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Life & Times Transcript
08/28/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- A wave of change is headed for Surf City. Will it wipe out local character? Mayor Dave Sullivan>> Well, I think it would really benefit for being a pedestrian mall much like Third Street in Santa Monica. Ron McLin>> I think the flavor. That's my biggest concern. Val Zavala>> And then, it's half river rock, half adobe, and it was once the place to be seen in Los Angeles. A look inside the historic home called El Alisal. 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>> If you've ever walked down Main Street in Huntington Beach, you'll know it's kind of a throwback with funky surfboard shops and diners. Well, now some people say it's time for it to change and they want to cut off the traffic and turn it into something like Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, but not everyone is sold on that idea. Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, has our story. Roger Cooper>> Huntington Beach. It's known around the world as Surf City. Its broad beaches attract nine million visitors a year. People stroll down its long pier and they play in its great waves. They dine at its sidewalk tables and they cruise its streets to see and be seen. A lot of people love this place, so why would some people want to change Surf City? It's an idea that's been talked about in Huntington Beach for years. It's come before the City Council a couple of times and been voted down each time. Close off three blocks of Main Street to cars and turn it over to pedestrians. There are those in Huntington Beach who think, as nice as it is now, it could be better if part of downtown were blocked off to traffic. Mayor Dave Sullivan has been pushing the idea for ten years. Mayor Dave Sullivan>> Well, I think it would really benefit for being a pedestrian mall much like Third Street in Santa Monica. Roger Cooper>> Recently a delegation from Huntington Beach drove the fifty miles north to Santa Monica. They came here to inspect Third Street Promenade, the very successful shopping, entertainment and dining district where everyone walks. Could a smaller version work on Main Street, Huntington Beach? It's not as if Huntington Beach hasn't seen change before. There was a time when Main Street looked like this. Plenty of room for pedestrians here. When the pier was built in 1904, it was with steam and mule power. The gateway to Main Street once had a giant arch to tell you that you were in Huntington Beach. And they used to wear a lot more clothes down at the shore. Today there's less clothing, more traffic and the idea of prohibiting cars doesn't sit well with some business owners. Bob Bolen>> Well, of course, frankly, I think this idea is really disastrous. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Roger Cooper>> Former surf shop owner, Bob "The Greek" Bolen, is very skeptical about going pedestrian. He fears it will increase congestion and kill off business. Bob Bolen>> Number one, they don't have enough parking. They don't have enough parking in the right areas downtown. They don't have the traffic circulation. It's just going to jam up like crazy. Roger Cooper>> But Mayor Sullivan believes citizens want it. Mayor Dave Sullivan>> Well, I think it will attract even more people. It will be a nice atmosphere for outdoor dining, for example. Our problem now that probably can be seen in the background is with all the pedestrians and the cars going up and down the street. If you're trying to have nice outdoor dining, you're spending a lot of time sucking in gasoline fumes, which I maintain hurts the experience. Roger Cooper>> But the manager of the Longboard Restaurant, Ron McLin, says that very hustle and bustle creates business. Ron McLin>> And also it gives us the access. They're driving up the street and you see what we have to offer. It's like you get to drive up and you see it. If you take that away and you close it down, nobody knows what's here. The locals know, but anybody else isn't really sure. So why get out of your car and walk three blocks to find out what's here? Roger Cooper>> A special committee composed of Council members, merchants and other community leaders has been meeting weekly to discuss the pedestrian plan. Jill Hardy>> Well, I've always been in favor of the idea of closing Main Street, but I want to do it right. So I'm glad that this committee is looking at all the aspects because this may not be the right time with other projects coming in within the next year or two. We might want to wait. Roger Cooper>> Those other projects are already underway. This excavation site only a block off Main is on its way to becoming The Strand. It will include a hundred sixty-five room hotel, retail, offices and a pedestrian plaza. And not far down PCH, work is underway on Pacific City. It will include a resort hotel and spa, retail and five hundred sixteen upscale condominiums. The city's economic development director, Stanley Smalewitz, believes Main Street will need to improve to keep up with these new projects. Stanley Smalewitz>> I think between those two projects, Main Street itself could get lost in the process. Also, as part of a tourist and destination economy of which this city is heading towards, it makes sense to integrate all of these different aspects. Roger Cooper>> But restaurant manager, Ron McLin, says the street is running just fine the way it is. Ron McLin>> It's very casual, it's very comfortable. It always feels busy because of the cars driving up and down the streets. Very easy access. With the cars, you can go in for a quick Rocky Mountain Candy and get some candy or run in and get your eyeglasses adjusted, but at the same time, you can sit down and do dining. Jill Hardy>> I believe that, if people get out of their cars, then they'll make multiple trips downtown. So if they go to dinner, they might stop by and get an ice cream on their way out. Roger Cooper>> Downtown merchant, Joe Shaw, argues that the trend is against turning streets into pedestrian malls. Joe Shaw>> There are hundreds that closed their streets in the 1970s and there's probably about thirty left that are still closed. An urban consultant that I was working with told me that, in his thirty years of working, he's never closed down a street. He's only reopened them. As a matter of fact, on July 29, the city of Raleigh, North Carolina is having a huge celebration to reopen their street downtown. Roger Cooper>> Opponents also say that there's something larger at stake here, a certain atmosphere or character they'd like to preserve. Is there something quirky or magical about Huntington Beach that could be lost if you did the wrong thing? Joe Shaw>> Yeah. You know, Huntington Beach is like a small town. Even though it's a very large city that has world-class events on its beaches, it's very much like a small town atmosphere and we don't want to lose that at all. Ron McLin>> My number one concern is the flavor is good. It's working great. It's like we got a dynamite thing going here. We're the hottest downtown probably on the coast. Mayor Dave Sullivan>> I am like ninety-nine percent certain it will be a huge success. Stephen Daniel>> Huntington Beach is a town of people looking at people. The Main Street where the cars come up, everybody likes to look and everybody wants to be seen. If you take some of that away, it's a possibility that you will lose business. Roger Cooper>> And that's exactly why the mayor wants to test the waters first. Mayor Dave Sullivan>> That is why I think it would be a good idea to have a trial in case there's something that, you know, we have missed so you can always stop it if it doesn't work out. Roger Cooper>> You'd give up that truck going by for this? Mayor Dave Sullivan>> (Laughter) Yeah, right. I'd give up that truck going by in a minute. They can deliver on a back street. Roger Cooper>> Planners say the next step might be to close Main Street on an experimental basis sometime after Labor Day. But for the summer at least, drivers will still be able to cruise down Main Street in Surf City, USA. In Huntington Beach, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> Why would the city of Los Angeles which is always strapped for funds want to spend four million dollars to preserve a mural? Well, maybe because the mural is by famous Mexican artist, Siqueiros, and preservationists call it a cultural treasure that would bring Los Angeles international prestige in the art world. Hena Cuevas went to Olvera Street to see it for herself. Luis Garza>> This is the Italian Hall that houses the exterior mural of Siqueiros. Hena Cuevas>> So the mural is behind that wall? Luis Garza>> The mural is behind that wall. It was here that Siqueiros worked with his team of people and they entered and exited through this doorway that we're going through here. This was the entranceway that Siqueiros and his workers came through to work on the mural in 1932. This is the upper floor of the Italian Hall building. This is a south-facing wall. It's eighty-two feet by eighteen feet high which, at the time, was the largest mural ever constructed in the United States. It's new technology, it's new technique, it's a new signature of materials. Concrete, photographic projection systems, air brush. He brought muralism outside to the masses which is what his political mandate was. He fused art and politics and here is where he made the statement. The original title that Siqueiros gave to it is La America Tropical, but what the long title means is Tropical America, Oppressed and Destroyed by Imperialisms. So it relates back in time to the Spaniards, to all the colonial powers that have ever come and exploited the Americas all the way on up into the present. Hena Cuevas>> Right now, the mural is covered by that plastic protective sheeting. What is the condition of the mural once you take that sheeting off? Luis Garza>> The mural is a ghost of its former self. There's only maybe thirty percent, if that, of its original color due to the fact that it is on a south-facing wall. Constant sun, pollutants, smog and just abandonment over the decades have bleached it out completely. So the idea is to conserve the mural in its state which is what the Getty conservationists did. They stabilized it, they cleaned it and the next step is what we are about to enter now, which is the mural shelter which we'll construct and provide a shading for it, a viewing platform, much of where we are standing right now, an extended bridge back to the Sepulveda House and an interpretive center, an educational center or museum gallery space which will tell the story of Siqueiros in Los Angeles and the impact of this mural to our communities. Hena Cuevas>> But if there's only about thirty percent left and it's just a faded example of what it originally was, do you think people are really going to want to come see it? Luis Garza>> Absolutely. That's a metaphor. The mural itself is a metaphor for larger subjects. The technology today provides for us to, let's say, a projection system or other means by which we can project the original colors and tell the story. We can break down the iconography of the mural and tell what each piece means to the public. By showing them what it is now and what it was then is to tell the story. It's to tell the story of art, to tell the story of censorship, of political relationships, political ideologies and philosophies, the history of Los Angeles, and it's a time capsule. It's a wonderful piece of history for Los Angeles to really be proud of and finally bring it back to the public. Hena Cuevas>> The project is estimated at about seven million dollars and that sounds like a lot of money. How do you justify it? Luis Garza>> It's the return on the investment. If you look at it as an investment, it's a return on it in terms of tourism, establishing Los Angeles as a cultural spot, a renowned international artist who has painted this mural. If Olvera Street has a million people, it will have two million people coming to see this mural. It's not just a mural. It's a metaphor for larger subjects. It's a time capsule of Los Angeles history. So it's important to not be under-estimated and it will encourage people internationally to come and visit Olvera Street and the city of Los Angeles. So what better way than to fuse the politics of Siqueiros and that of his socialist beliefs and that of capitalism? It's a perfect combination here that really serves everyone. Hena Cuevas>> How long will the project take and when do you think it will be finally open to the public? Luis Garza>> From the date of construction groundbreaking, it will take an estimated fifteen to eighteen months. So with the powers that be, it may open up by early spring of 2008 or sooner if people are so inspired. Hena Cuevas>> And it's definitely something that will inject new life to Olvera Street. It will get people to come back and take a look at what's going on. Luis Garza>> To Olvera Street and the entire city of Los Angeles as a cultural piece of art history in Los Angeles from an internationally renowned artist. It can only encourage tourism. I think this is a real fusion of communism and capitalism at its best. Communism because Siqueiros was a communist and capitalism because it was those people who hired him to do this project. Hena Cuevas>> Luis Garza of the Siqueiros Subcommittee, thank you very much for all of this information on this very exciting project here on Olvera Street. Luis Garza>> I thank you very much for taking the time to document this important piece of history and welcome you back when it opens to the public in 2008. Hena Cuevas>> We'll be back. 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". Sam Louie>> Los Angeles is known for its love affair with cars, but with rising gas prices, pollution and congestion, there's a growing movement to lessen this dependence. Here in Silverlake, one group wants to steer the public from four wheels to two wheels. It's a small repair shop called the Bicycle Kitchen. It doesn't serve food, but the folks at this kitchen do offer food for thought. Their mission? To get more Angelenos to ride their bikes. Jimmy Lizama>> What I push is for bicycling to become a very normal aspect of someone's life in Los Angeles. Sam Louie>> Jimmy Lizama is one of the founders. Jimmy Lizama>> The norm is to get in your car in the morning, go to the gas station, fill it up, stress out on the freeway, stress out some more, go park your car, stress out about parking and then come home and be stressed out because you had a hard time getting there and back. On a bicycle, by and large, for the most part, you get on your bicycle and you're rolling immediately. You're getting exercise, you're not clogging the streets, you're getting some sunshine, you're interacting with the community and you're getting there a lot faster. "So go ahead and just crank and shift and see what happens." Sam Louie>> What makes the Bicycle Kitchen unique from other bike shops is that this place is a nonprofit repair center run entirely by its staff of volunteers. Donations help pay for rent and supplies. Jimmy Lizama>> We do just about everything. I mean, from headsets to hubs to bottom brackets to crank selections to pedals, everything. The only thing we don't do is we don't actually build the frame. We just like get donated frames and then help people build them up. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> The volunteers don't actually fix the bikes. Instead, they charge seven dollars an hour and teach you how to do it yourself. Jimmy Lizama>> In essence, it's a way of empowering people. Many a times, myself included, people go to a bike shop and you encounter kind of a cold experience. You drop off your bicycle and you don't know a thing about what happened. Usually, you're going to ride your bike when it's done and you haven't learned anything in the process. Sam Louie>> The idea of a grassroots bike center came to Jimmy four years ago when he and his friends were fixing bikes in the kitchen of an apartment. Jimmy Lizama>> So we said, well, wouldn't it be really cool if like people came in, hung out, worked on their bikes, socialized and then, you know, made a community out of it? So that's exactly what happened. Sam Louie>> When the Bicycle Kitchen first opened, Jimmy and his friends supplied the knowledge and customers gave what they could. Jimmy Lizama>> Back in the day, beer was exchanged (laughter), soda pop, anything that was cool. I mean, someone would come in with like really cool parts and be like, here, here's some parts. Awesome. That's the whole deal, you know. Sam Louie>> Nowadays, they cannot accept alcohol, but food is still welcome if you can't afford to pay cash. Jimmy Lizama>> "Whoa, that's bizarre. From where? Korean market? Really?" Sam Louie>> Jimmy says he's continually amazed by the growth and popularity of the Bicycle Kitchen, especially in a town overrun by cars. Jimmy Lizama>> We went from having myself doing the work when it first started to two volunteers, to three volunteers, to once a night, to once a week, to twice a week, to four times a week, to a brand new space, to a lot more bicycles, to six days a week, to thirty volunteers. It just gets bigger and bigger every single week that we operate. Sam Louie>> So it seems the Bicycle Kitchen has found its recipe for success, a batch of volunteers mixed with community support and topped off with a determined vision for change. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 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>> If you were an artist or a musician or a writer back at the turn of the century, one of the coolest places to hang out was the Charles Lummis House. Well, now this unique home is more than a hundred years old, but it survived. It's a little hard to find, but as Vicki Curry tells us, well worth the effort. Vicki Curry>> Take a drive up the 110 Freeway just north of downtown Los Angeles and you'll come to a chain link fence. Take a look behind that fence. It's like something out of a storybook, a home unlike any you'll ever see, with two distinct personalities. Half Spanish adobe, half stone castle. Denise Spooner>> It's one of the really unusual features. You see a lot of stone houses, but none of them are quite like this one. Vicki Curry>> That's because this one was built by Charles Fletcher Lummis, a man who was every bit as unique and ruggedly individualistic as the home he built. He was a journalist, adventurer, early booster of Los Angeles and advocate of the arts and crafts movement. Denise Spooner is the Executive Director of the Historical Society of Southern California. She oversees the house Lummis called El Alisal, Spanish for "Place of the Sycamores". Denise Spooner>> He built the house in the late 1890s, but it continued to be a project of his into the 1920s. As we say, the house kind of grew organically. The arts and crafts movement was sort of a reaction to industrialization. So much of the house was built by hand, whether we're talking about the doors that Lummis actually planed and used in ads to fashion the doors by hand, hanging them by hand, pouring the concrete floors by himself. The beams in the house came from the Santa Fe railroad. So a lot of found materials that he re-crafted himself and then put into the house. People that were members of the arts and crafts movement advocated a closer relationship with nature, so the reason that the house was made of arroyo stone is because it's located right here on the banks of the Arroyo Seco River. Vicki Curry>> But the house is more than an architectural rarity. It's also a tribute to the west and the people that captured Charles Lummis's heart. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> He didn't come to this region until he was well into his twenties. Lummis was actually born in Massachusetts. Later, he was working at a newspaper in Ohio. This was in 1884 when he accepted a job at the Los Angeles Times. Denise Spooner>> And that was a really important period in southern California's history because it was really the first boom time where a lot of people from around the country were coming to southern California. Vicki Curry>> Lummis decided to tramp across the continent, as he called it, walking all the way from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. Denise Spooner>> And as he was traveling across the United States, he would send sort of dispatches to the Times and they would be published. So when he actually got to southern California, he was something of a celebrity because he had all kinds of different adventures on his way here. Vicki Curry>> Those adventures sparked a life-long love for the people and culture of the southwest. So he decided to share this love and, in 1914, he built the Southwest Museum on Mount Washington with his own personal collection of artifacts. Denise Spooner>> So this is the room that Lummis called his museum and it housed the collections that he gathered especially from a lot of the native people. One of the most significant features of this room, the one on which so many people always remark on, are actually these glass plate positives. They're actually pictures that Lummis took and they sort of are arranged in a way that replicates some of the journeys that he took across the southwest into Mexico and then into South America. Vicki Curry>> This is a man who loved photography and he photographed anything and everything. So he really helped to keep a record of those times then? Denise Spooner>> Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he did. Of those times of native people, of building the house, of people in Los Angeles, all the artists and poets and politicians, anybody who came to El Alisal. People like Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, anybody that was interested in the life of the mind and in arts at that time. Vicki Curry>> As an editor at the Los Angeles Times and later the magazines "Land of Sunshine" and "Out West", Lummis actively promoted and celebrated the southwest and its lifestyle. Denise Spooner>> People always associate southern California with the very things that Lummis advertised: sunshine, good health, lots of opportunities for outdoor living. Vicki Curry>> And that hasn't changed, but the bad news is that the Lummis House is changing. In fact, it's falling apart. Denise Spooner>> The house has suffered seismic damage as a consequence of earthquakes over time. There are two guest houses that are on the property that were multi-story actually prior to the Sylmar earthquake in 1969. Now it's just one story because the top floor fell off. Water intrusion is a huge problem. There is a leak right about here that creates what we call Lake Lummis in the floor. Vicki Curry>> Lake Lummis is the start of a lot of other problems. The water leaks are also causing mold and bacteria to grow throughout the house. Denise Spooner>> This is one of the rooms in which the damage that the house has endured is most clearly visible and it's visible in a couple of ways. First of all, on the walls throughout the room, you can see a lot of where there's been water intrusion. After the water actually dries up and evaporates, then what you're left with is the salt from the water and then it blasts through the paint and the plaster. So a lot of people come in here and they think, wow, why don't they repaint this place? But the damage is way deeper than just repainting. We think that it's possible anyway that, in an earthquake, damage was done, but then because of the weight of the tower on the outside of the building, it's actually pulling this section of the building kind of apart. Vicki Curry>> Kind of ironic when you consider Lummis bragged that he built the house that would last a thousand years, but that's not going to happen without major restoration. Denise Spooner>> If we don't move forward with taking greater care of the house, then we will lose the Lummis House. All historic structures are like this, but if you don't ever do anything to them, then you shouldn't be surprised when they just fall down. Vicki Curry>> The house is owned by the city of Los Angeles which can't afford to repair it. Historic preservation is low on the city's list of priorities, so dollars are scarce. Any restoration of the Lummis House will probably cost millions and, even before that gets started, it will cost about two hundred thousand just to assess the house's condition. Denise Spooner>> These projects are very complicated. They're very time-consuming because what we're doing is not just shoring up the foundation of El Alisal, not just making it so that it's not unsafe, but really restoring it so that it really represents Lummis and his time. It's a physical piece of history that links people in the present to the past and helps them better understand how the past is connected to the present and the present is connected to the past. Vicki Curry>> And that's what's most important to the Historical Society of Southern California, saving the house in order to share it. I'm Vicki Curry for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks 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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