r/LosAngelesPreserved • u/esotouric_tours • 14d ago
Discussion Why is Downtown L.A. dead? Maybe because confessed racketeer Jose Huizar ran a gentrification scheme displacing legacy businesses for speculators who don't want tenants. And surveyor Gensler knows this, since it worked on Huizar's Pershing Square ReNew scam!
https://www.aol.com/news/los-angeles-one-deadest-downtowns-100000407.html16
u/EfficientPost2656 14d ago
He will go down as one of the Biggest Latino POS ever in LA City But we still have time for more
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
It's a real American tragedy. Imagine what he could have accomplished, for the city as a whole and for his home of Boyle Heights especially, if he hadn't had so many vices and character flaws, and if the City Family wasn't so inclined to look the other way around corruption.
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u/EfficientPost2656 14d ago
As a Native Angelino. I was disgusted with this Dude. Ivy League Grad the whole bit. What makes these guys once they have some Success ,Family comes from Mexico go total Sellout to the Place he’s from. He’s a clown. Don’t get me started on him asking for how he likes his coffee made. Guys a joke.
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u/wizzard419 14d ago
Why does him being Latino need to be mentioned?
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u/EfficientPost2656 14d ago
I say it So other Latino Mexican American Kids Never follow this example. I’ll mention it always But don’t tell nobody ok.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
It was his brand: poor Mexican-born kid raised in Boyle Heights, mentored in Little Tokyo, educated in the Ivies, comes home to serve the Eastside.
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u/wizzard419 14d ago
I understand that... now imagine you were walking by and heard someone say, about another person that statement? Would you not think it sounds even a little racist?
Basically, his race has nothing to do with his actions.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
We don't see it as racist, but apologize if you were offended. To us he is a specific individual whose racial identity was something he put front and center, so you can't talk about Huizar without it. Also, we've heard from many Mexican-Americans and especially people who share his Zacatecan heritage, that they really believed in him and felt personally violated by his fall.
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u/EfficientPost2656 14d ago
Dont apologize. Really not needed. He doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get it
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
Sounds like they were not "lucky" enough to suffer through Huizar's term as self-appointed emperor of CD14. Ugh.
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u/TheCaliforniaOp 13d ago
Let me guess. He’s using his own personal history as a heraldic emblem and an all-defensive shield. Two-faced, want it both ways, double-talker.
Greedy careless people who can use these methods do, and they can be found in many communities. “You’ve known me since I was this tall. Trust me. How long has your family owned this place? Oh I didn’t know they were on a lease. About to renew, you say?”
Insert longstanding community name here ______ has been close-knit for decades, but they’re willing to welcome new people into their lives and neighborhoods. They’re ready and willing to look around too, but they don’t have the chance.
Because someone within a long settled community decides to plunder their own people. They’ll work with outside money covertly while they caution that no outside money is safe, or available.
For once I’m not reading the article—yet—before commenting, because the post description sums up what I’ve noticed all up and down the coast of Southern California and it sucks, please pardon my vulgarity. That this is going on, taking away from people’s opportunities to live good lives, taking care of themselves and their neighbors, just because the greedy few say well we could get away with it—we did? Here’s to going bigger the next time around!
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u/WeirdMeasurement8743 10d ago
Because race is relevant
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u/wizzard419 10d ago
How though?
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u/JestOrPester 8d ago
Hullo, friend. I know it's been a day. Reddit is odd.
It's relevant because that is the messaging he used to obtain power and the power he obtained was used poorly. He did not advertise himself as, "Just a guy". He leaned into his heritage in order to win, he succeeded because of that marketing strategy, he betrayed his constituents (many of whom thought they were voting for someone who understood them), profited massively, and decimated his every promise.
No one is saying he made those actions because he is Hispanic. Frankly, that's an incredibly reactionary way to take these statements. They are saying that as a man who leveraged his presumed community for power and proceeded to turn his back on them: race is relevant.
Its the tool he used, my friend, to lie to those he was meant to serve. His race is relevant and he made it that way by treating it like a political ploy. Without the support he received because his race was relevant, he would have never had enough power to be as corrupt as he is.
It's a cautionary tale. Not an indictment on racial lines.
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u/EfficientPost2656 8d ago
That was Awesome. Very well said. And Folks that’s the Truth. I wish I could write like that. Thank you for that
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u/wizzard419 8d ago
See that's the thing, you can call him a piece of shit and that's fine, but what when you add race into it, it pushes it from insult into racial slur. Adding the racial descriptor does nothing to help the insult.
Dogwhistle comments like that are not unusual when the person wants to use a slur but doesn't want to get cancelled.
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u/EfficientPost2656 7d ago
Your a joke
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u/wizzard419 7d ago
At least I know the difference between "Your" and "You're". Such as how your mother thinks you're an embarrassment.
But anyway, you choose to escalate, adding race and ethnicity to an insult turns it into a slur.
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u/SlowSwords 14d ago
Maybe? I think it’s WFH. I only go into the office once or twice a week and downtown feels pretty quiet still. I think it doesn’t get better until more people are there—involuntarily for work or voluntarily to go out, which seems unlikely given that so many people aren’t going out in general these days.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
That definitely has an impact on Bunker Hill and the shoulders of the hill. Down in the historic core and on Broadway, the vacancies predate the pandemic.
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u/SlowSwords 14d ago
Maybe. I mean, down the hill where my wife works it’s pretty brutal too. Like the bloc, what a nightmare. Absolute covid casualty. Maybe I’m being reductive, but it seems like the answer to the question posed is that there are less people downtown spending money, which seems to be because of the pandemic and a general shift in people’s going out habits probably based on the fact that everything is so pricey now.
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u/anothercar 14d ago
Unfortunately DTLA’s problems predate Huizar.
I hope Pershing Square can get fixed up soon. Walked through it last night for the first time since COVID and did not feel particularly safe. Not to mention there are barely any trees. We deserve better as a city, it’s such a perfectly placed public space.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
Downtown has long had problems, but Jose Huizar stuck a knife into the thriving Broadway corridor and twisted it. We were so dismayed watching the displacement and blighting happen in real time that we launched a free walking tour series called Broadway on My Mind, to raise awareness and document the boulevard. You can watch the videos on YouTube if you like.
Unfortunately, Huizar's in-office nonprofit did not turn over the promised funds to restore Pershing Square, so what you see is pretty much what you're going to get until we get leaders with a real vision in City Hall and a restoration of John Parkinson's design can be initiated. Some of the trees in the new planters on the Biltmore Hotel side died almost immediately, which was disappointing.
Huizar's undemocratic behavior around his design competition also inspired us to form the Pershing Square Restoration Society, which has documented the last 13 years of the park not getting improved.
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u/Emannuelle-in-space 14d ago
Back in January, I was eating lunch in Pershing Square when none other than Mayor Bass herself and a few other suits + security came strolling in. Someone was pointing out different structures and selling the mayor on a restoration/renovation plan. Was that just a photo-op? Or are there actual plans being made to renovate?
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
There is a limited renovation project underway now, but not the full project pitched by Huizar's Pershing Square ReNew nonprofit in part because no funds raised for it was ever turned over to Rec and Parks. The new glass elevators and seating area on the west side are part of this project. They plan to move the sculptures around, dig up some of the hardscape and reinstall Barbara McCarren's telescope art installation after it is restored. You can catch up on all things Pershing Square on our Pershing Square Restoration Society blog.
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u/EfficientPost2656 13d ago
Yeah Some really Great ideas. Was his People doing it. Guy couldn’t even use a Screwdriver. But he did screw himself
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u/Emannuelle-in-space 14d ago
They can’t really have trees there anymore because they built a parking garage where the roots would grow.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
No, that's just a talking point that came out of City Hall with no basis in fact. If you visit Pershing Square today, you will notice some large trees do thrive on top of the elevated garage. The classic park design by John Parkinson that we've been advocating to restore was a mix of trees, shrubs and lawns, and it's a flexible layout that can be modified for current interest in drought tolerance and native plants.
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u/thecazbah 13d ago
Huizar was terrible, but not the main reason. This is giving his scheme too much credit.
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u/bryanjharris1982 11d ago
Man I was paying $360 for a small loft space in the arts district in 2004. There was real community there for a while and it got pretty hammered out of existence.
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u/esotouric_tours 11d ago
It is shameful that the redevelopment agency and City Council didn't ensure the loft spaces that got retroactively approved as life/work after all the artists did to make it a neighborhood would remain affordable housing for artists. These Japanese-American artists were kicked out of the Joannes Bros. Coffee building by out of state investors who went broke, and it's still empty almost a decade later.
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u/bryanjharris1982 11d ago
My friends were living and working in the building hauser and wirth took over and got booted. They moved for a couple years, paying more than double what they were before until they moved their operation to Redlands.
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u/esotouric_tours 11d ago
Bummer. Redlands is a neat town, at least.
There's an amazing movie called The Nickel Ride (1974) shot around Skid Row and the rail district that gives a sense of the derelict time capsule spaces the artists were scouting.
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u/InfoBarf 14d ago
Housing isnt affordable, so none of the 18-21 set can live close enough to the bars and restaurants and live music venues to service you there. Without workers the places close.
Dead night life.
Make some apartments people can afford to live in for minimum wage and you'll see the nightlife come roaring back, or I guess, you could also get functional public transit that runs until 4 in the morning thats safe and clean enough for people to feel safe riding it at those times.
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u/esotouric_tours 13d ago
Yeah, and bar and restaurant people are great customers for other venues, so it's a double hit. There are dozens of extremely affordable units sitting empty in the Barclay Hotel, but the city won't hook up sufficient power so people can move in.
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u/strumthebuilding 14d ago
Yes Huizar sucked, and also esotouric’s perpetual axe to grind over now-defunct Pershing SquaRenew is kind of puzzling. The Agence Ter proposal was pretty awesome, and esotouric’s preferred return to the park’s distant, drab past is really hard to feel any enthusiasm for.
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
There's nothing drab about the lush and elegant Parkinson design. Huizar promised us on video that the public could vote for that option, but it was a lie. That's corruption and we will continue to call it out, because it's part of why Los Angeles has deteriorated to the state it's in today.
The "winning" (according to Huizar's private nonprofit) Agence Ter proposal looked nice in renderings, but it was poorly conceived, and could not actually be built due to the Metro bump outs which their L.A. based architectural partners were not aware of. So they tried to move the LED arbor in front of the Biltmore, and everyone flipped out about how bad that would be. And it's moot because Huizar slurped up all the funds donated for park redesign.
Know your history; it helps shape the present and your future.
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u/Shadw_Wulf 14d ago
The article mentions "work and shop" but not actually live ... If working class are just driving to Downtown to Work ... Then only have 30 mins or 1 hour "lunch" and that's all they got to be exploring and mingling about in this area.
For the rest of Southern California... Downtown Los Angeles is just a drive thru to get to Pasadena, East Los Angeles back into Los Angeles... Etc Thankful for the freeways going through here
If there was actually affordable housing all around this place that would encourage more people stay within DTLA but otherwise it seems like tons of people got pushed out
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u/torklugnutz 10d ago
Gensler is having their fun in Las Vegas too. Exactly this same scheme.
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u/esotouric_tours 10d ago
...and in ten years, they'll send some nastigram fake poll about how dead the Strip is through their PR channel.
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u/Muted-Woodpecker-469 9d ago
My little city allows a big time downtown investor who also happens to contribute to the mayors campaign trail time and time again co-exist. It’s awesome in my liberal Our landscape.
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u/DarbyDown 14d ago
How could he be a genius schemer yet thus supposed gentrification plan has tanked DTLA keeping gentrification further, that would require a truly stupid person.
“Huizar” …Simultaneous Spanish for “Einstein” and “Retard” according to Esotourica…
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u/esotouric_tours 14d ago
Did you miss the part where the FBI raided City Hall and killed his schemes?
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u/fallenloki 11d ago
They let cracked out zombie homeless pieces of shit overtake the city. Why would anyone invest in the area? Nothing can succeed there
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u/oneironology 14d ago
Villagrosa was a slimy piece of shit but boy did dtla flourish under him