LA the palimpsest
Hi Poptop,
Thanks for the support and the interest. If you'd like to be part of the action as the project moves forward, there's room on the team. Just sign up at the
website to get email alerts, or drop an
email if you'd like to volunteer in any capacity. We welcome anyone who would like to be of help in any way.
I grew up in Hollywood, and the tear down mentality breaks my heart and scars my brain. A personal example: on returning to LA after six years away in the early '90s, I became so disoriented at the corner of La Brea and Sunset, not recognizing the buildings around me, that I thought I was losing my mind. But no, it's just that LA has lost any sense of place and history it ever had.
Not everything old is worth saving. Not everything new is bad. But some things simply cry out for preservation, and when that cry is loud enough, people will do something about it. Last year, quite unexpectedly, I found that the loss of the Union 76 Ball upset me. So I asked my husband to build a
website, and we publicized our concerns. Thousands of people agreed, and were glad to have a place where they could make it known that they didn't want the Ball to go. And one year later, ConocoPhillips announced they had made a mistake and would preserve some orange Balls for museums, and manufacture red ones for some of their stations. I'm just glad we had the tools to provide a place where all those voices could be heard, and to amplify them.
Preservation is very different in the internet era. We can now mobilize and publicize threatened buildings almost instantly, gather supporters, communicate, strategize and sometimes, when we're very lucky and the cause is right, even win. It used to be a lot harder. We stand on the shoulders of
giants, of
martyrs.
