Los Angeles Lifestyle

When the city began bulldozing the Los Angeles neighborhood he loved—the neighborhood he lived in—Leo Politi protested in the only way he knew how.

He made art.

Bunker Hill had captivated his imagination from the moment he arrived from Fresno in the mid-1930s and set up his easel on Olvera Street, sketching portraits of tourists to make a living.

Once city officials won the right, in the early sixties, to clear out over 130 acres of the downtown neighborhood they deemed to be slums, he trained his paintbrush with an eye toward preserving what soon would be gone. Holding out to the last minute, he and his wife relocated nearby to 415 East Edgeware in nearby Angelino Heights, where he lived until his death in 1996.

The curator of a new exhibition of Politi’s work at the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles says it’s not by accident that she zeroed in on the artist, who grew up in and was educated in Italy, now.

Marianna Gatto, who also serves as the museum’s executive director, says Politi’s work is timely and relevant, and echoes a number of conversations currently taking place in Los Angeles—conversations about “changing communities, who belongs, and how we balance development with the preservation of history.”

Those same issues were on Politi’s mind as he made his way around his beloved adopted hometown of Los Angeles on foot and with mass transit, often with his wife Helen by his side. He never owned a car, says Gatto, which allowed him to experience the area, and the people in it, more intimately.

The author of more than a dozen children’s books, Politi was awarded a Caldecott medal in 1950 for his Song of the Swallows, set in Mission San Juan Capistrano and became known, Gatto says, as the “Italian Dr. Seuss.” He was revered for capturing a diversity of people, children in particular.

His paintings of buildings and neighborhoods were imbued with the same reverence he showed for humans.

“Not only did he see the soul in people, he saw the soul of a house,” says his son, Paul Politi, “Once he painted a house, he wanted to know the history of the house and the people who lived in it.”

That’s perhaps most evident in a series of paintings he made that became the 1964 book, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days.

Each of the paintings in the book celebrates one of the architectural wonders that were about to be destroyed in order to redevelop the neighborhood, as well as the people who lived in them.

In 1965, the Los Angeles Public Library acquired more than 20 of those paintings for $3,000. A library spokesperson says Politi’s art was last publicly displayed in 2015.

To his son’s lament, none are on view at the Italian-American Museum. But the show Gatto has assembled, up through May 19th, includes some pieces that have never been seen before.

One watercolor and gouache painting from an unpublished book, circa 1968, depicts The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, demolished in 1979.

Also represented are places that still remain but have changed with time. Gatto points to Politi’s painting of a long-ago Lotus Festival in Echo Park, where a parade of people walk over the pedestrian footbridge, a structure contemporary visitors know has been shuttered for years.

Bits of Politi dot other parts of southern California. His 1978 mural, The Blessing of the Animals, can be seen at the Biscailuz Building just east of Olvera Street.

A mural he painted at the South Pasadena Public library for a $200 commission in 1957 still remains, as does a bronze sculpture of his that sits outside its entrance.

An elementary school in Koreatown bears his name, as does the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Boulevards, and a picnic area in Elysian Park.

To see his work on the walls of the museum in the oldest part of Los Angeles, near where Politi once worked, it’s hard not to imagine this handsome man with a broad smile and a paintbrush, capturing the buildings and people around him as a time capsule of a bygone era.

“What little value this work may have,” he wrote in 1964, “it has been a work of love and also of protest.”

The day has come. Hudson Yards, the largest and most expensive private real estate development in US history, opens its retail & restaurant area this Friday in Manhattan’s West Side after five years of renovations and 25 billion US dollars invested. Located in what used to be an abandoned rail yard, Hudson Yards spans over 18 million square feet, one million of which is dedicated to retail space. It includes more than 100 shops and restaurants, office buildings, 4,000 residences, two art centers, a public school and a hotel.

Fashion shops inside the complex will range from fast fashion (H&M, Zara, Uniqlo) to luxury (Dior, Fendi, Cartier) with several retailers choosing Hudson Yards to debut their first store in New York. Neiman Marcus, which operates 43 stores across the United States but still didn’t have any in New York, is unveiling a three-floor flagship at Hudson Yards. Spanning over 18,000 square feet, the space provides “physical and digital experiences in a way not seen at other stores”, according to CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck, including interactive fitting rooms, intelligent mirrors, a customization area, a stage for live performances and even a full-functioning kitchen where live cooking will take place.

UK-based luxury swimwear brand Heidi Klein has also opted for a experiential strategy in its first New York store at Hudson Yards. Their retail space resembles a beach retreat, with decorative palm leaves and coconut scent. The home goods section even mimics a home so that customers can "just hang out” and shop the items they like.

Hudson Yards has also been chosen by digitally native brands moving from clicks to bricks. After testing the waters with a few pop-up stores, men’s activewear brand Rhone, Italian footwear label M.Gemi and menswear brand Mack Weldon are opening their first permanent locations at Hudson Yards today. “In many ways, Hudson Yards is the ideal location for our first store”, said Mack Weldon’s Founder and CEO Brian Berger in a statement. “Thousands of our current and potential customers will be passing through Hudson Yards daily. This aligns perfectly with our brand’s mission to create a more convenient customer experience, and is a unique opportunity to activate Mack Weldon in the physical world while we test and learn for future investment”.

The new complex will also mark Rudsak’s first foray into the US market. Founded in 1994, the Canadian outerwear retailer is looking to expand internationally. "New York City was a natural choice as the location for the first international Rudsak store because the city's ethos is the nearest and dearest to ours”, said Founder Evik Asatoorian in a statement.

Hudson Yards is expected to receive nearly 125,000 people each day and contribute about 19 billion US dollars annually to New York City’s GDP.

Photos: courtesy of Hudson Yards, Neiman Marcus and Mack Weldon

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By Mark Polishuk | October 7, 2018 at 9:54pm CDT

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One year after buying the immense California Market Center (CMC) in Downtown Los Angeles, Brookfield has unveiled plans for a $170-million overhaul of the 1.85-million-square-foot complex.

Built over 50 years ago on a city block bounded by Olympic Boulevard, 9th Street, Main Street, and Los Angeles Street, the three buildings of CMC have long served as a hub of the wholesale apparel industry, and is billed as one of its West Coast hubs.  Brookfield has tapped architecture firm Gensler to modernize and open the brutalist complex to the street.

Planned improvements include:

• recladding the building's facade with floor-to-ceiling glass windows;
• adding skybridges to connect all floors between the three buildings;
• the construction of a 5,000-square-foot rooftop amenity space for tenants;
• the removal of a two-story retail structure at 9th and Main to create a 13,700-square-foot landscaped plaza with space for outdoor events; and
• adding "fashion-focused" building amenities.

In addition to new open space, CMC's fortress-like ground level will be made more inviting to pedestrians through the creation of 150,000 square feet of retail space, with room for outdoor seating and dining.

While much of the property will serve as office space, Brookfield's plan will continue to emphasize CMC's importance to the fashion industry.  Going forward, the bulk of the property's fashion tenants will be concentrated into Building C, which will be improved with polished concrete floors and open concept spaces.

Construction for the CMC renovation is already underway, and is expected to be carried out in two phases. Completion is anticipated in 2020.

Brookfield purchased a majority stake in CMC in 2017 for a reported price of $440 million.  The seller - prominent local landlord Jamison Services, Inc. - retained a minority stake in the property, and is planning to convert an adjoining building into a hotel.

Since acquiring the portfolio of defunct MPG Office Trust in 2013, Brookfield has emerged as the largest office landlord in Downtown Los Angeles.  The company has since invested in renovations to some of its trophy assets, highlighted by a $60-million amenity center now under construction at the Wells Fargo Center.  Brookfield is also pursuing the development of a high-rise residential tower on a vacant lot abutting the Figat7th shopping mall.

Another year gone by and another year of beautiful homes listed for sale in LA. And with that it’s time again to choose the Home Of The Year. This was a great year for architectural listings in Los Angeles and it was hard to narrow the picks to just these 9 homes. There were so many great houses this year, but the following are my favorites. Please vote for yours at the bottom!

Here are this year’s nominees:

Casa Kuderna by Craig Ellwood

The Sale Residence by Richard Neutra

The Miltimore House Irving Gill

5521 Alta Canyada Road by Buff & Hensman

Casa Andalusia

The Thomson Residence by Buff & Hensman

2830 Glenoaks Canyon Drive by Richard Kemp

2415 Elmgrove Street by Breland Harper

The Henry O. Bollman Residence by Lloyd Wright

Film Independent announced last week that the 2018 L.A. Film Festival, which wrapped on September 28, will be the last for the festival in its current form. The nonprofit has organized the annual festival since 2001, and hosted L.A.F.F.’s predecessor fest, L.A. Independent Film Festival, for six additional years before that. Now, the organization is rethinking how to best reach a changing audience of movie lovers and filmmakers. Going forward, they’ll be focusing on a slate of year-round programming, rather than a single week-long event.

“While we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished with the L.A. Film Festival over the past 18 years, the truth is that it has struggled to thrive, and the time has come for us to try something new,” Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent, wrote in a statement.

Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Roadside Attractions

The festival had appeared to some observers to be struggling even before this latest announcement. In 2017, IndieWire wrote about L.A.F.F.’s “struggle for relevancy” on the crowded cinema scene. Between 2015 and 2016, attendance at the festival sunk from 90,000 to 40,000.

L.A.F.F. was generally held in the summer, which hurt programmers’ abilities to book the buzzy awards-season contenders that play at later fests; for 2018 it was moved to September, but the change may have come too late. As Variety noted, L.A.’s other big film festival, AFI Fest, already happens in the fall, shows a slate of more awards-centric fare, and gives away tickets to the public for free, making it hard for L.A.F.F. to compete.

The festival was also criticized for bouncing between venues, moving to downtown in 2010 from a previous base in Westwood, then to Culver City in 2016, then, most recently, to a multi-venue arrangement that might have an attendee hopping between Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills to catch everything they wanted to see.

“In the end, we concluded that the organization should explore a more nimble, sustainable form of exhibiting and celebrating independent film artists year round,” said Film Independent board chair Mary Sweeney.

Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Roadside Attractions

That means Film Independent will be reinvesting the resources that went into the fest in their other signature programs, particularly Film Independent Presents, a screening series curated by critic Elvis Mitchell, and the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

The festival was known for highlighting work by filmmakers from groups underrepresented in Hollywood, which will continue through education and mentorship programs from Film Independent, including Global Media Makers, Filmmaker Labs, Film Independent Forum, and Directors Close-Up. Some programs will also be launching or expanding in the wake of the restructuring. Portal, a showcase for VR and immersive filmmaking, will remain as a stand-alone event, as will Hasan Foster’s two-day intensive on industry diversity, which first appeared as part of L.A.F.F. in 2013.

A full schedule of Film Independent’s upcoming public and industry programs can be found on the organization’s website.

RELATED: A Guide to Some of L.A.’s Less Obvious Film Locations

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Something's brewing in northern L.A. County. And it's more than your grande low-fat peppermint mocha. After a super-tight race, Republican incumbent Steve Knight conceded Wednesday to Democratic challenger Katie Hill.

Historically, the race in the 25th Congressional district — which straddles L.A. County and Ventura County and includes communities like Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster and Lake Los Angeles — has been a shoe-in for whichever Republican candidate was running. Voting in a 31-year-old nonprofit executive is a disruption to the status quo, to put it mildly.

In 2016, many voters there supported Hillary Clinton. This year, Dems saw this, and other districts, as offering a good chance at flipping the House. Turned out they were right.

We went to a Simi Valley Starbucks to hear what voters had to say.

VOTERS AND VENTIS

Renee Taylor-Goldstein, wearing a down jacket in true California fashion, was waiting to pick up her post-election coffee.

She voted for Hill and said the race was the election she cared most about this year. She said she's a centrist, but she's passionate about making health care affordable and making sure her gay daughter grows up in an inclusive environment. That's why she voted the way she did.

But even in a traditionally Republican district, she said she's not surprised at how things are looking. "We've only been here four years and I've actually found it to be more purple than Republican," she said. "Most of my neighbors actually classify themselves as purple right now."

And she thought President Trump's win in 2016 might be part of why her neighbors are changing their views: "The Republican Party's not what they stand for anymore, so they're having to vote candidate by candidate instead."

Jennifer Gysler is one of those people. She started as a Republican and is registered as an Independent now. But she voted for Hill this year. "I thought she had more to offer to the local area," she said. "She seems to be a more independent thinker even if she's a Democrat."

She said it's not just that people have changed their minds, it's that more people showed up to vote this year. "I've lived here for quite awhile and I've seen a fair amount of changes," she said. "I think it's a big conservative area, but I think it just goes to show you how close things really are when people turn out."

But while others might be stressed by the close call, Gysler said that was her favorite kind of election. "I think it's great that it's a close election actually, because that means a lot of people are more vested in what's going on."

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Sam Schuchat, executive director of the Coastal Conservancy, said that "throughout this process, the Conservancy has sought the best outcome for the people of California, both in terms of public access and balancing the risks and costs of continued litigation. If, through this ruling, the court believes the outcome of the case could be more favorable to the public, we are happy to pursue that."