Skateboarders at Watts Towers

Oh, please! Now do we have to fight to maintain the peaceful area of the Watts Towers [“Rad Element” by Mike Boehm, Dec. 9]? They are so very special -- and quiet! Delicate and beautiful, to gaze at and ponder over -- not to have the incredibly annoying sound of skateboards slamming down on concrete anywhere within earshot.

It’s a great idea to give youth a big skateboard park -- and thank you to Colby Carter for your pro bono design -- but it doesn’t belong next to the Watts Towers.

Patricia Mace

Los Angeles

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A skate park at Watts Towers is a brilliant idea to promote and support the arts and I am perplexed that my fellow artists are expressing concern. They complain of noise? John Cage would be recording the music the skaters will make! If they were still alive, Andy Warhol would relocate the factory and Merce Cunningham would come to study the natural ballet that is skateboarding.

Drugs and gangs? No. You can’t skateboard when on drugs; on the contrary, skate parks offer a relief and an alternative from drugs and gangs. Besides, this is not a rock club; skate parks are far from noisy. Graffiti? Skaters don’t desecrate their homes.

One detractor is quoted as saying, “How would we feel about . . . a skate park in the vicinity of the Getty or LACMA?” What a great idea! We attract our youth for the athletics and encourage them to stay for the art. We should build skate parks next to every cultural institution.

As an artist and an educator, I have had numerous students who started with skateboards, moved on to punk and graduated into the arts. Build the park and “the two city-run arts centers” nearby will be flooded with young men and women who would have never come before seeking new outlets for their creative energy. Skateboarding is a creative, positive and, yes, artistic activity, and we gravely misunderstand its role when we label it destructive.

Build it and they will come. It may not produce a lot of tourist dollars, but there’s little doubt that it will produce more than a few future artists.

Chuck Crawford

San Diego

The writer is a professor of architecture at the New School of Architecture and Design in San Diego and a part-time skateboarder.

Soap opera’s modern dilemma

Your article on the cancellation of “As the World Turns” [“ ‘World’ Is Coming to an End” by Denise Martin, Dec. 9] repeats the canard that “viewership . . . plummeted as more women have joined the workforce.” While this may have been true at one time, the ability to record shows via VCRs and DVRs has long since given the lie to this statement.

The reason viewership is down is much simpler: The stories on these shows often are subpar. The people behind daytime programming simply do not believe any longer in the soap opera format.

What is needed is a return to what made soap operas great: stories that revolve around families connected through a large institution such as a hospital or corporation. This is the format that keeps people tuning in to successful nighttime shows and it is the format that will have people tuning (either “live” or by recording) into the soaps.

Ellen A. Diamond

Santa Ana

Dillinger got what he deserved

Dennis Lim missed the boat in his piece about the “Public Enemies” DVD release [“John Dillinger as an Enigma,” Dec. 9]. While seemingly trying to impress the reader with his use of the English language and his knowledge of cinema, Lim failed to grasp the intent of Michael Mann’s film about John Dillinger.

He called Mann’s picture a “minimalist” telling of the short and bloody career of one of America’s most famous criminals as played by Johnny Depp.

Sometimes less is more -- especially the manner in which Hollywood tends to glamorize or outright fabricate the truth about historical people, places and events. The 1967 version of “Bonnie and Clyde” is a good example of this. In “Public Enemies,” Mann’s intent is to show how a charming and dangerous outlaw got what he deserved. The audience got it. I don’t think Lim did.

Ralph Hamilton Saenz

Alhambra

How to improve the Music Center

Re “County Loan Averts L.A. Opera Tragedy” by Mike Boehm and Garrett Therolf, Dec. 9: How much would it cost to put in a subway stop at the center of the Music Center (or outdoor escalators to go up the hill from the 1st & Hill subway stop), and restaurants, galleries and street-level retail to replace the empty parking structures adjacent to the Music Center?

The L.A. Music Center has got to be the worst cultural center I’ve seen for any large city. It feels like a deserted industrial zone, with zero people walking around and few restaurants. The poorly lit, empty streets are unsafe and a strong deterrent to anyone in heels who wants to walk up the slope from the subway.

By putting in some basic amenities and transit, the city of Los Angeles would make the opera, theater and symphony more accessible (physically and mentally), boost the local economy and make the center the vibrant cultural hub it ought to be. And help it become solvent since more people will want to go there.

Nancy Kiang

Santa Monica

Architecture is not a competition

I found the cover stories in Tuesday’s Calendar about Leslie Caron [“A Frenchwoman in Hollywood” by Susan King] and Michael Govan, LACMA’s director and CEO [“Budding Blueprint?” by Christopher Hawthorne], a real study in contrasts.

There’s Caron, a twice Oscar-nominated actress who has made unforgettable contributions to the art of cinema, and then there’s Govan, who tried to essentially disembowel LACMA’s film programming until the public outcry forced him to at least partially withdraw that plan.

Caron’s beauty, integrity and wisdom flow throughout the entire interview; Govan’s true nature is revealed in his comments about LACMA’s possible alliance with architect Peter Zumthor versus Renzo Piano’s past work for the museum.

“We’ll have the only one,” Govan crows if Zumthor ultimately designs a building for LACMA. Then he adds the incredibly ungracious swipe: “It won’t be the seventh Renzo Piano building in the country.” So art is just a competition, Mr. Govan?

Govan could use a lesson or two in class from Caron.

Bill Royce

Beverly Hills