Can LA Grow a Downtown?
Question (reprinted without permission):
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 12:33:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: michael at theobvious.com
To: superman at bryanboyer.com
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Can the Disney Hall Help Give Los Angeles a Genuine Downtown?This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by michael@theobvious.com.
Bryan --
Great chatting with you last night. This is perfect offline material... Can one new complex -- especially with the Disney name attached to it -- create a "downtown" in Los Angeles?
-Michael
Can the Disney Hall Help Give Los Angeles a Genuine Downtown? October 21, 2003 By BERNARD WEINRAUB
Response:
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:52:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: michael at theobvious.com
To: superman at bryanboyer.com
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Can the Disney Hall Help Give Los Angeles a Genuine Downtown?Michael-
It's remarkable that this project survived all of the problems it was fraught with. Still, I find the claims of a new downtown for the city dubious. Do they mean a cultural center deserted and sterile like Rome's EUR-- purpose built and now all but ignored? Without an in-depth knowledge of LA's topology, it strikes me that the Concert Hall may function something like the Campidoglio set atop the Capital Line Hill in Rome's center. It's there that the civic center of the city is memorialized by a triumvirate of monumental buildings and an equine sculpture. More importantly, however, it's from Capital Line Hill that one can literally roll down the hillside into Rome's many folds. Will the concert hall have such a centering effect on Los Angeles? Is the physical size of the city too much to make such a collection before dispersion possible?
It seems silly to consider the argument in terms of literal centrality, but the article specifically mentions "24 hour downtown" which suggests that the Concert Hall would like to be a place that draws similar crowds. Will opera, theatre, classical concerts, fine art, and Catholic Mass draw people into this zone of the city? Not to be a pessimist, but do these programs really draw the sorts of active crowds that the author of the article wishes for?
Nevertheless, I think that it's an interesting attempt to accrete these cultural facilities into a coherent whole in the middle of the city. This may be Los Angeles' great attempt to free itself from its Studio City neighbors and their tyranny of the movie screen.
With limited knowledge of that area I wonder where the small facilities that support such a proposed cultural zone will appear? As far as I remember that part of the city is laid out in monumental plots leaving little area for small shops and cafes to come and go. This is one of the major problems I see with the EUR and the reason it usually looks like a ghost town: Cafes and restaurants are sparse and parceled along the boulevards. People are in the museums or in the cafes and minimize their time in between as much as possible.
I like Los Angeles and don't want to see it meet this same fate. It seems like they've built something to make the people go out and take a peek, but what will make them stay?
-bryan
--Posted 10/21/03 02:55PM