Downtown Club Gives Annual Prizes, Rebukes

The Downtown Breakfast Club ridiculed two government parking garages as ugly and wasteful, but praised the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo last week at the group’s 19th annual Roses and Lemons Awards breakfast.

The group also presented its first Distinguished Service Rose to Eli Broad, founder of Kaufman & Broad and SunAmerica Inc., for “remarkable leadership in the arts, education and civic affairs.” Specifically, it cited Broad for his role in founding the Museum of Contemporary Art and in fund-raising efforts for the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The Breakfast Club’s Lemon awards chided two Los Angeles city and county parking garages downtown as “blights,” saying the structures have outlived their usefulness and now constitute taxpayer-subsidized parking for government employees.

The Japanese American museum drew praise for its renovation, designed by Gyo Obata.

Other Rose winners included the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety for streamlining its building permit process, 20th Century Fox for an outreach program to build student-family-teacher partnerships in elementary schools, and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team for its “Downtown on Ice” event in Pershing Square.