Light at the End of the Blight
Water will gush and gurgle from Frank Flint’s refurbished fountain in a week or three.
So says Mayor Richard Riordan, through his deputies.
The Triforium has been inspected, tuned and tested, and is ready to speak musical pieces. City Hall memorials are poised for cleaning and polishing, with one to be moved to a holier and more protected location. A mini-park has been graded and will replace an eyesore of a lot on 1st Street that for two years has held nothing but weeds and the waste of the homeless.
So promises the city.
It is not, say officials, all that can and will be done to clean and reclaim the core of old downtown.
But it’s a firm start, they say, and in direct response to “On the Blight Side,” a recent Life & Style essay detailing the decay and disrepair of City Hall and immediate surrounds.
As was reported in the Aug. 4 article, the hub of Old Town Los Angeles bounded by Broadway and Main, 1st and 3rd streets, has descended to a litter of busted yesterdays, defiled monuments and once enjoyable things that inexcusably, inexplicably have stayed filthy and broken for years. Riordan read the story before breakfast.
He discussed the issue with a deputy, Stephanie Bradfield, and special assistant Tom LaBonge. In turn, they began calling the city’s departments including fire, police, general services and parks and recreation.
What moved Riordan, says Bradfield, was that story “did not just say that the problem existed, but said who should be fixing it. That’s exactly how the mayor thinks. Organize your neighborhood, find the responsible parties, let communities make things happen instead of relying on City Hall to fix everything.
“I personally believe that these monuments and public buildings and statues are important, because they are a way that people are able to touch their government,” Bradfield says.
In this instance, the people were quick to get in touch.
Cindy Hilson, den mother of a Cub Scout pack from St. James Church in the Mid-Wilshire district, telephoned Bradfield and volunteered her boys to scrub, wash or pick up whatever they can reach. Gregory Fisher of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University, offered his time and talents because “I can do some plumbing, I can clean marble, I can bring some friends.”
A retired judge, a local history zealot, a chauffeur, a conservationist, a professor and several lawyers wrote letters of support. So did Mayor Joan Feehan of La Canada Flintridge. She said if Los Angeles isn’t maintaining its memorial to the late Sen. Frank Putnam Flint, developer and founder of Flintridge, his namesake town would be happy to take the fountain.
“We may be small,” she scolded, “but we do remember those who played a large part of our community’s history.” Frank Flint’s fountain on the L.A. City Hall lawn was first on the city’s fix-it list.
Dan Rosenfeld, assistant general manager, Department of General Services, says the broken marble will be repaired, a new pump has been purchased, and in the week after Labor Day, water will cascade from the memorial for the first time in 30 years. There also are plans to recast the bas-relief busts of Flint that were on the fountain before they were stolen for the value of their bronze.
Other works in progress, or on the agenda:
* City memorials to fallen firefighters and police officers: Los Angeles Fireman’s Relief Assn. has offered to wash and polish its marker adjacent to City Hall and arrange eventual relocation to historic Fire Station No. 27 on Cahuenga Boulevard, south of Sunset Boulevard. And Hilson’s Cub Scouts will be washing the police memorial outside Parker Center.
* Triforium: It works, it will be cleaned, funds are being identified to fix leaks in its reflecting pool, and CD concerts are visualized. Christmas carols. Pops and classics. Maybe, if LaBonge has his way, there will an Elvis Presley birthday tribute next year.
The city also is canvassing university music or broadcasting departments, even radio stations, for a disc jockey to oversee Triforium programs.
* 1st Street park: Although in the restoration pipeline before The Times story appeared, work that commenced two weeks ago on a fenced lot between Broadway and Spring Street is considered the official overture to righting the blight. Five Star Parking, which leases part of the state-county-city-owned site, is paying $250,000 to landscape and install benches in the area. A cafe, bistro or coffee shop is being sought.
* Civic Mall: Between City Halls East and West, emptied planters that had been leaking irrigation water into offices and businesses below are being relined and repacked. All fountains in this and other areas will be restored to full spouting condition. And obsolete escalators--dead for three years--are being ripped out; stairs have been ordered, will be installed next month, and once more will link street level to the mall beneath City Hall.
City officials blame no one but city officials for the decrepit state of Old Downtown. Budget restrictions. Misplaced priorities. And, they admit, plain old-fashioned bureaucratic laziness and disregard for community tidiness and repair.
Now, LaBonge says, once first aid is finished, an agency, organization or individual must be found to make sure that decay and seediness are kept at bay.
“If these things were important enough to be put up in the first place,” he adds, “they must be considered important enough to be kept up.”
