Has L.A. Forgotten the Party?

“Los Angeles is the Entertainment Capital of the World. Home of our nation’s most creative talent, images to be re-created throughout the globe originate here. These same artisans will apply their talents to the 2000 Democratic National Convention. The very studios that have charmed the world with motion pictures and television programs, creating an economic giant in Los Angeles, will ensure that the images of the convention are immortalized.”

From the official proposal to host the DNC 2000,

submitted April 17, 1998

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Image. It’s supposed to be everything in L.A.

But when the Democratic National Convention convenes here Aug. 14, delegates and the world media may well think we forgot they were coming.

City and county government plazas are littered with broken monuments, broken fountains, broken walls and broken lights. Trash is piled up in corners and torn flags hang limply from some government buildings.

Only a few blocks from the downtown hotels booked for delegates and media are boarded-up buildings, empty lots surrounded by razor wire and highway murals tagged as high as the arm can reach. City money that had been pledged for tree lights, plantings and benches isn’t going to be released.

Even the city’s most recognizable symbol, City Hall, won’t shed its blue plywood walls and scaffolding in time, a captive of long delays and cost overruns in a $299-million earthquake retrofitting and modernization project.

And, finally, scores of ragged men and women with no other recourse roam downtown, sleeping in parks and doorways at night. The panhandlers among them beg for money during the day, sometimes intimidating passersby.

The situation is in sharp contrast to the ambitious promises in the city’s convention bid and the enormous prize at stake. The convention, only the second ever held in the nation’s second-largest city, is expected to generate at least $150 million in revenues. And if the convention buzz is favorable, tourism and business officials say it could produce billions more in coming years.

But more than just money, the convention is about image. The eyes of the nation and much of the world will be on Los Angeles as some 5,000 delegates and 15,000 members of the media converge to see Al Gore anointed as the party’s standard-bearer. The last time the city commanded this much attention was 1992, when rioters were burning it down, and in 1994, when the Northridge earthquake devastated large sections of the region.

“It’s vital that the city put its best face forward,” said Michael Dear, director of USC’s Southern California Studies Center, which tracks regional and sociological changes in the area. “It’s always been a struggle for people to take Los Angeles seriously.”

With fewer than 100 days to go, there’s reason to question whether the city that lobbied so strenuously for the convention will rouse itself enough to make a good impression. After all, recent events inspire little confidence. Rain and cool temperatures emptied most of the city’s New Year’s Eve events, and then Mayor Richard Riordan and comedian Jay Leno lit the Hollywood sign, a millennium nonevent that quickly became a civic embarrassment compared with the spectacles of Paris, London and New York.

“It was a huge disappointment. We were the subject of jokes across the country,” said City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose call in January for an audit of the $1.3-million event may finally be answered at the end of May. “[The event] certainly didn’t bode well for the next major event that will put us in the international spotlight, the Democratic National Convention.”

Officials with LA Convention 2000, the local host committee, say permanent improvements such as the $112-million face lift at LAX and the $15-million cleanup at the Venice boardwalk, neither of which may be completed by convention time, are receiving full attention. Temporary fixes, like planting flowers, aren’t a priority.

“In the past, hosts have taken hits for spiffing up and making their city some wonderland that isn’t real,” said Ben Austin, communications director for the host committee. “We didn’t want to create a city that wouldn’t exist a week after the convention left town.”

And while the city’s convention bid seems to promise some Hollywood glitter, organizers say there are no firm plans yet, although talks with the studios and other industry entities are continuing.

For its part, the city has no specific budget for beautification projects for the convention, according to Riordan’s office. Its main task is to provide security and to ensure conventioneers can travel easily between Staples Center and their hotels, says the mayor’s office. The city promises that the roadwork, which has disrupted downtown traffic for months, will be finished.

“Our secondary consideration will be things like tree lights, which are intended to promote a festive image,” said Peter Hidalgo, a Riordan spokesman.

It may be hard to imagine that a city whose convention pitch included an angel descending from the ceiling would not be more concerned about the details. But until recently the host committee, which is in partnership with the city and the Democratic Party to stage the convention, was behind schedule in raising the $35.3 million it is contractually obligated to provide. (The city is responsible for $7 million.) But by mid-May some concentrated pressure by Riordan had pushed pledges to $30.6 million, putting the committee ahead of the last Democratic convention city, Chicago, at this point in the planning.

“We’re confident it’s going to be a great convention,” Austin added.

Some downtown merchants aren’t so sure. Many are members of Business Improvement Districts and will not openly criticize the city or Riordan because the districts depend on the city to collect taxes and to help revitalize blighted areas.

Still, many businesspeople who belong to the five downtown districts expressed disappointment in the city’s lack of effort.

“We go to conferences in other cities and from the time you get off the plane to the destination site, it’s just gorgeous,” said a district member, who refused to be identified. “We are going to have 15,000 members of the media here, and we aren’t prepared.”

Meanwhile, Philadelphia has launched an ambitious program to beautify itself as the host city of the Republican National Convention in July. Among its many projects are widening streets, hanging flags and banners citywide, installing new lighting, laying down fresh paint and landscaping.

Part of Los Angeles’ blase attitude may well stem from its history. It’s rarely been difficult to attract folks to Southern California’s beaches, terrific weather, tourist attractions and, recently, booming economy.

“Every time we have a sunny day during the Rose Bowl, it translates into more jobs and prosperity,” Dear said.

Staples Center

Delegates will spend most of their time at Staples Center, the site of the convention itself.

Less than a year old, Staples Center still shines. And its immediate environs on South Figueroa Street look clean enough, but that’s mostly because the center is surrounded by parking lots.

Still, if conventioneers wander a few blocks, they’ll experience another side of Los Angeles. On Hope Street near 11th and 12th streets are several vacant new storefronts waiting for the rising tide of Staples Center prosperity to lift their fortunes. But across the street from the hopefuls are old storefronts, many boarded up, vacant or completely caged with black bars.

As if to highlight the need for further revival of the Staples area, its owners recently unveiled a $1-billion development proposal for 30 acres of parking, a 40-story convention hotel as well as shopping, dining and a theater area. No specific construction date has been set.

Street People

Los Angeles has no formal plans to relocate the downtown homeless during the convention, according to convention officials. Same law enforcement as always, they say.

“It’s important that when we, as a city, step into the national spotlight that we don’t gloss over problems in our community,” Austin said. “Our job is to tell the whole story of Los Angeles to the nation and the world. And we’re confident when the whole story is told that it will be a positive one.”

Activists are planning an L.A. National Homeless Convention to coincide with the Democrats’ gathering in an effort to highlight the divide between the nation’s rich and poor. They hope to draw thousands to Dome Village, near the Harbor Freeway and 9th Street.

But, if homeless advocates are to be believed, the homeless have a habit of disappearing during the festivities. In 1996, advocates in both San Diego and Chicago complained that their cities pushed the homeless far away from the public eye.

“They want to make us invisible,” John Donahue of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless told The Times in 1996. “It’s the same thing they do every time they want to impress outside visitors.”

Panhandlers present a different problem.

Kirkland Rice, a technology advisor from AT&T; in town to help set up the convention’s information systems, has learned that venturing just a couple of blocks from his downtown hotel--even in daylight--has its risks.

“The panhandlers are very aggressive,” said Rice, a resident of Raleigh, N.C. “They actually push you and demand money.”

A 3-year-old city anti-solitication ordinance, which bans panhandling as well as begging near ATMs, outside dining areas and in and around public transportation, has been bogged down in the courts and has never been enforced.

For their part though, several downtown business associations hope to discourage panhandlers by putting extra staff on the streets during the convention.

When conventioneers venture outside their downtown hotels, some of the sights they’ll see nearby are:

Triforium

Main Street-Temple Street, above the Los Angeles Mall

The enthusiasm for this $1-million taxpayer-funded sculpture ran high when it was unveiled more than 20 years ago. The 60-foot monument was meant to be a metaphor for democracy, its three sides symbolizing the branches of government and its three-part bridge allowing visitors to walk over its reflecting pool, touch it, participate in it. Music, either recorded or played on an organ-like keyboard, was processed by a computer and triggered rows of colored lights atop of the sculpture.

“If it works right,” creator Joseph Young told The Times in 1996, “it sings.”

It doesn’t sing now, and it hasn’t in years. In 1997, a Times story that detailed some eyesores in the downtown area called on Riordan to restore the structure--and the mayor’s deputies called within days to say it would be done.

“I personally believe that these monuments and public buildings and statues are important because they are a way that people are able to touch their government,” a deputy told The Times in 1997.

But nothing was done and now, as in 1997, the sculpture is covered in pigeon droppings. Its beams are rusted, its reflecting pool is cracked and missing tiles, its speakers are silent and its 1,500 light prisms are largely dark.

One morning late last week the mayor’s office said there were no plans to rehabilitate the sculpture. Then, that same day, the mayor’s office promised to fix its fountains and speakers--but not its lights--before the convention.

Frank Putnam Flint Memorial

City Hall lawn facing 1st Street

The mayor, through his deputies, also promised in 1997 to repair a severely neglected monument to Frank Putnam Flint that stands less than 20 yards from the steps of City Hall. Flint, perhaps best known as developer of the community of Flintridge, made his name around the turn of the 20th century as a lawyer, district attorney, U.S. senator and the force behind bringing water to the city.

Nothing was done. Today, the Flint monument, an 18-foot-high curved slab with a fountain and an upper and lower water basin, still is in disrepair. Two bronze bas-relief busts of Flint still are missing, its white marble is chipped and scarred with graffiti.

The fountain isn’t working. Its lower basin is dry but filled with trash; the upper basin still holds a pool of filthy water and more trash. It reeks of urine.

According to the mayor’s office, the monument will be restored but not until City Hall’s reopening, now scheduled for mid- to late 2001. Until then, a spokesman said, the plywood walls surrounding City Hall will be extended to hide the monument before the convention begins.

Court of Historic American Flags

Between county and City Hall complexes on Hill Street

The courtyard was created in 1971 to honor flags throughout American history, beginning with the Revolutionary War era. Today, the 19 flags are a bunch of rags straining to flap in the breeze.

A plaque declares: “Woven into the fabric of these proud colors are the wisdom of our founding fathers, the indomitable courage of our nation’s defenders, and the strength and integrity of a staunch people who have cherished freedom beyond life itself. Let us, then, amidst these historic banners, reaffirm our faith in our nation and allegiance to our flag.”

Among the flags in the worst condition is the Bennington Flag, also know as the “Spirit of ’76.” Its fading plaque identifies the design as the “oldest stars and stripes in existence.” But from the appearance of the flag on display, it actually could be mistaken as the nation’s oldest banner.

The courtyard is in desperate need of a good sweeping. Winds have kindly started the job, blowing litter and debris into corners. Almost all the 40 lightbulb covers are broken, discolored or covered in pigeon droppings, so nighttime illumination is weak at best.

County of Los Angeles Archives

222 N. Hill St. (adjacent to flag courtyard)

An archive customarily houses documents, but our county facility stores boxes of papers and trash outside.

The severely rusted doors to the elevator that takes visitors into the building match the rusty beams overhead, while the dirty, cracked plexiglass roof around the elevator shaft continues the motif of neglect.

Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration

500 W. Temple St.

Affixed to the building are larger-than-life-size statues of Thomas Jefferson and Moses. Jefferson looks well enough. Fairly shiny and golden.

Moses, however, does not. The biblical lawgiver’s toes are chipped, his color faded and his sign is barely readable.

In the adjacent courtyard, monuments to Christopher Columbus and George Washington are also in need of refurbishing. In more than a few places, their placards are stained, discolored, faded or missing. Beneath Washington’s feet rests a severed round floodlight.

Bus Stops

Conventioneers will have a shuttle but many will be staying within walking distance of four bus stops recently called the most crime-plagued in Los Angeles. Most of the offenses involved pickpocketing, purse snatching, foul language, drunkenness and obscene gestures.

“Trash, graffiti and general lack of upkeep in the immediate bus stop environment give the message to potential criminals that ‘nobody really cares,’ that nobody will report their crime,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor at the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research, who released a study of bus service-related crimes earlier this month. The study is based on 5-year-old crime data and a 2-year-old survey of bus riders. But many of the conditions, including graffiti and trash, exist today.

The stops are Spring and 4th streets, Broadway and 7th Street, Spring and 7th streets and Broadway and 5th Street.

Downtown

Downtown has come a long way in recent years, as a walk around Bunker Hill will attest. But many of downtown roads and intersections are a snarl of excavated pits, construction vehicles and orange traffic cones.

In the works for years, the massive project primarily was designed to lay an optic fiber network and only secondarily for road improvement. The enterprise, supervised by the city and involving more than 20 private companies, is so large that city officials say they aren’t sure what the total cost is.

Downtown motorists who now sometimes spend 45 minutes trying to go two blocks can scarcely imagine the backups if an additional 20,000 people are thrown into the mix.

“We’ll be done by the end of July with a few weeks to spare,” said Frank Martinez of the mayor’s office. “That’s our plan.”

But then so was spending about $300,000 in city money on tree lights, flowers and benches to improve the downtown area before the convention. But neither the city nor the convention host committee has produced any money and officials recently asked downtown merchants to foot the bill, which they say they cannot do.

“Downtown needs some type of beautification of its street scapes,” said a business district member, who also refused to be identified. “The problem is, it needs to be done last week.”

Philadelphia, L.A. Statistics

Los Angeles

Population: 3.45 million

Population density: 7,666 per square mile

County: Los Angeles

Area: 466 square miles

Climate: Average temperature in January, 55 degrees; July, 73

Founded: 1781 as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora a la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, which means “The City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula.”

Incorporated as a city: 1850

Nickname: The City of Angels

Web site: https://www.ci.la.ca.us

Philadelphia

Population: 1.5 million

Population density: 10,631 per square mile

County: Philadelphia

Area: 144 square miles

Climate: Average temperature in January, 35 degrees; July, 76

Founded: Settled by Swedes in 1638; named Philadelphia in 1682

Incorporated as a city: 1701

Nickname: The City of Brotherly Love

Web site: https://www.phila.gov

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National Political Conventions (Since the 1856 founding of the Republican Party)

Los Angeles

1960

Democratic National Convention

Nominee: John F. Kennedy Jr. (defeated then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon to become 35th president; assassinated 1963.)

Philadelphia

1856

Republican

John C. Fremont (defeated by James Buchanan, 15th president)

1872

Republican

Ulysses S. Grant (defeated Horace Greeley to serve a second term, 18th president)

1900

Republican

William McKinley (defeated William Jennings Bryan to serve a second term, 25th president; assassinated 1901)

1936

Democratic

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (defeated Alfred M. Landon to serve the first of four terms, 32nd president)

1940

Republican

Wendell L. Wilkie (defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt to serve the second of his four terms)

1948 (June 21)

Republican

Thomas E. Dewey (defeated by Harry S. Truman, 33rd president)

1948 (July 12)

Democratic

Harry S. Truman (see above)

L.A.’s Deferred Maintenance

A tour of downtown L.A., where 5,000 delegates and 15,000 members of the media are expected to converge in August for the 2000 Democratic National Convention, includes a number of unsightly public areas and damaged structures.

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Martin Miller can be reached at martin.miller@latimes.com.