It really is scary the way time excellerates as one gets older. I’m at that age where they really start to fly by. Hollywood was in the middle of a multi-billion dollar overhaul when the economy tanked. When I moved to Hollywood, over ten years ago that was. It looked quite different than the picture we now see. High end boutiques and trendy restaurants are elbow to elbow with the old stripper wear boutiques, head shops and tattoo parlors.
There’s a W Hotel and Apartments at Hollywood and Vine that nobody can afford. At Sunset and Vine there is a mixed use (apartments, restaurants and shops) structure that takes up an entire long block from Sunset to Selma on the west side of Vine. It’s called Sunset+Vine. How imaginative! These units looks very cheap but cost a fortune. Then at my end of Hollywood, in the heart of tourist land, Hollywood & Highland, the high-end residential stampede is finally grinding to a halt. The Jefferson Project and the McCadden Project are done.
Above bears witness to the immense changes that Hollywood has undergone. Across from Sunset+Vine, a Trader Joe’s has just opened up.
An Interesting Holdout, Molly’s
On the NW corner of Selma and Vine
The Jefferson Project in Pictures
As you can see, the Yucca Corridor has been through a lot of changes, or should I say convulsions over the last few years? The last picture may be from the McCadden Project. It’s all ugly and overpriced. Nobody wants to rent it and it’s creepy to watch these multimillion dollar projects sit fallow. Poor city planning results in this kind of crap. And it makes me, for one, very angry. Where is the housing for the poor and middle class? We exist too. I guess this is the part where I wish everybody a Happy New Year. I wish it for the poor and the displaced. The horrible divide in wealth in this country will eventually lead to upheaval if it is not corrected.
I would rather have seen the bushes. They were home to little birds and insects. They provided cover for stray cats. They were nicer to look at than just the cheap chain link fencing that looks like it would collapse after the first good wind. And we do get strong winds here! But since they didn’t fix the gate, why did they bother to break up everything on the lot, including a big, metal thing-a-magigy that needed medieval treatment to destroy? See video.
Any moron past the age of eight years should be able to navigate the gate. Step on the chain and hop through, or if you are a skinny tweeker, just squeeze right through. I am certain that homeless tweeker prostitutes will be finding a safe haven in our concrete garden any day now. Especially since the maid service came and cleaned everything up.
I like to call the hole in the ground next door, the concrete garden. It’s a play on the novel by Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden. It was later made into a movie. He never wrote anything very good after that first tour de force, but his books do sell, and win awards as well. The women in the video got rather violent after I turned off the camera. They began to break bottles against western wall of their hole. It is the wall that abuts our building, so it got loud in here where the non-homeless dwell. The contractors in the upper left hand of the screen did little to fix the gate. See for yourself. That picture was taken five minutes before it was just posted.
Doesn't look promising
Was that the best these guys could do? And they wanted to put a building up on that spot? My God! That thing would have tumbled, all five floors, right all over the Pointe (my building). These half-assed developers won’t rest until they buy up my building and the one next to it and the one across the street from us. We’re the last pieces of rental property that are governed by rent control regulations on this stretch of the Yucca Street cooridor.
The number of rent controlled units decrease every year, yet the L.A. Times published an op/ed piece last May that called for the end of rent control. Trust me Paul Habibi and Eric Sussman (who authored said op/ed) there are no high-priced lawyers living in my building. It’s composition is mainly immigrant families and young people starting up with their lives as grown ups. It also seems to provide student housing for the Musicians Institute. The developers are tearing down all the rent controlled units anyway, so your arguments are unwelcome. Why don’t you weigh in on another issue, such as Ayn Rand and how great she is? Paul Habibi is a real estate entrepreneur, according to Wikipedia. (It’s too easy) Eric Sussman lectures at UCLA. When he isn’t playing teacher, he’s “president of Amber Capital, Inc., a 15-person real estate investment company, which has acquired, rehabilitated, developed, and managed over 1,575,000 square feet of commercial real estate since its founding in 1993.” Just another fucking developer! L.A. Times is not unbiased. It is a tool of the real estate investors, in the grand tradition of old man Mulholland, who has a beautiful two-lane highway named after him. It’s hard not to think that everything is a fix. But that’s how they do things in Los Angeles.
The Jefferson Project is all finished and they’ve hung out their For Rent sign. At three thousand a pop, I wonder how fast they are renting apartments? Now they have twenty seven units set aside for people with low income. This is out of two hundred and seventy units- a measly ten percent. I wonder what the income requirements are for these units? Who decides who gets them? There are a lot of working poor families in this neighborhood. Will the recipients be from this neighborhood? I bet it’s a lottery system, and the only people who got invited to play were friends of the family, if you will- nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
So let us agree that the development company that owns this lot on the corner of Yucca Street and Las Palmas Avenue is irresponsible in the way it is conducting the disposition of said lot. They are not making it a secure site. Anyone can camp out there, and now they do. The people who camp on their lot are not nice people. They are mean, ugly and probably drug addicted people. Would you want them setting up shop in the concrete hole next door to your home?
Existence is probably a better noun to use. The word life connotes a certain joy, a spark of hope, a glimpse of a dream, and at least a shred of dignity. But for the people who live in the Concrete Garden, there is only despair. In addition, for the people around them, there are daily confrontations with fear, vulgarity, hatred, dirtiness. The dream of Hollywood is a tiny diamond amongst a whole beach of plain sand. For the majority, some kind of life is put together – acting classes, camaraderie, the occasional part in a play in one of those tiny theaters on Santa Monica Blvd., or even a part in a commercial! Then there’s the waiting of tables, or being a barísta at a she-she coffee house. One out of thousands gets a lucky break, most just end up going back to school, others find niches all of their own – after all, actors are creative people and some of them are actually talented, at acting and other things as well. It’s a tough life, but as the saying states, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” The people you will meeting in today’s post aren’t tough. They are idiots.
Some of us Hollywoodlians, I daresay, the majority don’t even think about a career in the business, as it is called here in Los Angeles. These people just call Hollywood home. They live in crappy apartments; they live in really nice apartments; a few even live in just okay apartments. I’m a bit of a snob. I like being from Hollywood, despite the reputation that it has of flop-houses and crack heads. Sometimes the reputation is well earned, and tonight was one of those nights when the reality of the dangers of Hollywood hit home, too close to home for comfort.
I call this first video, “The party begins.” Earlier in the day, cops came and rousted two young men from the abandoned lot at the northwest corner of Yucca and Las Palmas. The night before a group of six (5 males and 1 girl) slept in the lot. There are mattresses and couches that provide ample sleeping accommodations for the none-too-picky. The two who remained were late sleepers, I guess, but they were told to shove off, and off they went. This is the whole pack returning. They know I’m recording them from up above, so they move their party furniture against the western wall of the lot in hopes of avoiding my camera. Nice try, idiots.
The block of Yucca between Las Palmas and Highland has been squirming under the heal of gentrification for three years now. Potholes that look like they were torn by ice glaciers work in concert with the loud noises of construction, and inconvenience of heavy machinery blocking access to everything, to create an atmosphere of fatalism. When will it be our turn to be forced to pack up and move out? In this next video, our revelers get out of hand. The footage is shocking and I’ve given it a PG-13 rating. The rating is for violence. At first the video is a bit unclear and shaky, but be patient and stick with it. You won’t be disappointed. The woman in the foreground is being restrained by two men and in the background, three men are fighting tooth and nail. The woman apparently wants to come to the assistance of somebody, but the other two men explain to her that it’s a “man thing” and she wouldn’t understand, and mustn’t intervene. Please allow me to clarify one thing. It’s not a “man thing.” It’s an “idiot’s thing.” You have to be an idiot to understand their behavior. A drunken, violent idiot at that.
Let me end this post with a few brief words. Of course it is the responsibility of the owner of this lot to secure it in a manner that keeps the riff-raff out. It is the duty of the police, on the other hand, to secure peace and the rule of law. How did they respond to this situation? Poorly, as usual. I called the 9-1-1 dispatcher twice about this situation. The first time, the person I spoke with said that there had been other calls and that units were on the way. I waited over ten minutes then called again. The second person said that nobody else but me had called (a lie). I know she was lying because she read me information that I never gave the first dispatcher that I spoke with. She asked me if I wanted to leave my name and number. I said, “NO!” Because of the last incident, when the cops treated me threateningly, but then I said, “I know you have that information already.” With a curt, “Fine!” she disconnected our conversation. One measly unit finally showed up. It was pitch dark which necessitated the use of flashlights. It looked to me as if they took the drunkest and/or most beat up of the bunch, set him underneath a tree and called an ambulance for him. Job done! Was anybody arrested for trespassing, assault, public intoxication, or anything at all? To my war weary eyes, the answer seems, “No.”
Getting that ad space ready - note that it will be an electric sign! blinky blinky
Once the new neighbors start meeting the old neighbors, sparks are gonna fly. This place will become mugger central because of its central location (several on ramps to the 101 within 2 minute’s drive). Also, these new units are all high-end. White Trash like me could never gain entré! The Jefferson Project is asking for $3,000 per month in rent. RENT! I don’t know how much the McCadden units are going for but it must be in the same neighborhood (forgive the pun) of the Hollywood and the Jefferson Project. By the way, the arrogant Hollywood is still trying to get 2.5 million dollars for their penthouse units. Look to The Hollyblog to give you full coverage of the emerging class warfare!
What’s the big deal? So they aren’t paying decent wages, maybe even paying illegal immigrants under the table to haul stuff away. Why is everybody getting their panties in a bunch? If it weren’t for unions, there would be no middle class in this country. Sweatshops would abound. Workers would be forced to labor for twelve or more hours at a time. There would be no OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). Hell, there would be no Department of Labor, whose Secretary serves on the President’s Cabinet. The last effect Secretary of Labor that this country had was under Bill Clinton. His name? Robert Reich. He served under Bill Clinton and was one of his chief economic advisors. The reasons why Obama didn’t tap him for his administration is beyond my comprehension. Maybe he asked and Reich turned him down? He’d make a better Secretary of the Treasury than Geithner, who has proven himself to be a complete corporate shill. But maybe he is doing a good job by Obama, taking the heat for his misguided pro-corporate policies. So how did I get all the way from the Jefferson to here? Well, there used to be strong labor laws in this country, but under Uncle Ronnie, they were dismantled by Congress (with the help of the pro-right wing Supreme Court). Now, all we have left of the vestiges of a strong union mentality in this country is Labor Day. I wonder how many middle class Americans realize that they have a day off to barbecue thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of labor agitators from the Great Depression era. I wonder how many people know who Joe Hill was. (Joan Baez does a great version of the song, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night.”)
If it weren’t for labor unions, there would be no middle-class today –Russell Smith
Guess how much a unit is going for at the Jefferson? Three thousand dollars a month, that’s how much! With that kind of money backing up this never-ending project, one would think that they would hire members of Carpenters Local 209 to help build this…thing. But no! Every penny counts in this rat-eat-rat world of ours. Back in the old days, the Union would have had a nice gang of thugs to beat the living shit out of these scabs who are stealing jobs from dues paying members of Carpenters Local 209. It is sick-making when one realizes that construction workers, REAL construction workers, are some of the hardest hit people here in L.A. in this Republican-created Depression.
Call 972-556-1700 to complain!
One last insult to the workers of Hollywood. I saw Spiderman getting a ticket for being Spiderman. The world really is turning into an Orwellian nightmare. Watch!
Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. — Winston Churchill
There was a strange gathering outside my window yesterday. I recognized at least one face for sure and it was the one that seemed to be doing most of the talking. PLEASE! If you care about Hollywood Russ’ safety, view this video, because I think there are some unsavory characters in it. It is also my opinion that some of them would not be the least disturbed if ol’ Russ fell of the map.
I know that I have friends and family who love me. But I also know that I’ve made more than a few enemies. I’ve been putting the kibosh on that ill-conceived construction project for ages now. Why don’t they just give up? Fill the hole up will dirt, cover it with sod and make it pretty public garden! That would help improve the property values in the neighborhood, as well as the morale of the long-suffering residents who’ve endured the crack-era (1980’s) and the meth-era (1990’s to present) and now the hot-spot era (2000 to present) with forbearance and grace.
All these developers want to do is build, build and build some more. They’ve got every politician in this city in their back pockets ever since old man Mulholland came on the scene. Can’t they have mercy on this one little corner? Now the above video only last a few minutes, but the thug conference lasted a bit longer and grew larger. They had to move to the corner of Yucca and Las Palmas to continue their deliberations. What was so important to discuss. Where they hammering out the details of my hit? Who would they hire? Who would hire who? How much would they pay? Let’s not forget that I made at least one city official, John Carpenter, look bad. Can there be much debate on whether he’s incompetent, or just on the take? Maybe both!
Thank our dear friend Tom LaBonge for this latest land grab by developers who worship one thing and one thing only – the ALMIGHTY BUCK! Our belovèd Griffith Park is under attack. Our elected officials who should be protecting this land for the posterity of our children (and their children) are kissing it goodbye.
Yet even as I type, Tom and members of his staff are holding a press conference where he is proclaiming his commitment to protecting our precious parks. There’s a saying that applies to our Councilman for District 4, “He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.” I’ve seen that red-faced, melon-head arm in arm with one of his real estate buddies pointing out this parcel and that parcel of land in front of my very own apartment. When I came lurching toward them, Tommy Boy tried to put on the politician’s false charm. “We’re just talking about improving the neighborhood!” He beamed at me. I said, “I’m talking about unbridled development!” Tom’s smile melted quicker than an ice cube in Death Valley. He grabbed the other stuffed suit and said,”Gotta go!” And away they went. I think I heard him whisper to his friend, “Run! Connie! Run!” Never to be seen on Yucca Street again. Ah, one exception – he was there for the ribbon cutting for the new mini-Park – that magnet for crime, drug commerce and abuse, drug addicts, skateboarders, bums and other blights to society. One should note that this noise factory is nestled on a corner surrounded by low density housing. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
My sources tell me that complaints about the noise and disruption have been pouring in since day one. From the corner of Yucca and Cherokee, up Las Palmas and down to Hollywood Blvd, the screaming of children waiting to be picked up from day care fills the air with its shrill cacophony. The cursing and foul mouthed basketball players who come from other neighborhoods and bully off the poor Hollywoodlians is probably the greatest insult of all. I see and hear it all from my window and I record it.
The blight of skaters
[VIDEO REMOVED BECAUSE OF THREATS OF VIOLENCE. SEE RIGHT SIDEBAR, “WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING.” I DON’T WANT TO END UP LIKE ONE OF THOSE CARTOONISTS WHO HAS EXTEME MUSLIMS TRYING TO CHOP THEM UP. ALL THREATS TO MY PERSON ARE RECORDED AND SAVED. THE PEOPLE WHO ENGAGE IN THIS BEHAVIOR ARE TOO IGNORANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT BY ACCESSING MY SITE AND LEAVING THEIR FILTHY THREATS, THEY GIVE ME ACCESS TO THEIR INFORMATION. I CAN PASS IT ALONG TO THE AUTHORITIES ANY TIME I WANT. THERE IS NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. IF ONE IS A MINOR OVER THE AGE OF 14, DON’T EXPECT MUCH CLEMENCY ON THAT ACCOUNT EITHER. Hollywood Russ, March 15, 2010]
This is on an average day. My wife likes to call it Tom LaBonge’s Containment Area because of the homeless encampments and round the clock drug dealing. Thanks a million Tom LaBonge. I’m sure the property owners and renters who live within earshot of this park go to sleep every night with a prayer of thanksgiving to you on their lips. Yet you run uncontested over and over again! Maybe it’s because you represent the big money folk up in the Hills who would never tolerate this kind of treatment!
Those fingers just itch for money!
Suicide Update
I spoke with the Coroner’s Office about last week’s suicide at the Hollywood and Highland Complex. They are not releasing any information about the episode until the victim’s next of kin can be notified. He appears to have been homeless – a black male in his mid-thirties. Case file number 1046. According to my contact, suicides are a penny a pound in LA.
Approximation of the last thing victim saw - photograph by Carbon Boy
Two days ago (Thursday, February 11 before the hour of Noon) a man committed suicide at the Hollywood & Highland mall by jumping off the overlook across from the El Capitan Theater. He landed in front of the Louis Vuitton store. According to a worker at the mall, the sound of the impact was so loud that passers-by thought it was a gun shot and began to run in all directions. I called the Wilcox Police Station to see if I could get more information on the victim, but they don’t take calls from the public. I tried calling the News Desk at L.A. Times and the gentleman who answered told me that unless it’s someone like Mr. McQueen, they don’t usually report on suicides. Fair enough. They’ve got a lot of ground to cover. The man who answered even suggested I call the Coroner’s Office. Unfortunately, the famous L.A. Coroner only works business hours and nobody will answer the phone on Monday, President’s Day. The cops on the scene were typical Hollywood cops. Rude and arrogant, not to mention tight-lipped. A curious passer-by asked if they’d beat someone up again, one of them twisted up his face and barked, “That’s not funny.” No, it’s not funny because it happens all the time. And if you get robbed, assaulted or anything else in Hollywood, don’t expect the police to help you. They are fat-assed, Starbucks latté swilling and coffee cake gobbling civil servants who just want to collect a paycheck and go home.
If you live in Hollywood and want to feel safe, buy a gun. As for the poor soul who found nirvana by jumping off the top of the Hollywood and Highland complex, all the information that I’ve been able to able to glean thus far from the twittersphere is that he was an elderly black man. Uncorroborated details of this sad event relate that the man’s death was not an easy one. Reports say that he coughed blood and began to seize before departing this earthly plane. Reports also relate that the police tried to talk him down. From my experiences with the Hollywood police, I’d be more inclined to believe that one of them pushed him, just so he could call it a day. There! I said it!
What’s up with the Hollywood Sign?
SALLYWOOD?
Tom LaBonge and his greedy developer friends are planning to develop Griffith Park. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not, especially in Los Angeles, which on a corruption scale of one to ten, ten being Bangladeshi corrupt, would undoubtedly score a ten. While fresh-face UCLA students, armed with clipboards and petitions, scour Hollywood Boulevard asking for signatures to protest this outrage, others with a bit more moxey are putting these letters up on the age-old symbol as their form of protest. The ridge that these money-grubbing bastards want to develop is dangerously close to the sign and will probably block the sign from even more viewers. Soon nobody except for the ultra-rich who live around the actual sign will be able to see it. And the parkland that is supposed to be sacrosanct? A quick drive along Mulholland Drive will tell you how safe from development park land is in this town; it ain’t!
Sorry that today’s entry is such a downer folks, but if you’ve lived in Hollywood as long as I have, you understand that this place is the purest center piece of capitalism, where money talks and everybody else can take a walk. Have you no shame at all, Tom (I want a piece of the action) LaBonge? God help us if this man ever wins the mayorship. Even the squirrels will have to pack their bags and move to the furthest reaches of the San Fernando Valley to find an affordable place to live.
Just go to this link. Make sure you scroll down and press GO, in order to change the crime map to your address. Those of you who are familiar with Google Maps should find the following interface easy to deal with. I suggest you change the view from Satellite to Map by clicking the button at the top right corner. If you change the drop down menu to last 7 days, you will see so many dots that it will scramble your senses. Each dot stands for a crime with a color key to the right.
If you want information on Hollywood’s Neighborhood Watch program, good luck. As far as I can tell, there isn’t one. The Senior lead officer, who is supposed to be in charge of this, is Officer Ralph Sanchez. I tried to call him at (213) 793-0704, but am still waiting for a return call. His supervisor downtown on this is named Elaine Morales, (213) 486-6000. She is involved in the LAPD Community Relations programs. Hmph. Here’s the link to LAPD’s Neighborhood Watch Program. I would like to thank the nameless police despatcher who gave me Ms. Morales’ phone number. Ms. Morales directed me to Officer Sanchez. She also asked me to call her back if I didn’t get satisfaction. I hope your ears are burning Ms. Elaine!
Now let’s talk about 1751 N. Las Palmas
Use a forklift much?
If you want to take a look at the permit for this project, click here. I spoke with one of the safety inspectors for the job, Mr. John Carpenter. He can be reached at (213) 482-0364, which is contrary to the Inspection Report. If you take a close look at the document, you should note that the site hasn’t been inspected November 9, 2009 where Mr. Carpenter notes that he could not get access to the property! His manner to me was abrupt, and that’s putting it kindly. Frankly, I don’t think he knows what the hell is going on with this property. I asked why it was stalled for so long and he replied, “Funding.” When I tried to ask him for more information on this point, he cut me off and said, “FUNDING!” As if I needed a hearing aid. Whenever I pointed out a problem, he’d refer me to another entity, usually the police. I know that the LAPD has a special officer who deals with construction site issues, but Mr. Carpenter didn’t know anything about that. Oh, no. And when I mentioned other violations, like the workers habit of spilling particulate matter into the air, he said, “Call Cal-OSHA!” He did agree to tell the workers to stop hammering at 6:30 in the morning, but what I took away from this conversation was a man who didn’t want to be bothered by the likes of some uppity citizen of the fair city of Hollywood. So in addition to the 270 units that are being put up by the Jefferson Project and the 218 condos going up at the McCadden Project, we now have an additional unkown number of units going up within a one-block radius. The smaller buildings are being mushroomed out of existance. Any building built before 1980 is protected by rent control. The developers (probably Republicans) will stop at nothing to destroy these building and replace them with pricey condos and apartment units that nobody can afford anyway.
Here’s a brief video for Cal-OSHA. The forklift these guys are using is so old, that rather than try to restart it over and over again, they just leave it running:
Guess my next job is to find out where the local Cal-OSHA office is located. Who I need to talk to there and start harassing them. In the meantime, I encourage everyone in the neighborhood to join the Hollywood Hills Neighborhood Council and show up at their meetings. We don’t have to take this lying down!
My blog is not about Tinseltown. It is about Hollywood the neighborhood. Families live alongside crackheads, bums, artists, musicians, homeless schizophrenics and just plain crazy characters (that would be me).
THE HOLLYBLOG 