Living Downtown : It’s Not Always Cheap or Easy, but a Skyscraper Home Means Less Smog and No Commute

After working late, lawyers Christian E. Markey Jr. and his wife, Mickey Byrnes, often slip into an outdoor Jacuzzi and stare up peacefully at a “lighted forest” of skyscrapers looming overhead.

“To me, it’s like Christmas all the time,” said Markey, 59, who with his wife last year joined a growing cadre of upper-middle-class professionals--an ethnically diverse mix of singles and couples with few or no children at home--who chose to escape into the city after work, rather than from it:

They moved downtown.

Officials with the Central City Assn. and Community Redevelopment Agency estimate that more than 10,000 people now live in downtown Los Angeles--most in subsidized apartments or hotel rooms for the elderly or low-income, and some on the streets.

But about 3,000 do so strictly by choice, paying market-price rentals or mortgages for the 1,500 apartments and condominiums in complexes on Bunker Hill or the 200 in Skyline, the first outpost in the city’s long-promised South Park development near the Convention Center.

The number of available units has doubled in the 20 years since Bunker Hill Towers first opened, and it is expected to double again in the next decade.

“Downtown living is just in its genesis,” said Doug Sheldon, 60, who with his wife, Dixie, also 60, commutes by elevator from their Bunker Hill Towers condominium to the office of Bunker Hill Real Estate Co., which they started as a retirement adventure. “We have weathered the storm and are becoming a mature downtown community.”

A Solid Foothold

Urban planners agree downtown living has established a solid foothold in Los Angeles, but they caution that the roads to downtown will not be clogged with moving vans anytime soon.

Rather, they see a slow, steady migration of middle- and upper-class professionals into downtown, defined roughly by the Hollywood and San Bernardino freeways, Beaudry Avenue, 12th Street and Olive or Hill streets.

Fueling the movement are many factors: increasingly congested freeways, which can make commutes an exercise in frustration; a nationwide gentrification process encouraged by publicly funded urban-renewal projects; infusion of foreign capital, and a determination by the city to create downtown housing for upper economic classes to support restaurants and retailers, ease traffic and reduce air pollution.

At work, too, is a desire to form an identifiable center in a city seen mainly as a monument to suburban sprawl.

“A lot of people felt 20 years ago that we could build a core and we could make a lot of money and everyone would have a Los Angeles identity,” said Michael Dear, USC professor of geography and urban planning. “So Bunker Hill Towers (three high-rises with 700 units bounded by 1st, Figueroa, 3rd and Hope streets) was built. Since then, we have been creating a downtown.”

Planners for the Community Redevelopment Agency--which guides development in certain sectors of the city, including downtown--eventually want at least 20% of the downtown work force to live there.

They envision 10,000 new residential units in Central City West (roughly the five blocks on the west side of Harbor Freeway between the Hollywood Freeway and Olympic Boulevard) and 10,000 for South Park (9th to 12th and Figueroa to Olive Streets). Working with the USC Redevelopment Corp., they hope to create middle- and upper-income residences from South Park all the way to USC at Exposition Boulevard.

“For downtown Los Angeles to be the hub of a major world-class city,” said Don Spivack, CRA director of operations for the Central Business District, “it needs to be much more like other world cities, which have a downtown residential component. We will have that by the 21st Century.”

Certainly, there is a long way to go. Today only a handful of Los Angeles County’s 8.4 million residents live downtown, and the proportion never will be overwhelming.

Downtown residences are small and expensive and have not emerged as terrific investments. They offer no back yard, and usually can be reached only by elevator. There are panhandlers and those who live downtown share a universal quest for economical groceries.

But for those who already have chosen the downtown life style, an era of urban pioneering appears to have ended. “It is not a mystery like it used to be. The curtain has been lifted,” said Leo Benizio, manager of Bunker Hill Towers Condominiums, who lives in distant Yorba Linda with his wife, Joyce, former manager of Skyline. “I think those who live downtown now know what they have to do to survive in an urban environment.”

What they must do is drive less and walk more--to work, to play, and to run routine errands--and they seem to like it.

Most of several dozen downtowners interviewed said they chose their life style to avoid what a recent Times Poll of Los Angeles residents identified as the No. 2 drain on the city’s quality of life: traffic.

“The one single greatest cause for living here,” said Sheldon, who moved downtown in 1976 to be close to his former job with a real estate investment department, “is the convenience and eliminating the commute.”

Criminal defense lawyer Michael R. Yamaki, a bachelor, gave up Malibu beach life for downtown in 1981: “I had to wake up before the sun got up to get into town. Now I can get up at 8, shave, shower and eat breakfast and get into court by 9.”

Some people like downtown so much they retire there, even when they could afford to go elsewhere. Imogene Dewey, 83, moved to Bunker Hill in 1971 after retiring as clerk of the Justice Court in Tehachapi. The energetic widow wanted access to theaters and childhood friends without learning to drive.

Most downtowners own cars, although many couples cut from two to one and drive less than suburban counterparts. When they must drive, they say, they usually do so against traffic.

Jesica Baker, 38, a sales representative for a health-care network, commutes from downtown throughout Southern California or to visit her office in Long Beach.

“People say, ‘Don’t you have this backwards?’ ” she said. “But for me it’s perfect. And on weekends, I am absolutely enthralled with the idea that I can walk to major shopping, to the post office, to the shoe repair, to the Y(MCA), to the Music Center, to the movies, even for limited groceries. I can do almost anything I want to do or need to do without getting in my car.”

Urban Benefits

They move for convenience but downtowners have discovered benefits they never suspected and suburbanites rarely associate with urban living.

“This is one of the nicest, quietest, least congested places in Los Angeles on the weekends,” Sheldon said.

An unexpected fountain of youth, downtowners say, springs from the increased physical activity and reduced mental stress that comes from walking rather than driving, and from being in the thick of a city.

“Just walking the downtown streets at noon and watching Los Angeles move toward the European life style makes me 20 years younger,” said William H. Weber, 68, who “retired” to Skyline with his wife, Sue, 63, three years ago, only to help start Wilshire Realty Inc.

Downtown residents also boast of a small-town sense of community. “Most of us moved to Los Angeles from elsewhere and have no real family here. So we made our own family,” said Nan Aune, 45, as she received her weekly manicure at a Bunker Hill salon. A downtown resident since 1971, Aune drives 35 miles daily to teach computer programming at Westminster High School in Orange County.

John Hinchliffe, 22, the lunch host at Stepps restaurant in Wells Fargo Center, began renting his parents’ Bunker Hill condominium last December. He still marvels at the reception he received.

“One of the nicest things about living here was moving in here,” he said as he stopped for a haircut at Jacques Michel Salon. “When we showed up, there was someone there to help us--neighbors!”

Downtowners say they find plenty of things to do in their leisure. Within walking distance are two prime athletic facilities, the Music Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chinatown, Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, and a small but growing gallery of restaurants.

L.A. on Foot

A favorite pastime is simply to explore downtown on foot. A system of skywalks lets pedestrians move throughout much of downtown without setting foot on streets outside.

They adopt almost a proprietary interest in new buildings and the subway, considering the construction entertainment.

“I just walk through downtown every couple of weeks--about five-six miles--to see what is going on in Chinatown and Little Tokyo and see how the new State Building (at Spring and 3rd streets) is doing,” said Jim Norton, supervisor of travel publications for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

The 49-year-old bachelor was one of the first to move into Bunker Hill Towers when it opened in 1969 and the first to buy a condominium at Skyline when it opened in 1983.

Downtowners seem to have little trouble finding everyday services and places to shop, although some venues--the garment district for wholesale clothing or the flower market where Baker buys two dozen carnations for $4--definitely are not commonplace. Dry cleaning, haircuts and convenience markets are available in residential or office complexes. Clothing and gifts are found in major department stores on 7th Street or in 7th Market Place.

The one necessity that’s missing, downtowners agree, is a major grocery. While they wait for one the CRA promises will be built in South Park by 1991, they adjust, paying higher prices at a convenience market in Bunker Hill Towers or driving to supermarkets in Little Tokyo or Pasadena.

Concerned Parents

For the few young couples concerned, there are concerns, including adequate public schools.

“What’s missing for children, besides diapers, are parks and playgrounds, other children and space,” said Marilyn Wagner, 27, who moved from Washington, D.C., two months ago with her husband, lawyer William Wagner, and 5-month-old Nicole. They chose a studio rental apartment on Bunker Hill to save money by eliminating their car.

“When Nicole is a toddler,” she said, “I would rather be in a neighborhood where she can be out playing in the yard with other children.”

Despite real problems, downtowners seem unfazed by the other perceived perils peculiar to their life style--high cost for little space, crime, earthquakes, fire, noise and smog.

The apartments and condominiums are small--900 to 1,400square feet for two bedrooms and 2,000 square feet for the largest penthouses. In terms of square-foot cost, they are pricey. The Sheldons say the low condominium prices in the area are $90,000 for studios, $155,000 for a one-bedroom, $275,000 for two bedrooms, and around $550,000 for combined units or penthouses.

Rentals in Grand Promenade, the 27-floor, 372-unit complex expected to open atop Bunker Hill this spring, range from $775 a month for the lowest studio to $2,295 for a top two-bedroom apartment.

Nighttime Strolls

As for safety, downtowners agree they wouldn’t walk Main Street at midnight but they do feel comfortable strolling to the Music Center or to restaurants after dark. They choose routes carefully and are comforted by the security guards in residential and office complexes.

And as for earthquakes, the Oct. 1, 1987, temblor, and Oct. 4 aftershock tested the mettle of those who live in the downtown high-rises. One 42-year-old librarian put his 12th-floor Skyline condominium on the market and moved to Pasadena when the aftershock jammed his entry dead bolt, trapping him for five hours.

Elena Renner, 48, a psychologist who lives in one of Los Angeles’ four loftiest dwellings, a 32nd-floor penthouse at Bunker Hill Towers, was thrown to the floor by the quake. Antique furniture fell or skidded, and expensive Chinese porcelains shattered.

But she and her husband, Dr. Ian Renner, 50, a gastroenterologist who met at a building party and married two years ago, remain downtowners. They bolted their furniture to the walls and attached the rest of the porcelain collection to the furniture.

“I am still living here because I learned the reason we swayed so much is that the building has a 3-foot displacement,” said Elena Renner. “The building structure is good.”

Peaceful Sleepers

Downtowners also seem to have little fear of fire, despite the deaths of three people in a 1979 fire in West Tower of Bunker Hill Towers. Many point to sprinklers or plans for them, and note that the Los Angeles Fire Department has a station at 1st and Figueroa streets.

Noise is a problem only to those who haven’t learned to sleep through fire sirens or hovering helicopters. The Webers, Norton and other Skyline residents have even stoically endured night construction cacophony on the adjacent Metrorail project because they believe Los Angeles needs a subway.

“We call the traffic noise ‘white noise,’ ” said Elaine S. Stewart, 45, retail consultant for Central City Assn., who lives with her husband, Greg, 31, in a Carroll Avenue Victorian duplex. “We tell our friends from Oregon that it sounds like the Pacific Ocean.”

Smog is another would-be problem that downtowners rarely worry about. “The air is better here than where I used to spend all my time in San Marino,” Markey said, echoing neighbors who claim that pollution is worse in most other desirable residential areas.

Bill Kelly, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, offers support for their views. In 1988, he said, downtown had three first-stage alerts, when ozone exceeded .20 parts per million and curtailed physical activity was advised. By comparison, Reseda in the San Fernando Valley had four, Pasadena 19, and Glendora, the worst area in the San Gabriel Valley, 58.

Rare Interactions

Most who live downtown rarely interact with Latinos who come in droves on weekends to shop and attend movies along Broadway. The downtowners cling to higher-priced restaurants or the movie complex and stores in the Figueroa-Flower corridor between 1st and 9th streets. Many seem to be unaware of the Broadway activity, including the bustling Grand Central Market.

Just as downtowners are divided into low- and high-income groups, they adhere to a natural geographic division, with the upscale roaming west of Hill Street and their low-income counterparts flocking to shop, eat or entertain themselves east of Hill. Sue Laris, publisher of the Downtown News, which downtowners embrace as their hometown weekly, can only see her resident readership growing.

“Two things will impel downtown residential housing,” she said. “One is that traffic is getting worse incrementally, and the other is that the incredible price of (suburban) homes, which has shot up dramatically in the last two years, is making the square-foot cost of downtown look better.”

When her youngest child finishes school in Pasadena, Laris may even move downtown herself.