Transcript: Episode 7 - Preservation Fights

SPEAKER: Good morning and welcome to the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. The library is now open.

PATRON: When they were tearing down all those buildings in downtown LA in the '60s, was Central Library also ever in danger?

SHERIDAN: Hello, everyone. This is Sheridan Jay Cazarez, a librarian in the Exploration and Creativity Department of the Los Angeles Public Library, back with another episode of Past Due: 100 Years of Central Library, a podcast commemorating the Central Library Centennial. As part of the Centennial, we're putting on a variety of events, a special reading challenge, and creating tons of original content for Angelenos to celebrate one of their favorite institutions, LA's Central Library. For more, visit lapl.org/central100. On today's episode, we'll be talking about some of the conservation issues and fights that Central Library has encountered in its 100 years of history. First, we'll speak with President and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, Adrian Scott Fine, about some of the preservation battles to save Central Library in the 1960s and the 1970s. Then we'll interview History Department librarian Nicholas Beyelia about the mystery of one of Central Library's lost murals. And finally, we'll be joined by librarian David Turshyan from the International Languages Department to discover some of that Department's collection treasures.            

SHERIDAN: We are so excited to welcome Adrian Scott Fine, the President and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy. The Los Angeles Conservancy is the nation's largest local nonprofit heritage conservation organization, and it was originally founded in 1978, partly to save the Los Angeles Central Library. The Conservancy works with local governments, nonprofit partners and community stakeholders to help shape the future of preservation in our diverse metropolitan landscape. Prior to becoming the President and CEO, Adrian served as LA Conservancy's Senior Director of Advocacy, leading preservation campaigns, revitalization initiatives, and responses to critical heritage conservation challenges. Before joining the Conservancy, he worked at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., and he has spent his career working in regional and national preservation policy and advocacy. Welcome, Adrian, and thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

ADRIAN: Thanks for having me.

SHERIDAN: So let's get into Central Library. Central library was built in 1926 and was immediately successful among Angelenos. However, the City of Los Angeles was also experiencing tremendous growth at the same time. So when the bond to initially build Central Library was approved in 1921, the City of LA had about 600 000 people. 40 years later, in 1961, the City had about 2.5 million residents, and downtown was in the midst of tremendous change. Could you give us a little bit of background information about what was going on in Downtown LA and Bunker Hill in the 1960s?

ADRIAN: LA is consistently always reinventing itself. It is today and it was doing that in the 1960s as well. Always chasing what's the next big thing. And certainly in the 1960s, this was just on the cusp of the entire redevelopment of Bunker Hill, just up the hill from here. And a real shift in terms of finance, industry, office, moving from what was traditionally the historic downtown, the historic core, to the new downtown of Bunker Hill. Higher density skyscrapers, much more in vogue with what was happening in the 1960s. All modern and new. And so it was a big shift in terms of where the downtown had been and where it was going.

SHERIDAN: And so the Central Library, being from 40 years back, probably stood out a little bit like a sore thumb.

ADRIAN: Central library was very much a part of the story of the old, the past, not the present or the future. And it was also showing its age. And it was a place that was like, okay, is this something that is something that's going to go forward, or is it something we're going to leave behind?

SHERIDAN: In 1966, as you probably know, the Central Library had its 40th anniversary, and Los Angeles Public Library's city librarian at the time released the Green Report, which recommended demolishing Central and building a new, larger library. LA City Council then voted to demolish Central and placed on the ballot an initiative to raise funds for a new building. What happened to this ballot initiative?

ADRIAN: It went to the voters and they rejected it.

SHERIDAN: Just like that. All right, back to the drawing board you go. But what were the arguments of the people who wanted to demolish the library and rebuild it? And what were the arguments of people who wanted to preserve it and maybe adapt it?

ADRIAN: People that were against keeping the library were very much around the idea that it needed to be modernized. It was outdated, it was too small. It didn't have air conditioning. It just wasn't the meeting the needs for what everyone espoused as being a modern day, 20th century, 1960s library should be. And some didn't have the vision for what it could be, or even thinking about it could be expanded, it could be modernized, it could be updated, all those kinds of things. Those that were on the side of 'we should be keeping it' were very much around the idea of it's a beautifully architecturally distinctive building. It is part of our civic pride. It's about the knowledge of Los Angeles, literally in terms of the Central Library. It tells the history. And many saw this as being the heart of Los Angeles. They were also seeing that much of downtown and many historic buildings were being demolished at this time. And this is one where it was like, not on our watch, not this building, this one's too important to lose. So it was really the divide between those two distinctions of groups. And then the effort was, how do you bring these two to come together.

SHERIDAN: From the way that the the legend goes, it seems like many Angelenos were still a little bit sore about the Richfield Oil Building, right?

ADRIAN: Yeah, that's the context. So, Richfield Oil Building, an amazing black and gold terracotta Art Deco building was demolished in '69. And so that's very much a context of what was happening. Bunker Hill, starting in the late '50s and certainly into the 1960s, was being cleared and completely redeveloped. And so, even the preservation ordinance for the City of Los Angeles passed in 1962. So all these things are percolating at the same time. And then on the national stage in 1966—so the year that they were contemplating demolishing the Central Library—at the national level, the National Historic Preservation Act was passed, and that established the infrastructure of preservation across the U.S. So preservation was getting its foothold just as this conversation was happening about should we keep or lose the Central Library?

SHERIDAN: Why do you think, I mean? Well, the context that we've been discussing, there's all this stuff happening on the national stage, there's stuff happening here in Bunker Hill, in Downtown. Why do you think, if you had to respond, that it was Central Library that ultimately cohered a preservation movement instead of some of the other landmarks that were demolished in L.A. during the 60s and 70s?

ADRIAN: I think in some ways, again, this is such a visible icon of Downtown Los Angeles, and it's been revered for so long. Everyone has a connection to this building, and you can't say that for a lot of other places. Everyone's been in this building. They have the experience. Maybe they started as a kid, and so they're connected to this place. But I just think this is a place, and also because of those stepping stones of losses, that this is the one everyone said, okay, we draw the line in the sand here on this building. And that's really where my organization came together because people were all saying, no more, this one's too important. We can't lose it.

SHERIDAN: Were there any, if you can think back, were there any sort of big names or big personalities that were kind of leading the charge to save Central at the time, or even just leading the charge to save historic buildings in the City at all? 

ADRIAN: There's are certainly people. I mean, Mayor Bradley was certainly instrumental, but he came later in terms of this. You know, Peggy Lee was involved in some of the, uh, conservation preservation advocacy around Bunker Hill. You wouldn't expect that. Robert Redford at this time was advocating both in preservation, and more environmental conservation because he grew up in Santa Monica. So, a lot of people were starting to talk, and it was an era of advocacy and advocates coming together. But it was largely everyday people, everyday Angelenos that really rose up, a lot of them within the design world, that stepped up and said, okay, we need to be doing something differently than what we've been doing before.

SHERIDAN: What about one Margaret Bach?

ADRIAN: Margaret Bach is our founding president of the Los Angeles Conservancy. She is still very active, still very much engaged with us. She lives in Santa Monica, has been very active in Santa Monica preservation efforts for many years. And she really came to this issue through connections through American Institute of Architects. Being a writer, editor, design professional herself, and helped galvanize and bring people together to say, okay, not only do we need to save the LA Central Library, but we need an organization to advocate for all historic buildings. And they were very ambitious. They didn't just say Los Angeles. They said all of Los Angeles County, which is over 4,000 square miles. So we set a big stage in which what we were trying to accomplish, but it all stems from the Central Library.               

SHERIDAN: How did the multiple stakeholders with very different opinions finally agree on the plans to preserve and then later expand Central Library?

ADRIAN: It really stems from this idea of win wins, and that is something that has been at the heart and soul of the Los Angeles Conservancy from day one. Finding compromise, realizing not everyone gets everything. But how do you bring people together that often have very -- that have very divergent viewpoints. And sitting around a table and thinking creatively about a place, in this case the Central Library, about how do you adapt this building? How do you expand this building? How do you finance the rehabilitation and restoration? And that meant bringing a lot of different people, from the design sector, to politicos, to finance folks, to come together and come up with a solution. And that doesn't always happen. And that was really, I think, the special, uh, juice, so to speak, in terms of what we could bring together in terms of getting people to talk and come up with innovative solutions.

SHERIDAN: So the Conservancy is formed in 1978, and then in 1986, something huge happens. The fires that affected Central Library. Was the LA Conservancy and its membership a part of the effort to save the Library's collections post the fire?

ADRIAN: We were involved in that. I mean, certainly there were many people, and at that point the stage had already been set that this building was going to be saved and there was going to be the addition to it. So it was already on a good course. But that was certainly a setback. But in some ways, I think it galvanized people even more so in terms of saying, wow, we nearly lost this. And we also nearly lost the collection through this fire. And then there was this massive fundraising that came right on the heels of that. And so I think it really was a galvanizing force that really sped up in some ways, the preservation and ultimately the reopening of this building with the addition.

SHERIDAN: So we've been talking a lot about the Conservancy and what it was doing when the Central Library was sort of under threat of being demolished, and then later on with the fires. What is the Conservancy doing now? Tell our listeners a little bit about some of the activities you have going on, about how to find out more about how to get involved. Let us know.

ADRIAN: Well, you mentioned fires. So we had the fire in '86 here. And more recently we've had the fires - the Eaton Fire, the Palisades Fire. And so our work is always evolving, just like the City. We're always responding. And part of our litmus test is to say, is the work that we're doing meeting what Angelenos care about and is it relevant? And so one of the things that we have taken up in the last year, and that we'll be doing really for the next three years, is responding to the Eaton Fire, specifically in Altadena. We have a whole new initiative that's talking about what is rebuilding and recovery look like, and how do you redefine heritage? Sometimes it's not just about buildings, but about culture and people, and more the intangible aspects that make a community special and give it soul. So we're doing a lot of work there around cultural asset mapping. We're doing things like we have a LA Women's Landmarks project that's about really correcting the record where it's left off women's contributions to the built environment across LA. And sometimes that was by omission and sometimes it was by design. And so we're working to make sure that people, especially women, are acknowledged for their contributions in terms of historic places all across LA. And we're doing all kinds of things with kids. We've got a heritage project that kids are spending three weeks immersed in LA historic places, including the Central Library. They're going to Catalina Island and camping out and really understanding what historic places mean to their everyday lives. That you see these places but until you really understand them and know their story, and especially the people connected to them, it becomes much more real and alive.

SHERIDAN: How would, how would an Angeleno get involved with with the L.A. Conservancy?

ADRIAN: Go to our website, reach out, follow us on Instagram. We have volunteer opportunities. We're always doing events and programs. We're about to do Last Remaining Seats. That will happen in June in Downtown. We're showing classic films in classic historic theaters, but there's always an opportunity to be engaged with us. Become a member. Certainly that's - certainly we appreciate that, it helps support us. And we're about to do our preservation award. So so there's lots of opportunities to engage.

SHERIDAN: For any interested listeners. If you want to check out more about the Conservancy, visit laconservancy.org. All of it's there. And you can get involved and start working on the preservation, conservation of your own city. Okay, Adrian, I think to bring this to a close, I'm going to ask you a question that I ask of every single guest on the podcast. What is your favorite part of Central Library?

ADRIAN: Oh my gosh.

SHERIDAN: It's a tough one.

ADRIAN: It's really hard. I think a lot of people would probably say the interiors, which they're stunning and beautiful. But for me, it really is the sculpture and the design on the exterior, and certainly the pyramid, the tile pyramid of the tower. That is something I see every day, and it never fails to impress me and draw my eye. It always is something that I want to see, and I love that about this place.

SHERIDAN: Thank you so much for joining us, Adrian. To fill us in on how Central was almost demolished but ultimately preserved, thanks in part to founding members of your organization. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today, and we're thankful for all the work the LA Conservancy has done and continues to do to preserve and restore the Central Library, but also just Los Angeles at large. Thanks so much, Adrian.

ADRIAN: Thank you.

SHERIDAN: We're joined now by Nick Beyelia, a librarian in the Central Library's History and Genealogy Department, where he's worked for ten years to talk about the mystery of one of Central Library's lost murals. Welcome, Nick, and thank you so much for talking with us today.

NICK: Thank you for having me.

SHERIDAN: Nick. To start us off, can you tell us a little bit about what the Branch Libraries Mural at Central Library was? What did it look like?

NICK: So the Branch Libraries Mural was a five by seven oil on canvas created by a woman named Abigail Lois Cleaves that was presented to Central Library in 1934 as part of the Federal Public Works of Art Project. It depicted the branch libraries throughout the City of Los Angeles.

SHERIDAN: And how many branch libraries were there at that point?

NICK: There were 40 that were depicted, and then there were eight that had yet to be built that are on the map.

SHERIDAN: Could you also talk a little bit more about the national Public Works of Art Project, and how it led to the creation of this mural?

NICK: Well, it all started with the Great Depression in '29. The economy completely crashed and 1933 was considered the the worst year. So the program, the national Public Works of Art Project lasted from late, I believe, December 1933 into May 1934. It was managed by the Treasury Department, who divided the country into 16 regions with Southern California as Region 14. The goal behind it was to give work to artists by arranging to have competent representations of the profession embellish public buildings. The general instructions were, 'Portray the American scene.' It would stand as a prototype for later Federal art programs. It generally gets lumped in with the WPA, but it was -- it was separate.

SHERIDAN: Oh, it was separate from the WPA. I had no idea. And did Gail Cleaves have to submit a proposal to become part of the program? Or she was selected from a pool of artists that they already had access to?

NICK: She had, she had actually in 1930, she had created like, I don't know how to describe it, a demo. So it was essentially a mock-up of the painting itself. We have that image within our collection. We don't have an image of the painting.

SHERIDAN: For any interested listeners out there, we'll add that image of Gail Cleaves' model, mock-up, proposed painting to the show notes, so you can take a look and enjoy. What else do we know about the artist Gail Cleaves? Her life?

NICK: Not a whole lot. She was born in Aurora, Illinois, in 1894. She was the youngest of six children, and sometime around the turn of the century, the family relocated to Staten Island, where she graduated from Curtis High School. She stayed in New York to study both commercial art and engineering. She gained some notoriety in New York before relocating to LA in 1920. In Los Angeles she almost disappears into the crowd as far as her art career goes, but she takes a job with the County highway department in the 1930s and stays there until her retirement.

SHERIDAN: Why do you think there's so little information about the artist Gail Cleaves and her work?

NICK: Gail had a reason for wanting to keep her private life private. One of the few biographies I was able to find described her as a spinster. She was never legally married, but had the same roommate for more than 40 years, a woman named Bessie Esterly. It's pretty safe to assume that they were in a relationship. Being out in a pre-Stonewall era was not an option, and this is probably why there is so little information about Cleave's personal life.

SHERIDAN: Where do we think this mural was located in Central Library? And what ended up happening to it?

NICK: Every resource I've encountered had some variation of opposite the Fifth Street entrance and/or the east wall. Some people believe it was to the immediate left of the portico when you first come in off the Fifth Street entrance. There was also a lot of, 'On the East wall,' as in the East wall foyer, sort of across from the women's restroom. The most generous description was, 'At the foot of the East branch of the North stairway,' though that was given prior to the painting's presentation. So we don't know if it was there for sure.

SHERIDAN: And then what ended up happening to it? It's not there now, is it?

NICK: No, it's not. There was a notation in a press release that the Art Department held on to that indicated that it had been painted over in December 1963, but there was no more information.

SHERIDAN: Completely painted over.

NICK: Yes.

SHERIDAN: Wow. Okay. Why do you think, if there's any hints in anything you found, about why the mural wasn't preserved?

NICK: That's the million dollar question. The cynic in me would blame philistine politicians who have no respect for civic history. But it may have been something as simple as it was vandalized or damaged in some way, and they didn't know how to deal with it at the time so they just painted over it. And given the views of Central Library as being in decline, and dwindling funds for the Library, it was just seen as another blemish that probably needed to be covered up. But at the end of the day, there's no documentation to pinpoint what exactly happened.

SHERIDAN: If you could have any of your questions instantly answered about the mystery of this mural, which question would you choose? What would you most like to know?

NICK: I think the most obvious answer would be the location of it. But for me, when you do a lot of historic research on figures, you get kind of invested in them as people. And, uh, I'd like to see a picture of Gail Cleaves. To know what she looked like. To put a name with a face. So.

SHERIDAN: Yeah. Uh, Nick, tell us a little bit about why you think it's important to preserve public artwork.

NICK: Well, it's, uh, it's a subjective question. For me, it tends to be that it's part of our civic heritage, and it was always intended to be part of our civic heritage, so we should maintain it and respect it.

SHERIDAN: Yeah. It belongs to all of us really, right?

NICK: Yes.

SHERIDAN: And Nick, one final question. What is your favorite part of the Central Library?

NICK: I would say that my favorite part about Central Library is the history that resides within its walls. I love going into the rotunda and just looking around, imagining all the people that have come and gone and, you know, inhabited that space in pursuit of knowledge.

SHERIDAN: Amazing. Thanks again for talking with us today, Nick, and letting us know about one of Central Library's lost artworks and the artist behind it.

NICK: Thank you for having me. And I'd like to say, if anybody out there either remembers seeing the painting or maybe has a photograph of one of their relatives by the painting, we would love to see it, and we would love to know exactly where this painting lived.

SHERIDAN: For more information on Gail Cleaves, including images of what her library mural may have looked like, check out Nick's blog post about her lost mural on our LAPL website, lapl.org.

SHERIDAN: Today, we're also joined by David Turshyan. David is a librarian in the International Languages Department. David, what is the focus of the International Languages Department and how would you describe the mission of its collection today?

DAVID: It's so nice to be here. Our mission is to ensure that every member of our community finds the language they speak or study reflected in our collections. Because at its heart, the International Languages Department serves as a multilingual bridge for the incredibly diverse population of Los Angeles and even beyond. Currently, we house over 260,000 items, ranging from classical literature and poetry to graphic novels and film. And our collections reflect the languages spoken in the community. We have collections in 30 different languages, covering everything from history and biography to contemporary fiction. And it's like having mini libraries of language collections within one department. In addition, we have a center which is called the Language Learning Center. And here we offer specialized resources such as phrasebooks, dictionaries, and easy readers in over 500 languages. And this space serves a dual purpose. It's a space for English speakers who would like to explore a new language, and it is also a space for newcomers and community language speakers who would like to study or improve their English skills. And as we celebrate the centennial of the Central Library, we see our collections at the International Languages Department as the living reflection of the voices and the languages that continue to shape and define the City and our multicultural and multilingual communities.

SHERIDAN: I did not know that we have over 500 languages in the Language Learning Center, that's amazing. Who buys for the Language Learning Center? Is it all of you together in the in the International Languages Department?

DAVID: Yes. We have a team of librarians and language specialists who purchase the resources. Some of our team members work at the Central Library. Some of them work at the branches.

SHERIDAN: For any listeners out there, if you're looking to learn a language, visit us here in International Languages. It's on the ground floor of the Central Library. Just walk all the way down the hall and it's immediately on the right once you reach the Tom Bradley wing. David, tell us a little bit more beyond the books, your Department houses some truly beautiful artwork. In fact, there's a little rumor that you all have pieces from our sister cities, or the community even.

DAVID: Yes, that's true. Our department can be viewed as a gallery, as a gallery of international friendship, or even international family, because the terminology we are using to describe our relationships, our relations with other cities is the word 'sister.' And currently, Los Angeles has 25 sisters around the world, across six continents. And we have many gifts. And one of these gifts is a beautiful sculpture of a dolphin, a golden dolphin called Shachi, from our sister city, Nagoya. It was donated to the City of Los Angeles on August 6th, 2004. And in Japanese folklore, Shachi is a powerful symbol. When we take a close look, we see that the fins and the tail of the dolphin point up towards the sky, towards the heavens, to summon water, rain and clouds. This serves as a symbolic protection against fire, protecting, guarding wooden castles and temples, and in our case, the library full of books. We also have gifts from our communities, such as the statue of Lebanese-American poet and artist, Gibran Khalil Gibran. He's the author and illustrator of The Prophet, and in fact beneath the statue there is a beautiful inscription, a quotation from The Prophet that says, 'The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and his lovingness.' And we also have a popular collection of jigsaw puzzles donated by the community, and the puzzles provide a wonderful opportunity for the library user to take a quick break from reading or using digital devices, and it also provides the opportunity for a bit of interactive, hands on activity that brings people together. It's quite common to see strangers or library users become friends while working on jigsaw puzzles.

SHERIDAN: Now that's amazing. I actually have walked in and seen people working on puzzles and wondered where they come from and who who gives them because they look really cool. And I had no idea about the golden, the golden dolphin Shachi, and thinking about what the library has gone through with the fire in the '80s and how devastating that was for us. What a thoughtful gift from our sister city to to provide something, a token, an amulet of sorts that might protect us from fire. That's so amazing. And what a lovely image of people becoming friends over a jigsaw puzzle surrounded by a collection of of many different languages, right? We have this, this moment where people can experience a little bit of communication that is beyond language because jigsaw puzzles are in a universal language. Speaking of books and speaking of multiple languages, David, is there any books that you want to particularly highlight in International Languages' collections?

DAVID: Yes. I'd like to highlight a charming little book titled Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World. It's written and illustrated by Ella Frances Sanders, and the translations can be found, in fact, in our Language Learning Center. The book explores over 50 words in different languages from around the world that have no direct translations into English. But what makes this book truly special is the central question it asks, and the question is this, if there's no words for something, if you don't have a word for something, can we truly experience it? Let's take the Japanese word komorebi as an example. The author comments about this word that it may be temporarily blinding, but it's most definitely beautiful. So what is komorebi? It captures a fleeting moment in nature. It describes light, but in such a poetic way, it describes the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. Or let's take the Spanish word vacilando. This word describes a journey. But again, this is not just a regular journey. It's not a journey from destination A to destination B, it's a journey where the act of traveling is more important than the destination itself. The author even gives advice, throw the map and plans out of the window, and even illustrates this with a whimsical map of that says 'Welcome to nowhere in particular; Population: not entirely sure.' Then there's the term ubuntu in the languages Nguni Bantu, and the term ubuntu is often translated as human kindness, but its deeper meaning is this: I find my worth in you and you find your worth in me. So reading through these examples, we start to realize that these aren't just interesting words. These are different lenses through which we can view the world. And studying a new language doesn't change what how we speak, it expands our perspective and reshapes the way we communicate and connect with one another.

SHERIDAN: Absolutely. I've always said that having a language is having an entire worldview in and of itself. Sartre was talking about how there's nothing outside the text, and how beautiful to have multiple texts to work with, multiple lexicons to draw your experience from. David, I have one more question for you that I ask of every single guest on the podcast. I'm sure you know what it is. Tell us about your favorite part of Central Library.

DAVID: I would like to say the Language Learning Center. It used to be part of Children's Department and there are beautiful artwork from the book Ivanhoe. And now it is our collection, the Language Learning Center. And the reason I like it is because it has—it represents what we are. It has over 500 languages and it's a place— it's for us a symphony of languages.

SHERIDAN: A symphony of languages here in the International Languages Department. Thank you so much for joining us, David, and for all you do to help patrons access language materials and literature from all around the world.                

DAVID: Thank you.                

SHERIDAN: Today's episode was made possible by executive producer Christina Hairston, producer Alice Schock, and it was recorded at the Central Library with help from the amazing staff in the Octavia Lab. I'm your host, Sheridan Jay Cazarez, with the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks for listening to the Past Due podcast, and we'll see you at the library.