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04/14/06
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
Millions of people see it coming and going to LAX, but it's hardly the best first impression of Los Angeles.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> You get off the ramp and all you see is fast food and smut. We've got to be able to do better than that.
Val Zavala>> They're places you've heard about, maybe even seen in films, but would you know how to find them? Maybe you should try walking.
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> We all know Century Boulevard well. It's the main route in and out of LAX and the first impression that our out of town relatives or clients get of Los Angeles. So it's a little embarrassing to drive by those strip clubs with those huge signs that say "All Nude Dancers". Well, now some people are out to spruce up Century Boulevard. Can they do it? Toni Guinyard has the story.
Toni Guinyard>> The stretch of Century Boulevard from La Cienega just west of the 405 all the way to Los Angeles International Airport is called the Gateway to L.A.
Laurie Hughes>> This is the front porch, if you will, of Los Angeles and we want to give a first impression that is a lasting impression, that is a positive impression.
Toni Guinyard>> Laurie Hughes is Executive Director of the Gateway to L.A. Business Improvement District.
Laurie Hughes>> We represent all the hotels and office buildings, parking operators, all the property owners along Century Boulevard.
Toni Guinyard>> There are more or less about forty-five members and they want to change the public's perception of the Century Corridor. The Business Improvement District pays for additional services in the area, many street sweepers and bicycle security patrols. But changing the area's image has been a hard sell in the past and it just may be an even harder sell in the future.
Laurie Hughes>> People get in their cars and they take off into the city. They don't think about stopping and they don't realize what is here and that's what we're trying to do is to show them that there are things here.
Toni Guinyard>> Things, but not enough things to encourage visitors to stick around here or locals to spend time here, and that's where development becomes an issue.
Laurie Hughes>> We'd like to be able to build a conference center. Meeting space is something needed by these hotels. We have over seven thousand hotel rooms and there's thirteen hotels and none of the hotels have adequate meeting space.
Toni Guinyard>> Other than the 12.3 million square feet of hotels, office buildings and parking facilities, on the surface there's little to attract visitors.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> You get off the ramp and all you see is fast food and smut. We've got to be able to do better than that.
Toni Guinyard>> Fast food and, well, adult entertainment businesses dot Century Boulevard and its side streets, businesses that don't exactly support the wholesome Gateway to L.A. image, an image that extends far beyond the Century Corridor. Reverend Altagracia Perez is Rector of Holy Faith Episcopal Church in the neighborhood city of Inglewood.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> The idea that Inglewood could benefit from all of those travelers that are coming in to Los Angeles through the airport, if there was something on Century that was attractive, that we would end up benefiting because we were the city right next to the airport and, if people were driving down Century Corridor, they would eat at our restaurants and go to our shops and then we would benefit as a community.
Toni Guinyard>> Reverend Perez is part of the newly-formed Coalition for a New Century, a diverse group of clergy and teachers, labor unions and community activists all calling for change not only in the appearance of Century Boulevard, but also in living and working conditions in the area.
[Film Clip]
Toni Guinyard>> The group has launched what it calls a Campaign for a New Century. At the centerpiece are hotel workers. They've already held demonstrations to get the public's attention on their effort to unionize. The coalition argues that, if the city invests in the Century Corridor, the workers will be in a position of earning a higher wage and, in turn, since they live in the community, they'll be able to invest in the community. Business will improve and the tourism industry will benefit.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> For me, the reason I'm excited about it is because it could be a wonderful model for responsible development whereas opposed it would be the us and the them and the nimbys and all of these things. You know, it could be everybody working together because everybody is going to get something from it.
Toni Guinyard>> Perhaps. Jack Kyser, Chief Economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, says it's not that simple.
Jack Kyser>> Well, they're facing some very, very significant challenges. We talk about upgrading the amenities. How much money is that going to take? How long is it going to take? Discussion of a conference center. Where are you going to put the conference center? Would it be competitive with the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles? There's just a whole bunch of moving parts to this thing.
Toni Guinyard>> In sorting through those moving parts, you come to realize that Gateway to L.A. and the Coalition for a New Century are running parallel campaigns, the Coalition calling for a few things the property owners have been working for for years.
Laurie Hughes>> It's like they went on our website (laughter) and took all of the things that we've been working on off of that and started promoting it. You know, the beautification, the repairing of streets, the sidewalks, all of those things, the conference center. These are things we've been working on since 1998.
Toni Guinyard>> But there are also vast differences in both proposals, specifically the Coalition's emphasis on the hotel workers.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> I think it is only in our own stuckness -- I don't know how else to think of it -- do we see that the best thing for business is somehow different than the best thing for workers.
Jack Kyser>> The people in the community want something better because I think they feel they've been shortchanged. The unions obviously would like to organize the hotels' workers, but the idea is does it matter? I think this is the big thing.
Toni Guinyard>> There are so many people who have a stake in what happens to Century Boulevard and the surrounding community that it's not unusual to have this kind of conflict. In fact, some can explain what they don't want better than they can explain what they do want.
Bill Rosendahl>> The business community on Century Boulevard wants it to be more robust. I agree with them. The clergy want to see it more robust. The workers who work in the hotels want to see it more robust. I'd like to see a room price go up on Century Boulevard to make it more competitive, say, with downtown. We have to have other amenities that make it attractive to people, so it's a win-win-win for everybody if we do that.
Toni Guinyard>> Los Angeles City Council member, Bill Rosendahl, has presented a motion to city council calling for further investment in the Century Corridor, including street beautification and a study into the proposed conference center. Where does the money come from?
Bill Rosendahl>> Well, the money comes from the city. The city's general revenue, thirty-five percent of the bed tax, comes from Century Boulevard. So as we improve Century Boulevard, so goes the rates up, so goes the revenue to the city.
Toni Guinyard>> While occupancy rates at Century Boulevard hotels are up, the actual room rates are among the lowest in the city. To get business travelers flying into Los Angeles to stay near the airport, you've got to give them a reason to stay in the vicinity. Now the question is how to address what everyone wants.
Rev. Altagracia Perez>> It's going to cost everybody something. I don't know that the community is going to get everything it wants. I don't know that the hotels are going to get everything they want. I don't know that, you know, the workers are going to get everything they want. But there is a real potential for a complete win-win here.
Toni Guinyard>> The idea of a win-win situation is taking off, but the challenge of tying together all the interests of all the stakeholders could ground or at least delay progress on changing the image of the Gateway to L.A.
Laurie Hughes>> We have cleaned up this area and we're proud of it and we feel that there is a lot that can be done still.
Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.
Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> Will building fences solve our illegal immigration problem? Well, the United States Senate is now considering spending thirty-five million dollars to boost security and build seven hundred miles worth of fences along the United States-Mexico border. Will it make any difference? Will it stop those who are determined to cross over? NewsHour correspondent, Jeffrey Kaye, headed south to the most fortified stretch of the border.
Jeffrey Kaye>> It's a common scene along the United States-Mexico border, United States Border Patrol agents rounding up and arresting illegal migrants. No other stretch of America's border is as heavily fortified or as watched as the frontier that divides San Diego and the Mexican city of Tijuana, according to Senior Border Patrol agent, Kurstan Rosberg.
Kurstan Rosberg>> I can tell you that, in the San Diego sector for just San Diego, in the Sector Y, we arrested a hundred twenty-six thousand people last year, so we're fairly busy here in San Diego.
Jeffrey Kaye>> But not as busy as they used to be. In the early 1990s, images of migrants rushing immigration checkpoints here led to a crackdown. The federal government added border patrol agents, night scopes and motion detectors, stadium lighting and, most visibly, higher and stronger fences.
In ten years, the number of migrants captured in the San Diego area has dropped by one-fifth, down from more than half a million in 1995, as illegal border crossers sought more remote routes. Those who are caught here are processed, their fingerprints and photographs entered into a new database. Each day, United States government buses deposit deportees at the border. Migrants pass through a gate back into Mexico, but many such as Armando Martinez vow to return.
Armando Martinez>> It's always possible to cross over at one place or another.
Jeffrey Kaye>> The still porous southern border has spawned new security initiatives ranging from the planned hiring of one thousand additional border patrol agents to the use of an unmanned aircraft. But for anti-immigration activists and some members of Congress, those measures are not enough.
Narrator>> "Reports document the infiltration of this border by foreign nationals from terrorism-sponsoring countries including Iran."
Jeffrey Kaye>> Using 9/11 as one justification, they say it's time for America to get even tougher in policing its southern border.
Duncan Hunter>> 9/11 made the border a national security issue primarily rather than simply an immigration issue.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Republican Congressman, Duncan Hunter of San Diego, is a leading advocate of enhanced border security.
Duncan Hunter>> Let's have control. Control should be first. Once you have control, you can shape policies.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Hunter says respect for America's immigration policy has to start with a physical deterrent, a stronger and longer fence.
Duncan Hunter>> I think that we have the biggest front door in the United States. That is, the biggest legal immigration door in the world is in the United States and, if people want to come into this country, they need to come in through the front door and I think that's a reasonable request.
Jeffrey Kaye>> To stop both migrant workers and potential terrorists from entering the United States, Hunter favors building a fence along nearly the entire length of the almost two thousand mile long United States-Mexico border. Currently, only seventy miles of the international boundary is fenced.
Hunter scored a victory in December when the House of Representatives passed a Border Security Bill. It requires the construction of nearly seven hundred miles of new border fences in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas at a cost of just over two billion dollars.
As the legislation awaits Senate consideration, the Department of Homeland Security is about to begin a thirty-five million dollar border security upgrade in the San Diego area. The money will be spent on new lights and on extending the triple-layered fence from nine to fourteen miles all the way into the Pacific Ocean. One priority is to fill in a canyon along the border called Smuggler's Gulch, a project long blocked by lawsuits over environmental concerns.
Kurstan Rosberg>> This fence used to run up the hill. It's fallen down because of the erosion over the years. This is an easy place to walk in if we don't have the infrastructure and the fences here.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Critics of plans to lengthen and strengthen border barricades dismiss arguments about keeping out terrorists as political opportunism and they say that too much border security goes against America's economic interests.
Claudia Smith>> I don't believe that there's the will to hermetically seal the border.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Claudia Smith is a migrant workers advocate with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.
Claudia Smith>> There's no bigger disconnect between what we say and what we do than in the subject of illegal migration. We all talk about wanting to keep the illegals out, but we want our illegal "nanny", our illegal "janitor". It goes against economic reality to erect a two thousand mile fence.
Jeffrey Kaye>> We met Smith outside of Tijuana's Casa Del Migrante, "House of the Migrant", a three story Jesuit-run shelter. Here migrants who either intend to enter the United States illegally or have been deported to Mexico can find a place to stay as well as advice and food. When asked why they were making the trip, many here echoed the words of Luis Valdez. He's a father of three from Central Mexico who is about to attempt his first illegal crossing into the United States.
Luis Valdez>> I have to go there to work. I need to get there so I can get a little bit ahead in life for the sake of my family.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Some deportees here told us that enhanced border security has discouraged them from trying to enter the United States again. Other migrants said they'd go around the fences and agents and try to cross the border in more remote and dangerous areas. The shelter distributes warm winter clothes to those planning a cross-border trek through the wilderness. Rafael Rigos, who says he almost died in the past crossing illegally into the United States, is familiar with the perils.
Rafael Rigos>> The mountains make it really easy to get lost if you don't know the way, but the biggest danger is lack of water. If you run out of water, you're done.
Jeffrey Kaye>> Last year, nearly five hundred people died trying to cross the deserts and mountains of the United States-Mexico border. It was the largest annual migrant death toll ever recorded by the United States Border Patrol.
Claudia Smith>> The construction of more and more fences, all that is going to achieve is just seeing traffic from one place to another and pushing people into ever more remote and dangerous places. Not just the desert, but the most remote parts of the desert, where the possibility of being rescued is virtually nil.
Jeffrey Kaye>> But Congressman Hunter insists more physical barriers to illegal immigration at the border would end up saving migrants' lives.
Duncan Hunter>> People would come to the fence and they wouldn't be able to get through. Just like people can't get through the double fence here. So if they can't get through and they're deterred from crossing, they're not going to get out into that low desert in California and Arizona where the temperatures rise considerably above a hundred degrees in the summer time.
Jeffrey Kaye>> At Casa Del Migrante, migrants say that, as long as desperation and poverty exist in Mexico and Central America, no amount of fences will stem the human tide of illegal immigration.
>> You can have a third or a fourth fence, but it's not going to change anything. People are going to keep coming.
Jeffrey Kaye>> In the United States, even some advocates of tough border controls question the need for more fencing. The Border Patrol Agents Union wants stronger sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants and the head of the Department of Homeland Security advocates more electronic surveillance, sensors, cameras, satellites and planes, what he calls a virtual fence. I'm Jeffrey Kaye for Life and Times.
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Val Zavala>> Remember that joke, "What do you call pedestrians in Los Angeles?" Answer: "Los Angeles Dodgers". Well, contrary to popular humor, there are actually a lot of nice places to enjoy on foot. Want some suggestions? Vicki Curry met an avid walker who has put several dozen routes in a book called "Walking L.A."
Vicki Curry>> Los Angeles. It's the kingdom of the automobile and the freeway where four wheels are considered better than two legs. It's no wonder nobody walks in Los Angeles.
Erin Mahoney>> You know, that's the popular belief, but it doesn't have to be that way. There are actually plenty of places in Los Angeles that are very rewarding to walk through and that's why I wrote the book, to make it as easy as possible for readers to visit new neighborhoods or maybe a neighborhood they'd only passed through briefly before and really get up close and personal with it so they could appreciate everything it has to offer.
Vicki Curry>> I asked Erin Mahoney, author of "Walking L.A.", to show me some of her favorite places to walk around town. So we're here in Los Feliz which is a little village and there's actually quite a lot of neighborhoods like this sort of scattered throughout the Los Angeles area.
Erin Mahoney>> Definitely. Larchmont comes to mind, Main Street in Venice like we were talking about. Santa Monica along Santa Avenue. There's a lot of nice little neighborhood streets with great restaurants and shops, independent bookstores, movie theaters, lots of ways to kill an afternoon here.
Vicki Curry>> A street like this is a perfect example of one that you might drive on over and over again and yet not really notice the details unless you get out and walk.
Erin Mahoney>> Exactly. I mean, look at these adorable cafes, the bookstore I mentioned earlier, the movie theater. These are independent businesses and they have that really quaint neighborhood feel. The only way to really get to know any new area is by walking. Like you said, you see so much more on foot than you do by car. It's really essential to understanding a new place.
I haven't always been an avid walker. I grew up in the Inland Empire in a city called Rialto that's not entirely pedestrian-friendly. I really drove to a lot of the places I went to. It's not really the most scenic place, but once I moved to Los Angeles, I really found myself looking for opportunities to walk whenever possible because I did want to get to know the city better.
Vicki Curry>> Another of Mahoney's favorite walks is hidden in the hills by the Hollywood Bowl. It's a neighborhood called Hightower.
Erin Mahoney>> You see these streets up here. Many of these houses are only accessible from walk streets and from stairs.
Vicki Curry>> Oh, really?
Erin Mahoney>> Yeah, so this tower contains an elevator that the residents can use when they don't feel like climbing all the stairs to get up to their houses. So only the residents have a key to the elevator and the tower and they park in these row garages down here and they can go up to their houses that way. It's very unusual. I mean, part of what makes it such a cool neighborhood is that it has that feeling of a secret discovery. You know, it's very peaceful and secluded up there and you really feel like you're discovering something new.
Vicki Curry>> So even if you don't live in this neighborhood, these pedestrian walkways are open to anyone?
Erin Mahoney>> Yeah, if you know where to find them, then they're accessible to you.
Vicki Curry>> So this is definitely a good example of an L.A. walk that you probably wouldn't think of otherwise.
Erin Mahoney>> Right, exactly. It's sort of a hidden treasure.
Vicki Curry>> Wow. It looks like if we just take this sidewalk up a couple of flights, we get this view.
Erin Mahoney>> Yeah, it's fabulous. You get a view over -- you're looking southeast and then downtown is over there. You can't see it because Whitley Heights is actually in the way, but you still got a lovely view of a good part of Los Angeles right here.
Vicki Curry>> It's pretty cool to walk up those sort of tree-covered steps and then come upon a vista like this.
Erin Mahoney>> Yes, it's a beautiful open view. You don't get a lot of that in some of the over-developed areas of Los Angeles. This is where you end up when you climb all those stairs up here or, if you're a resident, when you take the Hightower elevator. What's so great about this neighborhood is that it just has this wonderfully secluded, peaceful feeling to it.
Vicki Curry>> Right. So this is only a pedestrian walkway.
Erin Mahoney>> It is.
Vicki Curry>> And you can only get to these houses via this sidewalk?
Erin Mahoney>> Right, not accessible by car.
Vicki Curry>> That's amazing. It's really beautiful.
Erin Mahoney>> It is. It's a lot of fun and it's a nice little escape from the city.
Vicki Curry>> Our next stop was back in the city at the end of Santa Monica Boulevard where it meets Sunset. Now we're in Silver Lake and it's a somewhat unlikely walking area.
Erin Mahoney>> You know, in some sense of it, it is because you've got these busy streets and everything, but there's a lot of great hidden stairway walks up in the hills here. And this area, Sunset Junction, is a wonderful area to walk along because there are so many great shops and cafes. There is always little things that you're going to find, an interesting store or a restaurant or the architecture. I mean, Los Angeles has so much to offer in terms of architecture. Angeleno Heights is a wonderful example and the Victorian homes up above Echo Park Lake.
Vicki Curry>> Throughout her book, Mahoney points out parts of Los Angeles that many people may not know about.
Erin Mahoney>> Almost any of the walks would be unknown to a certain segment of the population because people tend to be a little more comfortable in their area where they live and where they work. There are a few walks that include more popular tourist destinations. For example, the Venice walk includes the Boardwalk and Venice is actually a wonderful find for people who don't realize that there are canals there. The canals are just so lovely and quaint and a lot of people don't realize that they're there. It's a very peaceful place to walk around.
Then throughout Los Angeles city, pretty much any neighborhood where there's hills, there's all these great hidden staircases. I think that's a very interesting find for people who don't really get on foot to explore those neighborhoods and see those secret stairways tucked between the houses.
Vicki Curry>> This is a perfect example of these hidden stairways that we were talking about.
Erin Mahoney>> It is, and this one is actually a little more famous than most of the other stairways in the book because it was featured in the Laurel and Hardy film, "The Music Box", in which they tried to move a piano up this very narrow, steep, long staircase.
Vicki Curry>> What's amazing to me personally is that KCET is located nearby and this is just south of Sunset Boulevard. I drive by here at least twice a day on Sunset and I've never once turned down this street and known that these steps were right here even though I've heard about them from the films.
Erin Mahoney>> Right, and why would you? Because it's not on your route, so you kind of get into a routine and you don't really think about what's off on these side streets.
Vicki Curry>> Well, and again, perfect example of things that you would discover if you just get out of your car at the place you drive every day and take a walk and see what you'd find.
Erin Mahoney>> Exactly, right.
Vicki Curry>> That's what Erin Mahoney hopes will happen when people read "Walking L.A."
Erin Mahoney>> People are so entrenched in this car culture that it doesn't really occur to them to leave the car in the garage and to walk somewhere that is maybe, you know, less than a mile away or a mile and a half away. It's really pretty easy to walk and they might find that, if they walked it, they'd find things along the way that were of interest to them.
I want to make it as easy as possible for readers to go to a new place and to feel comfortable just setting out and exploring and, by doing so, really be able to know exactly where they're going so that they can focus on what they're seeing. Los Angeles is a wonderful city, but it can be pretty overwhelming. It's vast and sprawling and diverse, but getting to know Los Angeles's many neighborhoods is a very rewarding experience that I think everybody should be able to enjoy.
Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> Next time on Life and Times --
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