Gateway Monument Killed; No ‘Steel Cloud’ for L.A. : Architecture: Council abandons $33-million structure over Hollywood Freeway. More modest plan to be sought.

In the boom and bravado of the 1980s, Los Angeles’ big thinkers felt good enough about their town to propose construction of a grand monument to welcome the world, something like New York’s Statue of Liberty.

What they conceived was a massive Erector set-style sculpture. It was to have straddled the Hollywood Freeway near City Hall, knitting museums, theaters and aquariums into a maze of mechanical steel beams.

Price tag: $33 million.

But on Wednesday the Los Angeles City Council took a final wrecking ball to the whimsical and grandiose concept known as the “Steel Cloud.” The action made official what hard times and inattention had already assured.

With only $144,000 accumulated in a savings account to build the city’s West Coast Gateway, the council voted to begin a search for a more modest, 1990s-style alternative.

“I think it was out the window anyway. People didn’t react well to the design,” said City Councilwoman Rita Walters, who proposed the re-examination. “This discussion just verified it.”

Then-Mayor Tom Bradley initiated the search for a civic gateway in 1987, and an international panel of design experts selected architect Hani Rashid’s creation.

Civic planners praised the Steel Cloud as a link between the city’s historic roots on Olvera Street and its modern Civic Center. Architects and designers praised it as “romantic” and a “collage that reflects the pluralism of Los Angeles.”

The average citizen provided a few simpler similes, comparing the monument to a train wreck, a giant metal grasshopper and a post-earthquake skyscraper.

Walters said the city certainly has some better way to use the money than just letting it sit in a bank. But just how the city should spend the funds remains in doubt.

Only one contribution was ever received for the project, $100,000 from the Japanese-based Shuwa Corp. The firm’s president said at the time that the money should be used for a monument with an immigrant theme, according to a council aide who studied the matter.

The city attorney’s office is studying how much latitude the city has in spending the funds, which have grown, with interest, to $144,000. Then the Cultural Affairs Department will submit ideas, perhaps after issuing a formal request for proposals.

Adolfo Nodal, general manager of the department, noted that $144,000 does not go far these days as a commission. “Maybe we can have a bunch of artists stand at the airport and greet people,” he quipped in an interview. “That would be ultramodern performance art.”

On a more serious note, Nodal said the money is “nothing to sneeze at and could do something significant.”

“But you can’t do a Statue of Liberty,” he added. “It’s going to have to be a strong conceptual approach.”

Nodal’s staff has been tossing around a few ideas. Feeling that the Port of Los Angeles is a logical location for a civic gateway, someone suggested special lighting for the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

Another idea would expand a neon art project along Wilshire Boulevard.

But the brainstorming has only begun and Nodal said he welcomes suggestions.

Nick Patsaouras, who was chosen by Bradley to raise money for the Steel Cloud, said he never lost faith in the idea.

“It’s a good design. It’s forward-looking and futuristic. It’s Los Angeles,” said Patsaouras, who finished out of the money in last year’s mayor’s race.

But even Patsaouras, a civic dreamer who has served for years on the boards of local transportation agencies, conceded that the Steel Cloud’s time has passed.

“The realities of where the economy was going stopped fund raising,” Patsaouras said. “It would be unwise to solicit money when we had not resolved the homeless issue and other social problems.”

Walters and Patsaouras said that the pro-immigrant theme of the gateway should be preserved, particularly because of the growing public concern about the social and economic impact of immigration.

“We are a nation and a city of immigrants,” said Patsaouras, who was born in Greece. “We want to celebrate the contributions of these people.”