The Story of Hollywood

by Gregory Paul Williams

  Inside the Janes house, Fessier saw something few people had ever seen. It was “a nightmare, a rat’s nest.” By then, 94-year-old Carrie lived alone in the kitchen, in a window seat near the stove. “Finding her in [the house] is a little like coming upon a Dutch cottage on Park Avenue with an original Dutch settler still in it.” Youngest sister Mary Grace had died in 1969, leaving Carrie and Mabel. Carrie was mean to her feeble older sister. If Mabel annoyed her, Carrie often forced her to sit on the front porch until midnight. Friends learned of the Janeses’ plight and took Mabel to live with them until she died in 1977. The sisters still owed taxes on the property.

  During Michael Fessier’s visit to Hollywood Boulevard, he found no solutions from those he interviewed. One cop told him, “I think they ought to bulldoze the place.”

  On April 14, 1983, vandals broke into the Hollywood Branch Library on Ivar Avenue at 2:00 a.m. They drank beer and scrawled obscenities on the walls. They made a pile of books and set them on fire. The fire burned 75 percent of the branch’s 90,000-volume collection, including a vast resource of early movie scripts, some scribbled on by D.W. Griffith. Police never caught the criminals who destroyed the library.

  The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation gave $2 million to rebuild the library in honor of Goldwyn’s wife, Frances Howard Goldwyn. Architect Frank Gehry accepted a commission that stressed a vandal-proof structure. Writer Mike Davis called the 1983 library that replaced the burned one “the most menacing library ever built.”

  A woman gets ticketed by a mounted LAPD police officer for soliciting on Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

  In 1982, the Masonic Lodge, once a mainstay of Hollywood social life, folded and moved to the Valley, leaving its impressive lodge empty for over a decade.

  IT CAME TO CONQUER HOLLYWOOD

  Every attempt to remake Hollywood failed. Developer-inspired projects died on drawing boards. A 1960 renewal of Hollywood and Vine’s southwest block with a giant mall with hotel and office space never happened. Plans for a luxury hotel near the Pilgrimage Theater also failed. That proposal included a series of tramways across Lake Hollywood to the Hollywood Sign.

  After Charles Toberman died in 1981, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, led by retired local TV personality Bill Welsh, continued the push for new development: high-rise offices, condominiums, and hotels. Raising $150,000 for a study on redevelopment, the Chamber invited the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) to Hollywood in 1983.

  Quasi-public agencies, CRAs were conceived in early 1930s to correct slum conditions beyond the scope of private enterprise. As urbanized areas evolved into disorder, CRAs gained a foothold as a way to bring change.

  A state law creating tax-increment financing for CRAs made the agencies popular with local California officials. When a city establishes a CRA area, the area’s taxes, which traditionally go for public services, are frozen for a specific time, usually decades, but extendible. During this period, if the area’s property values rise above the frozen level, (mostly from land sales, privately financed construction and CRA subsidies), the additional tax revenue goes to the CRA. This pays for more redevelopment instead of municipal services such as schools, roads, and police.

  CRAs play a high-stakes game with local residents and historical landmarks. Locally based, the board of directors and staff have complete control over who builds what where. With the awesome power of eminent domain, CRAs have the potential for land grabbing. Critics consistently accuse CRAs of subsidizing rich developers.

  The Los Angeles CRA formed in 1948 to redevelop downtown. Targeting shabby-but-historic Bunker Hill, once home to wealthy Angelenos, the CRA moved out 15,000 poor people and demolished a century of organic city history, 396 structures (7300 housing units). In its place, the agency subsidized a corporate landscape of glass towers.

  Hollywood’s new City Council representative, Mike Woo, the first Asian elected to the council, pushed to bring CRA LA to Hollywood. Woo had focused his campaign against the incumbent Peggy Stevenson on bringing change. As new Council Representative for Hollywood, he allegedly accepted sizable campaign contributions from those who stood to profit from CRA redevelopment.

  Many landowners and developers anticipated CRA subsidies. According to a Los Angeles Times investigation, large property owners maneuvered the CRA into Hollywood to boost their land values. Working through the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, they shaped a plan that set a course toward large-scale, commercial growth. A few acquired more land during this period. The Nederlander Organization of the Pantages acquired seven acres at all four corners of Hollywood and Argyle.

  Wallich’s Music City, Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street, was demolished in 1982. A developer built an unsuccessful mini-mall on the site, “banking” the land until values rose enough to build something on the entire block.

  Smaller owners, terrified of pending eminent domain which would make selling property difficult, sold quickly. A CRA project manager admitted, “It’s like everyone is out there playing chess with Hollywood. All the land barons are making their moves.”

  Big projects disturbed many locals. In 1985, the CRA and the Chamber considered relocating Hollywood High School for a shopping center. One out-of-state developer, the Bass brothers, proposed tearing down four square blocks (Vine Street to El Centro, Hollywood to Sunset), including all four corners of Sunset and Vine, for a $300-million entertainment mall to bring back the “living legend” of Hollywood. Music City (the original Capitol Records building) was demolished.

  To others, it made more sense to clean up and restore Hollywood Boulevard than to remove it. It was already an entertainment and shopping district with a great deal of its history intact. Business boosters, however, had never shown much respect for local history. “God forbid some movie star’s dog peed on a lamppost,” a Chamber of Commerce member told a preservationist. “They’ll never let you knock it down!” City officials stood squarely against historic preservation if it meant limiting growth.

  Mostly, the district’s volunteer preservationists lost their battles. In 1981, developers demolished the Peyton Hall apartment house over strong local objection. Peyton Hall had replaced Norma Talmadge and Joe Schenck’s home at 7269 Hollywood Boulevard in 1941. Through the ‘40s and ‘50s, Peyton Hall had served as home to Janet Gaynor, Cary Grant, Susan Hayward, Hedy Lamarr, and other celebrities. Only a short walk away from the commercial district, it had the style, ambiance and privacy fit for a Hollywood movie star. After its demolition, the site remained an empty, weed-covered lot for several years, prompting the city to request that developers have something in mind before razing structures. Eventually, a high-density, mid-income apartment house replaced it.

  The Randall Motor Club Building on the corner of Sunset and Bronson was another bitter battle. Golden West Broadcasting wanted the stylish Streamline Moderne building gone. The Randall Motor Building disappeared for a parking lot.

  Tiny Naylor’s at Sunset and La Brea, the last drive-in restaurant in Los Angeles, was demolished for a mini-mall. The Googie-style Carolina Pines across the street also disappeared for a mini-mall. The intersection filled with cheap architecture and plastic signs, the new urban blight.

  The discreet and popular Don the Beachcombers on McCadden closed its doors in the early ‘80s. Demolished for a never-built Ramada Inn, it became a parking lot, 1995.

  Northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue, the Randall Motor Club Building, 1960, became a parking lot in 1999.

  Carolina Pines, pictured in 1955, was a fixture on the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue for decades until its demolition for a mini-mall.

  Wilshire Brown Derby hat then and now

  The Masquers clubhouse came down for a high-density apartment building.

  Since 1978, volunteers had worked to list Hollywood Boulevard in the Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historical Places. Under the National Park Service in Washington D.C., it offered no substantial protection, b
ut seemed like a positive move. The CRA funded an architectural inventory of Hollywood to serve the nomination as well as redevelopment. It produced a dry list of architecture that mostly ignored the social and cultural history of vintage sites. Remodeled historic buildings went undesignated.

  Hollywood Boulevard became a National Register District in August 1984. Defined as the boulevard from Argyle to La Brea Avenues, it included portions north on Vine Street, Ivar, and Highland. A meandering designation, it omitted blocks of the boulevard east of Argyle, including two important theaters (Music Box and Mar-cal). It also omitted Vine Street south of the boulevard where the radio industry had ruled.

  The listing happened nearly by default. Very few property owners responded to the survey. They had no reason to oppose the nomination, as districts listed in the National Register often see property values jump 15 percent.

  At this time, Hollywood Heritage, a nonprofit cultural preservation group, formed to protect the district’s integrity. Its first president, Marion Gibbons, hoped to set a new tone for local preservation. She stated that preservationists needed to do more than stand in front of bulldozers. They needed to make concessions with owners. When developers planned the demolition of the hat-shaped Wilshire Brown Derby for a mini-mall, Hollywood Heritage won the concession to place the famous landmark on the mini-mall’s second story. Later, a Thai restaurant painted it silver.

  Police now referred to the Garden Court Apartments as Hotel Hell. They regularly swept it of runaways, transients, and night people who accelerated its decay. In 1984, after several fires, the new owner, a developer, wanted it gone. Preservationists halted the attempted demolition and waged a four-year battle in court to save the structure. City officials said restoration was impossible due to the vandalism.

  Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith wrote the prevailing opinion. “I shed no tears for the Garden Court. It ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had sunk to the level of a cheap motel and tourists [at the Holiday Inn] a block or two away weren’t even aware of their closeness to such a legend. Oh well. You can’t preserve an outdated building just because it once sheltered gods and goddesses who themselves were nothing but illusions, creatures of light and shadow on a screen.”

  The Garden Court demolition became a sore point between those who saw Hollywood Boulevard as a national treasure and those who pushed new development. Not only was the structure within the recently declared National Historic District of Hollywood, it was LA Cultural Heritage Monument number 243. Both designations proved useless.

  The Garden Court Apartments demolition, 1984. The Los Angeles Times, in a photo article on the demolition, headlined it “RAZING HELL.”

  The Masquers Club on Sycamore Avenue went next. Testimonial dinners had brought members to the oldest actors’ club on the West Coast through the ‘70s. Last honorees included Liza Minnelli, Edward G. Robinson, Ronald Reagan, Jack Warner, Edith Head, and Mae West. Fifty-eight years after opening, its auditorium continued to hold lectures; its bar brought patrons. Membership, however, had dwindled to a few hundred. The city and neighbors pressured the club for noise abatement and better parking. Preservationists sent telegrams to Ronald Reagan in the White House, a dues-paying Masquer, begging him to spare the structure. Efforts to relocate the building failed. Two weeks after closing, Los Angeles Heritage Monument number 226, the Masquers, disappeared for an apartment building.

  The Vine Street Brown Derby, listed specifically in the National Register of Historic Places, closed its doors April 4, 1985. A dispute between the Derby’s owner and its landlords, the Ullman family, over who would pay for seismic upgrading, doomed the place. Even the waiters expressed surprise at the abrupt closing. (Many moved to Musso & Frank’s.)

  In 1986, the CRA officially launched its Hollywood project with its Report to City Council on Proposed Redevelopment. Not surprisingly, the CRA found Hollywood a perfect candidate for urban renewal. Five main themes underlined its conclusion: inadequate parcelization of land (much of which occurred when the freeway cut through the district), shifts in land uses, structural safety risks in buildings (many needed seismic upgrading), obsolescence of building stock, and traffic and circulation problems.

  The CRA downplayed concerns, stating that it would save vintage buildings, discourage insane development, solve unemployment problems, address parking needs, and improve economic conditions. The agency had until 2016 to do this. From 1,100 acres of Hollywood (La Brea on the west, Serrano on the east, Franklin on the north, and Santa Monica on the south), the CRA would divert nearly a billion dollars in local property taxes over thirty years. A separate East Hollywood CRA went from Serrano to Vermont Avenues.

  On May 7, 1986, L.A. City Council voted overwhelmingly for one of the largest redevelopment projects in the city’s history. In doing so, it declared Hollywood, California, a “blighted” slum, condemning the historic district to redevelopment. The single dissenting vote on the council came from Ernani Bernardi, who would remain one of the CRA’s staunchest foes.

  California taxcrusader Howard Jarvis publicly condemned the City Council’s action. “There is not the slightest justification for this Hollywood project of yours … I want to go on record that I object to this project and its insane, fiscally irresponsible method of financing.” Jarvis suggested that free enterprise be allowed to continue in Hollywood and that the $1 billion be spent “on legitimate city services instead.”

  FIGHTING BLIGHT

  Morgan Camera on Sunset in 1935.

  The Music Box as the Pix Theater, then Henry Fonda Theater. As part of Hollywood’s comeback, the ficus trees from the early ‘60s were pulled out and replaced with fully grown palm trees.

  With the CRA’s arrival, Hollywood property values skyrocketed, supporting the belief that recovery had started. Prime Hollywood land doubled to $4 million an acre. Metromedia, who had paid $10 million for its station in the ‘60s, sold KTTV to Fox Broadcasting in 1987 for close to $550 million. ABC’s facility at Talmadge and Prospect was estimated at $1 billion on the open market, almost half of the entire network’s value.

  The real estate boom mimicked the 1920s. Landowners extracted rents based on the paper value of their land. Leases along Hollywood Boulevard became unaffordable to many. Merchants paid high rents while catering to the homeless, runaways, and drug addicts. A CRA manager called it survival of the fittest.

  The Nederlander Organization took their success with the Pantages over to the Pix (Music Box), that now showed Spanish-language movies. After removing the Deco neon marquee, Nederlander renamed it the Henry Fonda. A star-studded 1985 dedication paid tribute to the actor who had died in 1982. Supplying a steady flow of productions, however, proved to challenging for Nederlander.

  Morgan Camera Shop opened in 1932. Spending most of its years on Sunset east of Vine, the store’s famous customers included ventriloquist and camera buff Edgar Bergen. David Morgan, son of the founder, operated the business when the CRA arrived in Hollywood.

  According to David Morgan, “The blight findings of the CRA in Hollywood were fraudulent. Building conditions were very good.” By law, blighted buildings must be dangerous and in irreparable slum condition. They must cover 80 percent of the redevelopment area. The CRA could find only 5 percent of the Hollywood project area’s buildings blighted. A city planner stated that Hollywood’s blight was “not [the kind] visible by driving through the community.”

  One CRA opponent, Richard Carman, suffered a stroke after a strenuous all-day City Council and CRA hearing on redevelopment. Refusing to go to a hospital until he documented the sound condition of local buildings, Carman and son drove through Hollywood, videotaping evidence that there was no blight.

  In 1986, as Hollywood Better Government Association of California, David Morgan initiated three lawsuits against the CRA. Joining him were four local women (Kay Armour, Karen Hale Wookey, Sue Nelson, and Jamia Riehl) as Save Hollywood Our Town (SHOT). Karen Hale Wookey was the daughter of actor Alan Hale an
d the sister of Alan Hale, Jr. A principal part of their many-layered argument was that the CRA had illegally declared blight in Hollywood to start eminent domain powers.

  That same year, an Indianapolis shopping center developer announced the Hollywood Promenade. A CRA cornerstone for Hollywood’s renewal, it targeted the former Hollywood Hotel site. The $150-million, eight-acre proposal included two towers twice the height of the Roosevelt Hotel for a hotel and offices. It had a motion picture museum, restaurants, retail shops, theaters, and 4,200 spaces for underground parking. The project wrapped around the Chinese Theater like a tourist posing for a photo with a celebrity.

  The developer sought $70 million in public funds, yet refused to negotiate issues with the neighborhood. Local residents objected to the project’s size, the noise, traffic, and ruined views. SHOT sued to halt the project. Tied up in litigation, the developer withdrew.

  In 1988, the Fort Worth-based Bass brothers mapped several acres east of Highland, between Hollywood and Yucca, for the “Hollywood Plaza,” an urban village. The CRA got aggressive this time, sending out eminent domain notices to over one hundred and fifty businesses, homeowners, and apartment tenants in the Hollywood and Highland area. The threat was empty; local lawsuits had halted the CRA’s eminent domain powers. Unknowingly many frightened people sold their property to the developer anyway. The syndicate cleaned out tenants in the Hollywood Center Building (Robertson’s/J. C. Penney), sending commercial vacancies to record highs.