Slum Makes Way for Recreation Center

When bulldozers finished demolishing the three abandoned buildings near Yucca Street and Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood on Monday, only a 360-by-75-foot empty lot remained.

But there are big plans for that small space.

Where once stood boarded-up buildings used by young transients for shelter and partying, neighborhood residents envision a community center surrounded by recreation space. The planned park stems from a query almost two years ago by Los Angeles Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg’s office about the neighborhood’s needs.

The Yucca Corridor area, plagued by drive-through drug dealing, poverty and gangs, needed a safe and constructive place for its teenagers, residents said. During meetings, they complained that there were few alternatives to gangs and the big money being offered by drug dealers to jobless teenagers.

“There is no place for the kids to do sports, and that is what we will have,” said Selene Havlicek, 48, a leader of the Yucca Residents Assn.

City officials bought the three buildings, deemed uninhabitable after the Northridge quake, for $600,000, said Conrado Terrazas, a community organizer with Goldberg’s office. An additional $750,000 is earmarked for landscaping, a basketball court, a small soccer field, a handball court and a playground. In 1998, $1 million will become available to build the center.

Not willing to wait for the park’s creation, Havlicek’s association is offering its own version of a community center. At one of Goldberg’s field offices, residents offer everything from English and citizenship classes to after-school tutorials and karate classes.