Can New Pershing Square Prevail?

In his article on Pershing Square (“Bold New Look, Same Old Hope,” (Feb. 13), Leon Whiteson asks, “Can an act of architecture change a city’s ingrained social habits?”

This new-era urban-designed square will certainly change our ingrained social habits. You see, no public restrooms are provided. Whiteson’s article mentions that the architect’s post-modern “Latinismo” style seems “tense.” Perhaps this is what he meant.

JOHN DONALIES

Long Beach

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In his review, Whiteson should not have been so quick to blame the possible failure of the new park on the Anglo business community’s (presumed) reluctance to mingle with the Latino population.

A more likely cause would be the forbidding ugliness of the new space. Even Whiteson admits that the “hardscaped,” shadeless park looks “desolate.” To blame the park’s possible failure on supposed white separatism seems plainly absurd in this instance.

RUSSELL FRAZIER

Glendale

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I went to Pershing Square last Sunday morning at 11 o’clock, parked my car downstairs and took the escalator up to experience “a common ground where citizens of all classes and ethnicity can mingle freely.” I wasn’t there two minutes before someone offered to sell me some drugs, and I didn’t see any police or park rangers around until 2 p.m. A park cannot be judged by how much money was spent to revive it, it is judged by the humanity of the people who go there.

DAVID SWOFFORD

Studio City