Saving LA: in the Los Angeles Theatre

So, it's breaktime at the SavingLA conference. I took my own tour of the multi-level basement of the Los Angeles Theater - an amazing trip into the past! The bathrooms are HUGE and the bathroom lobby rivals the grand entrances to some of our modern venues. Then, I walked through an open door into the theatre's back basement maze of rooms where flickering lights, mousetraps, 2-inch thick layers of dust, old equipment, narrow-passageways & corridors, and dripping water created one of the eeriest experiences I've had in years. It's definitely an opportunity for urban spelunking.

The Q & A after Ken Bernstien's speech (see the last post - linking is not so easy from this portablable machine) presented people asking about getting hired to do the survey, what was being done about non-structural historic resources (which was out of his purvue), how to stop new developments that were faux historic in design, and how parks/trails were being preserved. It was evident that those asking questions had alterior intentions than just planning-related preservation. This conference might have been more aptly titled "Saving LA's strucutural history" - which isn't a bad emphasis.

There was talk, just breifly, at the start about the Museum for LA (something we're interested in), but no action items or specific discussions were presented. We'd like a conference on that (and might even offer to co-present it... anonymously, of course!)