SoCal with Val 8 01 25 Guest__ Adrian Scott Fine Episode #13

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What do a googy diner, a nineteen twenties jazz club,
and a mid century synagogue have in common? In Los Angeles.
They're not just buildings, They're stories, and they're at risk.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
On socaw with Val, we're diving into the vibrant, layered,
and sometimes endangered world of historic preservation in Southern California,
a region where tomorrow is always knocking and yesterday often
fights to be remembered. Our guest is Adrian Scott Fine,
President and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy. He's the

(00:38):
powerhouse behind some of the city's biggest preservation wins, from
saving the Central Library to fighting to protect iconic neighborhoods
and cultural landmarks. This group is preserving what makes La so.
Whether you're a history buff, a real estate junkie, or
you just love a really good story, this episode will

(00:59):
open your eyes to the soul of Southern California's buildings
and why they matter.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
So let's get started. Welcome do so cow with Val.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
You are very welcome. Tell us We're glad to have you.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
This is in subject I'm sure so many of our
listeners and viewers have no idea what you do, or
maybe have never even heard about the conservancy. So I'm
really excited to bring this to our show today. Tell us,
first of all, congratulations on your role as CEO. What
first drew you to historic preservation? We were talking off

(01:35):
the air. You've worked in so many different parts of
the country. How did you get into this field?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, thank you. I think, like a lot of people,
I grew up as a kid liking architecture and thought
I was going to be an architect, and then the
harsh reality of knowing that I'm not really good at
math or structures hit me. But I went our architecture school,
but I found urban planning and development, and then ultimately

(02:03):
I found historic preservation. And I think that is not
uncommon for many people in my field, that we kind
of it's not a logical path to this field. You
kind of stumble on it. But you know, you like places.
You know you like the you know, the communities you
grow up grow up in and these characteristics and that
when they're gone, there's something missing. And so that's really

(02:25):
what drew me to this field. To really help save
these kinds of places, ensure that we're telling these stories
and again connecting people to the places that they care about.
Urban planning was kind of the perfect marriage for me
in terms of the two things I cared about, architecture
and historic places, because it really is thinking about, like,
how do our cities grow, How do we do it

(02:48):
in a way that maintains the qualities that we appreciate
while still allowing for new development, new people coming in density,
all the kinds of things that are happening in a city.
Nothing is static, but how do we do that and
plan in a way that is thoughtful and meaningful.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
And certainly nothing is static in Los Angeles, which we
talked about changes so much where you know, so many
places want to preserve their history, and sometimes I think
in Los Angeles history isn't as important as moving forward.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
So we're going to talk about that a little bit later.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Share a little bit about your personal jury event and
how it led you to Los Angeles Conservancy. We talked
again off air that you were in Indiana and we
talked about Abraham Lincoln has memories and buildings there and
old houses and the clothes from the women who lived
in that period.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
What led you to Los Angeles?

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Well, I just said I'm originally from the Midwest and
had been there for many years and worked there in
the field of preservation. I ultimately went I thought I
would always turn left and head west. Instead I turned
to right and headed to the East Coast, and I
was there for about eleven years, working for the National
Trust where storic preservation in Philadelphia and DC, and I worked,

(04:03):
you know, mostly in the northeast, from the state's Maine
to Delaware. I loved my time there, but never really
felt connected. But anytime I would come to LA, particularly
certainly California, there was just something about it that said,
this is where I should be. This feels like right
to me. And I've talked to other people who have
had that same experience. You can't really put your finger

(04:24):
on it, but just is a feeling. And so I
eventually made my way here. And so I've been in
LA for fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, I certainly can relate to that.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I came here on an airplane and got off the
airplane saw the palm trees. I came from Indiana, and
that was I was hooked to. So I can certainly
relate to that part of your journey.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
And you live in did you always live in Los Angeles?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
I have.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, why do you believe that preserving history is so
important in today's fast changing world, and especially in an
area like Los Angeles where everything is so fast moving forward.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think for me it comes back to connection that
if you don't have physical places that help tell us
where we've been, what we've overcome, what is the story,
our origin, story of our place, and also the people
that we're here before us, it's much harder to understand
that history. It's the physical places, those containers in which

(05:29):
those stories and that history happened. When those containers are missing,
the history is less real. And so that's what has
always resonated with me is to be able to see
a place, experience a place, go into a place, and
then to understand it's all about layers, and especially a
place like Los Angeles. I've honestly never lived in a

(05:50):
place that has changed as quickly as La does. And
part of the beauty that story, and also the challenge
of that story is it's these layers of people that
have come and gone. So like Boyle Heights neighborhood in
Los Angeles, you know, for many years it was a
very prominent Jewish you know family neighborhood it's mostly Latino

(06:12):
neighborhood today, but it's this layers that's what makes in
La so interesting. But the challenge again is that I
think LA is a place is always trying to chase
the latest trend, always trying to reinvent itself, and so
our work at the Conservancy and of anybody working in
preservation is figuring out how do you hold on to

(06:33):
those intrinsic qualities that still help tell the story of
a place like LA and still allow for new housing,
new development, whatever, we still need to accommodate, but do
it in a way that doesn't erode one or over
the other.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Absolutely, that is a question.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
And then I'm sure some of the places you've lived before,
it's almost like, how do you get people moving right?
How you get them out of this history and the
traditions and where they've lived for clone and get them
into something a little bit more progressive. So I'm sure
you've seen it on both ends.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, I sometimes equate it to cities that are hot
markets versus cities that are cold markets. When I was
working in Philadelphia, we had portions of the city where disinvestment, neglect,
housing abandonment didn't get anybody take, you know, take any
attention to this or or do anything to help improve
those neighborhoods. In a place like La there is no

(07:29):
place in the city that is not seeing development pressures.
So we're definitely a hot market. Real estate values are
incredibly high, which presents much different challenges in terms of
doing this work of preservation versus what I was trying
to do in parts of Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
So let's just jump ahead a little bit because we're
on this topic. So how do you deal with the
topic of shortage of housing and I want to save
this building. We would have talked about a little later,
but we're on that subject, So how do you deal
with that?

Speaker 3 (08:05):
I think it's the most pressing issue right now for
La California, and quite honestly across the country. It's this
housing affordability issue. And I think part of it is
that it's complicated. There is no easy one fix. It's
not a silver bullet. No one has the answer, depending
on whether you're in the housing production side or working

(08:28):
in housing affordability, or your developer or your preservationist. But
I do think we all bring tools to the table
to help A couple of things. Is I don't think
we can solve the problem by this notion that the
only way to deal with it is to build more housing.
We really can't build our way up as problem. That's
part of the solution, but it's not the only solution.

(08:50):
And so we're also from a preservation side as saying, Okay,
we have a lot of historic buildings that are providing housing,
critical housing, affordable house and for people. We actually the
largest concentration of affordable housing in the city of la
and most cities is an older historic buildings. So why
are we tearing them down? In threatening you know, both

(09:13):
the loss of housing as well as older and historic buildings.
And we're often confronted with this same question that you're
bringing up in terms of how do we do both?
I think it's a both and versus a neither or,
and that's often kind of a false choice that's presented
to us to say that if you want more housing,

(09:33):
you can't have preservation. That's not true. We can do
both well.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
And the other thing, it's interesting and can I wasn't
going to get on this topic, but the other thing
is that a lot of the buildings were built better
than the new construction will be.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
They're better structured.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Maybe not earthquake safety and so forth, but certainly some
of them in their beautiful brick buildings.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
And I think of Scott and you'll relate to this.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I remember when I was in Cago once they were
talking about the Printing District, right, And so we have
districts that come to minds as a cool place to live,
right because they had some character and so to bringing
out that character. And even San Diego when they recreated
downtown San Diego, you still can take those buildings and

(10:21):
do something inside of them. And I love the word
that you use as their containers. I had never heard
that and never thought about that. But they're a container
for history. They're a container for what happened there and
who and from you, especially as an architect background of
who thought of that when they were thinking of building it,

(10:41):
when they were designing it, What was their thought, what
did they want?

Speaker 2 (10:44):
What were they trying to do?

Speaker 1 (10:46):
And just must be so interesting and educational to bring
that to people, not only to the public, but to children.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
And the community and bring that out.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
I think of when the printing District I was thinking up, Yeah,
I wonder you know, when they had manual printers right,
printers went to work there, right, And those are the
stories that I think of, So thank you for using
that word container those. So, how has the transition from
an advocacy director to a CEO changed your strategy and

(11:20):
your vision?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Are you able to still do both.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
To some degree? Yeah? I think the biggest change is
I get to think bigger in terms of the work
that we do, So in some ways there's a little
bit more freedom in terms of thinking about the work
of the Early Conservancy. We've been around since nineteen seventy
as an organization. We serve all of Los Angeles County,

(11:46):
so it's massive, over four thousand square miles in terms
of the area we're attempting to serve as an organization.
But it's also thinking about, Okay, what do we focus
in on, what are our priorities? How do we make
a meaningful impact? And one of the things that really
guides me as kind of a north star is ensuring
that the work that we do is relevant and impactful.

(12:10):
So we are working on housing, we're working on legacy businesses,
we're working on women's heritage, we're working to respond to
the wildfires, and so we're making sure that the work
that we do resonates and is directly linked to what
Angelinos care about, and that helps them connect to why
old places matter because they're relevant in our everyday lives.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, and again I'm not trying to have brought this up,
but let's talk about the wildfires. So it's first of all,
it's just painful and it must be for you going
watching that unfold must have just been almost unbearable. And

(12:56):
do you automatically decide you're going to rebuild everything that
might have been within your realm of influence or do
you think about whether you rebuild it in a different way?

Speaker 2 (13:07):
How do you handle things like that?

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Well, those are the conversations that are happening right now.
I mean, first and foremost, it's about the people, you know,
and that's from the January seventh, when the fire started.
It was always thinking about the people and you know,
making sure people are safe. But very quickly on we
were mobilizing to say, okay, what do we do, how
do we help in this kind of situation and understanding

(13:33):
that preservationists are probably not the first people that you
want to see in the face of a disaster, but
we do have a role to play in thinking about
rebuilding and also understanding what was saved and what was lost.
And so we quickly started documenting to understand the impacts
both in the Palisades and the Eaten fires, and they
were very different. There's i think five different jurisdic addictions

(13:57):
that were impacted by the fires. But you know, we
had much better better data and documentation going in for
the city of La with the Palisades. Altadena was a
very different situation. We didn't have any of that data
for the most part, so we had to start a
little more from scratch in that particular case. Honest the

(14:18):
fires started, we thought, well, we'll be there to bring
instructural engineers, architects, other types of resources to help buildings
that are damage. And the harsh reality is, you know,
and so many to do now by looking at the
aftermath is there's very few buildings that were actually just damage.
Most everything was completely destroyed that was in the burn area,

(14:39):
and that meant we had to look at this very
differently in terms of the work that we're doing. But
what's interesting in coming out of this, there's some innovative outcomes.
People are having conversations about what does rebuilding look like,
what does rebuilding with heritage look like and what is
our role? And so we are are taking on some

(15:00):
really interesting projects, especially in the Altadena community, to try
to help and brand resources to the community as they
contemplate these very difficult, challenging questions, especially not easily solved
or going to be solved within the next few years.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Even no, and I can only imagine the complexity of
this issue, not only because the massiveness of it, but
as you said, you know, the one building at a time.
So in a case like that, because I'm just curious,
and I'm sure some of our viewers and listeners are also,
So what happens in a case like that? Do you
does someone call you and say, Okay, come to this

(15:39):
meeting You're going to talk about it. Do you automatically
have a role where you're prepared for if something like
that happened in your area, that you jump right into
action and do like do you go there and sort
through things and try to save the fronts of buildings?

Speaker 2 (15:54):
For example? What happens? What do you do?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Varies? I mean, I think anybody thinks it can be
prepared for a natural disaster. I don't think in this
particular case anyone could have contemplated what this was or
could be prepared to the extent of what it meant.
The way that you know, we have kind of found
our way in this is one to say, okay, where
do we provide value. We don't want to get in

(16:23):
the way of other efforts, other community efforts. Where do
we focus in terms of what we do around historic preservation,
which has led us and thankfully with some funding from
various organizations and groups like the World Monuments Fund, the
National Trust, most recently the Getty Foundation has given us funding.
So we are doing now a few things, especially in Altadena.

(16:46):
We're going to be doing a full community wide historic
resources survey and historic context study, which will essentially say
what is the story of Altadena and put it into
context about what is surviving there, what has been lost,
what's the narrative in the story, because that's never been
done for that community to this extent. So that's one

(17:08):
big project. And then another thing that we're doing is
cultural asset mapping, which is somewhat of a new area
within our field, and it's picking up more of not
just the tangible heritage, but intangible qualities of what makes
a place special. It's community driven community designed in terms
of and rarely does a community ever get asked to say,

(17:30):
what is it about your community that you love? What's important?
What are the traditions, what are the cultural norms or
the festivals, whatever it may be that's important to commemorate
and identify, so that will happen. And then we're also
working amazingly with another program with this community artist in

(17:51):
Altadena that she'll be working with us over the next
eighteen months to do a project to commemorate loss, trauma,
grief and what does it mean for going forward in
terms of a place like that. So it's interesting things
that are happening, and then there's all kinds of other
wonderful in some ways innovative, creative strategies coming forward.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
And out of this actually is going to come to
some great learning opportunities and some incredible experiences for you,
for your conservancy and for the community because you'll be
creating some things that haven't happened before and to be
able to put this community back as you might want,
as you said, like people will want to remember it,

(18:35):
and that's just so you're kind of the caretaker of
those memories right in a way, don't you think as
you tide people in putting them together.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, that's in a way. I mean we're one of
the pieces of many people coming together to try to help.
I mean. One of the interesting things that's happening right now,
which I would put into this kind of innovative you know,
strategies that are coming forward, is this idea of houses
in LA that are already slated for demolition for redevelopment.

(19:09):
There's a new effort called the Historic House Relocation Project,
and we're supporting it. But they are moving houses from
LA and moving them into Altadena. And so it's saving
the houses that otherwise would be lost needlessly and reusing
them and bringing them back to the community for homeowners

(19:30):
that really want an older house, and potentially there'll be
more affordable and quicker to get back to living in
your community that you lost. Sure.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, and I would love to hear more about that.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
I don't want to take the time right now, but
if you have any extra time, which we probably won't do,
we could go back to that.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
I'd love to hear about the funding and the.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Logistics of how that works, how they get reset up,
how those people get mortgage on those and all those things,
because that's a whole nother subject.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
But let's go back to the conservatives at its heart,
at its core.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
So to those people who are unfamiliar to our listeners
and our viewers, give us a quick overview, please, of
the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
How is it founded and what is its mission?

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Sure? Well, our origin story goes back to nineteen seventy
eight when the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles was
threatened with demolition and anybody looking at this beautiful building
today would never fathom that it would ever be at
risk what it was, And like many preservation efforts, a
group of people came together at the time and said,

(20:35):
what are you thinking, Why would you demolish this building?
We had no preservation organization in place. Preservation was definitely
in its infancy in Los Angeles at that point in time,
even in the late nineteen seventies, and then that quickly
grew into the idea of like, well, why are we
just focusing on one building, Let's focus on the entire community.

(20:56):
And then our founders, who were particularly ambitious and decided,
let's focus on the entire counting. And so that's how
the Los Angeles Conservancy really was created. Our mission is
pretty straightforward, but it's broad. But we focus on education
and advocacy. Those are our two bookends. And I always

(21:17):
say education is advocacy and advocacy is education. But there's
different approaches. So we do tours, we do a film series,
we do special programs to get people into these historic
places of their eyes open and they understand why they're important.
And then we also advocate. We work with local governments, developers,

(21:38):
property owners to make a case for why you should
keep an older building or adaptively reuse it, or how
to bring the funding to make a project viable. So
it's broad in terms of what we do.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
And then let me ask you a question out of
my curiosity. So then sometimes there are organizations like I
think of, like let's just think of like the Nixon
Library for example.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Then they have their own organization.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
So are there times when you help bring a building
to life and then you also help do you help
them then create their own infrastructure so to speak, for
keeping it maintained and to carry on its own mission.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, absolutely, that is part of our goal as well,
to build capacity. So we're often helping bring new groups together,
which may be ad hoc or they may be forming
their own nonprofit organizations, or we may be supporting groups
that are housed within historic buildings and don't know how
to care for them. Or even things like churches or
synagogues that are often in historic buildings. How do they

(22:38):
do a capital improvement campaign to care for that building
when they're really focused more on their religious side and
they don't know anything about historic buildings. So yeah, we
definitely come intact.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, they don't do what you do. They don't even
know where to start. That's where you come in.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
This must be I'm listening to I just keep thinking,
this must be so exciting for someone like you, all
these different things that you get to work on it,
and the fun to bring these all to life and
to bring them together. Of course, I'm sure you have
day to day challenges. We won't ask you about those
on this call.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
None of us have perfect lives, right right, Well, I can.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Say I've never been bored doing this work, and every
day brings a new challenge. But it also means you're
always learning, and that's an exciting part of this work.
It's not routine by any means.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
No, No, I'm sure it's not, especially in Los Angeles.
The Conservancy has saved countless landmarks. Can you highlight a
few of the most significant preservation victories that you've been
a part of.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Sure, there's a lot, and most people don't know the
origin story or that it was effor at risk. So
certainly the Library, it's now been preserved. It's a great story.
Places like the Wiltern Theater, which maybe people go and
see a show and it's this beautiful, you know, this
aridescent kind of green terra cotta hour on Wiltshire and

(24:03):
you look at it and you think, oh, it's Who
would ever threatened that that was at risk of demolition
in the early nineteen eighties, Or even the Academy Museum,
which recently opened in the old May Company building. This
is one of the best examples of the streamline during
architecture in the city of Los Angeles. That was completely
a risk of demolition in the nineteen nineties, and we

(24:25):
were instrumental in saving that. So there's examples like that
all throughout the city or throughout the county where we've
played a role, sometimes a leading role, sometimes a supporting
role to help save these kinds of places, or even
downtown Los Angeles you know, that's much of our origin
story in terms of really promoting it, but trying to
ensure that those buildings were used. So the adaptive reuse

(24:47):
of so many of those buildings for housing, there's over
twelve thousand new housing units contained within older and historic
buildings that did not happen just by happenstance. There are efforts,
are efforts, other people's efforts to really promote and put
the policies in place and the advocacy to make these
things happen.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
How do you fit in this entire process?

Speaker 1 (25:09):
So, for example, I think of the city of Orange,
and I think probably also in Pasadena and some of
the cities there where they're not allowed to do certain
things with their houses because they have to preserve the
architectural integrity, let's call it.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
So, is there a.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Process in the County of Los Angeles where before someone
can demo a building they have to contact you?

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Or how does that work?

Speaker 3 (25:34):
It depends. And that's the thing with every jurisdiction, city, community,
it has its own policies or roles or nothing in place.
It depends. So part of our job has been to
work to make sure that there are things like preservation
ordinances in as many communities as possible, So like Beverly
Hills is a good example. It's in La County. It's

(25:57):
kind of surrounded by the city of Ela that its
own and its city. For many years, it had no
preservation tools whatsoever. Historic buildings were demolished and people in
the community were like, why are we doing this? And
it was only about probably twelve years ago due to
the threatened nature of a neusture designed house that the

(26:21):
community to said okay, no more. They passed a preservation ordinance,
they created a Cultural Heritage Commission. They now have incentives
for preservation. They're now designating buildings, and so that is
what we like to see in almost every community, to
have those tools in place. But it works differently La
County itself, the unincorporated parts of the county, that's only

(26:44):
recently that they had a preservation ordinance to be able
to designate buildings and provide protection and do things like
you're talking about having design review. Some communities are more
strict than others, so it varies from one place to another,
but that's part of how we interface and provide technical
assistance in that area as well.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
And is there ever a time when you might see
a building or a house or an old store and
you might say, you know, we should be doing something
with that. And then do you contact the owner, or
do you contact the city council, or do you bring
it to someone else as a potential project.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, it's always a case by case basis, but yeah,
absolutely there's often cases where we're coming in and saying, okay,
how do we intervene, how do we help? And we're
always assessing, Okay, what stage is this? Is it too
late to help? Who's the decision maker who has the
ability to decide where this goes? You know, with the
politics of the situation. As the property owner, what do

(27:45):
we need to do? I mean, I'm always thinking about,
you know, what is our strategy? And the good and
the challenging part of this work is it's not like
you just dust off a playbook that you did before
and then just say here's do the Every single time
we can apply some of the lessons learned from past

(28:05):
advocacy issues, we are always having to figure out a
new strategy for each and every instance like that where
you have a threatened building and figuring out how do
you get it into the non threatened status.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Right, And who who do you work for?

Speaker 1 (28:20):
You're a nonprofit, correct, so you have so if you
felt you needed to work with a city council for example,
or a city government or some agency within a city,
you go to them as the nonprofit and just call
and ask them for a meeting.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
And work with them that way. Correct, you don't work
it's not a political position, right.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
No. No, we're entirely private, membership based organization. And again
we are essentially the advocate for historic places. I work
for historic places. That's who my boss is. And you
know they don't have a voice, so we are the
ability to give voice to places. So it's figuring out
who do we need to work with to try to

(29:02):
make change happen.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
But obviously you've gained some respect in the community because
of all the work you've done, so I'm sure they
take your calls and like to work with you.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, I will say. You know, we have been able
to build a strong reputation in terms of our work,
and we're a very pragmatic organization. You know, we're not
against change. So we're always saying, Okay, what's the win win?
How do we get to a win win? What is
the threat or what are you trying to achieve here
that might be putting in historic building or neighborhood or

(29:35):
community at risk. Part of our job I always think
of we're problem solvers, figuring out, Okay, what is of
the issue is and how do we get at a
place where okay, you can still do that, but do
it in a way that maintains the character, maintains that
historic building. And maybe it's an additioner, maybe it's a
new construction, but putting it behind the historic building. Finding

(29:56):
that win win is really the beauty of what we
bring to the table.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
And certainly there's so many changes. For example, the fires,
and you would have never expected that the next morning
you were going to be thrown into that situation. And
now you have this opportunity to learn and be involved
in this amazing project. Worn out of a disaster, but
still how exciting that you get to play such a
big role in that.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
So that must be interesting.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
So tell us now we know we've read that the
Conservancy has a student outreach. Talk to us about how
you're helping to shape the future preservation for the future generations.
How do you keep them interested, especially in Los Angeles
where I think that history isn't such a big part
of what we are here. So how do you get

(30:46):
the youth and the younger generation to be excited, be interested?
Does it start with architectural students or what else can
you do?

Speaker 3 (30:55):
You know, that's often this idea that we take our
history or the places in it which we live for granted.
And so that starts with when we're young and you know,
we're looking around and we notice, you know, the neighborhood
or the house we live in, but we may not
know the history or even think to ask the question.
And that's really what is at the heart of our
education program, especially our youth education. So we're doing tours

(31:19):
every week with kids, young kids all the way up
to high school and beyond adults as well, to expose
them to historic places and help tell those stories. We
just finished last week our heritage project. It's called the
Heritage Project, and we've been doing it for three years
and we hope to do it for many more years

(31:40):
coming forward. But it's about roughly about fifteen to twenty
high school kids that come from all different parts of
La County, different backgrounds, different interests, different you know, their
own cultural diversity, coming together and for three weeks they
are immersed in looking at historic places around La County.

(32:02):
They see about thirty different places in depth they do
they camp overnight at Catalina Island and they have this
most amazing experience and it's really interesting to see them.
On day one when they first come together, they don't
know each other, they don't know anything about historic preservation.
And then at the end of the three weeks they're

(32:23):
sharing these stories about what historic places mean to them,
what resonated with them over this last three weeks, How
does it connect to them personally in a way that
they never even would have thought about beforehand. So it's
that kind of experience and that will live with them,
hopefully forever. And then when they're on a city council,

(32:45):
or they're ahead of an organization, or they're an owner
of a historic building, hopefully they'll think about it differently
than perhaps that they hadn't had that experience.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
And this is one group that you have every summer,
how many we do and are you able to put
in that program that.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
One is small by intent, so that you have kind
of that high touch in terms of your ability to connect,
so that like I said, it's about fifteen to twenty
students that are part of the Heritage program each year
that we do that program. But that's a way in
which to connect in a very personal, meaningful way.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Are you able to do anything in the schools?

Speaker 3 (33:26):
We are, so we have some demonstration programs or like
I said, we're doing a lot of tours, and that's
often with school teachers in terms of taking them around
or going into the classrooms themselves and doing programs. So
we've have lots of different pilots and examples. We're always
looking for more in terms of which to resonate and
how to connect with school districts. It's challenging because they

(33:49):
have so much on their plate already in terms of
what they're trying to do around curriculum, and so sometimes
this is seen as a luxury or it's nice to
have but not essential. Completely disagree because I think if
you don't connect kids to the places in which they
live in the history, you're missing something really critical. But
that is part of the challenge. How to integrate telling

(34:13):
people about historic places as part of going to school.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
And in the schools. Is it part of the arts program.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
It depends on it just depends on one school district
to another, or even so much of getting a principal
or a teacher that particularly wants to bring this to
their class or their school district itself, So it varies
in terms of that.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
It also could be part of a history class. Correct. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
What are some of the conservancy's current projects or urgent
campaigns that our listeners and our viewers should know about?

Speaker 3 (34:54):
There are many. I mean, one I mentioned earlier is
legacy businesses, and these are businesses that have been in place,
you know, twenty plus years in our communities. It's more
of an intangible heritage, but it's the thing that people love.
So it's at corner grocery store and maybe that restaurant
you've been going to or your family's been going to

(35:15):
for generations, you know, for Sunday dinner. It's these places
that you know, their mom and pop shops. We love them,
and increasingly they're at risk because it's really hard to
keep them in business. But also when we lose them,
it's like losing a part of our history and a
place that we've really come to connect with our own story.

(35:37):
So we're doing things to encourage creation of legacy business programs.
We were able to do it in the City of
LA and now they're providing grant funds to legacy businesses
to try to encourage and support them to keep them
in business. We're also developing a toolkit for the City
of LA right now. They'll be talking about things like

(35:58):
succession planning, how does a business has been in place
for fifty years, how do you pass it on to
the next generation? Versus what often happens is they just
close their doors and everyone's like, why do we lose
that place? We're talking about like how does a business
that maybe is still doing things on the notepad, how

(36:18):
do they transition to e commerce? So it's helping businesses,
you know, grow and thrive and ensure that they're going
to be around for generations coming versus losing these places.
And I think that is one of the biggest things
that we're seeing across LA right now, and we've been
seeing it since the pandemic, is that these places are
very vulnerable and they're just barely getting by, and we

(36:41):
need to support them and encourage more people to go
and spend money and you know, encourage and ensure that
these places survive.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
And I'm sitting here thinking about, you know, some grants
or funding of some kind, like you know, well need funding.
But if someone were to take over that building and
open another restaurant similar, there could be some assistance to
encourage them to do that. Right, Yeah, it's not going

(37:09):
to be the same family and the mom and dad
owned it and their kids aren't interested, or they've gone
off somewhere else, but then creed somewhere else to come
in and take over it. Maybe there could be some
you know, incentives to keep the architectural standards and so forth.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, I can see why that.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Would be important, and we just don't often think about that,
do we.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, it's I think it's another thing that you just
kind of take for granted that's always going to be
there until they announce that they're closing, and you're like,
how could that be? And then you asked the question,
when was the last time you went there? Oh, it's
been a while, and like, well, that's why, because they
need that, they need the customer base and support to
keep these places, you know, surviving in terms of that.

(37:49):
But it's it's kind of the heart and soul of
so many neighborhoods, and we can all point to a
business that we love and that we don't want to
see it go away. And these are sometimes where you
form friendship with the people that work there and connections,
and so it is something it's part of our heritage
when we talk about may not be architecturally significant, or

(38:09):
some might be, but it's another form of heritage in
terms of our community.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Right and and something to do with refurbishing those so
to speak, as far as bringing in a new owner
or a new business into that building also helps upgrade
the community of course, right you think of like a
downtown San Diego or other parts. I'm certainly of online
where they kept the buildings right just you know, brought
it up to a more modern standard and businesses and

(38:36):
so forth.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
So I can see where that would be that would
be important.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
I'm certainly there's parts of Los Angeles where that has
happened as well. What are some of the Are there
particular neighborhoods in Los Angeles that are currently at risk
other than the two fire areas?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Any landmarks that you're working on right now?

Speaker 3 (38:57):
There's many. I can think of a few. I mean,
one neighborhood that's definitely someplace I absolutely love is in
terms of a neighborhood is Lahmert Park in Los Angeles.
It's part of South LA. It's this really wonderful neighborhood
from the nineteen twenties and thirties developed by Walter Lamert,
and it's just a stunning community physically, architecturally. But it's

(39:21):
also a really important community in terms of African American
heritage and history and really the heart of Black Los Angeles.
And so we are part of an effort there. They
are seeking funding to be able to list the neighborhood
and have it designated on the National Register of Historic Places,
to really tell that story and to provide some protection.

(39:43):
We're increasingly seeing, you know, speculative houseflops come in. There's
also lots of concerns about new housing in general, how
does that integrate well within this neighborhood, and also how
to maintain again the rich Africa American story that exists
there because they're concerned about being pushed out through displacement, gentrification,

(40:07):
and really using the history in a way to help
protect it. So that's one neighborhood that is really interesting
in terms of some of the efforts of their underway
or another place that we're working on. It's really focused
on one place, but it's part of a bigger neighborhood.
In Lincoln Heights is the old General Hospital, and anybody

(40:27):
that knows La or has been on a freeway, you
look over and you see this massive Art Deco building
from the early nineteen thirties, or if you've watched the
soap opera General Hotspoken, it is the backdrop to that
whole show. And it has been largely vacant, or at
least the upper floor, since the nineteen nineties, and it's

(40:48):
this massive anchor building in the neighborhood. There's now an effort,
thanks to the County of Los Angeles and especially Supervisor
Hilda Salis's office and the developer that's promoting this idea
to adaptively reuse that building for mixed income housing, so
it'd be some affordable housing, some market rate housing, but

(41:09):
to really be one of the largest preservation projects to
come for Los Angeles. To make that happen, we're actually
doing a tour of General Hospital in September to get
people in those upper floors that have never been there.
And it's a fascinating space because in the nineties when
they closed down all those floors. After the earthquake, they

(41:29):
kind of left everything in place and it just walked away.
And it's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Is that right? So you can just it's like it
was just frozen.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
In time in many ways. I mean there's paperwork, there's
all kinds of stuff out there, and there's also these
really wonderful surgery theaters that you probably have seen on
different shows and things. But essentially it's a theater upper

(41:59):
floor with a very steep rake looking down into a
surgery as a theater with these massive windows. It's a
wonderfully interesting space that we'll be able to allow people
to see that as well. So it's amazing in terms
of the building itself. And what's even more amazing is
this idea to reinvigorate it for housing and that will

(42:22):
have a huge impact on that neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
That's fascinating, And of course the question comes, and I
want to move on, is it ever economically feasible to
keep those old buildings and convert them to housing red
than tearing it down and starting from scratch.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
We think so, and that's part of our job to
create incentives to try to make that possible, because it's
part of the challenge. Part of it is that people
not having the vision about what these buildings could be.
But then how do you make the economics work. In
a case like the general Hospital, it's not feasible to

(43:01):
tear it down. It's so expensive because it's such a
massive building. So the alternative is, let's reuse it, let's reinvest.
It's not going to be cheap, but the outcome is
going to be well worth it in terms of what
is going to provide to the community and housing, but
also keeping that building and finally reactivating it.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
And the fun of that is coming up with a
name of it, like the hospital building or the hospital District, right,
or something something like the printing District, right, something that
you can name it and that will carry on the
heritage and the fun of it. Now, let's talk about
some of the great things you do in the community.
So first of all, how do you get funding, How

(43:42):
do you keep the community involved? Do you have like
community workshops, do you have fundraising events? And how do
people know about you?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
A variety of ways. So we have about forty five
hundred members as part of an organization, which makes us
the largest local membership base. Preservation organization in the US,
so we're very fortunate to have a large base of
members so that we can communicate with and connect in
terms of that they provide some funding support for our organization.

(44:13):
We also do a lot of events and programs to
help raise money, but also to engage the community in
terms of what's going on. We do a program called
the Community Leadership boot Camp Program or boot Camp for short,
and we've been doing that now for ten classes, so
about one hundred and fifty people have now gone through

(44:35):
that program, and that is a very direct way in
which to get involved with US and to learn about
advocacy and saving older places. To go through this like
four or five week program, so there's lots of different
ways to get involved. We do a film series called
Lass Remaining Seats. We've been doing it for thirty eight

(44:56):
years now, where we open up the historic theaters and
down town Los Angeles on Broadway, and sometimes we've gone
to other theaters around the around the county and we
open up the theaters, we show a classic film and
we bring in thousands of people one to see spaces
that maybe they've never been, but to experience a classic
film in a classic space and to have that experience.

(45:20):
We're doing for the first time ever, we're going to
be doing a Halloween screening coming up on October twenty
fifth at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Son. We're
gonna have a little twist and it's playing on our
name of Last Remaining Seats. We're calling it Last Remains
in Halloween to have a little fun, but also to
again get people into older historic buildings, in this case,

(45:43):
historic theaters.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
About how many historic independent theaters do you have in
Los Angeles?

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Oh, I don't know what the total number would be.
There are many. There's lots of neighborhood theaters. We've lost
a lot as well, and so's there's a whole organization
called a Historic Theaters Foundation that advocates for keeping older
theaters because those are really difficult buildings want to program,

(46:10):
but also to ensure that they're viable and to raise
money around. So they're really special buildings, historic buildings, but
they're also really challenging in terms of doing this work.
Broadway has the distinction of having one of the highest
concentrations of historic theaters anywhere in the US. Because there
are so many historic theaters dotted along the Broadway Court

(46:33):
or in downtown Los Angeles, and that's part of why
we've concentrated our focus there.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Fun how fun and going to a movie in a
place like that is just a special experience be matched.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
So let's talk about your walking tours.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
The conservancy we know is well known for your led
and self led walking tours. What can visitors expect from
these experiences?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Where are they where can they go? How many are there.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Every weekend? So anytime you want to go on a
walking tour, we have a multiple multitude of venues and
options available. You can go to our website, sign up
and go to a walking tour and it's a small
enough group that you can have kind of a one
on one with the tour volunteer and docent that's telling

(47:24):
you the story. And some of it's you know, we
have a story downtown walking tour, or you're getting the
story of like how did downtown Los Angeles come together?
Or you can be more specialized, you want to have
a tour of the Art Deco architecture and learn that story.
Or we do a program called Modern by Moonlight, which
it's more in the evening walking tour where you get

(47:44):
a better sense of like the later buildings that are
more recent, past buildings that came online in downtown Los
Angeles and what's their story, Or we do a tour
of Union Station. So there's lots of examples of what
we offer every we can. And then we do special tours,
you know, throughout the year. We did one in the
spring looking at multifamily historic multifamily housing apartments, bungalow courts

(48:10):
to tell that story. So there's always some tour offering
happening pretty much anytime throughout the year that you're welcome
to police join.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
And are there some for students?

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Are they all people of this of different ages, all
in the same tour or how does that work?

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Yeah, we definitely. We have student walking tours student programs themselves,
and we can coordinate that we can do special tours
sometimes for our classes and things like that, and then
the others are pretty much for anyone, families, adults, whatever
it might be that can join those tours.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Well, summertime in LA is a great time to be
on one of those tours. Any specific seasonal tours that
our viewers and our listeners might want to take advantage of.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Yeah, we're dealing a tour of kind of the Westwood
Community Homebee. We've been doing some special tours there in
terms of that, so there's always something like that. We've
been doing tours of the Greek like a one day
tour of the Greek Theater, which is a unique experience
to be able to get in there and hear the story.

(49:16):
So we always have some kind of offering like that
that is more seasonal, as well as the ones that
are offered every weekend.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
This sounds really exciting and certainly some of those are
I would like to participate in. Can you tell our
viewers and our listeners how to book one of these tours?

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Sure, go to our website, So go to laconservancy dot
org look for tours the drop down menu at the top.
It's pretty easy to get to reserve your spot. You'll
get an email with all the details and all you
need to do is then meet us at the spot
and then we take it from there and you have
a good experience.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
And how long are these tours?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Generally there's somewhere about between an hour hour and a half.
We also often see people that have people or have
friends visiting LA and they're like, why do I show them?
And la is so big, it's kind of overwhelming, and
this is a great way to bring people there visiting
you to see the community and hear a story in

(50:14):
a pretty compact period of time. It's also often that
the people that are going to friends, they're visiting, they're
learning about the community that they've been living in for
some cases decades, never knew these stories. So it's kind
of enlightening for both people they're visiting and people that
live here.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, and they must come to you and say, gosh,
I never knew this. I'm so glad I brought my
friends on this store today, right YEA. More broadly, how
can our listeners and our viewers support your mission the
volunteer or through donations or through advocacy? What can other

(50:51):
people be doing to support you in.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
All of those ways? I mean we ask generally the
easiest place or the quickest way to get to know
us and support the work that we do and help
save the story places is join us as a member.
There's lots of different membership levels to go to our
website against Laconservancy dot org. We also produce a magazine
called Landmark that comes out on a quarterly basis and

(51:15):
it tells the stories about what the work that we're
doing and places that you should visit. And so there's
lots of benefits that come from becoming a member of
the conservancy. But there's lots of ways to get involved.
If you want to volunteer, we have a whole volunteer program.
We have over two hundred volunteers, and we do training gatherings.
That's a great way to get to experience some of

(51:38):
our programs. And then, like I said, we've got like
the Bootcamp program. If you want to really know how
to be a good advocate and stave in the historic place,
sign up for that as well. So there's lots of
different ways to get involved with us.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I'm sure that some of our people will and we're
going to put all your contact information and some clips
here in our video that will be sharing. On a
personal note, what are some of your most favorite historic
spots around LA, Places that you love to visit or
you wish more people would go see so they could
appreciate your work as well.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
That is such a hard question because I love so
many places in LA and it's like picking your favorite
is a challenge. I will say the neighborhoods I think
that is one of LA's greatest assets and stories, and
it doesn't get told enough. So neighborhoods like the Cartha Neighborhoods,
or Hancock Park or Boil Heights, Lincoln Heights I mentioned before,

(52:38):
Lambert Park, Ladera Heights. There are so many wonderful neighborhoods
throughout LA and the best way to experience those is
just go for the day, park the car and start walking.
Last weekend, I did this in Silver Lake and it
was so much fun just to explore and walk around

(52:59):
the reservoir and go into local stores and just to
get a feel of that neighbor And I said, this
is so different from where I live in another part
of LA. And it was like, you know, being transported,
just being a tourist for the day in your own city.
And that's what's really beautiful about LA. We have so
many different things to see, but the neighborhoods first and foremost,

(53:19):
I think are probably one of the biggest assets of
this city.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Well, we love hearing these stories from me, that's for sure,
and we do hope you'll come back and that some
of our people will participate. We're going to go on
walking through. We looked at this yesterdays and we need
to do this so our family here, from Neon signs
to jazz halls, to Googi diners to modernist marvels. LA's
history isn't just something we study. It's something we live in,

(53:44):
We drive by, we walk through, and walk by every day.
So we have a huge thank you to you, Adrian
Scott Fine for reminding us that every building is a
container of some history. It has a heartbeat, and to
remind us that saving places can also say by identity,
creativity and connection. We're going to put here where they

(54:04):
can learn more about the Laconservancy dot org and to
find all the links through that through our website as well.
Until next Friday, I'm Valerie van Is over. This is
so Calt with val where every corner has a story
and every week we're glad to tell it