A Corner of Hollywood Takes New Step Toward a Comeback

In the early 1990s, prostitutes and drug dealers ruled the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue in Hollywood. Sex shops were part of the corner’s landscape.

“People used to avoid Hollywood and Western like the plague,” Democratic Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg remembered Friday as she surveyed the corner. “Now, it’s a place where families come in and say, ‘We want to live here.’”

Goldberg, who represented the area when she was on the Los Angeles City Council before she was elected to the Assembly, and others came to the corner to celebrate the latest installment in its comeback. An array of officials took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking for an affordable housing project that will bring 61 new units to the area.

The $14-million project, which includes 9,000 square feet of commercial space and a child-care center, will add more units next to the 60 affordable apartments completed in late 2000 on a site just south of the Red Line subway station at Hollywood and Western.

While officials praised the project, construction workers across the street continued toiling to finish a development that will include 100 low-income apartments for senior citizens and commercial space for a Ralphs supermarket, a Starbucks coffee outlet and other stores.

At a third corner at the intersection, still more work on commercial space was evident.

The change at Hollywood and Western was cheered by at least one onlooker who remembered what it was like in the old days.

“There were women of the night doing their thing,” recalled Rodney Kline, 55, who watched the groundbreaking ceremony. “There were drugs. Anything you wanted, you could get it here. I’m not joking.”

The new project at Hollywood and Western is one of several at subway stops in Hollywood that many say are helping to revitalize the area.

Most notable among the new works is the $615-million development at Hollywood and Highland Avenue. The Kodak Theatre, the new showcase home for the annual Academy Awards ceremony, is a mainstay of the Hollywood & Highland commercial and entertainment complex, owned by TrizecHahn Corp.

Goldberg said the new Hollywood and Western project is just as important as Hollywood & Highland because it represents stability in an area that has had little of it in the past.

“People can have a normal life here,” she said. “They can shop, use the subway, do normal things.”

Intent on changing the area, Goldberg was credited for persuading the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, municipal housing officials and others to support new development at the corner.

The redevelopment agency and the MTA partnered with a developer, McCormack Baron Salazar Inc., for the construction of the 60-unit project, a $10-million effort. The three are major participants in the new project.

The prospect of new affordable housing was lauded by residents who live in the 60 units completed in late 2000.

“I used to live in a one-bedroom apartment near Highland,” said Clara Hurtado, a mother of three. “This is much better. I like the area. I like my neighbors. I have no complaints.”

Hurtado’s 8-year-old daughter, Julia, is especially happy with the family’s three-bedroom apartment because she has her own room with space for her collection of Barbie dolls.

“This is great,” she said.