A Place to Remember Young Victims of Crime

Adan Medina wants an abandoned, dilapidated house just west of downtown to stay that way for years.

The house at Temple Street and Beaudry Avenue is a metaphor for neglect that Medina believes can send a powerful message.

He, along with nine other continuation high school students, wants to turn the site into a monument to victims of youth violence.

If they can raise the funds and obtain required government approval, they will build a glass wall around the house, and engrave it with the names of young people who have lost their lives.

“Every time we go out into the city, we have to worry about what will happen to us,” said Jose Delgado, 18, another of the youths who have been working on the project since September.

The students, who all hail from downtown and South-Central L.A., met weekly at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where professional architects guided them in constructing a model of the proposed monument. Their efforts were sponsored by the HeArt Project, a nonprofit organization that develops art workshops for local continuation high schools.

The students hope to raise enough money and get the OK of the property owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to build the memorial.

The monument is their way of expressing what they have witnessed throughout their lives. The abandoned house is a metaphor for the neglect that they say is the seed of youth violence.

Visitors to the monument would read that people ages 12 to 15 have a 1-in-8 chance of being crime victims and that other teenagers are the most likely perpetrators.

For Halmar Chavez, 18, walking on the streets of his South-Central neighborhood requires a lot of looking over the shoulder. Chavez said that when he has children, he wants them to feel safer.

“I don’t want my kids worrying about dying,” he said. “We’re caught in the middle of violence in all our communities. So many young kids are getting killed.”

Last week, the students took the first step toward having the monument built. They used a rented van to transport their model--a table-length replica of the house and its surroundings--to City Hall so Councilman Mike Hernandez, who represents the area, could take a look at it.

No promises were made, but the students said they plan to proceed with their effort to get a cost estimate and raise the funds. A meeting with Mayor Richard Riordan is their next step, they said.

The abandoned house, the students say, is like the inner city: a broken-down, violent place that is peered at but neglected by many.

The interior would include several reminders of the effects of youth violence. A sound system in one room would broadcast the sound of police sirens and helicopters to give visitors a taste of what young people in inner city neighborhoods often hear.

Parents who have lost children to violence would be invited to set up memorials for their children in another room.

Outside the glass wall that would be erected around the house would be lush grass, serving as a contrasting suburban landscape.

The glass wall would symbolize the thin line separating inner city violence from the rest of Los Angeles.

Delgado, who has two young sisters he wants to protect, understands the vulnerability.

“I’ve had a couple of things happen in my life,” he said. “My family was hurt by gang violence. I had friends who were killed. We need to change. We need to help our communities.”