Woo’s Hollywood Imprint Is Shaping Bid for Mayor : Politics: Failed revitalization plans and angry residents contrast with impressive array of social services.

Michael Woo, the early front-runner in the Los Angeles mayoral race, now faces the toughest test of his campaign in his own back yard--where rhetoric and reality collide on the gritty streets of Hollywood.

After nearly eight years of representing Hollywood on the City Council, Woo has a legacy that includes lawsuits, failed revitalization plans and angry constituents. He also leaves behind an impressive network of social services for homeless people, runaways and AIDS patients--much of which was not in place before he took office.

He enticed Walt Disney Co. to invest in Hollywood Boulevard, and he spruced up the street with glittering pavement and glowing neon. But the general deterioration of Hollywood, which started well before Woo took office, was not arrested during his tenure. Today, the fabled home of show business has become in many ways a showcase of urban squalor.

The streets are dotted with empty offices and boarded-up buildings. Neighborhoods are beset by gangs, bands of teen-age squatters and pushy panhandlers.

“The symbol of Hollywood is razor wire,” one homeowner said at a recent gathering.

“Hollywood is supposed to be a dream machine, not the nightmare it has become,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the Hollywood-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a candidate for the council seat Woo is vacating.

Woo’s critics say his record in the community stands in bold contrast to a main theme of his mayoral campaign. As he moves about the city, courting African-Americans, Asian-Americans, gays and liberals, Woo stresses that he is the candidate best qualified to bring the city together through economic development and personal diplomacy.

But the two biggest commercial development projects he championed in Hollywood have foundered. And the list of disappearing neighborhood landmarks--from the Coca-Cola sign to the Tick Tock restaurant, from the new Brown Derby to the Screen Actors Guild--has been growing ever longer. Since he took office, five motion picture theaters have closed on Hollywood Boulevard, as have five of the seven banks.

Rather than resolving tensions in a traditionally fractious community, Woo’s attempt to take charge of the civic agenda has led to an even more bellicose environment. Relations have grown so volatile between residents and city officials that police have been summoned more than once to keep the peace at community meetings.

These days, Woo finds himself in a cross-fire. He is accused of ignoring basic city services while approving massive public subsidies for private developments.

“If they had spent 10% of the millions approved for real estate subsidies on incremental improvements--security, garbage pickups or storefront renovation--the place would have looked a lot better, and the developers wouldn’t have needed $50 or $60 million,” said Robert Nudelman, a civic activist.

Woo is also taken to task by people who say he bowed to political pressure when he finally withdrew his support for one of two planned cornerstones of Hollywood redevelopment: The $250-million Hollywood Promenade that would have been next door to Mann’s Chinese Theater.

“The feeling that some people have is that he couldn’t hold his end up,” said Frank Buckley, a commercial real estate broker. “Now, the business community feels betrayed by Woo in the sense that the streets are still a real mess.”

Woo acknowledges that he has had a tough time and that he has lost some support along the way.

“Unlike any other candidate in this race, I’ve had to deal with tough inner-city conditions, trying to change a community. No one else in the race has had the experience I’ve had overcoming obstacles. Not everything has resulted in victory,” he said. “But I can claim many changes, many things that are improvements over what went on before I was there.”

Some progress has been made during his tenure on the council. That includes the Galaxy, a 50,000-square-foot complex of movie theaters and shops on Hollywood Boulevard; renovation of the grand old Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; Walt Disney Co.’s rehabilitation of the El Capitan theater; the Hollywood farmers market, and the birth of a new, live theater district along Santa Monica Boulevard.

Spokesmen for some of those projects say little would have been accomplished without Woo’s strenuous efforts.

“The Galaxy would not be open today if it weren’t for Mike Woo,” said Michael Dubin, one of the project’s directors. “I think you could say the same thing for several other projects.”

Where Woo has failed, it is argued, he faced insurmountable obstacles. The two biggest projects--the Hollywood Promenade and the $300-million Hollywood Plaza commercial complexes--were stalled for several years by a lawsuit and then done in by a killer recession, his supporters say.

They also say that no one could have overcome the factionalism that predated Woo’s arrival.

“Mike had the right idea, right intention. But his hands were tied by people who want to hold up progress at all costs,” said Christopher Bonbright, a commercial realtor in Hollywood.

For better or worse, however, Woo has to run on his record, and what he has done in Hollywood inevitably invites questions about his qualifications to be mayor.

“If he can’t handle the little contentious groups that are in Hollywood,” said Jon Jay, a member of a Hollywood neighborhood watch organization, “how is he going to handle the warring factions in the city?”

Acknowledging that he will leave a certain amount of turmoil in his wake, Woo contends that a strong leader has to take sides.

“It points to my ability to stand up to opposition . . . to push ahead to accomplish goals that I’ve set. . . . I ran, in part, to get results in Hollywood. If I were to give in to the fragmentation and gridlock, you wouldn’t have any results.”

On Wednesday, at the first candidates forum to be held on Woo’s home turf, he will have a chance to make that point. He will also be able to respond to a widely held view that Hollywood is worse off than it was in 1985, the year Woo swept into office pledging to bring back the luster to Hollywood Boulevard and to make the surrounding community a clean and safe place to live and work.

Today, one of the few signs of glitter on the boulevard is the coat of sparkling “glasphault” ordered by Woo as part of a $500,000 resurfacing project.

Lately, several of Woo’s opponents in the mayoral race have been taking shots at Woo’s stewardship of his district.

“My God, look at Hollywood. It’s a sewer. That’s not what we need for the rest of the city,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, another top contender.

On Saturday, at a forum sponsored by members of the entertainment industry, City Councilman Nate Holden called Woo “a phony” whose district is in revolt. “The merchants want to run him out of town. They had a meeting the other night where they said ‘no more Woo.’ ”

Holden, along with candidate Julian Nava, have denounced Woo’s attempts to control violence and rowdy behavior by crowds of young people attending rock concerts at the Hollywood Palladium. As a result of a curfew imposed by Woo, Palladium management said the nightspot will close.

Another candidate, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City), has been distributing flyers with crime statistics for Hollywood showing substantial increases in homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults.

Police records show that the homicide rate rose 61% from 1985 to 1992, faster than the citywide rise of 41%. During the same period, robberies and aggravated assaults in Hollywood also rose but at a slightly slower pace than occurred citywide.

Woo recently assembled a task force of police and government representatives to combat gang crime in east Hollywood. In June, he secured $1 million in government funds to pay for a security firm to provide foot patrols along Hollywood Boulevard and to buy communications equipment to allow Neighborhood Watch members to stay in touch with police.

But Woo’s efforts have done little to alter a common perception of Hollywood as a warren of beggars, feral teen-agers, prostitutes, drug dealers and assorted predators.

Several violent incidents last year cast an especially menacing aura. In March, two motorists were shot and wounded near Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue, apparently by gang members firing from the roof of a dilapidated apartment building. A few days later, a woman was abducted near the same corner, raped and set afire.

On Christmas Eve, a 19-year-old woman was raped and mutilated by seven transients in a vacant house that neighbors say is one of about 50 abandoned buildings that have become potential dens of criminal activity.

“We work directly with the Police Department and with the council office, but the answer keeps coming back: ‘Do it yourself,’ ” said Sharyn Romano, cochair of United Streets of Hollywood, a network of homeowner and Neighborhood Watch groups.

Jim Wood, chairman of the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency, which provides public funds for Hollywood renewal projects, sympathizes with Woo and with his critics.

“The people with United Streets feel they have been under constant attack from drug dealers and hookers with no letup,” Wood said. “Their focus is on a city that doesn’t work for them. They’re looking to Woo and saying: ‘It’s all up to you.’ And they are bitterly disappointed when he can’t always deliver.”

Ironically, Woo is also taken to task for his most conspicuous contributions to neighborhood social needs: the array of services for needy people.

With Woo’s blessing, the redevelopment agency has committed more than $3 million for hospices, shelters and clinics, and $15 million for affordable housing.

But as Hollywood’s nomadic population has grown during the recession, a backlash has set in. A number of residents say there are too many places for indigents to flop and refuel and Woo has helped make Hollywood an oasis for bums.

“It appears to many people that Hollywood is being used as a dumping ground,” said Richard Rudman, an executive of KFWB Radio and a member of the Greater Hollywood Civic Assn.

Woo is proud of the social services he has brought to Hollywood. He said that his office does discourage some service providers if he believes that their presence will do more harm than good.

But he said that many of the people served contribute to the flavor of Hollywood and that he welcomes them.

“Let me make clear, my goal has never been to turn Hollywood Boulevard into an antiseptic, artificially sanitized area like Avenue of the Stars or Grand Avenue on Bunker Hill. Hollywood Boulevard will be an exciting, diverse and exotic place.

“A Hancock Park homeowner will see kids with ghetto blasters that they would not see outside the Security Pacific Bank on Bunker Hill. I don’t want to drive out the eccentric and interesting people, who are no harm to anybody else. I want to encourage real street life on Hollywood Boulevard.”

Woo did not start the decade-long fight over development. He just could not end it.

From the beginning, Woo was caught between bitter antagonists. On one side were the boosters of big development, including A & M Records, Gene Autry and Mann Theaters Corp., who had invested heavily in land along the planned redevelopment corridor. On the other was a group of civic activists who feared that wholesale renewal would gobble up their homes and shops and destroy the character of historic Hollywood.

During his first few years in office, Woo sought to come up with a redevelopment plan that reflected the desires of both groups. Frustrated in that endeavor, he walked away from a contentious advisory committee, which had been elected, and appointed his own advisory group, which gave a green light to major development.

Meanwhile, lawsuits filed by opponents of the mega-developments kept them on hold for several years. The last legal hurdle was cleared in 1991, but by then the developers of the cornerstone projects, Melvin Simon and Robert M. Bass, were seeking subsidies totaling $140 million. That was more than city officials could swallow.

The redevelopment agency’s Wood said that by delaying the projects, the lawsuits caused the developers to “miss the market.”

“There was a time when investment in mixed use commercial on a grand scale, like the Beverly Center . . . was doable,” Wood said. “But that time ended, and we slid into the recession.”

The demise of the Simon and Bass projects forced Woo and the redevelopment agency to rethink their strategies, CRA officials say.

“We’ve had to regroup,” said H. Cooke Sunoo, the CRA’s Hollywood project manager.

Now, the talk among Hollywood’s rejuvenators is of much less ambitious projects and more incremental improvements. “We’re looking at storefront projects now instead of projects for whole city blocks,” Sunoo said.

The change has led to attention to whimsical detail, such as the glowing ribbons of neon on Ripley’s Believe It or Not Auditorium and the oddly tilting golden arches of a McDonald’s restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard.

“That was Mike Woo’s idea,” Sunoo said. “He told them if they wanted their arches that was fine, but that he didn’t want it to be conventional.”

But to many, Woo will be remembered most for grand dreams that blinded him to the aspirations of ordinary people. They see him as a politician who turned his back on the people who elected him.

“He looked like he was going to be so great,” said Linda Lockwood, a businesswoman and member of United Streets of Hollywood. “We wanted to believe in him. He said so many things so well. But he broke our hearts.”

Mixed Results for Woo

During Michael Woo’s seven-year tenure on the Los Angeles City Council, Hollywood has experienced some successes and setbacks. Here is a score card.

PROJECTS COMPLETED OR UNDER WAY

* Hollywood Galaxy, 7021 Hollywood Blvd. New three-level, $26-million retail, cinema and commercial project.

* El Capitan, 6838 Hollywood Blvd. Historic theater, renovated with technical assistance from the Community Redevelopment Agency.

* Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, 1652 N. Hudson Ave. New social services facility, including a 24-bed shelter for homeless and at-risk youths built with $1.4 million in CRA assistance.

* Los Angeles Free Clinic, 6043 Hollywood Blvd. Health facility built with an $875,000 loan from the CRA.

* Arirang Apartments. Seventy-five-unit senior citizen housing project and 400-space, city-owned parking garage under way between Cherokee and Whitley streets just north of Hollywood Boulevard. CRA assistance: $2.25 million; city of Los Angeles assistance: $5.2 million.

ABANDONED PROJECTS, DEPARTING BUSINESSES

* Hollywood Promenade. Proposal by Melvin Simon and Associates for a $250-million, hotel-office-retail complex and entertainment museum at the northwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Dropped after Woo was unable to muster support for a $48-million CRA subsidy for the project.

* Bass project. Multimillion-dollar proposal for 1,000 units of upscale housing at the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Dropped by the developer as real estate values sank.

* Palladium, 6215 W. Sunset Blvd. Landmark performance center is scheduled to close soon. Its owners say they can no longer profitably operate the aging entertainment site under security restrictions and reduced operating hours sponsored by Woo in the wake of violence at the site.

* Hollywood Reporter. Moved from its namesake neighborhood to a site near the Los Angeles County Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.

* Screen Actors Guild. Headquartered at 7065 Hollywood Blvd. since 1933, it plans to move the Miracle Mile area of Wilshire Boulevard later this year.

PENDING PROJECTS

* Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. Aging theater to be renovated for reuse as an entertainment venue with more than $1.5 million from the CRA.

* Hollywest. Proposed 190-unit senior citizen housing project at Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue. Still seeking land-use approvals. Opposed in its present form by Woo’s own citizen advisory committee.