I dedicate this book to my mother, Evangelia, who deserves all the credit and my deepest gratitude for guiding, nurturing, and shaping who I am.
And to my family — Sylvia, Tanya and Alexi — for their endurance and support for the person I have become.
FOREWORD by Dan Rosenfeld 9
PROLOGUE 10
CHAPTER ONE | THE BOY FROM ATHENS 13
CHAPTER TWO | LOS ANGELES’ MODERN POLITICAL AND CIVIC ODYSSEY 28
CHAPTER THREE | TRANSPORTATION 90
Funding of the Metro Rail 90
MTA Headquarters and Transit Center 109
Southern California Rapid Transit District 128
Universal City Metro Station 139
MTA and MCA Deal: Compromise or Public Betrayal? 140
The Demise of the East LA Subway 144
Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics 148
RTD/MTA Transit Police 153
The Sumitomo Debacle 157
John Dyer 160
CHAPTER FOUR | THE CHALLENGES WE FACE 162
Clean Energy 162
Water 170
CHAPTER FIVE | ARCHITECTURE 185
CHAPTER SIX | HOMELESSNESS 206
CHAPTER TWO
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
For many years Los Angeles was described as an urban configuration sprawling over five hundred square miles and consisting of myriad suburbs seeking a center. It was an enormous area distinguished by its dazzling sun and Hollywood allure. But was it viewed as a respected, dynamic city? East Coast detractors claimed it lacked cultural works and vitality, all essential parts of a great city. Further, it was a place fashioned for vehicles, not people. Horizontal Los Angeles managed to overcome all of this, despite itself. Slowly, the skyline changed, and the city steadily became more cosmopolitan and less provincial. Founded on September 4, 1781, almost seventy years before California was admitted to the Union, it catapulted into national and international significance during the last half century mostly because of the perception of far-sighted politicians and power players and the conviction and vision of a five-term mayor.
True, shifting demographics compelled adjustments to the existing power centers, leading to the establishment of energetic political alliances. Latino and African American groups organized and mobilized, becoming more politically skilled, gradually attracting donors, and disrupting the insular power blocs of corporate Downtown, Chamber of Commerce, labor and union groups, industry, the Westside might, and the San Fernando Valley ascendancy. A more diverse and less isolated city sluggishly materialized. A city seeking a new vision. Contemporary Los Angeles had a complicated birth. The area grew faster than any other United States metropolitan area as a World War II wartime industrial city, producing ships, aircraft, and war supplies. Almost a quarter million African Americans migrated from southern states for defense-related jobs. Many returning servicemen from the Pacific War found better job opportunities in the Los Angeles area and did not go back to their hometowns in the Midwest and South. At the same time, prevalent discrimination against Mexican Americans forced many into urban barrios in poor areas.
In the most recent years Los Angeles had six mayors: Thomas Bradley (1973–93); Richard Riordan (1993–2001); James Hahn (2001–05); Antonio Villaraigosa (2005–13); Eric Garcetti (2013–22); and Karen Ruth Bass (December 2022–present). The mayor is the chief executive of the city and has responsibility for its general welfare, but he/she is branded by the vision of Los Angeles and whether measures advocated yielded quantifiable results.
The city’s transformation into a diverse and renowned world city with a striking skyline and invigorated financial and business districts, with a rail system, museums, artistic verve, and exceptional cuisines were all successful facets of Bradley’s vision. Commissions were finally opened to women and minorities. And City Hall was accessible to all.
In Los Angeles County the network of interconnected freeways today serves close to ten million people. Construction began in the 1950s and some routes went through communities of color and ethnically mixed neighborhoods. Some routes were said to have been planned as slum-clearance projects. Absent political clout, impacted communities became casualties of transportation planners and their political mentors.
Roz Wyman, the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council at twenty-two, figured that a great American city needed the arts, and it needed baseball. In an interview she explained that whenever she promoted the city to investors and major companies, she was asked what it offered in sports. Aware of Walter O’Malley’s frustration in Brooklyn to secure a new stadium, she signed a letter from the City Council stating Los Angeles’s interest in obtaining a major league team. Two years of discussions and evaluations ensued, and the Dodgers agreed. On April 18, 1958, a parade wound through city streets leading the baseball players to the Coliseum where 78,672 fans saw the Dodgers play in their new home. Initially, major league baseball did not want O’Malley to move since no team was west of St. Louis and the added travel costs would burden the franchises. When Wyman heard that Horace Stoneham of the Giants was not making money in New York, she contacted people in San Francisco to help generate momentum for the team. Meanwhile, O’Malley suggested to Stoneham to talk to San Francisco mayor George Christopher, the Greek-born who lost California’s governorship to Ronald Reagan in 1966, and explore relocating the team, thus preserving the celebrated rivalry.
O’Malley would say that Dodger Stadium was the house Wyman built. But Wyman also wanted to help construct a City Council that had African American and Latino representation. “People are not being treated right,” she had told Police Chief William Parker before the 1965 riots. “You don’t listen to them.” She had no fear of Parker and told him so. She said that the Chief had a file on every City Council person, but not one on her.
In the modern-day Los Angeles City Council, the first successful thrust into political prominence by an African American was charismatic Gilbert Lindsay. He had worked up from city janitor to City Council member representing the meandering 9th District that included new skyscrapers in downtown’s financial district to the neighborhoods of underprivileged South Central Los Angeles.
When the first Mexican American City Council member Ed Roybal won election to Congress, Lindsay received the strong backing of prominent local political brothers Gordon and Kenneth Hahn and was appointed to the vacant seat in January 1963. Later that year, and for eight successive terms, he won reelection. Darlene Kuba was a staff member to Lindsay for seventeen years, hired by the councilman when she was sixteen years old right after graduating from high school. She remembers listening to stories of his years as janitor with the Department of Water and Power. “He had to work in the sub-basement levels cleaning toilets, and it would be during the graveyard shift at night because they didn’t allow anybody of color to work during the day on the main levels.” Ms. Kuba said her boss was an excellent mentor. “I want you to continue to go to school,” he told her, and she did, receiving her bachelor’s in criminal justice while working full time. Then she obtained another bachelor’s in Sociology. Lindsay continued to encourage her. “Now, get your master’s,” and she did, in Public Administration. Like an unwavering father, Lindsay pushed further. “I want you to get your doctorate because politics is very uncertain. You could always fall back on your degrees because nobody can take that away from you.”
During the same year Billy G. Mills was elected to the City Council’s District 8. Critical of both then mayor Sam Yorty and Police Chief Parker, the new councilman held that he had been stopped by the police seventeen times because he was seen driving a city vehicle at night. In 1972, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress, losing to Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, an attorney and member of the California State Assembly who became the first African American woman to represent the West Coast in Congress. Mills was appointed to the Superior Court bench by Governor Reagan in 1974 and served until his retirement in 1990.
Most significantly, in 1963, a retired LAPD lieutenant and attorney, the grandson of a slave, won two elections, one for the unexpired City Council term left by Charles Navarro when he was elected city controller, and another for the full term. On April 15, 1963, City Council Member Tom Bradley was sworn in. Ten years later, in 1973, Bradley defeated Yorty and became the first African American mayor of a predominantly white American city. Bradley changed Los Angeles forever. The city’s renaissance had commenced.
In 1963, Mervyn Dymally, an inspired and resourceful thirty-seven-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago, of African and Indian ancestry, who had become a US citizen six years earlier, won election to the California Assembly 53rd district, the first of a series of public offices he would hold spanning forty-five years of successful campaigns for the State Assembly, the State Senate, and the US Congress. In 1974, he became California’s first elected Black lieutenant governor of California. Dymally was reported stating that he was motivated by the life of the 19th-century African American educator Booker T. Washington and went on
With mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley and Sylvia.
to earn his Bachelor’s, Masters’, and Doctorate degrees, and worked determinedly to improve education and access to healthcare throughout his productive career. He confided to me that the causes of the 1965 riot was lack of adequate health care and transportation. “Out of the McCone Commission, the Southern California Rapid Transit System resulted, and out of that the MTA,” he said. “A little anecdote based on your expertise in transportation,” he added. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn moved quickly to build the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital, which opened in 1971. I was the electrical engineer for the King-Drew Trauma Center. While many experts thought they knew the cause of the riot he did not share that view. “It just happened, and it happened with an isolated incident…just exploded.” But it took thirty-four lives, he lamented.
The chronicle of expanded African American political representation, Dymally said, really began at the start of the ’60s. John F. Kennedy had appointed Assemblyman Gus Hawkins as chair of Community Groups for Kennedy, and Congressman Ed Roybal to head up the Viva Kennedy movement. He also told me that civil rights efforts were inspired by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the presence of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Congress of Racial Equality and the United Civil Rights Committee. Impressed with Bradley’s career, Dymally said: “This police officer was involved
Funding for the first 4.4 mile starting line totaled $1,167,600 broken down as follows: (in millions) UMTA, $176; Federal gas tax, $428; Federal funds for construction, $10.6; State of California, $213; LACTC, $176; Los Angeles City, $34; Private Sector (Benefit Assessment Districts), $130.
Waxman, however, once again in August 1986 tried to sidetrack Metro Rail with a surprise amendment in the House, saying that he didn’t act sooner “because I thought the Reagan Administration would stop it.” But when Secretary Dole agreed to a funding package on July 11, he tried to block it in the House Rules Committee. When that failed, he introduced his surprise amendment that was meant to stop Federal money for the subway until a new Environmental Impact Report was completed. As reported by the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, I remobilized and sought to defeat the amendment in its second hearing in the House.
In September Waxman admitted he struck a deal with me to support Metro Rail but told reporter Linda Breakstone that his position “evolved to one of distrust for the entire project.” He claimed that he lost confidence with RTD planners because “they used political considerations instead of safety, technical, or practical reasons” in designing Metro Rail. He did not act earlier because he believed the project would never be approved.
The deal struck with me was threefold: RTD would not tunnel through Fairfax, a technical committee would evaluate the 4.4 miles of the 18.6-mile system, and a safety study would be completed for the rest of the proposed route. All commitments made by the RTD were carried out.
Metro Rail Groundbreaking, with Chris Stewart, Kenneth Hahn, Tom Bradley, Nate Holden, and Gilbert Lindsay. Photo: courtesy of Metro
SCRTD-Metro Rail Groundbreaking, 9/29/1986. Photo: courtesy of Metro
Congressional Representative Ed Roybal inserted a new twist to Waxman’s actions, stating that “if he doesn’t want it in his district, we ought to look at putting it in East Los Angeles where most of the people live, where jobs are needed, and where they really need transportation.” Waxman’s efforts failed.
Then Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa said he had been concerned about the agency’s commitment to building a heavy rail system. “There is no question in my mind that heavy rail is not the best investment of our precious transit resources. Light rail, busways, and improved bus service are a better solution to the area’s transportation needs.”
In November 1998, Los Angeles County voters approved Proposition A, the MTA Reform and Accountability Act that was sponsored by Yaroslavsky, and barred the use of county sales tax money for all future subway projects. That was the final nail in the Eastside subway’s coffin. The Westside killed the Eastside subway.
However, Molina was determined to bring a rail line to East Los Angeles. She worked with the Eastside congressional representatives and especially Lucille Roybal-Allard to salvage the funds that had been designated for the aborted subway. The six-mile Light Rail Line from Union Station to Atlantic Boulevard in unincorporated East Los Angeles opened in November 2009. In recognition of these efforts, the Metro board voted in March 2023 to name the East Los Angeles Civic Center Station, Gloria Molina Station.
The Traffic Nightmare that Wasn’t | The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad) were held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California. In the mid-1970s, only two cities made serious bids for the 1984 summer games, Los Angeles and Tehran, Iran. Tehran withdrew its bid in June 1977 as the Iranian Revolution erupted.
Announcing the RTD Olympic Service Plan: With Mayor Tom Bradley. Photo: courtesy of Metro
RTD bus stop sign, the colors of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
That left Los Angeles’s bid and it was accepted by the International Olympic Committee. The official announcement was made in Athens, Greece on May 18, 1978.
In March 1984, a spat developed between the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and the Hellenic Olympic Committee. Peter Ueberroth, LAOOC president, made an announcement that, “The problem with Greek officials—who objected to using the Olympic flame to raise money—was only ‘a misunderstanding’ and had been clarified to the satisfaction of both parties.” He also said $3,000 contributions for those wanting to sponsor one kilometer of the run would be accepted through April 10, 1984.
Mayor Tom Bradley, while in Athens, in early February 1984 during his trip to Greece to establish the LA–Athens Sister City affiliation, explained to the Greeks that “the commercialization of the torch” was a misunderstanding, because the funds would be used for philanthropic purposes. Bradley participated in a meeting with the International and Hellenic Olympic Committee to “resolve the misunderstanding.” The HOC issued an angry statement seeking an explanation to Ueberroth’s comments. In a telex sent to the HOC, LAOOC declared that it had stopped accepting new contributions. The Greeks, led by Spyros Fotinos, the mayor of the city of Olympia, objected to the commercialization of the New York–Los Angeles Olympic Torch relay (see Los Angeles–Athens Sister City section).
The Olympic flame, carried by a torch, is lit several months before the Games at Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympics, where the Ancient Olympic Games took place. The flame is lit by a holy priestess using the sun’s rays and a parabolic mirror. The 1984 Summer Olympic torch relay began in New York City and ended at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, crossing thirty-three states and the District of Columbia. I was proud to sponsor my daughter Tanya so she could be a participant, running with the Olympic torch for a short distance in Los Angeles. Rafer Johnson, winner of the decathlon gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics,
Skid Row did not just happen. A district was formed to say, “Here, if you want to live like that, you can, and so we will bring services to this community that keep you alive.” That is all it is. “We will provide you shelter if you want it, provide you food, and you can do whatever you want in that area and stay in that area.” It was created in the last century, and it was maintained as such.
More and more services came in. It was reinforced by do-gooders and churches that said, “We care for the homeless, so let's go down there and feed them.” It was created by folks saying, “We need to house them.” It was all concentrated in this area, and so it became more intense, denser, more concentrated. If you never went downtown, you never had to see it. You knew it was there. It was part of the folklore to say, “You don't want to end up in Skid Row.” It represents something in our language. It is the worst place one could end up. It is a place for the people who have given up. It is where people go to die. It is Skid Row, and as a society we said it was okay. A lot of cities deliberately created similar areas, such as the Bowery in New York City and the Tenderloin in San Francisco. We are a case study of how Skid Row was formed with good intentions.
Since the mid-2000s, there has been a discussion about the right thing to do. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez’s frequent and biting columns on homelessness contributed to bringing the issue up front and center of the discussion. The debate also was driven by the fact that homeless people had decided to go out beyond Skid Row. They have done that because the circumstances that create homelessness had persisted, and there's now a stratification that exists in the homeless community. Among the homeless, the worst place you could end up is Skid Row, so they’ll say, “Whatever happened to Johnny? I haven't seen him around.” And they say, “Oh, he ended up on Skid Row.” To them, it was the worst place to end up because living in Hollywood, under a freeway in the San Fernando Valley, or in Venice Beach, as difficult as that life is, it's still not the worst place you could be.
Numerous studies have reported that about one-third of homeless people in Los Angeles have serious mental health issues. That is attributed to the deinstitutionalization movement in California under Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1960s, when many state health hospitals closed, forcing many people who needed care into the streets. Under the California Mental Health Act of 1967, or the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, which Reagan signed into law, the mentally ill were moved from psychiatric hospitals into “community clinics.” The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, signed by President Jimmy Carter, provided grants to community mental health centers that included a provision for federal grants “for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health.” In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, who as governor had reduced funding for California mental institutions, signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, repealing most of the Mental Health Systems Act.
Despite the claims of homeless advocates, media attention directed to homeless persons made it increasingly clear that many of them were, in fact, seriously mentally ill, according to Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a psychologist and schizophrenia researcher. In 1981, Life magazine ran a story titled “Emptying the Madhouse: The Mentally Ill Have Become Our Cities ‘Lost souls.’”
In Los Angeles, Miguel Santana, in addition to his experience as an executive dealing with homeless issues, first as deputy chief executive officer in charge of homeless for Los
Angeles County and later as chief administrative officer of the City of Los Angeles, he also has firsthand experience helping the homeless.
In my interview with Santana, he recounted that he started doing work around homelessness when he was in college, helping at shelters. “Our job was to keep people alive during the winter months,” he said. “That’s all we did. We prepared food, we put out cots. When it got dark during the winter, they would line up, they would come in, we would feed them, they would sleep. By seven in the morning, they were gone, and I would see them again the next night. I did that for four years, first as a volunteer, then as manager of the program. What was interesting is that we saw the same people repeatedly, and they looked very different the first day we saw them versus the last day we saw them.”
music keeps the brain engaged throughout the aging process. It reduces blood pressure and pain and improves sleep quality and mental alertness. “Music therapy” was practiced by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates in 400 BC.
For a period of time, I also belonged to the Rotary Club, the global network of clubs of business, professional, and community leaders who volunteer their time to provide service to others. It was an enjoyable experience, but I decided to spend my limited free time on more civic-focused activities.
The word virtue had two faces: virtue in the sense of excellence—striving to be one’s best—but also service to others. Sacrifice for one’s family, neighbors, and country is essential to the good life. —aristotle
A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all of the books of the world. —louis pasteur
While Los Angeles reinvented itself over the last half century into a world-class city with its surging skyline, distinctive art galleries, and celebrated musical attainments, a newer experience in dining blossomed with an haute cuisine and restaurant hospitality that matched and surpassed respected culinary capitals of the world. For years the city was said to be a wasteland when it came to food, a destination to be dismissed if one sought a lasting gastronomic encounter. Then talented and creative chefs and restaurateurs saw opportunity in a flourishing Southern California with its diverse population and innate yearning to always be the best.
“California cuisine” made its debut, a process less about cooking styles and more about fresh and sustainable ingredients with an attention to seasonality and an emphasis on the bounty of the region.
Whether haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine, novo cucina, or California cuisine, it became all available in grand style in Los Angeles, as well as the best of Mexican and Asian culinary experiences. Los Angeles is a world-class city that proudly expresses itself with world-class cuisines and wines.
My interest in food and wine considerably expanded in the 1970s when a friend, David Jay Flood, an architect and aquatics commissioner in the 1984 Olympics, invited me to join the Wine and Food Society of San Fernando Valley. Meeting a half-dozen times a year for black tie events in special restaurants, we savored a six- to seven-course dinner and fine wines, with each course and wine informatively explained during the evening. And there were other less formal events throughout the year revolving around the enjoyment of good food and fine wine. Sojourns followed to the California wine country, raising my awareness and interest in wine, and creating the motivation to learn more. Trips to the wine regions of France, Italy, Germany, and Croatia ensued, and of course always to Greece to taste the Greek wines as they evolve.
In the 1970s, there were only a few exclusive restaurants in Los Angles, but the gripping account of the city’s culinary progress, and my love for good food and wine, kept me abreast of the local history and included myriad discussions with recognized and prominent participants in this never-ending story.
Fountains west of Library.
Photo: Shirley Bleviss, courtesy of Angels Walk LA
In the summer of 1993, Mayor Richard Riordan proposed the sale of part of the Los Angeles historic Central Library to a subsidiary of tobacco giant Philip Morris. Opponents felt the deal would wipe out much of the city’s low-cost housing funding. Under the proposal the city would lease back the building for $5 million annually for twenty years. That drew strong opposition, because the $5 million would come from revenues of the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project.
Riordan hoped to raise $71 million by selling the Central Library. The mayor planned to use $14 million from the sale to help close a $33 million deficit in the city’s budget and $12 million to buy US government securities which would generate $49 million in twenty years for the repurchase of the library. The City Council and mayor would decide how to spend the remaining $45 million.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Rita Walters cited the inconsistency of the city dealing with a cigarette maker. She told the Los Angeles Times, “The City Council has just enacted an anti-smoking law, and Philip Morris spent the largest amount of money to defeat our effort…and now we’re going to sell them our library?”
On September 3, 1993, the council voted against the deal. But on September 7, the council, after intense lobbying by Riordan, revived the proposal to sell part of the library. Council member Zev Yaroslavsky said to the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t think it’s anymore just a housing issue. I think it’s a perception issue about selling a public asset.”
Despite Riordan’s pressure, the council on September 10,1993, again rejected the sale by a vote eleven to one, with Councilman Hal Bernson casting the lone vote in favor of the sale.
On May 1, 2001, the City Council renamed the Los Angeles Central Library from Rufus von KleinSmid, former University of Southern California president, and former member of the Board of Library Commissioner, to Richard R. Riordan Central Library.
Maguire Thomas Partners owned the library`s west lawn property and it wanted to construct a retail center. John Welborne, member of the West Lawn Coalition and Citizens Task Force for Central Library Development and his group said, “No, it has got to be a lawn. “There was a meeting attended by Welborne; Nelson Rising, senior partner of MTP; David Vena an attorney with Latham & Watkins, which represented Maguire Thomas Partners; and an environmental attorney from Rogers & Wells representing Friends of the East and West Lawns which wanted to
save the east and west two lawns. Welborne proposed a compromise to give up the east Lawn but save the west lawn. Jeff Skornick of the CRA agreed that the West Lawn Coalition could oversee the design. Larry Halprin of San Francisco hired local landscape architect Campbell & Campbell to design the west lawn, working with Welborne. The compromise reached with Maguire Thomas Partners included a three- thousand-square-foot restaurant, where celebrity chef Joachim Splichal opened Cafe Pinot. The restaurant is now closed. Halprin enlisted the support of Councilman Joel Wachs for three rectangular fountains,“Clear,” “Lucid,” and “Bright,” leading into the west entrance of the library that took a large area from the lawn, but Welborne thought it was not a fight in which he was willing to engage.
The Grand Central Market, the oldest public market in Los Angeles, is in the Homer Laughlin Building between Broadway and Hill Streets at the base of the historic funicular Angels Flight. In 1917, the Market replaced the original department store at the site. The Grand Central Market today features international cuisine choices, with vendors offering a large variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables and gourmet products, including numerous cheeses and meats and bread baked on the premises. The 30,000 square-foot food hall is a popular destination for locals and tourists, with eclectic food posts, public programming, and events.
The Grand Central Market exists today due to the financial support of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Without it, a Los Angeles landmark would have gone bankrupt in the early 1990s. In June 1990, the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and developer Ira Yellin agreed to recapture and revitalize a cornerstone of the Historical Core area of the Central Business District Redevelopment Project (CBDRP) through the preservation, renovation, modification, and improvement of the Project known as Grand Central Square (GCS), which included the Grand Central Market as a nexus of what would be the city’s monumental impending renaissance as a cultural destination that could attract political and economic capital back from the suburbs, most notably the Westside.
In March 1992, the project developer informed the CRA of his inability to obtain conventional bank funding for the Project, and since private investors typically did not find such prospects opportunistic enough the CRA proposed a comprehensive privately sourced construction loan commitment to be secured via a recapitalization structure composed of “credit rated” taxable bonds for the commercial component and tax-exempt bonds for the
For two years the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California—a cooperative of fourteen cities, eleven municipal water districts, and one county water authority that provides water to 19 million people—searched for a new home. At stake were over $100 million to be allocated for a new building. And the suitors were many, and for different reasons.
To verify the facts I knew, I spoke with David Farrar, the attorney who shepherded the search for the headquarters location. Farrar had also been the outside counsel for the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD) when it developed its headquarters at Union Station. My determination was to discern if politics and special interests were kept visibly accountable. In addition to Farrar the search team included attorney Amy Freilich, a skilled negotiator, experienced in public-private partnerships.
For investors and major real estate players, this became the big game in town and numerous locations and strategies were relentlessly advocated, considering the office market had collapsed in the early 1990s. Some had powerful backing. “At the time, every decision was vital, and big, and so many people were involved, and the strain put on people would have Profile of Courage pressure,” Farrar told me. “So tremendous was the pressure that it’s a story like the Barbarians at the Gates.”
“Games were being played here” Farrar said. A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued, essentially using the same process as the RTD. “We started out with ten possible sites, narrowed it down to five, then to three, which we considered the finalists,” Farrar recounted.
Among the sites considered were the Transamerica Tower downtown, the Los Angeles Times Building, represented by John Cushman, Cal Plaza, in the Bunker Hill District, a site at Union Station, and MWD property in the city of La Verne. The advisor working on the project was Larry Kosmont, the economic consultant for MWD. Farrar said tensions over which location to be selected surfaced early.
In September 1993, John Killefer, chairman of the MWD site selection committee, quit the board where he served for 20 years after committee members rejected his proposal to go to the Transamerica building. “Well, I can tell that my advice and counsel are no longer important here,” Farrar remembered Killefer saying. Behind the scenes, deliberation over the building location grew more intense.
“A congressman who represented the City of La Verne was upset that MWD would build downtown and not on land they already owned,” Farrar related to me. A two-story building in La Verne would cost far less than a twelve-story tower downtown. Asked by the general counsel Greg Taylor to draft a letter in response, Farrar wrote that the congressman’s scenario would work only if all employees were required to wear roller skates. The building would cover a footprint of about five football fields.
“That paragraph was taken out of the final letter sent,” he added.
California Plaza is a business office and commercial complex in the Bunker Hill District, downtown. It consists of two skyscrapers, Cal Plaza One, Cal Plaza Two and Cal Plaza Three, a vacant lot. Cal Plaza Three, ranked high with board members, was envisioned as the site where MWD could build its headquarters, according to Farrar. The CRA owned the land and would lease the ground to MWD. The delegation on the MWD from Los Angeles wanted the headquarters to be located in the city. Acquiring the Transamerica Tower, or going to be in Cal Plaza Three, or renovating the historic Los Angeles Times building were prime considerations, as was the Union Station site. “One party who favored the Transamerica building filed a protest to the selection of Cal Plaza Three site, holding up the decision for two months,” Farrar informed me. The decision eventually was revisited. Over concerns about rehabilitating the Times Mirror Square, in a closed meeting, the MWD board of directors eliminated the offer from the Times Mirror Co.
With the board leaning toward Cal Plaza Three, Ted Tanner, an officer of Catellus Development Corp. promoting the Union Station site, graciously accepted the decision and said that if things didn’t work out, his group was still there. Other developers who lost in the selection process accused the board of “stupidity and wrongdoing,” according to Farrar.
MWD had been renting interim space at Cal Plaza Two for five years. Robert Maguire, the developer of prominent high rises that changed the city’s skyline, had proposed to joint-develop with the agency although he didn’t own the building. Metropolitan Life did and a deal was in the works.
On December 14, 1993, the MWD board voted to start formal negotiations with Catellus Development Corp. which proposed a twelve-story building south of the transit center at Union Station.
On April 12, 1994, prior to the full board meeting, Mayor Richard Riordan called the head of the MWD, John R. Wodraska, advocating that MWD abandon the RFP process
Wilshire/Vermont Middle School.
Photo: courtesy of Metro
members. However, when she asked an MTA board member to do a joint development with a school, the response was, “Go do your own damn eminent domain!”
Nicolai Ouroussoff, architectural critic for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a March of 2001 article with the title, “Next Stop: A truly Connected Community.” In the article, Ouroussoff wrote “It has become commonplace for writers to depict Los Angeles’s future as a dismal, ‘Blade Runner’-like dystopia of ethnic friction and corporate greed. In truth, the greatest threat to the city’s future may be the dull minds of its urban thinkers. But a recent proposal to build new schools near two existing Red Line subway stops—one at Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, the other on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood—hints at what the city’s future might look like if our civic leaders were infected with a sudden dose of creative imagination.
“Conceived by Nick Patsaouras, the plan is intended as a practical—if partial—solution to two seemingly unrelated problems: The LAUSD’s desperate search for sites to accommodate the approximately 85 schools it plans to build in the next five years; and the MTA’s indecision about what to do with large parcels of undeveloped land surrounding many of its subway portals. But why stop there? It’s an encouraging start, as far as it goes. Imagine, for a moment, a much broader urban scheme—one that would link a whole network of new schools to a citywide subway system. The result would be a radical reworking of the civic infrastructure. Knowledge, in effect, would become our new connective tissue.
“What makes the idea compelling is its connection to the city’s broader social infrastructure. By linking each school to the subway system, the scheme treats education as a fluid component of everyday life. It evokes both Bill Gates’ vision of an Information Age, accessible to all, and the old socialist dream of a ‘school without walls.’ The subway becomes a mechanized school corridor, the subway cars mobile study halls. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is at crossroads—a moment when its cultural and social infrastructure need to be aggressively reexamined. Congested neighborhoods, overburdened freeways and continuing sprawl are slowly tearing apart the urban fabric. Those distances are not only physical, but they are also
psychological. They contribute to a deepening sense of alienation. Such notions could be the basis for a larger public dialogue about the city’s future.”
The schools were built through persistence, perseverance, and creativity. The school at Wilshire / Vermont Station, established in 2009, is a middle school named Young Oak Kim Academy, with grades six through eight. The school in North Hollywood, established in 2006, is East Valley High School.
An extensive study and panel discussion of “Red Line School District” is included in the LANow volume two, “Shaping a New Vision for downtown Los Angeles.” The LA Now project is a collaboration between Art Center, UCLA, and CalArts.
Leave the road, take the trails.
A Transportation System with Green Spaces | Changing the transportation paradigm went beyond improving pedestrian connections to the returning rail system in Los Angeles County. (See Angels Walk.) This new awareness of transportation alternatives included heightened interests in other non-auto or “non-motorized” methods of transportation in the region. Several independent but crucial elements were gaining political and environmental followings that challenged the disproportionate policy focus on the automobile. Newer immigrants from places not dominated by the automobile questioned the over-reliance on the auto-centric built form and transportation method. Rising concern for the environment, especially air quality, and the different values of newer generations and populations
Announcing first Greenway along Burbank/Chandler rail right-of-way. With Councilmember M. Braude and Supervisor M. Antonovich. Photo: courtesy of Metro
The American Jewish Committee decided to honor me with its Distinguished Service Award on September 28, 1989. The Dinner committee included Mayor Tom Bradley, Los Angeles County Supervisors Michael Antonovich and Edmund Edelman, county District Attorney Ira Reiner, Patricia Duff Medavoy, the wife of TriStar Pictures Chief Executive Mike Medavoy; Edward Sanders, a Jewish community leader and former advisor to President Carter on Middle East policy; and Mickey Kantor, a prominent attorney and lobbyist. I designated that the proceeds from the dinner be utilized to establish the Patsaouras Program for Ethnic Pluralism to be administered by the American Jewish Committee. The program would provide the impetus for building bridges of common understanding, cooperation, and unity among ethnic groups.
I asked Clinton to be the keynote speaker, and the governor gladly accepted. Three days before the event I got a call from Betsey Wright, Clinton’s chief of staff, advising me that the governor would not be able to come because he was chairing an education summit involving President Bush and forty-nine of fifty governors at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, September 27 and 28. I had developed a cordial relationship with Wright and quickly answered “No, Betsey, please ask the governor to call me.” Sure enough, a few hours later Clinton called, and I told him, “Governor, you must come. There are seven hundred guests and above all I have invited my parents to come from Greece.” Clinton asked me, “Do you have access to a private plane?” I, of course, answered “No.” Clinton said, “Let me call you back.” A few hours later Clinton called and said, “Hillary and I will come. Please have the Highway Patrol escort us from LAX to the hotel.” The Clintons not only came but they arrived at the hotel early. My mother Evangelia sat next to the future president of the United States, with my father Vasilis at the same table, an experience they never forgot.
It was a happy event, with Clinton mesmerizing the crowd with his trademark charm and oratory. I was so happy that I danced a “zeibekiko” against the admonition of a couple of guests, that “it was not proper in this particular environment.” Zeibekiko is an old Greek
folk dance originally strictly for males. Due to the movements of the dancer, it is sometimes known as the “eagle dance.” My friend Jim Birakos in fact broke a couple of plates on the floor as I was dancing, a Greek tradition.
After the event, Sylvia and I were invited by Mickey Kantor and his wife Heidi to their house, where the Clintons would stay, for after-dinner drinks. It was the first time I met Hillary, who was very unassuming, down to earth, with her shoes off sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, chatting, munching, and laughing.
One day in 1991 Clinton called me and told me he wanted to talk to me about something important. As usual, we met at the Polo Lounge and Clinton started to contemplate what “We would do if we were in the White House “and similar talk. At one point Clinton asked me if I would accept a formal position in fundraising in California. I declined, telling Clinton, “Governor it would be an honor, but I’m considering running for mayor and I cannot serve two masters. It would not be fair to you.” Clinton responded “Nick, I have great respect for you. But, after tonight your honesty captured my heart.”
I saw Clinton, when he was president, at a couple of receptions when he visited Los Angeles. Of course, the setting was very formal—not like the good old days, just the two of us drinking wine and chatting at the Polo Lounge.
In 1996, I received an envelope from the White House that I did not open thinking it was a fundraising invitation. I was inundated with such invitations, and as a result I developed a habit of throwing them into the wastebasket unopened. It was Friday, I locked my office and therefore the cleaning crew did not empty the wastebasket. Somehow, over the weekend I kept thinking of that envelope. Monday morning, I opened it and, to my surprise, it was an invitation that read, “The President and Mrs. Clinton request the pleasure of the company of Mr. Patsaouras at a dinner to be held at the White House on Thursday, May 9, 1996. It was a state dinner in honor of the President of Greece, Konstantinos Stephanopoulos. Still, I was jaded with political events and traveling, after my numerous red-eye flights to and from Washington, DC, and I was not inclined to go. But Sylvia convinced me that it was a great honor and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be in the White House under those circumstances.
Tanya participating in the 1984 Summer Olympics torch relay.
lit, left Olympia for Los Angeles, and as planned, torchbearers followed the long national route leading to the Coliseum.
My daughter, Tanya, was one of the torchbearers who carried the torch when it reached Los Angeles.
Upon the return of the Sister City delegation to Los Angeles from Athens, Centinela Hospital donated a dialysis machine to a hospital in Athens through the efforts of Angelo Pappas, who was on the Hospital’s Board of Trustees.
In December 1981, I founded the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce (HACC), serving as Chairman. The main purpose was to promote cultural, business, and professional relationships among the Greek Americans in Los Angeles, something first proposed in1922. The HACC received immediate support from the Los Angeles Greek American community for its social and professional gatherings and programs featuring noteworthy speakers. Honorary chairpersons, prominent in public life, served with dignity, among them California State Senator Nicholas C. Petris, California Assemblymember Louis J. Papan, and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson.
To raise money for charitable work, we created an annual Distinguished Service Award dinner program by honoring an American of Greek descent who had distinguished himself/ herself in the Arts, the Professions, or the Business world. Among beneficiaries of the money raised at these dinners included the establishment of the Dr. George Papanicolaou Chair at UCLA, named for the inventor of the Pap Smear Test.
With Telly Savalas, and attorney Constantine Karos, Telly’s brotherin-law.
The first of these dinners, held on October 29, 1983, was a star-studded event held in the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. As the first Distinguished Service Award honoree, HACC chose to honor Telly Savalas for his major success as a motion picture and television star and for his lifetime of service to many charitable and philanthropic organizations.
Telly’s evening was a striking success, with 800 people in attendance, comprising a mix of political and business leaders and many entertainment celebrities, among them Burt Lancaster, Danny Thomas, Red Button, Howard W. Koch, Jane Meadows, Kevin Dobson, George Savalas, Howard Cosell, and Steve Allen, the television and radio personality who had graciously agreed to serve as the gala’s Master of Ceremonies. Other prominent persons included Dr. Bernard Naylor, Professor of Pathology at the University of Michigan, and a colleague of Dr. George N. Papanicolaou, and Dr. Sherman M. Mellinkoff, Dean of the UCLA School of Medicine, who spoke about HACC’s ongoing fund-raising efforts to establish a chair for cancer research to be named for Dr. Papanicolaou.
Telly was best known as the star of the television series Kojak, which ran from 1973–78 on CBS. The bald, incorruptible, lollipop-sucking New York City detective with the tagline, “Who loves ya, baby,” became popular both in the United States and abroad, even years after the show ended. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for two consecutive years and won the Emmy in 1974. He was also nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Drama Series from 1975 to 1978, winning in 1975 and 1976. As a co-star with Burt Lancaster in Birdman of Alcatraz in 1962, Telly was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Despite his superstar stature, Telly was affable and approachable.
My family and I spent many enjoyable Sundays with the Savalas family, particularly having brunch at the Sheraton Universal with Telly’s mother, Christina, a painter, and our dear friends, Telly’s sister Katherine and brother-in-law Stan Karos and their daughters Stephanie
