At 20, Conservancy Looks Both Backward and Forward

In the early morning atop Angelino Heights, the intricate shadows cast by the neighborhood’s Victorian gables and turrets might seem a world apart from the glaring bald head of the Hollywood Cinerama Dome a few miles away.

But the buildings share a common friend: the Los Angeles Conservancy.

As the nonprofit organization celebrates its 20th anniversary at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum today, it is hailing its impact in a city where architecture is as diverse as the people it serves.

From St. Vibiana’s Cathedral and the theaters on Broadway downtown to Bullock’s Wilshire and the McDonald’s drive-in in Downey, the conservancy has played a crucial role in preserving the area’s history. And, inevitably, in an ever-expanding region known for rootlessness and disregard for the past, the organization has infuriated some property owners who wish to remodel, stucco or demolish their homes and landmarks.

“We don’t always win a popularity contest with property owners,” Kenneth Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the group, said Saturday. “But what would Los Angeles have looked like if not for the conservancy?”

In 1978, the organization started as a group of activists meeting in living rooms to discuss the proposed demolition of the Central Library. The building was racked with code violations, and librarians were complaining of woefully inadequate space.

The group launched a campaign to save the then-52-year-old facility and drew up plans for renovation. As a result of its efforts, the city committed itself to restoring the building several years later and in 1993, after earthquakes and fires had delayed construction, the library was reopened, greatly expanded with a new wing, new lawns, courtyards and cafes.

The 6,000-member conservancy says it hopes to draw attention to these triumphs with its celebration today, which will include live music and food from historic Los Angeles kitchens like those of Pink’s Hotdogs and See’s Famous Old Time Candy (founded in 1921 by Mary See in Culver City), as well as tours of the inner parts of the stadium. More than 30 neighborhood preservation groups are expected to host booths at the noon-to-4 event.

“We want to educate the public about what’s going on to preserve our landmarks,” Bernstein said.

On a tour of the city Saturday, he pointed out some of the group’s biggest accomplishments and failures.

He began just above downtown on Carroll Avenue in Angelino Heights. Here many of the Victorian homes, dating back to the 1880s, have been restored as part of a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone established in 1983. The conservancy said it spearheaded the movement toward creating these zones, which require that a five-member neighborhood panel approve any alterations to the homes’ exteriors.

There are nine such zones, including one in Highland Park that comprises about 2,000 properties, Bernstein said. The zones demonstrate how the conservancy has had to maneuver in its efforts to preserve homes where few laws existed to protect them. Moreover, they reflect the group’s current goal of restoring entire neighborhoods in addition to individual buildings, he said.

The next stop was Main Street, where a bitter fight broke out with the Roman Catholic archdiocese over the proposed demolition of the 122-year-old St. Vibiana’s. After the conservancy filed two lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony chose another property for the planned new cathedral, and the church is now seeking to sell St. Vibiana’s, Bernstein said.

A few blocks over, he headed down Broadway between 3rd Street and Olympic Boulevard, a stretch he termed central to revitalizing downtown. Here, in this ailing canyon of old glitzy movie palaces and 1920s Art Deco behemoths, Bernstein envisions a resurgence like that seen on New York City’s 42nd Street or in San Diego’s Gaslamp District.

The conservancy is trying to lure major developers to Broadway, where many of the once-opulent theaters are closed. In an effort to spark interest in the district, the group gives tours of the Orpheum and Los Angeles theaters and says it has drawn more than 90,000 patrons to its film series, “The Last Remaining Seats.”

Bernstein moved on to the Arco Towers, a reminder of a great loss to history buffs. Here in 1968, the black granite Atlantic Richfield building from the 1920s was demolished.

Continuing west down Wilshire Boulevard past MacArthur Park, where L.A.’s commercial district expanded in the 1920s, Bernstein pointed out the brick Sheraton Townhouse. The conservancy successfully found a new owner who wanted to restore the old hotel, he said.

Then in an area called Wilshire Center, known for its massive department stores, he stopped at the Zigzag Moderne and copper-adorned former Bullock’s Wilshire. When Macy’s bought the department store chain in the early 1990s, the new owners removed many of the Wilshire landmark’s historic fixtures--including chandeliers, vases and antique furniture--and transferred them to other stores.

The conservancy organized a public campaign against Macy’s actions, with members distributing fliers at stores and urging shoppers to complain. The fixtures were soon returned. Now the building houses a library for the Southwestern University School of Law.

Farther down Wilshire sits the long-closed Ambassador Hotel. Bernstein said the conservancy helped postpone, if not kill, plans to raze the structure and replace it with a retail center. Nearby the group lost a battle to save the Spanish-style McKinley Building, while across the street, the organization managed to preserve the Art Deco Wiltern Theatre, said Bernstein.

The list of battles goes on and on. There was the loss of the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. But the conservancy did help save such landmarks as the original Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in Toluca Lake, the restored Angels Flight railway up Bunker Hill, the Coliseum, the Watts Towers sculptures, the Wilshire May Co. and Farmers Market.

Currently, the group is working to preserve the Cinerama Dome movie theater in Hollywood and pass a law that would prohibit the razing of historic buildings until the owner receives permits for new construction.