L.A. in Future Perfect Tense

The eagerness of some of our citizens to divide Los Angeles into four cities shouldn’t come as a surprise in a place with so little regard for its past.

The rich history of Los Angeles, from Indian days to today, is never invoked in the debate over creating an independent Hollywood and the as-yet-unnamed San Fernando Valley and harbor cities. Instead, there are tedious arguments over how to split the cost of waterworks, streets and other services.

That’s because a fresh start, a clean slate, are the real symbols of L.A. From the poorest immigrant to the newest and flashiest entrepreneur, people check their pasts at the border.

No Eiffel Tower for us, no grand boulevards, no cable cars all the way to the stars.

Where I was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, history is cherished and great families trace their ancestry back to the Gold Rush. So I have always wondered about the civic amnesia of Angelenos.

It seems to extend everywhere. Store clerks never remember us, no matter how long we shop there. Or the store and its building might vanish between visits.

Once, new to L.A., I wrote a story about a San Fernando Valley car dealer and, in great detail, portrayed him as a secret political power. Not long after, I ran into a reigning political titan and Ronald Reagan friend, Henry Salvatori, and his wife, Grace.

“You defamed one of the finest men I know,” Salvatori roared. “Don’t be so hard on him, dear,” Mrs. Salvatori said. “The young man hasn’t been here long.”

Puzzled, I thought to myself, “Nobody else has, either.” The Salvatoris were old-timers by Los Angeles standards: He had moved here less than 40 years before to start an oil exploration business and his wife, a Tulsa ballet teacher, came a few years later.

People rise from nowhere, became famous, then infamous and then forgotten, all very quickly.

A colleague and I attended an elegant political fund-raising dinner at a Beverly Hills home a few years ago. As we sat in the tent in the vast backyard, sampling the delicious dinner, we marveled at the rise of the host, unknown until he made a lot of money and passed it out to politicians. Not long afterward, he lost the money and his prominence. Recently, we tried to remember his name. Neither of us could.

In a society such as this, family and distinguished old school ties are not as important as money. Gary Winnick grew up in Long Island and graduated from the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University. He came to California in the 1970s and prospered, especially after he founded Global Crossing, which aimed to link the world with a broadband communications network.

In a mere two decades, Winnick was a multibillionaire with a lavish Bel-Air estate. And Winnick--as he put it, “a true Long Island boy, born and bred and very proud of it”--became a power in his new hometown and the nation. Politicians fawned over a man whose firm gave millions to candidates and political parties. Then Global Crossing went bankrupt.

But don’t write off Winnick. The city of new beginnings is also the city of second chances.

I was reminded of that a couple of years ago when I was on a program sponsored by the Milken Institute, founded by Michael Milken. He became rich by figuring out a way to use junk bonds--highly speculative securities--to create profitable investment portfolios and to finance risky start-ups. In 1989, the federal government charged him with securities violations, including insider trading. After pleading guilty, he served 22 months in prison and paid $1.1 billion in fines and settlements, including $500 million to settle lawsuits by private parties.

I sat next to Milken at lunch. I thought a man who spent almost two years in prison after years of mercilessly unflattering news coverage would have sought obscurity. Not Milken. He courted attention from public officials, policy wonks and even the press. When we talked, his eyes fastened on me with an almost hypnotic intensity, a Milken quality I had read about. When I explained I would be leaving early to see my wife off on a business trip, he nodded approvingly, one family man to another. He was dominating, full of life and well into his comeback from disgrace--the perfect Angeleno.

History explains our disdain of history. L.A’.s principal business has always been land development. That’s how many of those who have run Los Angeles made their fortunes, from the early developers of the San Fernando Valley to the current most powerful man in town, Eli Broad. It’s a business where the old constantly is replaced by the new.

In a society with such a philosophy, historians are obstructionists, whining to save old buildings. The newest hero is the latest billionaire. That is the essence of Los Angeles.

Looking at it that way, it probably won’t matter to anyone if Los Angeles voters approve splitting the city into four parts on the November ballot. Only the historians will care, with their old maps of a city founded in 1781 and occupying 465 square miles that extend, in the words of veteran TV news anchor Jerry Dunphy, from the mountains to the sea.