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August
2005
Walking in L.A.
Professor Emeritus Robert Herman '51 still pounds the pavement in
downtown Los Angeles. The difference today is
that more and more people are following in his footsteps. |
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By Mark Kendall
Where freeways reign, professor Robert Herman chose to
ride the train.
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Robert Herman wants to make L.A.
friendlier to pedestrians. |
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Then he did something really strange. He actually walked in L.A.
Exploring downtown on foot, the shoe-leather sociologist kept
discovering more attractions. So he decided to share the city's secrets
with suburbia.
After skeptical publishers turned him down, Herman published Downtown Los Angeles: A Walking Guide
on his own in 1996, shortly before retiring. It filled a niche (Gem
Guides took over publication after the first edition), and
Herman has since given hundreds of tours of the Civic Center, Bunker
Hill and other downtown districts.
Today, more and more people are following in Herman's footsteps, and not
just for a one-time urban adventure.
A housing boom is bringing thousands of new residents to downtown as
long-vacant buildings are converted into swanky loft apartments and
condominiums. More than 3,500 housing units have been added since 1999,
another 2,800 are under construction and thousands more are on the
drawing boards, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement
District.
“It’s finally happening,” says Herman. “We’re getting a lot of people
moving downtown. I’ve been waiting for it all my life.”
Herman is one of the few people outside of downtown who understood the
city center’s future, says Sue Laris, editor and publisher of
Los
Angeles Downtown News, a free publication that is benefiting from the
residential boom.
“He was the cutting edge,” says Laris. “People in the suburbs like to
say ‘I haven’t been downtown in 20 years.’ Bob wasn’t buying it. He was
saying there is a downtown and it’s vibrant.”
This building on Broadway is one
of many being converted to lofts. |
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Adding to the vibrancy are two major cultural attractions that have
opened in the last few years: Frank Gehry’s
Disney Concert Hall and
the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels. They have drawn attention and visitors to downtown, and added
new stops to Herman’s tour.
Herman’s love for cities goes back to his boyhood growing up in a small
town in southern Michigan. Going to see his grandmother in Dundee, IL.,
required a trip through Chicago, with its skyscrapers and elevated
trains. That sparked his interest in all things urban. In the '40s he
moved to California and graduated in 1951 from Pomona College, where a decade later he became a
sociology professor focusing on urban issues.
For a time, Herman and other Pomona professors such as art historian George Gorse and
sociologist Jill Grisby would take students on bus tours of Southern California
attractions. Then the Metrolink regional train system arrived in
Claremont in 1992, with a station just blocks from the College and
double-decker trains that whisk passengers to downtown’s Union Station
in 50 minutes.
Bye-bye, bus. Good riddance, gridlock. From then on, students on his
tours would take the train downtown and then walk the city. Herman found
this allowed students to see far more sites than a bus tour and helped
keep them engaged.
As the meeting point for Herman’s two great fascinations – cities and
trains -- Union Station provides the perfect starting place for his
tours. He waxes over the station's optimistic architecture, full of arches and
color, a mix of art deco and Spanish colonial revival. “It just tells
you you’re in a different place,’’ he says of the station built in 1939.
“This is California. Your life is going to be transformed here.”
Step outside the station, and you can’t miss the signs that the city is
being transformed: a multi-story housing development is under
construction right next to the station. But after crossing through the
El Pueblo Historic District, touted as the city’s birthplace, Herman
quickly encounters a foe: the freeway.
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Our Lady of the Angels above
the entrance to the cathedral. |
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“The freeway cuts up the city into little chunks,” he says. “I hate
that.”
Strolling through this surprisingly hilly city on his tour means
climbing and descending countless sets of steps that lead to plazas and
fountains, bustling markets and stony monuments. Along the way, walkers
also get Herman’s take on the ups and downs of urban development.
He is enthralled by the unconventional image of Our Lady of the
Angels atop the entrance to the new cathedral. He marvels at
the skylight that roofs the Bradbury Building: “There’s something
magical about this place.” His favorite landmark, however, is the
Los
Angeles Central Library, with its famous mixture of architectural styles
ranging from Egyptian to Spanish. “This is an institution that serves
the whole city,” he says.
But architectural sin also abounds downtown. Case in point: The
grid-like criminal courts building, which “ought to be on trial itself,”
says Herman.
He may be a visionary, but Herman looks at Los Angeles from the
street-level, concerned with pedestrians – with people. He finds too
many buildings are conceived as isolated projects, with little
connection to the street and neighboring structures. Walking L.A.’s long
blocks, people encounter so many blank walls or darkened windows. Why
not let them see in, give them something to look at?, he asks.
Several ambitious proposals are on the boards for downtown Los Angeles,
including the recently announced $1.8 billion
plan for Grand Avenue. It
would bring new skyscrapers, shopping, condominiums and a 16-acre park
in the area that includes Disney Concert Hall.
Herman, however, sees some more basic needs: namely, supermarkets. For
all its high-rises, downtown doesn’t have a single chain grocery store
(though a Ralphs is slated to open near Staples Center later this year.)
Herman says that the more services that become available for residents,
the more people will want to move here.
Plazas and fountains are plentiful
in LA's downtown. |
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Increasing the downtown population has a practical purpose. Herman
believes more people on the street will reduce crime. But he also sees a
greater social good in the shift away from suburban isolation and
individualism.
“As a sociologist, I want to see people linking up with society,’’ he
says. “And the suburbs don’t do that for you.”
Herman points out building after building that are undergoing conversion
to loft condos and apartments. What really surprises him that the
housing trend is reaching beyond the most charming historic structures
to include outdated high-rises from the '60s and '70s. “These things I
thought were just lost causes,” he says.
If you're wondering why Herman hasn't moved downtown, he still has strong
ties to Claremont, where he has been involved in historic preservation
efforts over the years.
In retirement, Herman, 77, works in his on-campus office every day –
including weekends – and spends three days a week doing volunteer work
at the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, where he
is cataloguing a large collection of material about the streamline
trains he loved as a boy.
Besides, L.A. is never far away, not with Claremont’s train depot in
easy walking distance of his home. “I can go to the city any time I want
to,’’ says Herman.
But today's urban adventure is coming to an end. After five hours of walking and talking, it’s time to
board the red line subway for a quick trip to Union Station, then home
to Claremont. Herman is quick to note that he only covered a thin slice
of downtown, skipping the treasures of Little Tokyo, Chinatown and the
Garment District.
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The 101 Freeway cuts through downtown. |
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On the ride home, he strikes up a conversation with a young couple that
boards the train in El Monte. This illustrates his notion that mass
transit and vibrant cities can foster “a civil society where people can
be comfortable with other people.”
“That’s my ulterior motive,” he says.
Related links:
47 Things Every
Sagehen Should Do
Before Graduating.
Explore Southern
California
Downtown LA
Visitors Guide
Metrolink train guide
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