A Heart-Warming Trend
Perhaps President Bush’s notion of a kinder, gentler nation is taking root already.
Southern California Edison Co. reports that contributions during the first six weeks of its 1988-89 Winter Energy Assistance Fund campaign are 25% ahead of last year’s total for the entire campaign. An Edison spokesman said its customers have contributed $450,000 to the fund, which provides emergency funds to pay electric bills for poor residential customers who are handicapped or disabled.
Edison matches customer contributions dollar for dollar. During the past six years, the fund has distributed $3.6 million to needy households, Edison said. Disbursements from the 1988-89 fund, administered by United Way, will begin in February, the utility said.
Accent on Tower
The Title Guarantee tower in downtown Los Angeles is finally going to become the genuine article.
From 1977 to 1982, the 12-story building at the corner of Fifth and Hill streets housed the Los Angeles Tribune, the fictional newspaper in the television series “Lou Grant.” The building’s exterior and lobby were shown on the series that starred Ed Asner as curmudgeonly city editor Lou Grant, but there was never a newsroom, fake or real, in the tower, says developer Daniel Swartz.
That will change in May when the edifice, built in 1930 as an insurance company headquarters, becomes home to a real newspaper: La Opinion, the Spanish-language daily.
It’s not known whether Billie and Rossi will apply for their old jobs.
Laughing at Own Problems
Brokers at the troubled investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert can have a pretty good sense of humor--even when the joke’s on them.
Last week, brokers from Drexel offices in Los Angeles, New York and St. Louis separately placed calls to the Shalek Agency, a Los Angeles advertising firm. Each asked for copies of a mock advertisement that the agency created for an article that appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, “Picturing the New L.A.”
The ad features a boy standing on a Beverly Hills street corner, hawking maps while holding a sign that reads, “Maps to the Stock Brokers Homes.” The agency has received so many calls for copies of the mock ad that executives are considering licensing it as a poster.
“I didn’t think we’d end up in the poster business,” said Nancy Shalek, the agency’s founder. “I suppose we could do greeting cards next.”
My 2nd Car Phone’s Ringing
America hears Southern California talking--and talking and talking--on car phones.
For the second straight year, the company that serves this market with mobile telephone service, Irvine-based PacTel Cellular, was the nation’s largest provider. The subsidiary of Pacific Telesis had 255,000 customers in six major markets, according to Radio Communications Report, a trade journal.
That’s not bad, considering the industry only got started during the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The company had just 155,000 subscribers last year.
Another West Coast firm--McCaw Cellular of Kirkland, Wash.--finished a fast-closing second with 227,000 subscribers in 67 markets in 24 states, moving up from fourth place and 132,000 subscribers last year. Another cellular provider in California, GTE Mobilenet, ranked seventh.
