Community Dream for Arts District Takes Root

When Nace Treves opened a dress shop on the corner of Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards in 1951, the streets were bustling with customers.

“We did fantastic business,” recalled Treves, 72. “It was the best area in the Valley. Friday nights, the place was jampacked. People came from all over--Burbank, Glendale, Studio City.”

Much changed in the next 40 years. Treves bought the building, but the neighborhood began to go to seed. The store next to Treves’ building was knocked down, and homeless people slept in the trash-strewn vacant lot, chasing away customers.

So on Friday, Treves’ eyes were shining with joy while watching workers begin to transform the lot into an arts park, as Mayor Richard Riordan toured the neighborhood with Assistant U.S. Secretary of Transportation Gordon Linton.

“People created more [commercial] centers in different areas, and the owners here did not progress,” Treves said of North Hollywood’s decline. “Now, I hope we will progress.”

For years, North Hollywood residents and merchants have struggled to create an arts district, and one of their tools is the area’s designation as a Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative neighborhood. This allows residents to spend city and federal money with technical guidance from local agencies to revive their neighborhoods.

The federal transit authority gave the LANI program $2.3 million last year to use in its eight projects, and Linton was in North Hollywood to see the projects supported by his agency’s dollars.

“With a major arts district, we’re giving new life to this great city,” Linton said as he and Riordan stood before the vacant lot--now being converted into the arts park, complete with bandstand and vending kiosk.

Linton said the federal transit authority was involved in the LANI projects because transportation is an essential part of neighborhood revitalization. “It’s key if you’re going to make neighborhoods livable,” he said. “It allows [residents] access to community centers, health-care centers, day-care centers.”

The two officials, followed by television cameras, aides and merchants, took a quick stroll up Lankershim Boulevard to inspect the area, stopping in Eagles Coffee Pub, where Riordan asked the owner if his food was as good as the chow at The Pantry--the vintage downtown eatery the mayor owns.

The visit by the mayor and the secretary “acknowledges that what our vision is is actually happening,” said Brian Sheehan, the owner of the Eclectic Cafe, who has fought for the North Hollywood arts district for four years. “It makes it more legitimate.”