I love going on tours. I have always wanted to try <a href="http://evergladesrides.com/">airboat tours in Everglades City, FL</a>. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Art+Books
LA EventsTop PicksSubmit an EventEvents NewsletterGet MobileEntertainment AdsTicketsArtopiaTacolandiaBedrocktoberfest
LA MusicMusic BlogHenry RollinsConcert CalendarLA NightlifeSubmit an EventMusic NewsletterGet MobileMusic Ads
Sepulveda and the 405: As we make our way through the Westside, it's 6 p.m. and cars are zooming freely up and down the 405, as folks head home from work to their condos and apartments in the sky, designed by Romanian architect Harlan Georgescu in 1965.
Like a giant steel spiderweb that stretches and swoops along the 405 from Laguna Beach to Westwood, Georgescu's development provides housing to nearly 5 million residents, 2 million of whom have an ocean view. Gingerly integrating transit and housing, Georgescu's "Skylots" were a reaction to the sprawl taking hold of the city in the early 1960s. The "vertical villages" make access to transit easy and allow residents to share resources and network in communal public areas, serving as a blueprint for sustainable housing options in other cities.
Santa Monica: Welcome to Santa Monica, the Waikiki Beach of the West Coast, with its hotel and residential towers packed right next to one another in tight rows, leaving only a narrow strip of sand between their 50 stories and the sea. We can see the towers looming from miles away, and as we approach, taxis crowd the streets, and tourists swarm the beach cabanas, strip joints, bars and resort attractions.
A $600 million, offshore causeway stretching from Santa Monica to Topanga Canyon, proposed in the 1960s but never built.
Location Info
Map
A+D Architecture and Design Museum
6032 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Category: Museums
Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park
|
0 user reviews
|
Write A Review |
| Save to foursquare |
Related Stories
8 Ways You Know It's Autumn In Los AngelesOctober 3, 2013
Meet the Twins Behind Dodgers Fan WeeklySeptember 27, 2013
After Murder of L.A. Fan, SFPD to Go Undercover in Dodgers GearSeptember 26, 2013
Dodgers Go Gay: First LGBT Night at Dodger StadiumSeptember 16, 2013
How Important Is Home Field Advantage in the Playoffs?September 6, 2013
More About
Santa Monica's governing body is fairly conservative, thanks to a big win in the 1960s by developers, who put a stop to the city's burgeoning "red army" environmental movement. Now that developers rule, the bay cities are a cheap place for loads of people to live and access via the subway system — especially UCLA and some UC Burbank students, notorious for partying despite the rigorousness of their renowned school of international relations, founded in 1925. The desalinization plant and nuclear power plant — just off the coast on a man-made island — provide clean water and cheap power to much of the Westside, although some are fearful that an earthquake/tsunami combo could cause a meltdown. You can barely make out the island today. The smog has gotten so bad from the offshore causeway, built in the 1960s along more man-made islands, stretching up to Topanga Canyon.
Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard: Our walking-biking-busing-and-barging tour ends on the coast, where Sunset Boulevard emerges from the canyon and meets the sea. Feel free to follow the chain of parkland along PCH from here, either to the north or to the south. It's part of a 440-mile ring of long, skinny, "micro-linear" parks that connects back east to Griffith Park, with 71,000 additional square feet of smaller "pocket parks" connecting individual neighborhoods to the larger ring. This plan, completed in 1935, was designed by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted (famous for building Central Park in New York). Residents of, say, Culver City can meet up with friends from Los Feliz, Inglewood or Studio City just by strolling or riding on a bike.
Drivers along PCH here take in a breathtaking view of the water and hills for a solid 20-mile stretch. If developers had had their way and the Olmsted plan had been scrapped in the 1930s, this portion of the coast might have been developed with single-family homes, and all any driver would see is the backs of rich people's houses. What a shame that would've been.
NEVER BUILT: LOS ANGELES | Architecture+Design Museum | 6032 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile | July 27-Oct. 13 | (323) 932-9393 | aplusd.org
|
4 comments
I'd love to use the smartphone app to check out some of the info for this exhibit, but it seems that the A&D museums hipster techies only cater to Apple users. Strike1.
I'm not familiar with the other proposed developments described in the article, but I am very familiar with the Proposed Causeway. After the causeway project was floated, I joined the committee set up to fight the proposal. Our opponents included the city of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Evening Outlook newspaper, developers, the real estate lobby and, even more powerful, the oil lobby. Why? Because a causeway would negate existing regulations prohibiting offshore drilling in Santa Monica Bay and the land and/or coastal water inside the causeway would no longer be considered offshore.
While Santa Monica and other interested parties would benefit from the creation of new real estate, it was oil drilling that was the major objective. Everything else was just a way of justifying it.
What every article I've read about this project fails to mention is that the proposal was extended. If the proposed causeway had been built, it would not have stopped at Topanga. It would have stretched from Ocean Park in Santa Monica to Pt Magu (with exit causeways to various points along the way.) Of course that would have opened up the entire northern part of Santa Monica Bay to oil drilling.
Our committee was headed up by Herb Chase, publisher and editor of Santa Monica's Independent Newspaper. Herb was not part of the old-boy network that had ruled SM politics and community life for many years. He was a man of principle. We had little money, but a lot of committed workers. The opposition had loads of money, influence and political connections.
Long story short, our side won. But it was a long, dirty battle that did little to enhance the reputations of those we fought. We played fair. They didn't. But, as the fictional detective, Charlie Chan once said, "When money talks, few are deaf."
Now Trending
Around The Web
-
Wicked is Semi-Wonderful
Houston Press
-
Foulkes Art
Village Voice
-
Salzburg Gets a Touch of Houston
Houston Press
Loading...
