The idea: use New York’s Time Warner center as a model for Frank Gehry’s Grand Avenue project: Retail, condo, office and shopping at one vibrant location.
The LA Times writes, “Gehry’s plans for Grand Avenue’s first phase call for two bold, glass-sheathed L-shaped towers of 47 and 24 stories, at opposite ends of the block east of Disney Hall. Smaller pavilions will house restaurants, shops and art galleries.”
In NYC, Time-Warner not only is the headquarters for one of the world’s largest media companies, but the adjoining mall features $500 a plate sushi and a branch of Whole Foods. A force of security guards monitor visitors and patrol the complex enforcing a rule against photographing the interior. 55 stories of twin razor sharp glass towers loom over the southwest corner of Central Park.
New Yorkers are flocking to the Time-Warner mall, which is fortuitously located at a major subway stop, at the end of 59th Street, at the beginning of the Upper West Side and minutes from Times Square. The Grand Avenue project is within walking distance for thousands of LA’s homeless population and there is not a major park within miles.
Related Cos. is the builder of Time-Warner and they are the also behind the $1.8 billion Gehry creation. Eli Broad is the chairman of the committee pushing the Grand Avenue redevelopment.
A giant mall. A giant office complex. A giant condo. A giant step forward for Los Angeles.
Here in Van Nuys 
Really nice shopping mall. I like it very much. I want to visit it.
_______________________
george
widecircles
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For those who think the downtown for sale housing market is headed for a soft landing take a look at the photos of the Hindenburg’s soft landing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hindenburg_burning.jpg
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“Written English doesn’t convey sarcasm too well?” Tell that to Shakespeare.
Me thinks you doth protest too much.
I meant the “giant step forward” comment in complete and utter sarcasm.
I’m suspicious of any giant plans as they usually are accompanied by gigantic and stupid egos.
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Andrew wrote:
A giant mall. A giant office complex. A giant condo. A giant step forward for Los Angeles.
Written English does not convey sarcasm well. Maybe it’s projection; I’m just hoping it’s sarcasm.
The last time Grand Avenue was discussed, I was in the minority rolling my eyes over this project.
A giant step forward it ain’t.
It’s more like five monumental steps backward, with no suitable adjective to convey the enormity without devolving into bathos.
1. Giant office complexes-A throwback to the Tom Bradley-era potemkinization of downtown L.A. by oversupplying high-rises.
2. Giant malls-Not a throwback, since this activity is still going on, but the idea spread just after the passage of Proposition 13. Cities are forced to engage in the “fiscalization of land use,” a wonky term for building sales tax farms to compensate for lost property taxes. These farms take the form of shopping malls, big box stores or auto squares, designed to entice non-citizens to travel far distances and spend their money. One noted side effect of sales tax farming is the unfriendliness to small businesses.
3. Giant condos-Yet another 1980s fad that’s making a comeback. And this condo craze is mirroring every mistake made the last time. There’s an oversupply, the condos’ appeal is overestimated and they stagnate when the housing markets are down.
4. Combining the three steps above into one single project. There’s a time and a place for everything, and Grand Avenue is in the wrong place for the wrong time. The skyscraper only made downtown L.A. more desolate, the mega-mall doesn’t offer Angelenos anything we haven’t seen in every damn zip code, and the condos make many incorrect assumptions on homebuyers’ attitudes.
5. Take #4 and make it A Frank Gehry Production. I am too ignorant of architecture to know how to properly criticize Gehry or his work in his element. Gehry seems, to me at least, to be the Quentin Tarantino of the architecture world.
Tarantino has a very unique approach to filmmaking and a cult following in the sense of Kool-Aid drinking. Many people think of him as a genius; I think of him as a master magician who has a gift for illusion. Tarantino makes his mark by glomming onto film styles often dismissed by cinematic circles as schlock and giving the characters dialogue spoken as common people in ordinary situations. This makes him legendary. Yet there would be no Tarantino if it weren’t for schlock. But if Tarantino is great, scholck is great by association.
Gehry is Tarantino-izing architecture by taking stylistic sentiments and modernizing them. Just because he lends his name to the Grand Avenue project should not divert your attention to the plan’s core problems.
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