywood Freeway or the Gate of Angels, a losing entry in the Olympic Boulevard West International Design Competition.

G-Word Onslaught

Even before the G-word onslaught, civic symbols were becoming something of an art form in Southern California, which has seen the emergence in recent years of a “South Gate” water tank, a “Compton” obelisk (formerly Alameda Auto Supply), a “Monterey Park” signpost on a hill and an “East Los Angeles” arch (El Arco) across Whittier Boulevard.

In addition, residents saved a blurred landmark along the Pasadena Freeway that for a few years had spelled out “City of South Pasadena” in weeds.

Civic image-making impulses are particularly strong in a county where 84 cities are struggling for an identity separate from big brother Los Angeles, hoping to bolster local pride and local treasuries.

“There’s so much competition among cities these days that you have to differentiate,” said Bill Kelly, assistant executive director of Burbank’s Redevelopment Agency. “In our case, you can’t really tell when you’ve left L.A. and entered Burbank. It’s one long strip-shopping area.”

La Canada Flintridge’s colorful wooden sign on its east flank, depicting an oak tree stretching across a mountain, symbolizes the sort of elegant horsy image that the city wants to present as well as the craftsman architecture (heavy on timber and stone) that dominates its business section. One underlying goal?

“We’re trying to encourage more shopping,” said City Manager Don Otterman. “Our largest source of revenue is sales taxes.”

Hawaiian Gardens, like Burbank, recently hired an outside planner to suggest ideas for an attractive welcome mat. And West Hollywood, which set out banners calling itself “The Creative City” for awhile, is considering more permanent identifiers.

“The problem with some cities is that they don’t know who they are or what they are,” said landscape designer Lawrence Moss, the man hired to tell people what Burbank is a gateway to . “Even L.A. has this phobia of competing with New York.”

Paying for civic monuments is also an obstacle. Whether Los Angeles’ controversial Gateway deserves to be known as “Steel Clouds” (the designer’s term) or “Broken Popsicle Sticks” (one critic’s term) is academic unless an estimated $33 million can be raised for its construction.

South Gate, which called itself “Gateway to the Ocean” long before Los Angeles came up with its West Coast Gateway scheme, at one time considered placing small archways at every entrance to the city. But South Gate dropped the idea because of the “exorbitant cost,” said Patricia Elkins of the city engineering department.

Less seriously considered was a proposal by a local restaurateur a few years ago to hang a huge clock over one entrance with his name on it.

Thrifty Solution

Instead, South Gate took the inexpensive step of slapping its moniker on the side of a water tank overlooking the Long Beach Freeway to emphasize its status as one of the few local cities that has its own water company and own wells.

(The luster of that distinction has dimmed somewhat with the recent loss of 55% of South Gate’s water supply due to the closing of contaminated wells.)

In Culver City, where lawmakers have complained of the city’s reputation as a freeway food stop, sculptor Natalie Krol was asked to fashion a work symbolizing the town’s role in motion picture history.

She proposed a 7-ton, 18-foot-tall stainless-steel strip of film. But her fee, $130,000, was a concern until the city hit upon the idea of having donors sign their names in tile around the work. Residents came up with the whole tab.

“I’ve gotten a lot of letters from people telling me how much they enjoy it,” Krol said. “It’s used as a background for photographing graduation classes, it’s a symbol of the industry and it’s a heroic symbol, something larger than life that brings the viewer a sense of connecting to something imposing.”

Residents elsewhere chipped in to save the “City of South Pasadena” sign, a landmark dating back to 1940.

The letters, originally made of flowers and plant material, had been ripped out and dug up over the years by two forms of pests: teen-agers and gophers. The city said it couldn’t afford to make repairs.

“It looked so awful for a while,” remembered Doris Gertmanian of South Pasadena Beautiful, a civic group.

$20,000 for Remodeling

So after the sign had languished in weeds for six years in the late 1970s, the group raised $20,000 and installed a sturdier set of letters--made of cobblestones.

The civic effort is a statement “that we have a great deal of pride in our community,” Gertmanian said.

Lights have even been added, creating a new pest problem.

“Children keep knocking them out with rocks,” Gertmanian said. “But we hope to get some type of protective shields for them.”

The Burbank Gateway Study came about after City Council members noticed a “City of Glendale” sign made of polished granite on Brand Boulevard.

“Glendale is somewhat conservative and that’s what this sign says--it’s very solid, secure and substantial looking,” said Moss, its designer.

Of his Burbank assignment, Moss said: “The important thing is to create an attractive design, but one that isn’t garish and won’t be dated within a few years.”

So he avoided the giant-phonograph-records-along-the-freeway concept as well as a previous suggestion to place benches adorned with life-size replicas of celebrities around Burbank.

Moss’ monuments--which would stand at city entrances as well as in front of the Civic Center--would symbolize the city’s role as a home of the entertainment industry and as the site of Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. Suggested materials range from concrete, polished marble and neon to tile and glass cubes.

So far, city officials are noncommittal.

Kelly, of the redevelopment agency, said: “We didn’t put any constraints upon him (Moss). We said, ‘You tell us what Burbank is.’ ”