Monthly Archives: April 2019

Another One Bites the Dust: Can Good Luck Bar Be Saved?

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Good Luck Bar

If you’ve been following the preservation/gentrification wars in LA, you’ll want to read the piece just published on LAist about the impending eviction of the Good Luck Bar in Los Feliz.  Residents are trying to fight a developer who has plans to create a boutique hotel on the site and a petition is being circulated in the hope that the bar can be preserved.

The article on LAist makes the point that the Good Luck Bar opened up as part of an earlier cycle of change in Los Feliz, and that cities are constantly evolving.  The bar’s current owner made money by catering to a new crowd that was moving to the neighborhood back in the 90s, and he’s currently involved in a revamp of the Chelsea Hotel in New York.  Old bars close, new ones open, and nothing lasts forever.

But having said that, there are some other issues here that make it sound like the community has been played, and I don’t blame them for being angry.  According to the article, when the boutique hotel was presented to the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council in 2014, apparently the developer, Conroy, assured residents that the Good Luck Bar would remain.  The LFNC ultimately voted to support the project, based in part on those assurances.  But the article goes on to report that the Good Luck Bar has been trying to renew its lease since 2016 and that the developer has simply ignored them.  Then last year, Conroy asked the owner of the bar to turn over the liquor license.  Understandably, Good Luck refused.  To me it sounds like the developer is trying to capitalize on the existing business without offering anything in return.

The Los Feliz Neighborhood Council will be talking about this at their meeting tonight at the Elysian Masonic Lodge.  Here’s the motion….

MOTION: Approve a resolution expressing concern over the eviction of Good Luck Bar and calling on the city to invalidate any permits or approvals previously given to the proposed project on the site.

And here’s the full agenda.  Should be an interesting meeting.

Los Feliz Neighborhood Council Agenda, April 30, 2019

Here’s the article from LAist.  An excellent breakdown of a complicated situation.  And one more chapter in the messy story of how our neighborhoods are being remade.

Good Luck Bar Is Closing After 25 Years. Can Los Feliz Save It?

 

 

The Grand Avenue Project

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Grand Ave Woman

No one will miss the parking structure that used to stand at the corner of First and Grand in Downtown. It was demolished recently to make way for the Grand Avenue Project, which will be rising on the site you see in the image above. I was walking down First earlier this month, on my way to the Disney Concert Hall, and as I rounded the corner onto Grand I was startled to see nothing but clear, blue sky on the opposite side of the street. It’s strange how the disappearance of something familiar can reshape the space around it.

Grand Ave Bldgs

A view of buildings surrounding the Grand Avenue Project site.

The Grand Avenue Project has been in the works for years. The completed project will include a 20-story hotel and a 39-story residential tower with 20% affordable housing, as well as retail, restaurants, and a public plaza. The complex was designed by Frank Gehry, and will be situated in the midst of the Downtown cultural hub that includes the Colburn School, MOCA, The Broad, the Disney Concert Hall and the Music Center.

Even though nobody will be mourning the loss of the parking structure, I thought I’d post a few photos to mark its passing. I’ve been taking lots of pictures of Downtown in recent years, trying to document some of the changes that are taking place. It’s interesting to watch the landscape as it’s going through these transformations.

Pkg 01 w DCH

A view of the demolished parking structure with the Disney Concert Hall in the background.

Pkg 05 Olive Street Level

A view looking down Olive.  The parking structure is on the right.

Pkg 20 Stairs

Stairs on the north side of the parking structure.

Pkg 30 Car

Interior of the parking structure.

Pkg 40 Top Level

A view from the top level.

One loss I am mourning is the removal of a number of street trees along the west and north sides of the project site. While the ones on Grand were fairly young, the ones on First were fully grown and provided extensive canopy. I’m sure new trees will be planted once the project is completed, but that’s at least a couple years away, and new development is taking a heavy toll on the City’s urban forest. The folks at City Hall keep talking about how important trees are for sustainability, but they keep getting cut down. If there was a program in place to monitor the urban forest and ensure its growth, that would be one thing, but no such program exists and the City does a lousy job of monitoring the situation. We can have new development and a healthy urban forest, but we need to plan to make that happen.

Pkg 60 Trees 1

Trees that used to stand on First Street.

Pkg 65 Trees 3 Grand

Trees that used to line Grand Avenue.

Here’s an article from Curbed about the groundbreaking for the Grand Avenue Project.

Construction Kicks Off on Frank Gehry’s Next Big Project

I don’t know how long construction is expected to take, but I imagine we’re talking at least a couple years. I was a little concerned by a paragraph toward the end of the Curbed article that talks about financing. Apparently the funding that allowed this project to move forward was obtained last year from a couple of Chinese firms. My concerns may be groundless, but it made me think about the stalled Oceanwide project near the Staples Center. That’s also funded by Chinese money, and while nobody’s sure exactly what’s going on, it sounds like they’re having serious cash flow problems. For years there was a flood of Chinese money fuelling development Downtown, but that seems to be coming to an end. Hopefully the funding for the Grand Avenue Project is rock solid, and things will keep moving forward.

Grand Ave Empty

Supervisors Approve Seriously Flawed LACMA Plan

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LA BOS Image 2

On Tuesday the LA County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a massive make-over of the LACMA campus. This was a major mistake. There’s been a lot of debate about the aesthetic quality of architect Peter Zumthor’s latest design, but really that’s a secondary issue. LACMA is a public institution and its primary purpose is to serve the public. I’m not the only one who feels that the project as proposed fails to accomplish that goal.

I wrote about the drawbacks to the plan a couple days ago, so I won’t go through it all again, but one of the main concerns is that LACMA is getting ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a new building with 10% less exhibition space. Does the LACMA Board really think that’s the best way to serve the public? Another serious problem with the new structure is that it doesn’t contain office space for most staff members, including curatorial staff. The museum will be renting space in a building across the street. Separating the staff from the exhibition space is a foolish and potentially costly move. How can anybody think this is a good idea?

To those who are angry about the loss of exhibition space, LACMA Director Michael Govan has said he wants to get away from the traditional idea of what a museum is. Rather than expecting people from all over LA County to come to the Wilshire District to look at art, Govan has proposed bringing the museum to the people by having LACMA open new spaces in various communities. Here are a couple paragraphs from the story in the LA Times….

Supervisor Kathryn Barger praised LACMA Director Michael Govan, who hopes to offset the loss of gallery space in the new building with future satellite locations in South Los Angeles and elsewhere.

“You really do have a vision, and it’s not just about four walls,” Barger said, later adding: “We believe it’s important to give exposure to people who wouldn’t otherwise have it.”

In theory this is a great idea. We shouldn’t keep clinging to old ideas about what a museum is, and the notion of creating different spaces in LA’s communities to engage the public directly makes perfect sense. But where’s the proposal for these satellite locations? What’s the budget? What’s the timetable? How is it going to happen?

Various sources reported that Govan pitched this idea in January 2018, and at the time he talked about the possibility of opening five different spaces anywhere between South LA and the Valley. What’s happened since then? Well, that same month the LA City Council approved an agreement which would allow the Department of Recreation & Parks to lease LACMA space at South Los Angeles Wetlands Park. The idea was that LACMA would gradually renovate an existing building at the same time it was providing programming in the park. Here’s an excerpt from the agreement.

LACMA proposes to begin providing museum programming services at designated recreation centers near the South LA Wetlands Park within six months of the execution of the Lease while the repair and retrofit work is being conducted in Building 71. Programming at the Park will be provided within eighteen (18) months of the execution of the Lease.

The LA City Council approved the lease in January 2018. The agreement says LACMA would start providing programming near the park within six months and that programming at the park would begin within 18 months. I looked all over the net. I looked at the Rec & Parks web site. I looked at the LACMA web site. I didn’t find anything about art-related activities provided by the museum anywhere near South LA Wetlands Park. The 18 month period will expire in July of this year. Will LACMA be providing programming at the park beginning in July?

What about the other locations? In July 2018 it was reported that LACMA had opened a small gallery at an elementary school near Westlake/MacArthur Park, but at that time it wasn’t yet open on weekends. Another site that’s been mentioned is Magic Johnson Park in South LA, but an article published in the LA Sentinel last month merely said that LACMA was “considering” a location there.

In other words, there is no plan in place. There are no details. Govan’s idea of bringing the museum to the people sounds good, but at this point it’s all up in the air. The locations haven’t been determined, there’s no timetable, and apparently no budget. This last part is especially concerning. Since fundraising for the new Wilshire campus has slowed, it’s hard to believe donors will be rushing forward with millions to fund this new idea of off-site locations. To say that the loss of exhibition space in the proposed building will be offset by new satellite locations without offering any concrete plan for how that’s going to happen is pathetic. Could some satellite spaces open in time? Possibly. But it’s also possible none of them will open.

I can’t believe anybody could buy this half-baked idea. But apparently the Board of Supervisors thought it all sounded great. You can read the write-up in the Times here.

LACMA’s $650 Million New Building Wins Approval from County Supervisors

 

Stop the Insanity at LACMA

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LACMA Plaza

If you care about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and you haven’t heard the latest about the massive makeover planned for the campus, please check out the articles below. There’s some crazy stuff going on. When the project was being discussed back in 2015, I wrote a post supporting the demolition of existing buildings and construction of new gallery space. But after reading reports in the media about the latest twists in the LACMA saga, I say we need to slam on the brakes. The project as currently proposed is just insane.

Read the articles below for more details, but the upshot is that LACMA will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create a new campus with a lot less gallery space. Even worse, the new buildings won’t contain offices for curators and other museum staff. LACMA will be leasing space for them in a building across the street. Unbelievable.

But it hasn’t been approved yet. The LA County Board of Supervisors will consider approval of the plan at their meeting on Tuesday, April 9. If you care about LACMA’s future, please write to your Supervisor TODAY and let them know you oppose the current plan.

LA County Board of Supervisors

Here are two articles that lay out what’s going on. The first is by Christopher Knight, who gives an overview of the proposal. The second is by Joseph Giovannini, who breaks down the numbers in excruciating detail. Both authors oppose the current plan

LACMA, the Incredible Shrinking Museum

LACMA: Suicide by Architecture

When the idea of remaking the LACMA campus was first proposed it seemed like a good idea, but over the years the proposal has morphed into an awful, pathetic mess. Please tell the Board of Supervisors to reject this idiotic plan.