Where’s the Party?

As the clock ticks toward the turn of the 21st century, the world is gearing up for a big celebration.

France, Germany, Great Britain, Australia and other countries and cities across the globe are well into their millennial plans; they’re using 2000 as a deadline, or excuse, for a major civic renewal and display of national pride.

So what’s going on here? Not a whole lot, a few hundred phone calls reveal.

In late 1995, an editor friend in my native country, England, asked me to keep tabs on millennium planning in Los Angeles. A year later, I reported in: no news. As he regaled me with the eye-popping schemes underway in the old country, I decided I hadn’t been diligent enough. Surely this city of the future, over-the-top in everything it does, must have some secret plan in the works.

In December 1996, my first call is, naturally, to Mayor Richard Riordan’s office. Press aides sound bemused by the notion that the mayor should be spearheading a millennial program. They will pass on my request but recommend that I “talk to the folks in city government or Cultural Affairs.” After leaving a message for Al Nodal, general manager at the Department of Cultural Affairs, I call the Library Department, which tells me, “We’re trying to get by tomorrow.” They are starting their 125th anniversary and “haven’t thought of anything else.”

At the Department of Recreation and Parks, I call for the president of its Board of Commissioners, Steven Soboroff, but the staff suggests that I contact Griffith Observatory, which they think “might be doing something.” There I find a glimmer of millennial consciousness. The director, Dr. Ed Krupp, tells me they have no firm plans yet, but that the “Griffith Observatory is presently engaged in renewal, expansion and upgrade of the building and planetarium theater and will be opening in the millennium season.” In that way, he points out, “they are building for the next century” and celebrating the millennium in the sense of it “being a symbol of renewal,” rather than “the end of the world.”

If anyone should know anything, it would be the L.A. Convention Center and Visitors Bureau, wouldn’t it? A spokesperson there tells me, however, that she knows of nothing special yet, but “we do great events, we will do something.” On her recommendation, I leave a message for the director of Cultural Tourism. And I don’t hear back.

What about the City Council? I call the president, Councilman John Ferraro--after all, he was instrumental in making the ’84 Olympics happen. But his press secretary tells me, “You may be ahead of us; no one knows anything about any special activities planned so far.”

To Los Angeles County then, and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “Pathetic as this sounds,” says his representative. “I’m not aware of anything that the county might be celebrating.” He refers me to their “Office of Protocol,” where I duly leave a message. I get a call back from Al Nodal at Cultural Affairs, who tells me there’s nothing planned yet, but the folk arts division is starting up and, yes, there’s something in the air. “We’re in the planning stages now; we’ll be having a conference about it in April.”

From there to the city agencies, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Community Redevelopment Agency. John Molloy, administrator at the CRA, tells me that his agency has “talked about this a lot,” particularly as it’s having its 50th anniversary in 1998. Staff members are discussing the idea of making some of their ongoing projects the focus of celebration but are not yet sure how to frame it. The MTA simply says that “by the year 2000, we will have completed a major portion of the subway.”

I decide to focus on the smaller communities and try the Southern California Assn. of Governments, where a spokesperson reminds me huffily, “You’re early, the next century begins in 2001. People can’t count from one to 10.” He suggests that several cities--Pasadena, Redlands, Whittier and others--are currently more concerned with their own anniversaries of incorporation than with the millennium. Nonetheless, I contact some of the other cities--Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Inglewood, Pasadena, Long Beach--and come up with little, except assurances that they’ll keep me posted. The Pasadena Tournament of Roses is slightly more advanced. We have “plans to make some great plans,” declares Jack French, its cheery CEO. Even Johnny Grant, unofficial mayor of Hollywood, has nothing in the works, but he says he’s going to a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce. “I’ll pose the question and let you know.”

What about anything for children? At the L.A. Unified School District, representatives tell me there are no plans they’re aware of. “We have enough with our regular business; the millennium has not surfaced as any kind of an issue. Try the Office for the President of the Board.” Or for students? I get bumped from one department to another at UCLA and USC. The conclusion: no millennium plans at either. Nor at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

So what about the sports arenas? At the Great Western Forum, nothing. We’ve “gotta take it a year at a time,” drawls a staff person. It’s the same at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena. The Sports and Entertainment Commission tells me the Department of Cultural Tourism is “researching what other cities are doing,” and that together they will team up with the city and “probably put together a task force.”

Surely the cultural institutions must be leading the way, using the arts to commemorate or offer an inspired interpretation of such a historically significant date? But at the Ahmanson Theater there are “no specific plans.” At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, there is “nothing at the moment.” The Museum of Contemporary Art seems interested. It is currently co-sponsoring, with the L.A. Public Library, a program of readings titled “Racing Toward the Millennium” but beyond that has nothing particular in the pipeline, even though its ambitious “End of the Century” architecture exhibit will open in 1998.

The Getty already has enough on its plate with the 1997 opening of the new Getty Center and the slated completion in 2001 of the remodeled Getty Museum. At the Music Center, L.A. Philharmonic Managing Director Ernest Fleischmann hopes “there isn’t a great deal going on,” because, he grouches, “the whole thing is so phony.” And anyway, “they’ve got the date wrong.” He perks up at the prospect of a completed new concert hall, however. “In 2001, we’re going to open the Disney Concert Hall. Why don’t we go for the Jan. 1, 2001, deadline and be the only city who does?”

I look away from the mainstream. The venerable Museum of Jurassic Technology, explains a director, tends not only “to steer away from concerns that we feel are covered more than adequately elsewhere,” but “we’re more interested in 999 to 1000.”

Next stop, Hollywood. This is, after all, a company town. Surely it is the duty of the entertainment industry, as L.A.’s largest employer, producer of the world’s greatest spectacles, and the most influential and technologically advanced communications nexus on the planet, to show the world who’s tops at the start of the third millennium?

Fox makes the TV show “Millennium,” so I start there. After struggling through the wilderness that is the Fox voice mail system, I arrive at an oasis of intelligence in the person of a representative of the International Publicity Department. He tells me there was a huge bidding war for the TV show overseas. Aside from that, he doesn’t know of anything Fox might be planning, civic or cinematic. We discuss whether movies like Fox’s new “Volcano,” due out next month and showing all of Los Angeles being devastated by--yes, that’s right--a volcano, are expressive of a sense of pre-millennial tension.

Absolutely not, declares another Fox executive, the head of the Studio Publicity Department. “Volcano” is simply “a great story” and shows only “an increased interest in disaster films.” He adds, cheerfully, there is “nothing planned, no studio-wide event, nor films.” And concludes: “It was not even a topic until you brought it up.” Oh.

At Disney, a representative in the film division laughs: “You know, that’s four years away.” Well, no, not really. And the theme park division doesn’t think “we have anything set yet.” At Disney Development Corp., there’s hope. I am told there are no firm plans yet but that they will be celebrating, and whatever they do “will be in the inimitable Disney fashion.” A Warner Bros. staffer is dismissive: “You certainly like to plan in advance; how do I know what we’re doing in four years?”

At Universal Studios, a spokesperson is upbeat. Universal will be “looking at the millennium very closely.” The company recognizes it as an “exciting and wonderful opportunity to tie in all their businesses--the theme park and entertainment venues, CityWalk, films, music, television, home video and so on--with great opportunities for corporate sponsorship.” Paramount has nothing specific in the works.

If the corporate machinery isn’t in gear, what about that icon of self-made celebrity, Our Lady of the Los Angeles Billboard, Angelyne? Perhaps she will blitz the city with a millennium special. In fact, she conveys to me via an intermediary, Scott Hennig: “The wonderful 2000 year gods and the 2000 year fairies have scheduled a celebration for me, and I’ll find out then.” Can we come?

From Babylon to Bethlehem. I call the Crystal Cathedral. The ministry is “excited” about this article but can’t give an answer until the Rev. Robert H. Schuller returns. I’m still waiting. Later, a disciple of L. Ron Hubbard is quick to remind me that “we don’t place any spiritual significance on the end of the millennium,” but they do nonetheless have plans. “We look forward to the next century with certainty that the Church of Scientology will be the most important religion in the world. By the year 2000, there will be missions in every country.”

The only place in Los Angeles, it seems, where there is any millennium consciousness is, as might be expected, at the archdiocese, where they are brimming with excitement about the new cathedral. Father Gregory Coiro tells me the project is on track and due to be dedicated on Sept. 4, the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels, in 2000, Jubilee Year, and they plan to celebrate all year long. Kevin Starr--state librarian, chair of the Sesquicentennial Commission and a practicing Catholic--is eloquent on the significance of the new cathedral. He believes its dedication (it is rumored that the pope may attend) in what is an increasingly Roman Catholic city will be a major millennial event, “stimulating a discussion about values and a search for the transcendent.” As for citywide activities, however, Father Gregory “would have thought that the second-largest city in the United States and the center of entertainment would do something.” Quite.

To be sure, Los Angeles is not the only city taking a languid approach to the year 2000. Apart from splashy parties being planned for Dec. 31, 1999, the United States is woefully behind its global companions. In Washington, the Committee to Promote Washington is at the talking stage--”We’re talking about creating something we’ve never done before, a citywide celebration,” says a spokesperson.

A representative of the Illinois Bureau of Tourism is “embarrassed to admit” that traditionally civic-minded Chicago has not got anything special in the pipeline. In Miami, apart from an invitation to the world’s tall ships to sail into the bay in 2000, nothing city-sponsored is underway. Nor yet in Boston, Houston or San Diego. So far, New York City seems to be the most enthusiastic, with its plan to broadcast, on giant TV screens hanging in Times Square, 24 hours’ worth of live celebrations taking place in the different time zones around the world. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is not, as you would expect, focused on creating the Strip-long party to end all parties. It is more serious; “Livable Las Vegas,” says an earnest Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, is the goal. “Our celebration is about creating, by the year 2000, a world-class city beyond the neon.”

In California however, other cities are beginning to pull it together. San Francisco is looking forward to the completion of several civic projects--the San Francisco Giants Baseball Stadium, the War Memorial Opera House and the Asian Art Museum, among others. Though not specifically tied to the millennium, there was a “psychological push,” says the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, to finish them by the century’s end. Mayor Willie Brown’s office is confident that he’ll be entering his second term in 2000 and will make an occasion of it. But only Sacramento is preparing for a 33-month program of events, starting in January 1998, to celebrate the Sesquicentennial, 150 years of California statehood, that coincides with 2000.

So why the indifference down here? Why isn’t Los Angeles using the date as an excuse for festivities that could harness the city in a collective goal? Couldn’t Mayor Riordan make it a campaign platform--have the millennium do for him what the Olympics did for Tom Bradley? Make the completion of the Disney Concert Hall a milestone; get it built by the year 2000 and throw the opening party of the century. And clean up the neighborhoods and finish that new arena in time as well.

“If I have a hope for the year 2000,” says Steven Soboroff of Recreation and Parks, “it is to be able to walk from a matinee concert at the Disney Hall to the new cathedral, then to the arena to take in a game.” Soboroff has called, and he lists the ongoing civic improvements: the park system, the school district, the Alameda corridor, Playa Vista and so on.

Among those who care about cities, there is a general consensus that the millennium could serve, in the way world’s fairs have in past, as a stimulus for urban and cultural development.

Some argue, however, that Los Angeles, unlike older, in particular European, cities, has an ethnic, demographic and geographic diversity that militates against collective civic action. Add to that L.A.’s unique sense of time. “The millennium is too far in the future. Angelenos only care about the present,” points out a friend of the writer.

Given Angelenos’ inability to commit to an engagement as soon as next week, that is probably true. Cut off from the rest of the world by mountains and sea and from a sense of the passage of time by perpetual sun, we live on an island on the land where personal change--of partner, career, car, identity--is the only constant. Because Angelenos live with the ongoing threat of catastrophe, Los Angeles is the eternal city of hope--that something better will turn up. We don’t want to schedule to be at the opening of the concert hall or the arena because, hey, there might be a better party someplace else. Or who knows if we’ll even still be living here?

Other critics, including Kevin Starr and a Rand Organization representative, suggest that L.A.’s lack of focus is simply due to a current “malaise.” After all, the Olympics proved that Angelenos can come together and create something spectacular. “If ever there was a city with something to hoot about,” says architect Jon Jerde, design czar of the ’84 Olympics, “it is L.A. It should do something.” But, as Harry Usher, general manager of the 1984 Olympic Organizing Committee, points out, “there’s no specific way to celebrate the millennium, no formatted tradition such as the Olympics has.”

Others are less concerned. “L.A. is already a third millennium city and doesn’t need the artificial deadline to celebrate it,” says Jane Pisano, former president of the L.A. 2000 Committee, creators of a strategic plan for the city. “L.A.,” declares Angelyne intermediary Scott Hennig, “is too busy providing entertainment for the rest of the world” to worry about doing something special for 2000. And Nelson Rising, president and CEO of Catellus Development Corp., referring to city construction projects, affirms: “L.A. is doing so much already without a deadline.”

But several of the projects cited by Rising are mired in indecision, and there is nothing like a deadline to concentrate activity. This is not happening, however, and some suggest that a lack of civic vision is responsible. “The three years that remain in this millennium have special meaning for this city,” says city Asset Manager Dan Rosenfeld, “because they coincide closely with the terms of the mayor and council members who will be elected next spring. The year 2000 is an opportunity for our political leadership to attach a timetable to a vision, if only they could agree on one.”

Rick Cole, Southern California director of the Local Government Commission and a former mayor of Pasadena, has been touting the idea of an L.A.-based millennial world’s fair that would celebrate the different worlds within Los Angeles. “My feeling,” he says, “is that the millennium is an important opportunity to bring the city together. It hasn’t caught on because of the dismal state of civic leadership. L.A. has lost heart, lost cohesion, lost its vision.”

L.A. science fiction writer Ray Bradbury is more blunt: “The mayor has no power. The councilors are all boring people; they don’t know anything about cities and don’t care.”

It is easy, while living here, to underestimate the extraordinary influence of Los Angeles worldwide. As Rick Cole observes: “People look to L.A. as the utopic or dystopic paradigm for our future.”

I am pondering a utopic future when the telephone rings. It is the county’s deputy chief of protocol, Ginger Barnard. She tells me that Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke recently introduced a motion, adopted unanimously, charging the staff to investigate “how the county might lead the 88 cities and some 100 odd unincorporated areas in celebrating the millennium.”

The phone rings again. At last, the mayor’s office. Robin Kramer, chief of staff, has called to explain Mayor Riordan’s millennial vision. The focus this decade has been on “regrouping and focusing efforts on those projects and activities that keep the city competitive, entrepreneurial and quirky”--projects that consolidate the Southland for the future, such as the Alameda Corridor and the development of LAX as well as the L.A. Arena and Disney Concert Hall. But now, she reports, the mayor is “engaged in conversations with the creative community about how the city can celebrate itself and its people at the millennium in a way that is fun, spirited and quintessentially L.A.” He “hopes to be able to announce the launch of a community-based collaborative sometime in the new year.”

Watch this space.