by Dana Miller

I suspect we’re always moving. Life seems constantly about change. Growth is optional. The smart ones see change and embrace it. Most wallow and skip the chance to edify and bloom. Where do we begin? This is as good a place as any.

Last issue I wrote of the desperate plight of GLASS Youth and Family Services. The founder and executive director, Terry DeCrescenzo, sent the following missive to me:

“Thanks for the mention of GLASS in your column. Just FYI, we have NINE group homes housing 71 children, and a dozen apartments for the older adolescents who are transitioning out of the system. We also have 50 foster homes, a family preservation program, a nationally recognized mentoring program, a street outreach program, adoption services and a mental health program that includes day rehabilitation and outpatient services. Last year, we took in $12 million dollars in revenues, but our expenses were $13 million. We went NINE YEARS without a rate increase from government funding sources. Nine years ago, a child care worker cost us $24,000 a year, while today a child care worker costs us $29,000. We have moved to the valley to cut our rent in half. We have laid off all but the most essential child care staff. We can survive with a little help.”

Now, by most accounts, Terry is a complicated and difficult executive. Judging by her reaction to my last column, she has her fair share of detractors. I’ve likely been in the same room with her from time to time, but I truly don’t know her and have never been involved with GLASS. Ultimately, though, this is never about any one person. What we as a community need to do is appreciate the value of the vision and efforts of our nonprofits and their leaders. If personalities ultimately get in the way of charity, it saddens. Yet true charity from us—as a sectarian whole—must recognize the need at the time. Today. At this very moment in time. In this particular case, this is about the children—self-identified LGBT kids in peril. Just like time gone by, in this environment, acts of charity are significant. Years ago, David Geffen, Barry Diller and Sandy Gallin thankfully covered payroll for an organization that, back in those days, was close to their hearts. It was quietly the ultimate act of kindness. As I suggested last issue, perhaps consolidation is the elixir and even possible cure for GLASS. With consolidation comes efficiencies. Seems to me that sentence needs to be the GLASS mantra. I have been told, not by DeCrescenzo, that in the short-term, payroll is in jeopardy. If these kids get hurt via our community’s neglect, we shall all be ashamed of ourselves. If this province can rally and raise a million bucks a year locally for an organization as silly as that media mountebank GLAAD, we can surely awaken for something that really matters—our youth. Please trust me when I tell you, chieftains are a dime a dozen, but it’s the mission that is the true magic.

I have become a big fan of boulevard rehabilitation in West Hollywood, and if you want this metropolis to survive and thrive, I urge you to become a fan as well. Single-family home conversions to multi-unit condos makes me a tad crazy. We do have some amazing classic architectural housing, both big and small, in our mecca that warrants a gaze of honor from time to time. Yet, on the other hand, so many of our retail corridors are broken—a blight and a mar. Santa Monica Boulevard in the hood is quietly becoming an expensive, dispiriting, vacant, ugly ghetto. The retailers who have managed to stay must indeed be hurt by the overwhelming vacancies. Our minion are fleeing from their dwellings in the hills and the flats in the name of commerce to shop at the Grove. Seems to me this is a multimillion-dollar missed opportunity for our burg. From Crescent Heights to Doheny, the one billboard you will see most often is the “For Lease” sign bearing Jay Luchs’ name on every block. Luchs is the senior vice-president of a real estate firm called CB Richard Ellis. The cat seems to have every listing on our boulevard of broken dreams. I called Luchs five times leaving a pleading message that I wanted to speak to him about West Hollywood retail vacancies, but he has yet to return a call. An odd action, or lack thereof, coming from the dude whose gig it is to market and lease joints. The potential doom of a town can only be averted by passion. Sadly, I’m uncertain if brokers today can even muster passion. I’ve written before of growing up in sleepy South Pasadena. Old Town Pasadena and Colorado Boulevard were in ruin when I was a kid. Today, they are simply stunning, all led by the first multi-use project approved, the striking 15-acre Paseo Colorado project. Pasadena has approved 21 multi-use projects since 2000. Retail on the ground floor and condos, townhouses and rentals up top. So I was pleased to learn just the other day that my old pal, Ronnie Haft, has had plans approved to tear down that crap on the south side of Santa Monica Boulevard at Kings Road, across from Gelson’s, and build a mixed-use building there. The plans appear spectacular: subterranean parking, 7,000 square feet of retail on the ground and three levels of condos and townhouses. He has planned 400 square-foot patios for each unit. This is progress. As positive growth plausibly continues, lets ask these new folks like the terrific and bright Palihouse across from the International House of Pancakes and Ronnie to help subsidize something long lost: a trolley along the boulevard and the Strip. Just think of the DUIs we could avoid! And while we’re at it, let’s move that MTA bus station near San Vicente to the sticks and put up a parking lot. Ronnie’s company also owns the land where the House of Blues sits on the Strip. He has plans to build a 149-room hotel there, plus 40 condos. The HOB will likely flee east but, honestly, they should move to the old Tower Records location—a spot with real rock ‘n’ roll pedigree. The West Hollywood Planning Commission just held off approvals for a bit on the demolition and development of the proposed Walgreen’s mixed-use project at Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Boulevard. That plan calls for 13,820 square feet of retail and 28 residential units, and the tragic loss of Tasty Donuts and some hair gel joint. Seems there was once a gas station sitting there, so the current resident protest folly is some concocted environmental issue that needs to be addressed prior to going forward. I can have dinner, muss my coif, bathe in dry cleaning fluid and munch a donut there, but heaven forbid if I can reside there two stories up. Hell, the long gone Chef Ming’s on the corner of that mall always had a B rating from the Department of Health; if the rats could live there, we’ll be fine. This is not classic, historic Virginia,New York or even Hancock Park. These are our sickening legacies of Southern California strip malls and one offs that need to be put to sleep. I assume it is a case of disgruntled, crotchety neighbors grasping at straws to postpone the inevitable. Progress can’t be stopped by folks staring at their cottage cheese-ceiling living rooms next door to land desperate to rejuvenate or die. It can be delayed, but not stopped. I suggest we encourage the malcontent and grumpy ones to move to Hemet or newly bankrupted Vallejo. They are likely sadly oblivious—living in their boxed worlds—that boulevards can indeed die. In their prospective new towns, it’s perfect: The weeds are tall, the rents are cheap and retailing has already passed away. If we don’t rise up and participate in the positive future of this city, then we will live a lifetime feeling nothing but skin. Engage, progress or get out of town. And hell, Walgreen’s can likely now afford to fund our trolley off the damages they’ll get from that old gas station.

If you would like to join my Ryan and me in a fabulous garden box at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday, July 18, to bask in “Julie Andrews and Friends,” then drop by Ryan’s Broadway star-filled 88’s Cabaret show at Republic Restaurant at 650 N. La Cienega on Monday, July 7, at 8:30 p.m. for the live auction. There are four tickets up for bid, and the proceeds go to a classy youth mentoring music program created by Ryan and his talented musical friends. For all the information, go to myspace.com/eightyeightscabaret. Let’s you and I and your chums break bread and drink hooch for a good cause, while watching Mary Poppins. A night at the Bowl is truly one of the great things about our shared summer experience here in this town.

See you Out & About

Contact me at Malibudana@aol.com