11/18/03

LC031118

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

He knows the ins and outs of City Hall and once ran for Mayor of
Los Angeles, but can Steve Soboroff make people forget about the
battles over Playa Vista?

Steve Soboroff>> God said we have one mouth and two years so
you can listen twice as much as you talk, and that's what we
did.

Val>> And then, a thriving African-American town lost in a wave
of racial prejudice. It's now remembered in a new exhibit where
the walls whisper a forgotten story.

These stories and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and
Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Hello, I'm Val Zavala. We're about to visit a brand new
community in southern California, one that you've no doubt heard
of since it's been in the headlines for the better part of
twenty years. Playa Vista almost never happened, but now the
community is trying to move past decades of controversy with the
help of a former candidate for Los Angeles Mayor. As Philip
Bruce tells us, Playa Vista needed a leader with political
skills and it got one.

Philip Bruce>> Behind the wheel of his electric car whizzing
past construction sites, Steve Soboroff is a man on the move.

Steve Soboroff>> One of these days, we're going to have our
first traffic accident. This will be the corner. You know,
we'll take the police report and make a plaque out of it.

Philip Bruce>> A major traffic pileup is about the only crisis
that Soboroff hasn't confronted as President of Playa Vista, but
in his fairly short tenure here, he's turned out to be a
skillful fix-it man for a development that's had plenty of
problems.

Steve Soboroff>> I think that controversy is a word that's
separated from Playa Vista now. I think it's moved on to other
things.

Philip Bruce>> Soboroff was hired two years ago to do just
that, move Playa Vista on to other things, and his skills as
both a real estate developer and a City Hall veteran came in
handy. One of Soboroff's first efforts was to mend fences with
critics who claimed that the development was too big and in the
wrong spot, smack in the middle of the Ballona Wetlands
ecosystem. The battle to save this area turned Playa Vista into
a political minefield.

Steve Soboroff>> I wasn't here when those things were
happening, but I think that the public process was generally
ignored or discounted and I think that the people wanted to
speak and the mainstream environmental groups had some valid
points. There wasn't enough traffic mitigation, there wasn't
enough green space, there weren't enough programs
environmentally. So I think that the listening -- you know, God
said you got one mouth and two ears so you can listen twice as
much as you talk, and that's what we did.

Philip Bruce>> Some of the people Soboroff listened to were the
methane people, the ones who claimed that the project was being
built atop a huge pool of potentially explosive gas. One group
even made a video suggesting that Playa Vista was nothing short
of a time bomb waiting to go off.

Narrator>> "This building consists of 225 condominiums.
Imagine fifty of these monsters crammed onto this soggy little
piece of tidal marsh."

Philip Bruce>> The protests had a big impact. Builders must
now abide by the toughest gas mitigation standards in southern
California. Homes at Playa Vista rest on underground barriers
similar to huge rubber seals designed to block any rising
methane gas. Plus, there's a sophisticated network of detectors
and alarms and individual exhaust systems to get rid of methane.
So far, no gas and no problems. And as for Playa Vista's size?

Steve Soboroff>> Instead of ten thousand units that were
planned before, there are 2,600 units in the village and some
retail.

Philip Bruce>> Soboroff presided over the final plan to
drastically scale back the number of homes here and to sell or
give the sensitive wetlands to preservationists and the state.

Steve Soboroff>> You know, we haven't built and we don't build
on wetlands. We're not building on any marsh land or any land
other than old airport land.

Philip Bruce>> Today's Playa Vista occupies the site of the
legendary Hughes Aircraft Plant.

Steve Soboroff>> This road that we're on now was Howard
Hughes's private runway. This is called Runway Road. We call
it Runway Road.

Philip Bruce>> The old hangar in the distance is where Howard
Hughes hatched one of his most famous airplanes, the giant
Spruce Goose. These days, it's used mostly as a movie set.
Director James Cameron brought in a huge water tank and shot
much of the "Titanic" here, but Soboroff has even bigger plans.

Steve Soboroff>> I could see a film school in here. I could
see an indoor park here. There are no indoor parks in Los
Angeles. There's a park in New York called the Asphalt Green
that has wonderful indoor activities. I could see a museum
here. I could see residential lofts being built here.

Philip Bruce>> Soboroff gets excited about Los Angeles history
the way only a local can. Hard to imagine the big Wall Street
investors who bankrolled Playa Vista getting as gushy over
walking in Howard Hughes's footsteps as Soboroff does. One of
his favorite spots here is a long staircase leading up to
Hughes's old office.

Steve Soboroff>> Everybody knows Howard Hughes was a clean
freak, so here in the middle of this industrial area, this
industrial airport, what Howard Hughes said, "If you're coming
up to see me, wipe off your feet."

Philip Bruce>> For the general public, Playa Vista's
controversial legacy has taken a back seat to the rush to get a
piece of the housing here. While the homes aren't cheap,
they're affordable by West Los Angeles standards, ranging from
$300,000 for a condo to well over a million dollars for some
freestanding homes. Soboroff likes to say that many teardowns
in the area are selling for more than these glistening new
houses with all the amenities.

Richard D'Armass>> What are you doing this Saturday?

Philip Bruce>> Richard and Pamela D'Armass recently sold their
big suburban house in West Covina and bought a state-of-the-art
home at Playa Vista. For Richard, who works at the nearby Sony
Studios, it means a two-hour commute has been shaved down to ten
minutes.

Richard D'Armass>> It's priced just right. I really agree with
that.

Pamela D'Armass>> To have bought a home at this same price, we
would have had to put probably $50,000 to $100,000 into fixing
up the bathrooms and the bedroom and the kitchen, and you still
wouldn't have the high ceilings and the openness. I like the
new stuff. (Laughter) I like new buildings, so I think this was
the best for us.

Philip Bruce>> The sales pitch promises a quiet lifestyle of
the past with all the bells and whistles of the future. For
example, you can sit in one of the many local parks here and log
onto the internet with your laptop via a wireless connection.
Soboroff used to be Los Angeles's Parks Commissioner and these
green spaces are his pride and joy.

Steve Soboroff>> This is an off-leash dog park. People can
bring their puppies and run them. There are a few of them in
Los Angeles. The thing that's unique about this one is this is
the first off-leash dog park in America that has a dog water
fountain. I was here the other day, and there she is. When I
was here the other day and I turned it on, there were four or
five people with dogs here. So I turned on the water fountain
and I wanted to see if the dogs would, you know, like "come
here, puppy." The dogs lined up for the water and didn't bother
each other.

Philip Bruce>> He's more than just a highly-paid pitch man for
Playa Vista. Steve Soboroff is a true believer. He claims the
development is a model for solving southern California's housing
crunch in a rational way and, while many opponents still believe
that Playa Vista was a big mistake, Steve Soboroff is on a
mission to prove them all wrong.

Steve Soboroff>> It's twenty-five year ago life and life
twenty-five years in the future, all at once. Give us a chance.

Val>> Playa Vista has a mixture of rental and owner occupied
properties and there's a big waiting list for all of them.
Buyers are advised of the underground methane and of the
elaborate systems used to keep the gas out of their homes, but
right now most buyers seem more interested in floor plans and
prices.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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Val>> For years, minorities have complained that prime time
television is, to be frank, too white and that gave rise to
various media watchdog groups who monitor TV programs and
encourage, if not pressure, the networks into giving more
opportunity to people of color. So have their efforts paid off?
Well, when it comes to Latinos on television, the news is good.
Programs like "American Family" and "The George Lopez Show" are
proving successful, but other groups have not fared as well.

I spoke with Chief Apesanahkwat, an actor and Chairman of the
American Indians in Film and Television, and former Congressman,
Esteban Torres, now Chairman of the National Latino Media
Council. Congressman, why don't you bring us up to date? How
have the networks done in terms of representation of minorities
on prime time television?

Esteban Torres>> Well, as you know, we've been at this about
four years now and I would say, in the beginning, it was tough.
They had to really understand what our objectives were and it's
been a little slow in coming, but I must say that today's report
that we offered to the public was incrementally much better for
Latinos. I believe that the networks have gotten the message
that, when they include people of color in their programming, it
makes good business sense and this is what I think they're
beginning to realize.

Val>> You say incrementally. You mean just a small
improvement, but nevertheless in the right direction?

Esteban Torres>> Small improvement, little by little. You
might say the numbers might have even doubled from last year in
some areas, but you know, not from fifty to a hundred. Maybe
from two to four and three to six, in those types of numbers.

Val>> This year's study showed that some networks were clearly
better than others. When it comes to Latinos in front of and
behind the camera, FOX and ABC got the highest grade. CBS and
NBC were ranked lower. For Asians, the network grades were
lower overall, although FOX and NBC still did better than ABC
and CBS.

Val>> Now people may recognize you, "Northern Exposure" fans.

Chief Apesanahkwat>> Yeah, that's true. Without my braids.

Val>> Without your braids.

Chief Apesanahkwat>> That's really what Congressman Torres just
explained. It's really a requirement to have people in front
and behind the camera simply because it's part of the double-
edged sword that Native-Americans face in television and film.
We don't have people behind the scenes. We don't have writers
who are writing content for our actors.

You know, casting directors and directors in fact are very, very
demanding in terms of when they describe a character and they
call for that type of character to be auditioned, that's what
the casting director proffers. If I go in, that's his integrity
on the line if a Native-American -- what are you sending an
Indian for? I want this. So Native-Americans have a lot of
catching up to do and part of the onus is on us. In fact, at
this juncture, most of it is in order to get our people educated
in various areas and various mediums to become writers and to
become directors, producers and show runners.

Val>> Does it have anything to do with the fact that Native-
Americans are still a very small portion of the population, so
the least likely to show up in our prime time entertainment?

Chief Apesanahkwat>> Well, Val, you know, that's a good
question because it certainly is one facet of it. But it's also
that we face another conflict -- I shouldn't say conflict, but
another dilemma and that is that historically Hollywood has
portrayed Native-Americans in beads and buckskins and feathers.
So when they say we've got a Native-American coming in to
audition and I show up in a three-piece suit with short hair,
they're like "I said an Indian."

Val>> Still?

Chief Apesanahkwat>> So they're afraid to make that jump
without having writers to cause that jump to occur and say, by
the way, that cop happens to be a Native-American even though he
doesn't look like one.

Val>> Now there was an effort to get a Latino, I think, a
Latino sitcom a few times on prime time television. Has that
succeeded yet?

Esteban Torres>> Well, there's been an effort at that. As you
know, when our coalition tried very hard to get "The George
Lopez Show" on, we met tremendous resistance from the network.
We had to go to the parent company, Disney, and really pressure
and eventually ABC acceded to, all right, we'll do a George
Lopez show. We'll give them a chance. They did, and now look
at them. They love it. I think that's the proof of the
pudding, you know, that you've got to give us an opportunity to
really show what we can do. The networks are learning this and
they're learning, as I said earlier, that it makes for good
business.

Val>> Any close efforts or any concerted efforts to get Native-
American sitcoms or even a major leading character?

Chief Apesanahkwat>> Listen, Val, I'm going to tell you
something. If we got one leading character and one prime time
television series, we would be celebrating. When Esteban speaks
of going from one to two people in prime time, that's a big
deal? For us to have one in prime time would be an incredible
hurdle. You know, I've had the good fortune of being a
recurring character in a number of shows, "Northern Exposure",
"Walker, Texas Ranger". I was a regular on "Angel Falls", but
they cut it after six weeks. I think there was too much sex in
the plots.

Val>> I didn't know that was possible (laughter).

Chief Apesanahkwat>> Not that I was a part of that. But
absolutely, when we start getting people in prime time
television and we can count them on one hand, we're going to be
happy. In terms of the population and the dichotomy of this
country, we are a very, very, very minute minority. So we take
whatever we can get in terms of being there.

Esteban Torres>> We as Latinos constitute 13.6 percent of U.S.
population and we are a $650 billion dollar a year spending
community. That's a lot of dollars and, with that rise in
disposable income, the film industry is beginning to take
another look at what we can deliver.

Val>> But in the end, it does seem to be dollars.

Esteban Torres>> Absolutely.

Val>> Now the other group that you monitor who isn't
represented here by a speaker is Pacific Asian, Asian-American.
How are they doing?

Esteban Torres>> Well, they have done well for a period and
there is a fluctuation now. They're a little bit down and
they're concerned about that. There have been some outcries by
the Asian-Pacific American community, especially on a particular
series, "Bonsai", which projected them in a negative light and
they took issue with that.

Again, that's a critical factor that the networks are not really
attuned to some cultural values that are important to take into
account when they put a show on because, in the long run, it's
the viewing public that sees us or doesn't see us or sees us in
a negative light. The policymaker in Washington or Sacramento
or wherever the laws are being made reflect their attitudes
about us. We want to change all that.

Val>> Well, Congressman, Chief, thank you so much for your
time. We really appreciate it.

Chief Apesanahkwat>> Thank you. We really appreciate it.

Val>> By the way, if you're wondering about blacks on
television, they are being monitored by a separate organization
who focuses on African-Americans.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
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Val>> It was a thriving African-American farm town, but some
saw it as a threat to a neighboring college for white women.
That was the beginning of the end for a community called Quaker
Town. Well, now a new exhibit in Los Angeles revives the memory
of a town lost to racial prejudice. Toni Guinyard takes us to
the California African-American Museum where the walls are
whispering about an American tragedy.

Toni Guinyard>> The exhibition is called "Whispers from the
Walls". The whispers come from members of an African-American
farm community in Quaker Town, Texas. This is the work of New
York artist, Whitfield Lovell, a traveling exhibition at the
California African-American Museum in Exhibition Park. Take one
step inside the gallery and you are transported back in time to
the 1920's.

Charmaine Jefferson>> I think this particular exhibition is
very symbolic in the way that it allows you to start to imagine
that this could have been my great-great-grandfather. This
could have been my mother's brother's uncle.

Toni Guinyard>> The residents of Quaker Town spring to life in
charcoal drawings inside and outside a sharecropper's home built
to scale. The drawings are surrounded by items, objects and
personal effects, giving us an idea of how they spent their days
and what their lives were like.

Charmaine Jefferson>> It really does say there are other ways
to think about being creative and having expression in addition
to canvas, traditional canvas. That is part of the art. You
walk into the house and the entire house is the artwork.

Toni Guinyard>> Museum curator, Mar Hollingsworth.

Mar Hollingsworth>> As you come inside the house, one of the
first things that you see is this young couple. They are giving
us a welcome. They are young, they are holding hands, they are
symbolizing love. After looking at them, you can see there are
many other people painted here. They all represent the spirits
of all these African-Americans who lived at that time. They're
just the spirits. They're ghosts. And if you pay attention to
the sound of the cabin, you can listen to their whispers. They
are telling stories, talking to us.

Toni Guinyard>> Each item tells part of the story. The closer
you look, the more attention you pay to details, the more you
learn about the people and this place. From the cast iron pans
on the wall to the quilt on the bed.

Mar Hollingsworth>> It was very likely owned by African-
Americans because there are names embroidered all over and they
are black names. Other objects -- um-hum. 1915, and you have
"Lizzie" --

Toni Guinyard>> -- "Nettie".

Mar Hollingsworth>> Yeah, "Nettie". Also we're displaying some
other objects. For example, the hat. It is a black belief that
leaving a hat on top of the bed brings bad luck to the owner.
And the books, those pages belong to a manual that is supposed
to help people to become successful through working hard and
saving their money. The little bank notebook is also a savings
book that curiously shows a zero balance. So the whole thing is
dealing with the hardships people would go through.

Charmaine Jefferson>> People think. They walk through, they
look at it, they stop, they walk through again because, I mean,
they're not sure if they can touch anything and they realize the
things in there are real. I mean, there are real decanters and
it really is an old quilt. We didn't fabricate it. It really
is a mythical house, so the things in it really represent
another time and place and you really get the feeling of what it
is to have lived in the home of a sharecropper.

Mar Hollingsworth>> Especially seeing one of the more
interesting ones, the comb with the hair attached to it. It is
an African-American belief that warns you about what you do with
your hair because, like in this case, a bird could fly in, take
it and include it in its nest and that can produce you
headaches.

Some other interesting parts in the cabin are these small
tables. This one in particular, I find these books very
interesting. This is a dictionary almanac and it's open on a
page that makes a reference to Africa. That other one is
showing personal items, grooming items, that also in this case
connect more with that character on the wall.

Toni Guinyard>> Is there going to be someone to point all of
these little details out to those who pass through because there
are so many things you could miss?

Mar Hollingsworth>> Well, we have some guides that people can
pick up from the outside in both English and in Spanish. They
make reference to many of the objects and they ask people
questions, so they make the experience much more inviting.

Toni Guinyard>> As you experience walking through this moment
in time, Whitfield Lovell's drawings stare out as if watching
you. These are faces of people who really did live at one time.
No one knows the identities of the people who are depicted in
the charcoal drawings. We don't know about their lives, nor do
we know about their deaths, but the artist was inspired by
actual photographs archived at the Documentary Arts in Dallas,
Texas.

Charmaine Jefferson>> I'm not troubled much because I don't
know the individual person, but I like that feeling that I'm
getting to know a spirit. I think this show is about spirits
and about family and telling stories and evoking memories that
you may have forgotten or never knew you had and now you've
gained one.

Toni Guinyard>> The artist's work makes you think, makes you
wonder and use your imagination to fill in the gaps about what
he doesn't know about the people in this real life place called
Quaker Town.

Mar Hollingsworth>> This is one of the many portraits that
Whitfield Lovell created representing members of the community.
In this case, two of the older members of that community. The
chairs here represent their absence. They are gone.

Charmaine Jefferson>> It gives you that sense of lives that
have been gone, that are lost, some of which were taken away
because of the context in which this community that inspired him
was taken away because the university had a school that was
primarily made up of white women and they didn't want a town of
black people nearby.

Mar Hollingsworth>> The city offered the black population
either to sell their properties or to relocate wherever they
wanted to be, and most of them ended up leaving.

Toni Guinyard>> Now they're back, sending whispers from the
walls.

Charmaine Jefferson>> It is truly a human experience and it
doesn't really matter what color you are or your racial
background. What matters is some of these times in American
history that we all need to find a way to touch and understand
how they impacted the lives of other people.

Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For all of us
at Life and Times, thanks for watching.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Tomorrow on Life and Times, cell phones are smaller than
ever and can do a lot more than make calls, but is technology
getting ahead of the law?

>> I thought it would be something that most people would have
just a lot of fun with, you know, which is probably ninety-nine
percent of what the people are doing. You have that one percent
that crosses the line and use it for the wrong reasons.

Val>> That's tomorrow on Life and Times.