New Central Library Succeeds as Urban Crossroads for L.A.

In their reviews, Christopher Knight and Leon Whiteson savaged our “new” Central Library (“The Library’s Most Valuable Additions,” Calendar, Oct. 6, and “More Is Less,” Real Estate, Oct. 3). However, from my hours of observing the reactions of the building’s visitors at the Central Library, it appears to me that the vast Los Angeles public definitely disagrees with The Times critics’ views of that public’s new library.

Of course, reasonable people often differ. Even critics. For example, two New York critics--Joseph Giovannini, writing in our Los Angeles Times Magazine (Oct. 3), and Paul Goldberger, writing in their New York Times (Oct. 10)--were quite enthusiastic about the Pfeiffer design condemned by Knight and Whiteson.

Although I’m not taking on Knight and Whiteson on art and architecture matters, I do wish to venture a few comments on urbanism . . . the role the Central Library and the restored West Lawn (the “Maguire Gardens”) play at this critical geographic crossroads in the center of our city. This is not a principal topic of Knight’s review. (He does remark that the original Goodhue building is “arguably L.A.’s first great public space, some would say it’s still the champ.”) However, the library project’s contribution to our urban environment is a theme of the other three reviews, and it is a subject on which Goldberger, Giovannini and I all agree. We’re very positive! Alas, my friend Leon and I part company here. I think Whiteson really misses the boat. (Perhaps it’s also the dock that he misses, for it is as a pedestrian, at street level, that the “new” Central Library and its neighborhood are experienced.) What has happened is the creation of a profoundly satisfying urban experience . . . and one of the most positive improvements in the history of modern Los Angeles. It’s already having a positive impact on retail business and tourism.

Just watch--or participate in--the pedestrian activity that has been bustling through and around the Central Library since the construction fences came down on the weekend of Oct. 1. This truly is a pedestrian crossroads.

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From the north, people stream down the Bunker Hill Steps, coming from the Music Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Watercourt, and they flow into the library or across its Maguire Gardens. They sit and read or eat their lunches in the sunshine or in the shade of big trees and within earshot of the gurgling water of the fountains.

Soon to be under construction, immediately south of the library, is another block of the Hope Street Promenade, a tree-lined pedestrian connection of double-width sidewalks extending four blocks south to the new Grand Hope Park, close to the new Convention Center that will open this month.

The “new” Central Library is also at the center of an east-west pedestrian way. Intersecting 5th Street, three blocks away, is vibrant Broadway and our city’s historic core. Moving west along 5th Street toward the library, a walker comes to the Metro Red Line station, only a block from Grand Central Market and historic Angels Flight, now under reconstruction and due to open in just over a year. Pershing Square, completely revamped under the guidance of famed Mexico City architect Ricardo Legorreta (through the efforts of a successful private-public partnership), is there on 5th Street too. The square is due to reopen at the end of this year. Approaching the library, the pedestrian will find restored and new hotels, lots of new restaurants (one opened just across 5th Street from the library on the same Oct. 1 weekend), and--yes, Leon--tall office buildings!

From the standpoint of the pedestrian walking by or looking at the library, its stature is not diminished by its taller “nephews” to the north, east, south and west. Ever since the ‘20s and ‘30s, the surrounding buildings always have been taller than the Central Library. That some of those old buildings’ modern replacements are still taller only re-emphasizes the contrast that always has existed.

Unlike Whiteson, I visualize the tall buildings that have grown up around the Central Library as emphasizing their shorter uncle’s grace, wisdom and influence. Not incidentally, the tall buildings house many of the thousands of workers who traverse the new urban crossroads created by the Central Library and its open spaces.

It was the collective effort of alert and visionary Angelenos, especially the Los Angeles Conservancy, previous administrators of the Community Redevelopment Agency, and enlightened business men and women, that saved “Goodhue’s masterpiece” (Knight) and its low-density site and much of its valuable open space. Those leaders’ efforts resulted in an urban pedestrian crossroads that is active, attractive and functioning now. Times readers should take a look (and walk) around for themselves.