Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ken 20240704

Cspan now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and ondemand big keep up with the days biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and earrings from u. S. Congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. You can also stay current with latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspan tv networks and see spent radio plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play. Downloaded for free today. Cspan now your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. He will introduce our speakers momentarily. Mike is president ceo fort mason for arts and culture and a longtime Historic Preservation. Prior to joining fort mason he left San Francisco to start a nonprofit. Its a director of advocacy at los angeles conservancy regional attorney from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. We asked mike to moderate tonights program because of his preservation work in both los angeles, the subject of tonight stock and here in San Francisco. Thank you for being with us, michael. Welcome im going to hang the mic over to you. Thank you so much francis. It is such a pleasure to be here tonight with my two longtime friends and colleagues can bernstein and Steven Schaefer to talk about the stunning new book preserving los angeles but Historic Places can transform america cities published by intercity press per day at dare i say that this is a monumental achievement and contribution to the field. Ken devoted much of his career to preserving and enhancing the unique architecture of los angeles. When i joined the conservancy in 2000 6a big shoes to fill skinner just left his position in his role for a current for ht position with the city. They are within the cities to Planning Department can heads has design studio. Among his many responsibilities there can lead the completion of a groundbreaking survey l. A. Project. Roes that document Historic Resources across the cities 500 square miles. Infecting on the diversity of the architecture but also the cultural communities. Anyone who knows Los Angeles Cac appreciate the size and scale of this massive undertaking. Stephen schafer as a photographer with a preservation distraction the three decades behind the lens of a camera hes become a specialist in photography of both new and llhistoric architecture. He got the preservation bug as it were after a seemingly endless renovation to his 1881 victorian farmhouse. Ever since he has been drawn to big and small and now finds h himself crisscrossing america documented significant places for the National Register of Historic Places and Historic American Building survey collection at the library of congress. Congress. So with that let me turn it over too ken and steven to kick off our presentation. There we go. Okay. Good evening everyone. Is such a pleasure to be with all of you. And the Historical Society to be able to speak with an audience with the state of california tonight and share a little bit about preserving los angeles, our new book for angel city press. Ss i really wanted to begin by just talking a little bit about why her motivation, what were trying to do. When i decided to write this book i think most of you will file the history of california and los angeles there are many books on los angeles. Its history and its architecture. Historic preservation in los angeles had not really been told in a comprehensive way. Then its really what i wanted to try to do with preserving los angeles. Let me just quickly pull up the presentation. Hopefully can get this going. There it goes. So preserving los angeles is meant to be the story of Historic Preservation in los angeles. I know there are many books on los angeles and its architecture the power of transformation transforms communities. Ive been frustrated in many cases that there has often been a claim that los angeles is the city that does not care about its history. It is not care as far as architecture. Some of you who are angelina with us tonight no those are myths and there are many who care about the heritage. You los angeles or athi this picture of universal studios. Often los angeles is told the story, their ego. It has a mind of its own tonight. The story of some the studios of los angeles and that the Entertainment Industry is the entire sum total of the history of los angeles. In august of this not the case. I think often east coast reporters think they can parachute into the city and in a matter of days capture the is alleef what l. A. About. I have been fortunate to be professional roles that mike mentioned for the l. A. A. Conservancy and with the city of los angeles. Its a birds eye view of how Historic Preservation is making ena difference in communities around the city. I want to try to capture much more interesting and nuanced los angeles a more complex los angeles that i have come to know. And what i have seen is Historic Preservation while is frequently mischaracterized as being about stopping change of preventing progress, accreditation has been a primaryre while per positive change throughout los angeles. It has been a tool spentto revitalizing our downtown or Historic Downtown it has been transforming neighborhoods. It has been created economic regeneration across our city and even helping to address our housing crisis in california and in los angeles with Affordable Housing. I wanted to try to bring out l. A. Preservations to a larger audience. Both for angelenos who many may not have fully internalized the project changes that are around them. And then to those beyond l. A. Who have misconceptions of what l. A. Is all about. Ind hope those of you joining us in the bay area tonight do not have those negative perceptions are sometimes here. Some of our friends in the bay area. I hope as you start to take a closer look through this book if you get to explore los angeles to the prism of this book and start to see much more interesting make much difference city than the schaefers in los angeles. This is what i wanted to do with the book and this is a sidebar for me i called my weekend project for the last two years. And this has really been the a laborof love for me. And in that spirit i decided i want to donate my proceeds for through the book to three National Organizations working for greater equity and inclusion historicsi preservation field fr the a africanamerican action fd the national for reservation. In a pia the pacific islanders. C i am an american with Historic Preservation. Of course i knew i wanted this to be a visually rich book. And were fortunate to find the perfect partner in the shape you will be turning from a little later. I think you will see in the photos i am showing there were over 300 fullcolor images throughout the book. Its a unique eye for architectural detail and they really only have a preservations eye toward capturing images that convey the message i was trying to get across through the book. I think that comes through as you see the images ill be sharing tonight. So w again, starting with the Historic Downtown and the eastern clumpy building, one of the great Architectural Buildings in a commercial and id theater district on broadway. We are saying throughout los angeles the developers and Property Owners like a finding g preservation and adaptive reuse inverting Historic Buildings really at economic value to their properties and projects. Angelenos are seeking out places like this. They are referred to live, work, play. Im trying to provide example after example of how that is occurring throughout los angeles. And show how it has transformed los angeles and other cities with Historic Resources and use preservation as a tool to do much the same. I thinkma that for many writers writing a book the act of writing itself is sort of a journey of discovery. Finding your message. Finding your characters for a fiction writer. For me it was not really about that. I knew the story i wanted to tell based on this idea had in los angeles. For mee it was channeling the spirit of discovery that has really been part of my work all along. And if using the into the book. I have been very fortunate to have exposure and entree to remarkable spaces around the staten i wanted to take the reader along with being insight this. T this is the real los angeles. One of those sites is garden of office. I will never forget the first time i got to see this remarkable secret garden in the Hollywood Hills a former journalist who worked was 75 for artist friends. Who began to evolve the space into her own home into a peace garden. Piece garden. Here you have munchkin land which is a tribute to the wizard of oz. Other thrones and the gardener peacemakers from the dalai lama to rosa parks and musicians and entertaining figures in old Elvis Pressley to duke ellington. Its a remarkable place she distributes keys to artists and twoe neighbors to be able to ce in and experience the garden its not something the Tourist Attractions are open to the general public but she was very generous to allow to capture this ensures the wider audience. I wanted to share many remarkable hidden gems with the city with our readers in los angeles. This is a book about him park the practical lessons of Historical Preservation but we have to share throughout the citys out transforms other cities. But also providing a sense of discovery onto a gun show case of very different los angeles. We start the story with the tower of historic local Landmarks Program we have in los angeles. Its called a historical cultural monument which are our local landmarks. We had over 1200 in the city. The book showcases the dramatic transformation first workplaces. One of the few remains of architecture in which the form of the building really reflects its use. This is a bar in the North Hollywood committee of los angeles in the form of a whiskey barrel. It endures in great parts. I have been a bar for decades then became a flamenco dance and theater music theater iner the 70s and 80s. And it closed in the 80s and the dancer who operated the theaterer, hernandez became like the old woman who lived in a shoe except she was the old woman who lived in eight whiskey barrel. She grew old in apartment above the bar, a former bart was a small menagerie aroundd here for the building deteriorated and became threatened. She went to the rehabilitation facility and passed away. In comes up for auction a preservation minded buyer taking over and rehabilitated the rehae market. About 2 million in preserving additional features and reclaiming and then on the patio actually relocating another example of architecture a replica from the 19208 set on washington boulevard in los angeles its alo replica that hs been the peterson automotive museum. Bobby h green where it was relocated. Back to the other building care there to other examples of historical monuments. L. A. Has also been a frament yer of preservation. Of cultural resources. We have in fact one of the earliest Historic Preservation surprises a lot of people. We were headed by the california cities including San Francisco and san diego and allowing for designation of local landmarks back in 1962. Weve always love for designation for cultural significance or social history recall our landmarks historical landmarks. An example ofri that is the overlay. Which many of you know about the stonewall riots of new york in 1969. People fight that is the birth of the Gay Rights Movement personally. But actually men began in the black path. New years day 1967 bricks actually new years eve into new years day with theirs and pd rate on the bar. People being beaten by police just for expressing their enthusiasm for the new year. A love for one another. That led to protests at the site the following month that then led to action though into the u. S. Supreme court. Thats a pioneering action asserting equal protection right as part of the gayrights amusement. Gayrights is a los angeles is a gayrights pioneer. Beginning to recognize may not have architectural significance. But social and cultural the instructional modern years ago. It knowledge meant of our individual landmarks and cultural body met we also share in preserving los angeles how we preserve entire neighborhoods through the designation of Historic Preservation which are the name for our local districts in l. A. We have 35 in los angeles today about 21000 properties included in these neighborhoods. These designations have a less dramatic transformation in their communities. I only like to share a handful of specific districts in the book. I first went to speak a little bit to what makes l. A. Historic districtt unique. They are neighborhoods of very noted socioeconomic and demographic diversity for one. There was a study prepared by economics to watch the conservancy last year that founded our hp ocs and los angeles have a higher share of non white population within those neighborhoods than the average share of white population in the city as a whole. These are neighborhoods that are continuing to contracted very vibrant and diverse mix of residents. All income levels as well. The neighborhoods shown here in south l. A. Thats tremendously diverse. It is about 50 latino, 35 africanamerican. And historic designation lent to this neighborhood becoming even more closeknit. The true sense of community in this area has reinvestment in many of the homes as well. This photo shows landscaping can also bee inserted in the front lawn of the historic home but Historic District like this is still very competitive a. Historic districts ban all architectural style, all time periods of the citys history including the balboa highland Historic Preservation overlay rezone this is the very north ed of our city in the San Fernando Valley on Granada Hills. Many in the bay area participants tonight one of the developments of joseph who developed about 10,000 homes in the bay area. This is the only track in the city of los angeles from 1962 64 at the youngest hp 0c. Because he the landscaping and the cohesiveness of this modern neighborhood by try to start this way. Generally also a challenge preservation and density are not mutually exclusive. This is a big topic as many of you may know statewide in california right now. We are grappling with her housing prices and looking at introducing more density near kansas. One thing that site i founded their 50 denser than per square mile than residential neighborhood which surprises a lot of people. They are t denser than the city white in boston, shook chicago, north d. C. This is not a a higher price neighborhood in china density. The family home on the left. Acoustic cottage in the middle third triplex with the revivalists are the far end on the right different densities. You seat many of her hp 0c this is it one of our lower income neighborhoods. But as a lot of multifamily housing vision of Historic Districts only in singlefamily homes. Even historic you should hug density and can be accommodated in this way. I also wanted to make in this book the beautiful photos is like visually stunning. They lose sight of the fact preservation is in only about beauty. Ty not only about architecture but also about people ultimately. People who make Historic Preservation impossible through their passion and commitment activists or administrator of Historic Preservation people ultimately give life to the places we talk about. Its important to me that we include those voices in the book through preservation profiles. On the left michael deas showed the lincoln pc is the Guiding Force he is shown here is a couple of his neighbors to make that all possible in his community. Kristen on the right was a phd student at riverside got active in little tokyo Historical Society took on a historical cultural nomination for the japanese hospital in the Heights Community east of l. A. Really telling the story of five japanese american immigrants who created a healthcare facility for their own Community Inn the 1920s when youre being denied healthcare due to discrimination. The book gives a voice to some of these stories. Although some of these individuals to tell their own story in their own words through the book. I do want to point out though, will have a fairly optimistic upbeat view of what we have been able to accomplish through Historic Preservation los angeles unit paint entire rosy picture we have a lot of work to do in aries we have fallen short in many ways. One of those is in the area of equity, diversity and inclusion. I mention my own donation to the book its the recognition we have fallen short in that area in los angeles. And so a disproportionate share of our historic cultural monument in l. A. Reflect that thelegacy of communities of col. Its 3 for africanamerican heritage in the city and 6 for persons of color more generally. We need to take a hard look at why that is the case. Er designan last couple of years to rectify some of that imbalance. One of them is the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church on South Broadway in Southeast Los Angeles near the watts community. Theyve been designated for the significance of the reporting of her recent Amazing Grace cell phone which became the rest bestselling gospel song of all time in 1972 and there was a remarkable film that was only recently released a couple of years ago. We now this is of Historic Research of los angeles has launched enough in africanamerican project with the Getty Conservation Institute as our partner. We continue to rectify some of these disparities to advance additional nominations of africanamerican heritage and really look at all of our Historic Preservation progra msHistoric Preservation programs and processes. We also wanted to share some of the work of the products we have made in this area with respect to being more inclusive and equitable in the preservation. Weve done that through the preservation frameworks of the historic concept and part of the work as mike mentioned and we will share more about it in a themoment these frameworks are meant to tell the story more comprehensively as many of our Diverse Communities tidy important themes in that history to places that remain on the ground today and i think these can be a great resource. I want to call attention from the Historical Society because this really i think is to Untold Stories in the history especially as for example the mcdaniel residence in west adams and we are very mindful of the legacy of these restrictions that have shaped the urban planning history and the economic history of our city. The context statement from the center tells many other stories about the civil Rights Movement and many others but what is notable is that mcdaniel joined with other prominent residents who were beginning to move into this neighborhood after to challenge some of the years. That story itself began in sugar sugarhill and they hired the aty to defend the property for africanamerican neighborhoods and that was a legal action that went all the way to the Supreme Court on Shelley V Kramer 1948 and the racially restrictive covenant so this is a home and it speaks to that very important history. The los angeles context that drafted many important themes including the influence of the art and particularly the movement that is defined in the digital landscape in los angelel and an example of that is the great wall of los angeles that i found in many are not aware of. The nonprofits of the Research Center says along the wall of the channel in the San Fernando Valley is completed over the decade 1974 to 1984. Judy and her colleagues working with teams that do a set of panels that detail is essentially an alternative social history of california and los angeles. The resources are built upon the work we did on the context to nominate this successfully in 2017 to the National Register. We also defineme the context supported by the park Service Grant for the unique histories of our Chinese Korean japanese and Filipino American community. The japaneseamerican contact tells the story of little tokyo and the primary settlement of the city that looks more comprehensively throughout the city including two los angeles where there were once 26 japaneseamerican nurseries that reflected the legacy in the years prior during world war ii. Theses only a handful of left in the statement that has lifted those up as important aspects of the legacy. Preservation also led the Downtown Renaissance fueled by the power of adaptive views converting an older building and here again the conversion was made possible like many others through the Adaptive Movement in los angeles that cleared away some of the zoning and impediments that prevented older dibuildings. One is without and would have had to have the residential units which they dont have onsite so they use them to help trigger a tremendous boom in housing that created a new residential bayesian revitalization 75 projects with 9,000 new Housing Units in the first decade of the Adaptive Organization and many other examples that we share in the book some of which speak to the fact los angeles has a Transit Oriented Development historically such tie as this building and sixth and maine withth the first skyscraper buit in 1905 and also speaks to the legacy of Henry Huntington a figure well known throughout california history and of course he was responsible for the electorate Railway System and the yellow car system all of which terminated to the hub for the lines in the city that created many of our early suburbs in the city and the buildings top floor included the Jonathan Club and the Adaptive Organization allowed this to be converted to housing by 2005. 314 new residential units is the largest project and you can see the beauty end of the authenticity t of some of these cases. The Jonathan Club library was converted on the eighth floor of the building and you alsoo may know the specific electorate that dates back to 1908 with one of the most significant Legacy Restaurants in the city but the adaptive reuse isnt just to Downtown Los Angeles its also throughoutut the city and its t just for housing its also benefiting businesses when google was looking to further expand the headquarter in la it didnt look to the Highrise Office Buildings that had been historically associated to the companies. They collaborated on the building within a building in the spaces for work and gathering spaces for employees and this is now the center of whats to come known as silicon beach with other Tech Companies as part of that. Adaptive use also created Affordable Housing as a key aspect of addressing the housing crisis in the city and this is a wonderful example of the ymca designed by paul revere williams the africanamerican architect who contributed to so much to the city over many decades. This is he and early work from 1926 and served the community in south la for many decades. By 2011 it had fallen into more and the two nonprofits that had been collaborated to Affordable Housing and the units of low hincome housing is the Historic Building and for fivestory conflict in a contemporary style with 25 units behind it. The project shows how the additions are improved by the commission and the office even though it is a highly differentiated new addition its also showing here how they remain visible and the image on the lower left you can see on the right and outline that marks the outer edge of where the outline of the pool had been and kind of makes it reversible in the future to go back to more of the recreation. So to close before i turn it over i want to introduce a little bit. A large part of the book captures the work of the city wide survey that was created in 2017 which was the Largest Survey of any municipality in the country and the result of a lengthy partnership between the city fromm the foundation and support from the institute. And i always start with this because it shows the challenge that was before us. The 470 or so square miles of the city of los angeles and eight of the largest cities inin the nation with room to spare in between. It literally went down every strata of the city to identify the Historic Resources and there was a great deal of research that had been done so in this historic context, Community Engagement before we were out in the field to after the collective knowledge with every community about the places that matter to local residents and places that may not be as obvious. All of that was uploaded into tablets that you can see here with a set of menus to be completed for the first time with all Digital Survey out on the field with photos. This information is now all available on the comprehensive inventory website that is shown here with a photo as well and this is meant to guide the planning of the city. We can plan the future of the cities for greater density, with communities are going to be preserved, but might change. That is the point of the survey is for the developers and the Property Owners before they invest in projects and so a portion focuses on the discoveries over more than a decade and the book provides a sampling of some of those findingsde from the survey. It was informed every community have 35 planned areas all of them are represented with every community in places that matter to them and underscore the point that it has remarkable history and remarkable architecture worth looking up and celebrating. With that i will turn it over and let him tell a little bit about the process of going to the city to document these places that we are c going to share. Thanks. Appreciate that. This was indeed a Pretty Amazing and daunting project. I didnt exactly know what i was going to get myself into, but let me do a screen share and we will get going. Does that look like its working . I have to assume yes. So i really want to show some of my behindthescenes photographs and stories. Also just a bunch of pretty pictures. It was a pretty remarkable summer in many ways and an incredibly diverse set of subjects and in a diverse city. So that was Pretty Amazing to see. Now you all know what i did last summer on this book. I learned los angeles and just to begin, while i was out there i let google maps track me so i could build this map of all my trips so you could see where i live overri on the left side and ventura about 60 miles west of la. That sort of gives you an idea. Many days of driving down los angeles and exploring. Its not a particularly accurate. It gives you an idea and i really like the way the map follows the las city limits. They have a sort of odd city structure. It has islands like Beverly Hills and santa monica and eaglewood that are not part of it so there are islands that you are missing and sometimes youre looking across the street thinking that would be really amazing. My trips also mimic that map for this year size and scope. I really wish i would have remembered this map. I added all of the pages into googles maps. At the top shot is a good example of the difference of four hours made. The top image is 6 p. M. And the facade is0 fully shaded. I went back again a different day at 2 p. M. For this fantastic cadillac shaped shopping center. In most cases i was able to do it in one shot. And some i had to go back. Some photos required access, planning and logistics. I was able to bring our fabulous intern on this outing to the hollywood sign. About 101 that today so a drive to the top of the hill that is a very long hike. Many of you might know that ifma you ever hiked to the top. There was this pitcher on the platform of my truck and if you look carefully throughout the book you will notice the rooftop angle on a lot of the photos and no i wasnt trying to copy google. My favorite photos in the book t are still the hero shot in the evening and the cover shot that we used at the Orpheum Theater in downtown. But both of those took hours to do and were deceptively simple looking and not necessarily representative of most of the photographs in the book that i took. But for instance, i got to the Orpheum Theater before covid in december and about 3 45 on the side i had to set the frame that is the basic shot. Kids and parents were lining up for the disney junior holiday party. Cones were out for the buses but the craziness subsided when it started at 4 30 and we were able to move the cones. It was about perfect at 4 45 when it stopped and a photo was delivered so luckily i was able to persuade him to move and talk him out of keeping his car there otherwise the pitcher on the right would be the cover of todays book. Here is a selfie the camera is about 8 feet high on the sidewalk. I was there for about three hours waiting for the perfect light. Jim, the owner left the lights and the sign on it and this was 1920. That happens to be significant because it was the day Los Angeles County stayathomean order was given and work in la stopped. So in ventura, learn how to bake muffins i waited. I realized mostt of my photos didnt require any interaction with real humans, so i got back on the road, a typical day was leave at 9 a. M. , photograph untill ten, drive back. Try a different drive through every day. Usually got d home around 10 p. , leather, rinse, repeat, same thing. Because of covid my days were remarkably efficient. No one asked what i was doing or dared to come with me. It was heaven. I was about 90 when traffic started to come back and places like this had reinvented themselves inom the shop and wih response to covid. This is colonial corners barrington and national boulevard at 7 p. M. Because everyone was working from home i just walked out in the street and set upal the shop. Pretty remarkable. Cant do that today. And heres the hotel in downtown la at rush hour. Here i literally parked in the middle of the street, climbed up on the roof of the truck to shut up the shop. Do not try this at home. I have an orange vest and that pretty much lets me do anything as long as i look like i know what im doing. There was even parking in front of the deli and if it never happens. If you need to look at that and lookf it up. After months of driving around, it took weeks of postproduction to get the photos edited and ready for publication, cropped, color collected and in high resolution. For the aspiring photographers my preserving light room database on my computer was 19,612 images for this one project and that edited down to just over 300 images in the book. So about one in every 65 photos i took was used, so a little under 2 of the time. That is probably a good thing im not a doctor. Moving along, heres the survey. A specific palisade. The backea of the book, which is the survey la section that was you alluded to as a really wonderful field guide and serves as a tribute to the hard work of all of those surveyors and while i spent the summer dabbling down one road and down another looking for the cream of the crop, the surveyors walked every sidewalk and drove down every single street and sometimes they didnt find anything for a day or a week and sometimes they found a lot s in Historic Districts. Every survey la site in the book has a brief description as you go through the actual book, but i found that was just part of the story so for instance, here is 647 south Vista Del Mar in westchester. It was alteredst and 77 by the notable architect and the project cited at the first build it represents the architecture into distinctive, playful and moderndesign emphasizing the buildings, so that is the basic overview or the basic entry in the back of the book. Then i arrived at the site and i got to see the amazing mailboxes on the left and then a neighbor walked by and said they just painted that building so i had to go online and see. I found the middle photo from a couple of years ago on google and i dont know about you but i like the old paint job the better. So all of these sites and places sort of lead to other things and that is really what was fantastic about the book. It was the 1962 Apartment Building in Granada Hills which is a smaller vertical shot in the book so you dont really notice all the details but i had to include the poems. You couldnt not include them in the shot but theres just that one a shot that in order to really appreciate you need to see the carvings and the ingenious air conditioner that makes them the coolest features on the building. Diand also you have to get out f your car and step onto the sidewalk and take a look. Heres the atchison house built in 1907. The first rule of architectural photography you must say a prayer to any because they are always there and always at the wrong time. They locally complied, so heres the front of the house that is extraordinary but if you dont go there, you dont get to see the marvelous balcony on the wrong side which you cant include in one photograph because that a tree on the left. There it is. You walk around the corner and its just an amazing house with so many Different Things to look at. So adding to other discoveries that i found. Heres an untouched 1908 in the middle of la. The little old lady that lived there i stood there and took this pitcher and sort of was amazing and fascinating that this house is still there on a double lot. Its just screaming out to be an Apartment Building or condo but it is a historic resource. Everything is original. Heres a completely redone house in studio city. You probably recognize it as the brady bunch house and it was just rebuilt by hg tv so it should be on everybodys tour of la next time you are out, but again it shows the diversity of the things that are historic, definitely not for architecture. Theres the space station you have to see it. 1957 Great Western savings bank. I added this photo to the page just a few weeks ago. This was at the other end of the historic spectrum and i also learned that this isnt the same as westlake village. I was learning la as we go like which village is also intent on la county, but westlake is just off of downtown and this is the 1903 Los Angeles Pacific railroad station. We start to realize its thead resource, now that im looking at it i start to understand it looks like an industrial building and its fighting there in plain sight with bright and colorful as you can imagine. This is thee linkin park motor court and if you look closely you see the sword above the neon sign. I think all motels should have swords but im pretty sure they dont meet the guidelines anymore. Heres the church of st. Andrews in Granada Hills. Not only did i do a double take that for this when i also did a uturn. It wasnt a 65 pages shot list but it was surveyed and survey la so i managed to convince them to put it in the book. I kept seeing amazing places on the way to others. A lot of time i didnt have time to stop and if i did i probably would still bee down there running circles. Often the best part of la is the stuff in between where you are soand where youre going. Heres the Department Store in westchester from 1948. If you walk around the back you can still see the ramp to the classic parking system on the roof. No longer a parking lot on the roof but even though you cant park there, i sort of wish we could. Heres a 1906 craftsman residents in arlington heights. The coolest windows the owner came out and told me there was another neighborhood and i said i wish i would have copied down the address but i know where you live so i can run down there and check it out again. This would be right at home in palm springs. Some amazing work that is consistent with palm springs and its legacy, but you just dont realize there are tracks full in the valley and its almost a secret how much you live and know where they are. They are starting to get snapped up and stored but i had no idea before i started this project that it was a little bit of palm springs in the valley or maybe theres a little bit of the valley in palm springs. The places featured in the book are a small fraction of the sites and so if you are out there in la and to see a building and youre curious, just type the address into the Historic Places database that ive added to the chat. Every time i did that, the buildingev was there and thats what happened here. This wasnt on the 65 page shot list i got them to add it because i like the buildings and because the moment i drove by was also the perfect lighting for this building. Its historic as the 1966 liberty savings by the architect kurt meyer. Thats the same architect as the savings that is also in the book but unfortunately, sadly no longer with us. Atnf the other end of the spectm i like to call this 1932 house fulk brutalist. Its just such a great expression of the vernacular construction. I could almost ignore the replacement window. Do typically most of the architectural photos are taken on a tripod. Here the occupant was sitting just inside of him just to the right of the open doors. I walked up the sidewalk and took a photo and then walked back and took another shot and got back into the truck to see if one of the photos was good enough t for the book. Its all luck sometimes. And the diversity are so marvelous. The designer did a terrific job and as the gateways predators in 1922 service station 1956 japaneseamerican hardware store, 1970 substation. The ranch House District and the 1925 oregon pavilion and thats just in one of the 35 planned areas so its really trusting and highlights to see the other hundreds of things that were surveyed in the area or to dig a little deeper on anyone. In 1961, the center was designed and built a fantastic expression of all things. There is not only an epic curving canopy but also a folding roof on the main building. Im sort of expecting to run into this as i walk into this place and school wasnt in session so i drove right out and walked in. There were no fences at this point which is pretty terrific. Of course you dont want to miss the boat House District hanging off the hillside in the valley. You live in a house on stilts taught by the architect and the norwegian shipbuilders with axes instead b of sauls. To wrap it up, this is the old ranch road district. To find a perfect angle that showed off both of the cliff house and the context of the neighborhood, the photos in the book were not manipulated in photoshop. I had to wait for the sun here and you know, there are trash cans in the photo in the background because i took this photo on trash day so i had to arrange all the trash cans so the brown ones. The blue ones, but that doesnt count as retouching if you do it in real life. Unlike my pandemic trip when everything is closed when you finish exploring you can end your day with a year and Historic Building in the Arts District which is now angel city brewery. I hope that you will have the book of the passenger seat as you learn los angeles one summer just like i did. So that was that. Thanks so much for that tour of los angeles with no traffic and no people. Its quite amazing to see that in view of the city. Before the qanda, i want to remind participants that please enter your question into the qanda tab on the bottom and i will read them and direct them and i have a few of my own that i would like to maybe get started with. But before i get to questions i just want to get back to the initial comment about this kind of not caring about its history and i just want to note from my perspective as a former director ive always believed for those of us that are attending from San Francisco had much to learn from losom angeles and the exame of the leadership of others. Some of you might assume San Francisco would have surveyed its Historic Resources, but in fact its just about started, so through many of the innovations developed through survey la, that project was going to be easier. So anyway, i just wanted to note that and i guess that i will start selfishly with one of my questions and it relates to the pandemic that permeates everything that we discussed. The last time i saw your presentation, we were, the state was still closed and now of course we are reopening but i want to ask as preservation is often, the importance of the center of the communities im hoping you can comment on how many of the Historic Places prevailed in the book were impacted by the pandemic. Places like new Temple Missionary Church where people tend to gather. And then theaters, restaurants, bars et cetera. And as the states reopening, kind of what you see as the role that the Historic Places play in kind of providing a sense of Community Going forward. Its a great question. I finished most of my talk about how he was going out there in the pandemic. I had written most of my tests prior to the pandemic just kind of wrapping it up and it occurred to me was i describing a city that was not going to exist, was i having a different place that they were going to experience coming out of this time period and i added a short afterword that reflected on this just a little bit. I think almost every place in los angeles has been affected in one way or another by the pandemic and i think in part its because i showed that it had just been reopened and saved as a result of the reinvestment that i described and then people couldnt come together there any longer than other public gathering places and others impacted. I think thereve been significant concernss as well ad weve learned a lot with the san ncfrancisco heritage around the legacy businesses and the Legacy Business Program you have in San Francisco because it is our legacy businessesne that anchoro many decades in the communities that are particularly during this pandemic coming out of the period a number of them have been closed. We saw little tokyo that was the birthplace of mucci ice cream for over a century. Other beloved restaurants and delis in this time period so we are now looking to create a Legacy Business Program coming out ofra this time period to provide grants for some of these businesses but i think what i reflected upon is that it really is Historic Preservation. The values of the Historic Preservation being about authenticity and continuity in the community, connecting us between past, present and future as we reemerge and have been re engaging with our cities coming out of this time period, we are gravitating towards these places that have that type of connection and value and we see that in la. We recently had an announcement about the closure of the theater chain and the landmark theater in hollywood and the outcry that arose that they wanted to come out and come back to these places that have such value or dodger stadium. We have longstanding connections and continuity with Historic Places and that has more value than ever. Did you have anything to add onto that question . With it being a preservationist and seeing just context and his history backwards, i realize now i am going to be looking back on this time and historians in the future are going to be looking back at this group of photos that isth wonderfully book ended by one summer. It becomes a historic moment, but they are all Historic Buildings but just from the associations of heres thehe things that happened to us that somebody in a hundred years is going to be looking back on saying during 2019 this thing happened. Allow me to sort of take a bigger perspective pitcher of how important it was as your living at. I always am looking back at turnofthecentury buildings that im photographing and thinking what were they living. Its another way to sort of look at that history. Its a wonderful in retrospect, its a very fascinating overlay. I think that is really interesting. Let me get to the audience pequestions that we have here tt are interesting. How do we ensure, as one example talked about in the book thats increasingly important to what we do. That is a difficult question and i will say that maybe we dont pay as much attention to that traditionally as we should. That was documenting what is still remains on the ground. But of course its about that continuity and we have many examples of that i think in los angeles we have now the legacy of urban renewal comingofage. The bunker hill neighborhood was kind of our first redevelopment project in example of the kind of wholesale clearance of the neighborhood and what was created there we are beginning to appreciate those mid to late 20th century modern buildings in bunker hill and they were built in the Victorian Era neighborhood from the late 1880s and understanding that history is really important. I was particularly fascinated by the layers of history that were still visible like a neighborhood in the commercial district in los angeles that became a japaneseamerican enclave in the 1950s and 60s where they capture the japanese architecture and landscape pieces that are still very evident in the neighborhood and im fascinated by the way that thatd changed the history that s evident all around us and we need to take steps to help tell those stories of all the contributions in the history that we are trying to preserve. Im going to direct this next question and different iterations. Ive always believed that photography is one of the strongest tools we have to convey the value and the beauty of Historic Places and build public support for what we do and that certainly comes through in the book in your images. Im curious though if you could talk a little bit more about how you kind of convey the stories in your photograph and one of our attendees asks if you look at old photos were also and especially in the case of culturally significant nondescript landmarks how you prepare to l document that typef historic place. Going back for a brief moment to the last question how are we dealing with of these things that are vanishing off the face of the earth ironically i documented the center before it was demolished for the Historic American Building survey, so it for this book project started about two years ago and all of that documentation is now at the library of congress in the archive and publicly accessible in the Public Domain so this wonderful giving back in that way. The building is gone, so hopefully the photographs can live on for people who are curious and many of the Building Survey photographs from years pasthi our as i understand it ae in the california Historical Society archive. Moving on to that, i have done a number of architectural historic projects. Fertile violated historic calendars and i think looking at history photographs has really helped me to photograph current buildings and have different viewpoints of that. I try to discount everything i possibly can, so i using arial or birdseye views in ari couplef other mapping tools to seeie wht im up against but was not able to do that in this particular case. The best i d could do with this many photographs in a short amount of time was basically to spend a day in a valley and here peand there. Like i said sometimes i would roll back on the building and it was perfectly lit. Sometimes i would have to go back. But when i am doing something that much more singular, lets say, anything i can absorb to make sure im always in the case of Parker Center grant Historic Buildings like vienna house, im looking at historic photographs and i was actually documenting and duplicating some of the views from the same locations with the same lenses so that if somebody were to compare them you would be able to see those alterations. It goes to what ken is saying, the layering. You see a building and sometimes you can tell what has been added and what hasnt. And is an architectural purist, which is how i came into preservation, started one of those i dont know anything about architecture but i know that these are painted lots of colors and thats really cool. As ive gotten more into it, i started to appreciate that part of the back of the building or the additions that happened that show people live there or did things in an entire era that came and went. Now we want to modernize. Bunker hill came and went. Now the Department Store photograph im celebrating 35 years ago he was a bad guy who tore down everything we loved so irony in what i do. I will direct this next one to you to get started and i think its a great question, something the Preservation Community confronts. How hard is it to get people to see the culturally and historical significance of quote on quote younger structures like the ones that were just mentioned. People associate preservation with old. Thats a great question. I touch on the little in the book and site a university of houston professor and coin the termnt this is a sort of architectural content that we have the cycles with architecture and the more recent past goes to a period about 25 to 40yearsold that they tend to appear. Hard to imagine now that the Victorian Era architecture is so prevalent in San Francisco and that we work to preserve while we still have it in la. There was a period when that was considered a much more simple form during the 1960s into the 1970s and viewed as the Preservation Movement that began. So right now post modernism at that low point we are starting toe emerge from that is that is when the buildings as people dont sort of look at them anew. People that are of the first to emerge, younger forms of architecture, younger styles. Weve seen that in the advocacy angeles. The modern committee for a long time with the voice of the wilderness they beganre with the 1980s when the buildings were 30yearsold when no one else was seeing it and those were younger preservation advocates. Its a constant source of concern. Ca survey la we took the survey to the building built in the 1980s which is just when we begin to budget and we felt that it was progressive to about 25yearsold. We now realize that we are goine to need to at some point expand the survey to take account of the architecture and build the heritage of the 1980s and 90s as well because many of those are going to be threatened before we really appreciate them. We look to be done as history moves forward. This is kind of a related question bit of a differentqu variety. You mentioned in the book that la doesnt have a Confederate Monument that we are seeing removed throughout the country, but it does have monuments to colonialism and other controversial figures. How does this affect the city and is that the citys role . We are now seeing it as the citys role. Ive been very honored to be participating over the past year or so in this working group with of the chief design officer. We were grappling with a group of about 40 preservation historians and others grappling with of these questions at the director and how do we deal with these kind of cross contentious difficult chapters of our past in terms of interpretation and memorialization of that history. I highly commend the report of the Civic Memory Working Group thats possible essays and recommendations related to this topic. One of the first recommendations coming out of that is to do something this year actually around the 150th anniversary as the 1871 chinese massacre in los angeles which was something i didnt learn about until more recent years typically the largest lynching in American History in a massacre near l elpueblo. And theres really no commemoration. Working with chineseamerican leaders in the figurative electricity to figure out what does that look like in the year 2021 as well as looking at these questions of existing monuments that we had statuary the on east coast cities. We do have last year during some of the protests of 2020 and other monuments we need to start grappling with so the report doesnt develop recommendations that talk about what should be the public process and the boost of grappling with these questions. A topic that deserves much more discussion and the preservation. We are a little bit over an hour time so i think that is a good place to wrap up. I would like to thank you both for joining usth today and for your presentation and i will just remind people again to please check j out the book. I know that francis is posting the link where you can purchase it and it is really an incredible and fun book to read. Its not overly technical. You dont need to be a preservationist to be interested so i strongly endorse it. But thanks again for joining. Its great to see you again. Thank you to the california Historical Society for hosting this program this evening. Thank you. Great to see you. Its been a pleasure