We're accustomed to being disrespected by East Coasters who are convinced that San Diego is nothing more than sunshine, blue-eyed blondes and a zoo. Los Angeles may be bigger than we are, but our neighbor to the north isn't immune to this kind of snobbery, either.
When, last month, architect Frank Gehry unveiled his vision of a spectacular, 21st-century downtown L.A., the self-appointed high and the mighty went right to work. No less than The New York Times' Web site posed the rhetorical question (with a headline that conveyed obvious incredulity): “Los Angeles With a Downtown?”
Such an arrogant tone, even if unintended, smacks of: “Los Angeles With Mass Transit?” or “Los Angeles Without Smog?”
It's true that downtown L.A. has some sprucing up to do. For too many years, the downtown core and Bunker Hill have been at worst squalid and at best dated-looking and dull. But just as the face of our own downtown has been enhanced and beautified in the past few years, so has Los Angeles'. Or haven't you seen Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles, or Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall?
Gehry – the subject of a new film opening tomorrow (reviewed on Page 10 by movie critic David Elliott), “Sketches of Frank Gehry,” has designed a 1.2 million-square-foot neighborhood that would be composed of retail and residence space, two L-shaped towers, and plazas, pavilions and walkways that will connect it all with the area's cultural amenities. In other words, an art district that would run long Grand Avenue from the Museum of Contemporary Art to Temple Street.
It won't come cheap. The initial estimate is $750 million, and that's only part of the nearly $2 billion that the Related Companies group, selected by the city and county, will draw from to redevelop this section of downtown L.A.
The sniffing at Gehry's plan may not be limited to East Coast media and Woody Allenites who will forever believe that Los Angeles is a tacky, overpopulated wasteland. With very little effort, you can find doubters and detractors in San Francisco, notorious for its superiority complex when it comes to L.A., and here in San Diego, where much of the time we strive to be whatever Los Angeles is not. Even some Angelenos are wary, both of big development and what they see as the loss of neighborhood identity.
This is all about identity – cultural identity – and L.A. needs one beyond the corporate glass and steel of Century City or Hollywood's weird amalgam of glitz and kitsch.
Come to think of it, San Diego could use an art district of its own. It need not require a Frank Gehry or $2 billion, but it does require the desire and the dream. If we ultimately survive our pension-fund nightmare, the time for dreaming good dreams will be at hand.
David L. Coddon: (619) 293-1348;
david.coddon@uniontrib.com
