‘I Checked In for One Day and I’ve Been Here Ever Since’

Long after the last beat of rave music has ended, after the film crews have packed up every last foot of cable, after the wedding party has disbanded, the Park Plaza Hotel is still alive.

It just hums at a lower pitch.

To veteran night-lifers, the hotel is a steady venue for dance clubs like Scream and Power Tools in the ‘80s, and Truth in the ‘90s. Its grand halls are in constant demand for location shots. Glimpses of the place can be found in “The Bodyguard,” “Chaplin,” “Bugsy” and Hammer and Guns N’ Roses videos.

But like a parallel universe, another kind of life goes on within the thick walls of this 68-year-old Art Deco building.

It’s a life that belongs to the hotel’s 50 permanent residents, whose home comes equipped with hand-painted vaulted ceilings, ornate chandeliers, a tiled lap pool, a marble lobby and enormous stone statues outside that stand like silent sentries, protecting those within.

What was built in 1925 as the Elks Club is now a 160-room hotel. When the club moved, the building was sold at auction in 1966 and converted. Rooms are rented by the day (starting at about $50) and residents--working people, retirees and students--lease rooms for about $350 a month.

Now the Park Plaza is listed as a historic site, and passers-by often mistake its imposing facade for a church. The 11-story, 200,000-square-foot ocher structure looms over MacArthur Park, a no-man’s-land haunted by crack addicts and panhandlers swathed in grimy blankets. It lies within the boundaries of the LAPD’s Rampart Division, one of the city’s highest-crime areas.

Wilhelmina Fortner calls the Park Plaza “the eye of the storm. The activity kind of flurries around this place, but here it’s safe.”

The 3 1/2-year resident moved here after the Evangeline Residence for Women shut down. This was the next best thing: close to work--she’s a therapist at USC’s Child Guidance Clinic--and she could save money to buy a condo.

Fortner has since discovered a haven in the midst of an urban war zone.

“Each floor has a different surprise,” she says in a soothing, whispery voice. Sitting in the lobby (she says her room is too messy for visitors), she adds: “I’m still working on different areas that I explore from time to time. There are several kitchens I didn’t know existed. And there are little things, like I found that when I have my window open at an angle, it reflects all the sculptures. And I was polishing my doorknob one day and discovered that it was solid brass .”

By now, Fortner, in her late 40s, has learned to handle the beggars. Not long ago she befriended a homeless, pregnant 16-year-old who used to hang around the park, and helped get her into a job-training program.

Will she miss it when she leaves?

“Yes, I really will. There is a feeling about this place, a sense of community within the building itself. . . . I think the building has its own personality. It has its moods. There are times when it feels dark and somber, and there are other times when all the chandeliers are lit, and it’s a whole different thing.”

*

Tom Adams doesn’t talk about Park Plaza as much as he sells it, like a new car.

“This is a very nice place to live,” he enthuses. “There’s a gym, a steam room, a weight room and a pool. I live on the 10th floor and I have a beautiful view. I can see the Hollywood sign and the observatory.

“How did I come here? I checked in for one day and stayed eight years,” he says and laughs. It’s a story he’s told more than once. “I had arrived from Las Vegas, and I had an appointment and I wanted a place to change and clean up. I didn’t know this place was a hotel, I thought it was still the Elks Club.

“What keeps me here? The uniqueness of the building. There’s no difference between living here and living at the Biltmore. Of course, here you don’t have 24-hour room service, but there’s everything else.”

Perfect for a 51-year-old bachelor who’s lived in and worked for hotels in the past (he now makes his living as a film editor).

“There’s a lot of activity here with the filmings, but it doesn’t interfere with anything. As a matter of fact, they’ll set up buffets for the crew and say, ‘Hey, help yourself!’ That’s a pretty good trade-off for having to come in and out through the side door!”

His friends have often questioned his taste in neighborhoods.

“Some say, ‘What are you doing down there at MacArthur Park?’ Well, the park really isn’t that bad. Oh, it gets a little spicy at night, but what would you go in there at night for?”

Adams says there’s a community invisible to the untrained eye. He’s made several friends, including a Superior Court judge and a couple of attorneys who live close by. The regulars meet at Maggie’s Donuts in the morning for coffee, the newspaper and local gossip.

“At the hotel, everybody knows everyone and they sort of know everyone else’s business, which is all right. There’s a lot of warmth here among people, even the people who work here.

“Will I be here for a while?” He pauses, then adjusts the knot in his tie. “Well, like I say, I checked in for one day and I’ve been here ever since. So you never know. I’m very content.”

*

Laughter echoes in the lobby. It belongs to 25-year-old Julia Lepe, an L.A. City College student from Spain who’s at the front desk chatting with a couple of friends.

She takes a guest up to her quarters, a regular hotel room with a small refrigerator, hot plate, a typewriter, desk, some shelves and a double bed with a brown polyester quilted bedspread. She shares it with her husband of two months, also an LACC student.

Two teddy bears sit on a chair, and on the walls are photos of rock stars. Next to them are Lepe’s own paintings of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

She’s lived at the Park Plaza off and on for five years. “You’re never alone here,” she says, sitting on her bed but so animated she seems in constant motion. “It’s good for me, with the other students here, and even the senior citizens. It’s very diverse.”

“You always have to be careful, but that’s anywhere in Los Angeles. Sometimes when I’m asleep I hear shootings outside. At first I was scared, but now I know it happens. The only thing that came to my mind is that I pray to God nobody was hurt, that maybe it was shootings in the air or something.”

She tells of meeting Sylvester Stallone while he was at the hotel filming “Tango and Cash.” Lepe waited for the star for hours one day, and was ecstatic when he agreed to pose for pictures.

Now that she’s married, she’s toyed with the idea of moving, but not too seriously. “There is a nice feeling of belonging here,” she says.

“I will tell my children probably all these things I have talked about. So I cannot forget the hotel. . . . All those memories. . . . I will keep coming back. My memory won’t just be of a place I stayed.”

*

The Park Plaza no longer takes new residents, except students from nearby Otis Art Institute of Parson School of Design. Gene Baur, the hotel’s general manager, is in the midst of a massive renovation and plans to market it exclusively as a day-rate hotel.

Baur has been running the building since 1966 and hasn’t lost any appreciation for its beauty. “You could get jaded, I guess,” he says, “but I’m still impressed with it.”

“The place is majestic,” he says. “Young people probably appreciate the building more than older people because they don’t see a lot of this stuff. People come in and first thing, invariably, their eyes hit the ceiling. It’s very impressive.”

Some say they walk into the ballroom and picture a formal dance from the ‘20s, men in white tie and tails and women in bugle-beaded flapper gowns. Others imagine the hotel as an old dowager who has seen everything and tolerates it, even the ear-splitting rock music and noisy film crews.

It will have to tolerate much more when the Metro Rail station opens at MacArthur Park. And it probably will. Stone statues never give anything away.