What’s the Rush to Raze St. Vibiana’s?

The battle over the fate of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral hearkens back to the war over the Central Library. In August, 1973, the Los Angeles Fire Department cited the downtown library for 26 fire and safety violations. The city entertained numerous proposals for the library’s relocation and demolition of the old building to permit construction of office development. The Los Angeles Conservancy was formed to save that building, and it did. Today, no one would disagree that the Central Library is the crown jewel of downtown Los Angeles.

Now the conservancy is trying desperately to keep the archdiocese’s new cathedral downtown, and to save St. Vibiana’s from the wrecking ball until all options are explored.

Why can’t parts of the old be blended with the new? If St. Vibiana’s is torn down tomorrow, there is no preservation option. At a minimum, the cathedral shouldn’t be demolished until we are certain that its replacement will be built downtown and the public decision makers have had a chance to weigh the benefits of a new cathedral complex against the irreparable loss of the old building. It would be a tremendous loss to the city if the spiritual and physical center of the archdiocese were to leave the historic core.

Cardinal Roger Mahony has said that he is so frustrated by delays perpetrated by preservationists and other villains, he’s forced to look at other sites. Maybe outside the city altogether. Yet the archdiocese hasn’t even selected an architect, let alone drawn up plans and applied for building permits--or demolition permits, for that matter.

Last Friday, the structural engineer employed by the archdiocese sent a letter to the Department of Building and Safety stating that the puny 3.6 quake on May 23--the one so small, it has no name--caused such massive damage that the entire cathedral presented an imminent hazard to life and limb. By the end of the day, the city had issued an abatement order. Demolition began promptly, and permit-lessly, the next morning. By Monday, the conservancy had obtained a temporary restraining order to halt the illegal demolition, and the cardinal was holding a press conference, railing against obstructionists and threatening to take the archdiocesan seat elsewhere if the downtown site could not be cleared immediately.

To cut through the rhetoric, let’s look at the facts.

* In September 1995, the same structural engineer recommended that the cathedral’s bell tower, which had been weakened in the Northridge earthquake, be shored or strengthened. It wasn’t.

* The archdiocese had promised to wait until it selected the new cathedral’s architect before making a final decision about whether to save or incorporate all or part of the historic church into the new complex. It hasn’t.

* In response to the city abatement order, which the archdiocese claims came as a total surprise, somehow, between 5 p.m. Friday, when the order was issued, and 9 a.m. Saturday, three large cranes, a wrecking ball and crews of workmen had been assembled to begin demolition.

* Represented by some of the best legal talent in town, the archdiocese was shocked--shocked!--to learn that you need a demolition permit to demolish a building.

* Two days after the wrecking ball was brought in, the the archdiocese’s attorney acknowledged that the cardinal himself was still living in the complex. Presumably he’s not sleeping well in his hard hat.

The archdiocese is more than reasonable in its desire to design and control its own cathedral. But there’s certainly no legal or ethical excuse for midnight wrecking parties.

The conservancy’s only concern is that all options be explored before the wrecking ball makes an irreversible decision. What if St. Vibiana’s is torn down and the archdiocese’s new cathedral is built somewhere else anyway? It is not unprecedented. In 1982, the First United Methodist Church, a splendid construction of Tiffany mosaics, stained glass, wood paneling and terra cotta at 8th and Hope streets, was torn down at the request of a corporate citizen that insisted it would be forced to leave downtown unless it expanded onto the church site. The church was demolished. The corporate citizen moved to Bunker Hill. And downtown Los Angeles was graced with another parking lot.

Remember the library’s close call. Today, it is a major attraction, along with Angels Flight, the Bradbury Building, Union Station, the Biltmore and other places unique to our city’s history.

St. Vibiana’s isn’t just any church. The cathedral was completed in January 1876, when Los Angeles was a town of only 9,000 people. The design, by the city’s first career architect, Ezra Kysor, is a rare example of Spanish baroque. It is one of the handful of 19th century buildings still standing in Los Angeles that remind us how far we have come from that sleepy pueblo 120 years ago.

Surely this is worth a little more time. Don’t demolish yet. Take off the hard hats and give preservation a chance.