To See L.A.’s Past, Visit Florida

Seeing a replica of the sleek, sculpted facade of the Pan Pacific Auditorium here in Disney World was a shock, especially after having passed by the charred ruins of the original a few days before in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District.

I had heard that the Streamline Moderne-styled Pan had been meticulously reconstructed as the main entrance to the new Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park outside Orlando, and made a point to go see it while on a pilgrimage here recently with two of my four Mousketeers.

Sure enough, there was the reconstituted Pan, graced by the four curved flagpole pylons in the shape of giant fins that had distinguished the original when it was built in the 1930s.

Although slightly reduced in scale and modified with ticket booths and turnstiles, the replicated Pan exudes a sense of time and place--a quality that had earned the original building its landmark status at local, state and national levels.

Even the signage, with its compressed block “Queen Mary modern” typography, is right out of the 1930s.

“We wanted something as the gateway to the park that was easily recognizable and that captured the spirit of Los Angeles and Hollywood in the Golden 1930s and ‘40s,” explained architect Robert Weis, a senior vice president of World Disney Imagineering, which designed the new theme park. “The Pan with its pylons seemed absolutely correct.”

The replication in Disney World, completed nearly to the day the original was destroyed in an arsonist’s fire eight months ago, is heavy with an irony that makes me heartsick.

For 10 years before the fatal fire, preservationists in Los Angeles had pressed for the Pan’s renovation.

Various plans were put forward, with one finally emerging out of a county competition in 1988 calling for recycling and expanding the landmark with private funds as an entertainment and community services complex.

However, bureaucratic inertia, parochial neighborhood protests and lack of political courage stalled the plan. Meanwhile, the Pan stood vacant and deteriorating, a target for vandalism and, inevitably, the fire.

The result is that one of the city’s more magnificent architectural and cultural symbols, and one of a few to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a charred ruin.

To be sure, there are various plans for its restoration, but most involve public funds and are as wispy as smoke. There is no evidence of a civic will to make it happen.

Meanwhile, to its credit, Disney Imagineering has had the vision to use the design of the Pan to set the architectural scene of its latest theme park based upon Hollywood of “the fabulous ‘30s and ‘40s.”

Also in the park, just beyond the Pan, is a replica of the Crossroads of the World tower (the original perseveres at 6671 Sunset Blvd.). It appropriately serves as an information booth at the head of engaging “Hollywood Boulevard,” lined with the facades of an evocative collection of other Los Angeles period architecture.

These include the Dark Room (the original is at 5370 Wilshire Blvd.), with its display window in the form of an oversized 1930s camera, and a brilliant selection of Hollywood Boulevard Art Deco-styled store fronts, marked by a mix of Vitrolite glass panels and zigzagged gold terra-cotta panels embossed with designs reminiscent of Southwest Indian rugs. Among the facades hinted at are J. J. Newberry’s and Frederick’s (in the 6600 block of Hollywood Boulevard).

There is also a replica of the Chinese Theatre (6925 Hollywood Blvd.); a host of thematic restaurants, such as the Brown Derby, and 1950s-styled cafeterias; an ice cream stand in the form of a dinosaur, and an “Echo Park” lake. All radiate a spirit of L.A.

“What we have tried to create is an ‘idealized’ L.A. in Florida,” Weis said. “Just as Main Street in the Magic Kingdom was created in the 1950s as a nostalgic vision of turn-of-the-century small-town America, our Hollywood Boulevard is a nostalgic vision of Los Angeles of 50 years ago. Helping is the city’s rich architectural vocabulary of the time.”

So, while Los Angeles is letting its landmarks deteriorate or be bulldozed, Disney, after a fashion, is saving them, albeit in a very controlled environment.

Perhaps someday to get a sense of the rich cultural and architectural heritage of Hollywood in the ‘30s, we may just have to travel to Florida and pay an entrance fee.

You would think that by now the value of historic preservation in economic and social terms (read tourism and pride) would be appreciated in Tinseltown, the dream factory of the world. It is certainly being appreciated here in the Florida outback.

There were other urban design lessons to be learned in Disney World.

Weis said that critical to the design and construction process in all Disney projects was not only respect for the spirit of the varying styles copied, but a particular sensitivity for the pedestrian experience.

The architect, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, added that all the heights of buildings, the widths of streets and the sizes of plazas were reduced to what he described as “Disneyland scale” so none would overwhelm people.

Also noted was the prepossessing Disney penchant for cleanliness and friendliness.

“Our aim is to create environments that make people feel safe and comfortable,” Weis said.

Not a bad aim for any planning and design effort. Certainly, Los Angeles could use such “imagineering.”