After years of ineffectiveness, our membership program has been put back in order and is growing rapidly. Renewals are up and new members are building a diverse base of support for Hollywood preservation.
This includes new members from San Diego to San Francisco and many points in between, as well as members from New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Ohio, Iowa, Connecticut, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Many of our members have joined or renewed at the sponsor level ($100) or higher, especially those outside of California. Hollywood Heritage greatly appreciates these contributions, as we receive no government funds and depend on memberships and fundraising events to keep Hollywood Heritage moving forward.
The revised membership program became a reality as the result of an anonymous donation to start the program. This made it possible to retain the services of Mary Sullivan, who formerly worked on fundraising programs for such organizations as the Henry E. Huntington Library and Los Angeles Conservancy. Her experience, knowledge, and hard work have brought our files up to date and given a turnaround time for memberships of a week or less (previous time could be 2-3 months) and provided new computer systems for Hollywood Heritage since February.
On a special note, Hollywood Heritage gives its sincere thanks to Stanley Kramer and Johnny Grant for their letters of support for our membership drive.
One of Hollywood’s most important business establishments is Hollywood Book City, located at 6627 Hollywood Boulevard between Cherokee and Whitley Avenues. At this location since 1973, it is the largest used bookstore in Los Angeles. It has been a treasured resource for researchers, writers, celebrities, and just about everybody else. I’ve used it many times since 1977 to check facts or find books. The staff has always been knowledgeable (these people know about books) and the owner, Alan Seigal, has always offered support for Hollywood issues (though his heart and accent may be in Brooklyn). Over 10,000 square feet are stacked to the ceiling with every subject one could hope for. This is one of the few Hollywood retail business icons.
Thanks to a heavily subsidized development project that includes the store’s current site, Book City may close up at the end of the year. That would be the last of Hollywood’s once fabled "bookseller’s row," that still existed into the early 1980s, but dated back to the 1920s when many new and used bookstores dotted that area
(Larry Edmunds Bookstore remains, thankfully, but it is film/television only as well as a poster and photo store).
This retail anchor helped to convince the Writers Guild of America to locate its original headquarters at Hollywood and Cherokee (SW corner) and inspired the creation of the writer’s table at Musso & Franks (Faulkner, Hemingway, West, Chandler, Fitzgerald, etc.). Bookstores were second in importance only to movie theaters on Hollywood Boulevard.
Though Councilmember Goldberg, who claims to support Book City, is making a tepid effort to help relocate the store elsewhere in Hollywood, she is ignoring what caused the problem. New projects are being offered whatever subsidies they want so that they will build and contribute to political campaigns.
CIM Group, the project’s developer, has recently bought several properties on Hollywood Boulevard. Though this project is actually fairly well designed in an art deco style and will feature a Laemmle Theaters 6-plex with ground level retail and restaurants, it needed a lot of help from the city. Variances were granted on almost every code concerning the structure (height, billboards, parking, landscaping, signage, etc.), despite protests from Hollywood Heritage that the billboard was out of scale and character for the historic district and the commandeering of the city parking lot would impact neighboring businesses and residents.
The developer said their project could not exist without the variances, billboard (a large globe-like structure) revenue and the parking deal. Yet the main existing tenant, Book City, was offered nothing but half as much space for twice as much rent. CIM is turning the gifts from the taxpayer into profits at the cost of Book City, one of the community’s true assets.
This is not survival of the fittest, as some claim, but economic favoritism by Coucilmember Goldberg who is in charge of negotiations with the city. If we are going to subsidize the developer, the existing tenant should be given benefits so that they do not lose their business due to the city’s economic involvement/interference.
If another suitable location can be found, or a deal made in the new project, the city must equalize the scale they have greatly tipped in favor of the developer. Book City has weathered the past problems of Hollywood and given much back by its very existence. It cannot be allowed to be put out of existence so that a Starbucks or even a smaller Barnes and Noble (not likely) can take its place in a government subsidized development. And if it happens here, who’s next to be subsidized out of business?