Category: Uncategorized

The possible re-development of the Victorian era, 388-acre Veterans Affairs facility in Westwood is something that should concern all Angelenos. The property is the last large open space between downtown and the Ocean and sits in the midst of the ugliest and most expensively congested section of Los Angeles. Speeding cars along ten lane wide Wilshire Boulevard roar by, while thousands of other vehicles mostly sit in traffic on the San Diego Freeway.

Along with the Federal Building, the district outside of the perimeter of the Veterans’ property is one of the least appealing sections of the city. A pedestrian cannot walk along any of the enormous streets here. A mirrored skyscraper with a blank face looks like a cheap slut on the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente. The gruesome commercialism west of San Vincente, with its cheap plastic signs and discordant, clashing styles of marble skyscrapers, pink stucco mini-malls and oblivious and aggressive mobile phone users in SUV’s, epitomizes what is most wrong with the lifestyle of Los Angeles.

Amidst all this speeding nothingness is the verdant beauty of the Veterans property. Old trees, a lovely if decrepit chapel, and low rise buildings, are a vestige of a slower time when spending time outdoors meant sitting on a shady porch, reading a book..

The most pressing need for Los Angeles is the construction of housing, but it must be done first by laying down a grid and a plan that ties new development into an existing public transportation area. The Veterans property is poorly served by public transportation and can ill afford any additional cars and delivery trucks pouring into a new “mini-city” like Century City or the Grove.

One hopeful sign is that a non-profit group, Veterans Park Conservancy is trying to raise funds for a restoration of the fire damaged Wadsworth Chapel and a new memorial park.

According to the LA Times, “The nonprofit conservancy was formed in 1989 in response to the threat of commercial development. It is raising funds for a 16-acre memorial park at the corner of San Vicente and Wilshire.

The conservancy and the VA are collaborating on stately new fencing featuring columns and wrought iron. As envisioned by designer Mia Lehrer & Associates, the park would feature two rolling meadows ringed by trees, with pathways, gardens and open space for recreation and educational uses. “

These are the type of the plans Los Angeles needs, ones based not only on balance sheets and corporate profits, but for the future needs of all Angelenos.

Latosha and Keairria — Hurricane Katrina survivors

Some Ideas to Improve the Valley

Create “Experimental Zones”

In certain depressed sections of the Valley north of Victory (Van Nuys Boulevard, Reseda Boulevard, Laurel Canyon) the city should encourage “Experimental Zones” where builders would erect apartments that are taller than normal (8-20 stories tall) with larger apartments (2-5 bedrooms) where families could live in comfort. These buildings would be modeled on the New York City plan where pedestrian entrances, doormen and public transportation are standard.

The wide boulevards should be split in half, so that the center of the street is planted with trees and laid out with park benches, trees, drinking fountains, decorative lighting, etc.

Streetcars would run up and down the street and connect with the new “Busway”. The trains would be refurbished older ones that are repainted. San Francisco has already done this.

A special tax would be levied on residents and business owners which would cover additional police, high security cameras, health clinics and after school programs. People who choose to live or work in this area would benefit from the additional services, and if they chose to not live there, they would not have to pay tax. Let higher taxes be optional.

Quality of Life Fines

There should be fines levied against property owners who do not remove graffiti from their buildings. Shopping carts which are left on the street should be ticketed and the owners of the carts (Ralphs, Costco, Target) should be fined $50 for every basket that the city has to retrieve.

Drivers who blast their stereos should pay fines. Red light runners should be ticketed $1500. Speeders and aggressive drivers should be pulled over and given $1000 tickets for first time offenses.

There should be local “old couch drop off centers” where the moldy old sofas can be dropped off by their former owners instead of sitting under the freeway.

Honking cars and people who park their cars in handicapped zones, even when they are not handicapped or old, should also be ticketed regularly.

Oxygen Centers

There must be “oxygen centers” placed around the Valley so that we can breathe clean air or at least refresh our lungs. The smog problem continues to plague us and there seems to be no let up in sight as SUV’s multiply.

Porn Schools

Since pornography is such an important part of the economy, we should build and finance “Pornography Schools” that teach important skills needed for porn actors, producers and health professionals. STD’s must be limited and eliminated and regular testing for HIV should be required. Any performer who does not pass his/her test would have the results posted on a website. Any studio who employed a performer infected with HIV would face fines and automatic shut down of facilities.

The schools would be accredited by the State of California and would employ experienced older porn actors who could teach younger and less experienced ones the skills necessary to succeed in the industry and what pitfalls and dangers to avoid.

Make Mini Malls into Mini Apartments

The gruesome mini-mall that has destroyed the urban fabric for the last 25 years, with its too few parking spots, garish signs in every unreadable language, and pink stucco exteriors, should be turned into garden apartments.

The front parking lots would be ripped up and grass, trees, fountains and benches would replace the asphalt. The little stores would be converted into little apartments suitable for students, artists, older people and the newly divorced.

Call Places by their Real Names

“Valley Village”, “Valley Glen” and “Lake Balboa” are a few of the moonscape names that have carved Old North Hollywood and West Van Nuys into amorphously non-sensical geographical areas. People who are visiting these places have absolutely no idea where they are located. The names given to these zip codes are evidence of escapism and racism as the mostly wealthier whites attempt to abandon their minority neighbors and escape into a semantic fantasyworld.

Victory and Sepulveda should call itself “Old Van Nuys”. Riverside and Laurel Canyon is “Old North Hollywood”. “Lake Balboa” is really North Park or South Airport Woods.

Tear Down the Steel Fencing

How many once lovely residential streets have been destroyed by the jail like iron fences that wall off one home from another? These “anti-crime” fences typically appear in the highest crime areas while lower crime areas feature picket fences, lavender and roses. If iron fencing truly makes a neighborhood safer, then why do gangs, graffiti and litter always end up next to the prison wall?

Witness New Orleans and Mississippi today, devastated by a natural disaster whose effects were multiplied by governmental incompetence. The worst off sections, with the poorest people, will most likely lay in ruin for many decades. The city of New Orleans may boldly promise to rebuild, but the new city will likely be a façade land like so much of America, with swank restaurants, glitzy hotels and some eternal candle burning along the river to commemorate the dead. Fat asses in the year 2015 will eat well at the new refurbished “Commander’s Palace” but you can be certain that the old wooden houses and front porches of the poor people will be desolate and abandoned. New Orleans will look like Detroit, a forgotten town of forgotten folks.

Los Angeles, like New Orleans, sits on an abyss of destruction. We foolishly go on building and obliterating as we pursue paradise on the shaky plates of the San Andreas fault. We know the Big One is coming, but we act as if it isn’t. Like New Orleans, we live in a city of unspeakable injustice and violence, where 52 young people have been murdered in Compton in this year alone. On that day when the quake collapses buildings, knocks out power, breaks the dams and stops the water supplies, will the looters refrain from looting? Will the uneducated and abused minorities in Los Angeles kindly offer to help? Or will this city become another hell of rapists and marauding gangs with guns?

Imagine the 405 and 101 in utter ruin, delivery trucks unable to bring groceries, water, and medical supplies. Hospitals, already obliterated by budget cutbacks, will be swamped with the injured and dead. Mobile phones and the Internet will be useless. Helicopters will swarm overhead but nobody will be in charge. If a Tsunami overruns the lower coastal plain between Venice and Palos Verdes, who will announce the evacuation? Who will rescue the survivors?

There seems to be a connection to how well we treat each other in normal times and how well we survive when all hell breaks loose. The prosperity and lower crime rates of New York City in the 1990’s, when once lost sections of the city like the South Bronx and Harlem came back to life, preceeded the awful hell of 9/11/2001 but also allowed the city to come together. By contrast, New Orleans was a festering, impoverished city of invisible poverty where murder rates were almost twice those of New York. When Katrina struck, did it surprise anyone that the most abused took out their abuse on other victims? The social contract holds society together in bad and good times.

There is probably no plan right now for the eventual cataclysm. We cannot believe in the promises of government anymore. That is what we have learned from Hurricane Katrina.

The incredible and sickening event that has transpired in New Orleans since the Hurricane makes me wonder what has become of our nation. The oldest, sickest, poorest and most helpless people, predominately black and poor, are left behind to drown and die in the streets while CNN and Fox News helicopter overhead.

From the bully pulpits of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal the call for “ORDER!” and “SHOOT TO KILL!” goes out as if it were a priority to stop looting at Wal Mart and Walgreens. In a city where storm surges have washed over the walls and inundated homes and businesses, and bleeding ,injured, hungry and thirsty souls must walk and crawl through water to reach another Hell called the Superdome, these Republicans stanchions of law and order lecture their fellow humans on self control!

Never before in the history of the United States or indeed the entire world, has a flood ravaged city descended into the very depths of depravity and cruelty that was almost entirely preventable. Where are the planes that airlifted supplies behind the Berlin Wall in 1948? Where are the satellite phones to hook up communications? Where are the boats, the inflatable rafts, the cruise ships that could dock close enough to New Orleans and provide potable drinking water and sanctuary for the desperate multitudes? What happened to our Army, National Guard, legions of volunteers, the churches that dot the South? Where are the computers, the amphibious vehicles, the portable toilets? Who spent billions starting a war when our own cities stood on the brink of catastrophe? Can someone direct and lead this land and urban jungle out of the sea of misery?

Around the globe, other nations stand and watch in disbelief. Poor Sri Lanka, itself a vicitm of a tsunami only six months ago, is ready to send men and dollars! One woman there remarked that “not one tourist was mugged after the tsunami!” Russia, a country of peasants and paupers, donates supplies! Uncle Sam carries a tin can and accepts European gasoline, so we can still drive our Hummers on the cheap (!) but most ashamedly cannot hide the grotesque and inhumane behavior of both the American government and the victims inside New Orleans.

What will happen in a few months when the quarter of a million poor, old and abused Negroes are still sitting in Houston’s Astrodome? Who wants these people? Will temporary shelters be erected on the outskirts of New Orleans? Who will feed them? Will they riot and destroy themselves as we neglect them yet again?

Oh, what a mighty cry of anger and righteousness is needed right now as American sees its ugly face reflected in the suffering of its poorest and most injured people!