Showing School Pride

Racist architecture? Students ogling pedestrians from a balcony? A self-conscious parody of nearby MOCA? Is this a review of the beautiful new Colburn School for Performing Arts or the poison-pen ramblings of a jealous architect (“Just Off-Key,” by Nicolai Ouroussoff, Oct. 5).

I worked on Bunker Hill for more than 10 years, and I’ve toured the new Colburn School. It does more to bring life to Grand Avenue than any other structure. The school brings a large, culturally diverse student body to an area that heretofore has been relegated to bankers, consultants, lawyers, and accountants by day and the cultural elite by night.

Ouroussoff believes that the school and its neighbors, as part of the whole California Plaza scheme, “only sucked energy off the avenue into controlled, privatized courtyards and mini-parks.” I disagree. Apparently he is unaware that the elements of civic culture he identifies as “bookstores, restaurants, vendors” do not exist on Grand Avenue because there are not sufficient numbers of residents who can afford to support such businesses. He blames the city of Los Angeles for this problem by not having a “higher architectural standard.”

It is unlikely that the Colburn School, Disney Hall, MOCA or any other building can solve the long-standing problem of creating and retaining a non-transient downtown population that would be the foundation on which to build this civic culture Ouroussoff so desperately desires. Rather than offering constructive suggestions on how to revitalize Grand Avenue (or any other part of downtown), he uses derogatory and inappropriate adjectives to describe this beautiful gift Richard D. Colburn and his family have made to the neglected performing arts education of children of this city.

TODD E. BIANCO

West Hollywood