Culver City Culture

Susan Spano’s “Small Town in the Big City” (Weekend Escape, Nov. 28) was a long overdue, much deserved paean to my favorite of this county’s cities--Culver City, where I was mayor pro tem from 1970 to 1974. While its boundaries are irregular (to exclude precincts that had voted against incorporation, opting for the Big City), there is nothing irregular about its chief asset: location, location, location.

Culver City began taking the high road to a better community three decades ago. How? Via citywide downsizing (to preserve its single-family character), environmental standards and use of the state’s then-new redevelopment laws, creating a regional shopping center (to subsidize single-family neighborhoods). This renaissance continues apace--witness our distinctive new city hall.

Too bad the highly readable Spano, having breakfasted at Roll ‘n’ Rye, below Culver Crest, missed that neighborhood’s fine homes and their splendid views of such sights as Playa del Rey, Marina del Rey, Century City and the Pacific.

JOHN CARL BROGDON

Culver City

*

It was wonderful to read Susan Spano’s article. However, she did miss two of Culver City’s most interesting and unique attractions.

One is the Museum of Jurassic Technology, 9341 Venice Blvd., telephone (310) 836-6131. This museum, open Thursdays through Sundays, is almost impossible to describe briefly, except to say that people come from all over the world to experience it.

The second attraction is an apartment complex at 3819-25 Dunn St., just off Venice Boulevard. Built in the ‘20s, it is a fairy-tale mixture of Tudor cottages and jungle-like pools surrounded by modern hospital buildings and parking lots.

RICHARD HARRIS

Pasadena