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Life & Times Transcript

02/14/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

You don't see many payphones these days and you may not miss them, but what if there's an emergency?

Bill Flaherty>> If you look at some of the times, the two biggest disasters we've had in the last few years being The Trade Center and just recently Hurricane Katrina, the only phones that are left running in those times are the hard-wired phones.

Val Zavala>> And then, the genius behind some of Los Angeles's greatest buildings. We look at the work of architect, Paul Williams.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> 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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Payphones used to be as common as parking meters in our culture, but then cell phone technology came along and put payphones out of business. Now they're as hard to find as an ice cube in the desert. But as Toni Guinyard tells us, safety concerns are still keeping some payphones connected.

Toni Guinyard>> The Telecommunications Act of 1996 promised consumers more options and better prices on services that help us communicate with each other. The law also imposed rules and regulations on the fees and services of payphones. It may have seemed like a good idea then, but looking back, few anticipated the payphone would all but vanish from the landscape in some areas, a victim of the times and technology.

Magdiel Romero>> You don't see them too much around anymore and, if they do, they don't work. I mean, you see the cord just hanging off the phone. I haven't seen them too often anymore.

Toni Guinyard>> In this age of email and text messaging, cell phone dialing and PDA using, the public's love affair with the payphone is coming to an end, but the relationship isn't going to end quietly.

Janie Hughes>> I will be here until the last payphone stands (laughter).

Toni Guinyard>> Janie Hughes is not exactly what you might think of when you envision the people behind the payphone industry. She's called "the first lady of payphones" because she was California's first female payphone service provider to enter the business shortly after the industry was deregulated.

Janie Hughes>> "We need to have Erin check the coin slot for accepting coins."

Toni Guinyard>> Now on the tenth anniversary of a law that opened the door even wider to competition, the industry is balancing the demands of both traditional hard line and wireless communication.

Janie Hughes>> We are rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to accommodate those people that are spending their money like me, vendors like me, or publicly-traded companies like AT&T to look at the rate structure, to look at rules that will be guidelines and not stifle the business.

Toni Guinyard>> It's a business hit hard by advances in technology, yet Hughes has succeeded by teaming up with industry giants to provide service in the one place she figured people would need payphones no matter what: airports.

Janie Hughes>> I'm in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Portland, Chicago O'Hare, Corpus Christi, Spokane, Boise, Albuquerque. Wow. There are people that travel here from all over the world and they have different economic status. So for the economically challenged, we will always need to provide payphones.

Dennis Noor>> The payphone is a cultural icon. It will always be here. Maybe not in the numbers that we used to see years ago when we got into this business, but there will always be a use for a payphone.

Toni Guinyard>> Dennis Noor and Bill Flaherty are co-owners of The Phone People, a private payphone company based in Hawthorne, California. At its peak, the company had two thousand payphones in Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange Counties. Now the company has only nine hundred phones in service.

Bill Flaherty>> As soon as the cell phones really took off, the prices dropped on the cell phones and we saw probably about a twenty percent decrease in phone activity over the years.

Toni Guinyard>> Flaherty is CEO of The Phone People and a member of the California Payphone Association. He's one of the many independent payphone service providers who entered the telecommunications business after deregulation. The use of payphones has changed dramatically since then.

Bill Flaherty>> We could see the writing on the wall and it's, luckily for us, slowed down a bit after the first year, but we're still seeing a small decline every year in the number of phones and the profitability of the phones. As that need slowly diminishes, we remove the phones. The attrition over the last five years has been, you know, thirty or forty percent of our business. We may have had one or two per block where now we may have, you know, one every mile.

Toni Guinyard>> So gone are the days that you can simply run out to the corner or corner store and use the payphone to make a call. Consider this: according to the California Public Utilities Commission, there are sixty-four thousand fewer payphones in the state of California now than there were in 2002.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> Despite declining use and increased competition, ninety-five percent of Flaherty's phones are money-making. It can be a lucrative business with its success defined by where the payphones are placed.

Bill Flaherty>> There are many millions of people still out there with no cell phones and a lot of them without even a home telephone.

Toni Guinyard>> Hair stylist, Elizabeth Suarez, is one of those people who do not own a cell phone.

Elizabeth Suarez>> Oh, what's the use of having a cell phone, you know, and paying so much because the bills are so high sometimes that I just decided not to have a cell phone. It's only when I have an emergency to call someone, I'll just use a payphone.

Toni Guinyard>> The payphone is often a lifeline in the event of an emergency, a fact that payphone owners are quick to emphasize. Cell phones simply don't operate in some areas or situations.

Bill Flaherty>> The two biggest disasters we've had in the last few years being The Trade Center and just recently Hurricane Katrina, the only phones that are left running in those times are the hard-wired phones and you see people lined up using the payphones that are left over. There is definitely a need out there.

Toni Guinyard>> There is a need and it's being addressed by the state Public Policy Payphone Program. It requires payphones be in place and accessible to the public for health and safety reasons. There are only forty designated public policy phones among the more than one hundred forty-two thousand payphones left in California.

Dennis Noor>> You know, technology changes all the time and we have to compensate for that in the best way we can to keep the company going and, so far, we're doing pretty good, considering.

Toni Guinyard>> But times have changed. Some people don't even know how to use a payphone.

>> "There's a bill in there."

Janie Hughes>> "What is that? Somebody put a five dollar bill in there. What was that about?"

Toni Guinyard>> A technician called to repair this phone at LAX found a five dollar bill jammed into the coin slot.

Janie Hughes>> So from a marketing standpoint, we are challenged then to make our product more appealing to the public. Just like, if I manufactured Snicker bars and I had to put more peanuts in it, that's exactly what I would do. We're retrofitting some of these in airports for WyFy. We're using these payphone banks for every technology that is available now for public communication.

Toni Guinyard>> Hughes would like you to think of the payphone as a way to access the internet or a place to use a prepaid phone card. It's part of the payphone's makeover from an outdated thing of the past to twenty-first century communications option, a transformation that depends on the very thing that has cost the industry: advancing technology. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

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You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> You might have heard of it. It's called the "morning after" pill, a contraceptive taken fairly soon after unprotected sex. It was supposed to be available over the counter without a prescription by now, but something happened along the way called politics.

Susan Wood is a top research scientist with a PhD in biology. In 2000, she became Director of the Office of Women's Health at the FDA, but five years later, she resigned in protest over the FDA's failure to make emergency contraception, marketed as Plan B, available to women easily without a prescription. When did it first become available to women in any form?

Susan Wood>> Well, physicians and women have been using high-dose birth control pills to act as an emergency contraception or a morning after pill for decades actually. Doctors would just tell their patients to take four or eight of their pill pack, depending on the product, and use that if they needed to because of a contraceptive failure, a condom broke or something happened that led to unprotected sex. This has been around, as I said, for decades.

But in the late 1990s, products came in to the market that were dedicatedly packaged of those high-dose birth control pills so that a physician could actually just prescribe it directly and not have to figure out which pack of pills you have and what are the number of pills you should take, so it made it much simpler and much more easy to use. So it was approved as a prescription product, specially Plan B, which is progesterone only. It was approved in 1999.

Val Zavala>> So it was approved by the FDA and people should understand that this, often called the morning after pill, is distinct from RU486, which is called the abortion pill?

Susan Wood>> Absolutely. RU486 does in fact cause a medical abortion and it's a very different product. RU486 is actually an anti-progesterone and this product is actually a progesterone, so they do work in opposite ways. RU486 will interrupt an established pregnancy and in fact terminate that pregnancy.

But if you happen to be pregnant and take Plan B emergency contraception, it actually won't affect that pregnancy at all. You'll still be pregnant and it won't harm the pregnancy. It's in fact sometimes given to pregnant women to help them hold on to a pregnancy if they're prone to miscarriage.

What it does do, though, before you're pregnant, it will prevent you from ovulating, will possibly prevent an egg and sperm from getting together and possibly -- you can't rule it out -- act by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.

Now I have to point out that those are exactly the same mechanisms that regular birth control pills use and that the IUD uses, or in fact it's the same way that breast feeding works by increasing your progesterone levels. Breast feeding reduces your risk of getting pregnant. All of these work by increasing those regular reproductive hormones to prevent you from getting pregnant, unlike RU486 which will cause an abortion. Very different.

Val Zavala>> So this clearly falls in the category of contraception. So what happened in the process politically to get this approved for over the counter?

Susan Wood>> What happened was, it came in and the first problem that arose was use by young teens. The issue was raised that maybe they wouldn't know how to use it properly or that there would be a problem for young teens taking it. In fact, the evidence is very clear. Young teens won't increase risky sexual behavior, they don't change their regular use of contraception. There's no reason to expect it to be misused or abused. But nonetheless, in the spring of 2004, the first problem arose and the product was denied based on the issue of very young teens.

Val Zavala>> So the concern about teens prevented it from being approved and what happened then?

Susan Wood>> Well, there was still hope that, if the company came back in with an application that essentially kept its prescription status for very young teens and non-prescription status for everyone else, we could get to an approval. It would not be the right decision in terms of cutting out the teens was, I think, a mistake. But nonetheless, it would move us in the right direction. We'd at least have it available for those seventeen and older over the counter and that would be an incremental step in the right direction.

The Center director believed that would happen and I certainly believed him that he believed it, so we moved forward and the company did come back in with that application. By January of 2005, they were prepared to approve. At that point, this is where we really don't know what happened. It was blocked and delayed until late in the summer and no one inside the agency seemed to know -- of the professional staff, of the scientists and the people who worked there as career -- why there was this delay.

I haven't spoken to anyone who's given me a good understanding as to why this would be seen as controversial because I think the vast majority of people in the United States don't have a problem with contraception for adults, which is essentially what we're talking about here. But yet, it must have been so controversial in some circles that the FDA was not allowed to issue a decision.

Val Zavala>> So what finally happened? Where does it stand now?

Susan Wood>> Right now, it was blocked in August of 2005 and put into a federal regulatory process because it seems that this proposal to keep it prescription status for young teens was too complex and we now need to have a full-blown federal regulation. I knew when they made that announcement that that was actually saying no. It's telling us no because the rule-making process takes years. Not months, but years. So it was saying no without technically saying no.

Val Zavala>> So right now, a young woman going into a drugstore cannot get Plan B off the counter, but if they're seventeen or over, can they get it even in prescription? Not at all?

Susan Wood>> Oh, no. It's still a prescription product for all females of child-bearing potential, but no one can get it over the counter. Not even those over seventeen. So the denial in August of 2005 was actually a denial for adult women's access to this product over the counter. But you can still get a prescription and, in states like California, pharmacists can essentially give this out directly without a separate prescription. California has been in the forefront of giving pharmacists the authority to dispense this prescription product.

Val Zavala>> Really? So you don't have to call your doctor necessarily? You can just go to your pharmacist -- assuming you have an account or whatever with them anyway -- and they can just go ahead without --

Susan Wood>> -- yeah. California actually, with several other states, has essentially stepped away from the FDA on this, so that is a step forward. Pharmacists do need to now stock it and dispense it.

Val Zavala>> Thank you so much for your time.

Susan Wood>> Thank you.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> He was an orphan growing up in foster homes at a time of deep prejudice against African-Americans, but Paul Williams grew up to become an architect to the stars. But he did more than just design celebrity homes. As Vicki Curry tells us, Paul Williams' genius can be seen in some of Los Angeles's best known landmarks.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> He helped to shape a growing Los Angeles and his designs defined the southern California lifestyle. Paul Revere Williams was one of the foremost architects of the early twentieth century. He designed more than three thousand projects over fifty years and, along the way, created the Los Angeles landscape we know today.

Robert Timme>> You think of some of the buildings that he did in the 1930's and 1940's and they represented a kind of idea of southern California, almost Hollywood, lifestyle. There was an elegance to his work.

Vicki Curry>> Paul Williams was remarkable not only for what he did, but for how he did it. He was an African-American in an era of deep prejudice, yet he managed to cross the color line and create a substantial career.

Karen Hudson>> People often ask me how he was able to become an architect so long ago in being black and I often say it was a God-given talent.

Vicki Curry>> Williams was born in downtown Los Angeles in 1894. He was orphaned by the age of four and raised by a foster family. Young Paul loved to draw and a local builder suggested that he become an architect.

Karen Hudson>> He was discouraged greatly by his teachers. He was very clear on the fact that he wanted to become an architect and, particularly in high school, his counselor said no way. Why don't you be a lawyer or a doctor? Your people need those and they'll use you, but your people will never be able to build their own homes and white people won't hire you for their architect.

Robert Timme>> It was interesting because Paul Williams did not go to a segregated school. Paul Williams went to a school that was predominantly white and Latino, so he never saw himself as a part of a group which could not succeed. I think that it was the conviction and his strength and his skill because he achieved some remarkable things at an early age in terms of awards and prizes through his design work.

Vicki Curry>> Williams attended several art schools and the architectural engineering programs at USC. In the first years of his career, he worked in the offices of prominent local architects.

Karen Hudson>> From Reginald Johnson, he learned residential design from an elite architect. From John Austin, he learned commercial work from someone who did things like The Shrine and City Hall. He believed that, if he was very good at what he did, he would be hired by someone.

Vicki Curry>> He quickly developed a reputation for his residential designs and earned enough commissions to start his own firm at age twenty-eight.

Robert Timme>> Paul Williams was a very good architect. I mean, bottom line was that his buildings were well-designed. There was an extreme sense of care in terms of construction and detailing of the buildings. As architecture moved into a more abstract period, the kind of beginnings of modernism, he didn't lose that sensibility to classicism. It just transformed into an architecture in which the detail became much smaller, much more elegant.

Karen Hudson>> He loved curves and, in the 1930's, they were the grand things that you think of in the heyday of Hollywood. You know, they translated into the 1940's and into the 1950's into much more modern things, but it's still that understated elegance.

Vicki Curry>> Most of his clientele was wealthy and he became known as the "Architect to the Stars", building homes for celebrities like Lon Chaney, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Paul Williams built hundreds of homes for the rich and famous and became quite rich and famous himself along the way, but because of his race, he was never able to live in the neighborhoods he helped to create.

Karen Hudson>> When he realized that quite possibly his work would be hampered or he would not get jobs because the white clientele would not believe that he was able to do this, he devised a number of things.

Vicki Curry>> He learned to draw upside down knowing many white clients might be uncomfortable with a black man standing next to or over them. By developing this trick, Williams could stand across the table from clients and, before they knew it, his talent would win them over.

Robert Timme>> People probably grew very close to him, clients, because, from all accounts, his personality was really remarkable and his skill is evident, as you can see in any of his buildings.

Vicki Curry>> Paul Williams paved the way for African-American architects. He was the first black member of the American Institute of Architects and the first to be elected as one of its Fellows. He served on a number of local, state and national commissions for planning and development, but despite his success, Williams preferred to stay close to home.

Karen Hudson>> Paul Williams always believed that there were things to do for his own community and for the community of Los Angeles in general. He was very much a Los Angeles native, very much a believer in this city. He certainly was instrumental in the design of early black businesses in Los Angeles when Central Avenue was a very different place in looking at things like Golden State, Angelus Funeral Home. By the 1940's, it was the Broadway Federal Savings. It was important to him to design his own community and be instrumental in that as well as the larger communities.

Vicki Curry>> His contributions to Los Angeles include a vast array of public and commercial projects. Among his buildings, the County Courthouse and Hall of Administration, the MCA Building in Beverly Hills, First A.M.E. Church and the Pueblo del Rio housing project. He also designed renovations on the Ambassador Hotel, Sachs Fifth Avenue and the Beverly Hills Hotel. Legend has it that even its distinctive logo is from his hands.

Karen Hudson>> It was very important to him to make a commercial space somewhere that made you feel like you were at home.

Vicki Curry>> As his reputation grew, so did his influence.

Robert Timme>> Mr. Williams associated with a lot of other architects. In other words, what we would now call him would be the Executive Architect, the individual who is responsible for the production drawings and the construction of the projects. He would associate with design architects who primarily would set the direction of it. I think this was because there was such a high respect for his ability to detail, for his ability even of buildings which were highly abstract and modern to be able to do the production work. That was the association clearly between Paul Williams and William Farrera on the Theme Pavilion at LAX.

Vicki Curry>> The story of Paul Williams parallels the story of Los Angeles. As he grew into his own, so did one of America's greatest cities.

Robert Timme>> And I think, during that period of time in the 1930's and 1940's, Paul Williams redefined classicism better than any architect and I'd have to say not just in southern California, but in America. So we look at those wonderful homes that he did, those porches, and we see that sense of classicism, but we see the reality of the aesthetic of the time.

Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> 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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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