July, 1994
Beautiful bricks or red menace?
By Lori Schweitzer, The Outlook. Santa Monica.
July 24th, 1994
Not since Dorothy danced off to Oz has there been such a fuss
over a brick road.
Two architects made the bold suggestion to resurface the Venice
boardwalk with clay bricks instead of asphalt and the great Venice
brick debate was born.
In Venice, they love bricks and they hate bricks. They write letters
to the newspaper about bricks. They pack public hearings to argue
bricks. They trade brickbats over bricks.
It’s a big deal, said Venice Beach resident Diane Bush, because
the boardwalk badly needs renovation and voters agreed in 1992
to raise $10 million in bond funds to do it.
“This is the first time that we’ve agreed to tax ourselves,” said
Bush, part of a committee that meets in a Venice Beach cafe every
week to talk about beachfront issues.
“We want some place that we can be proud of and looks nice and
is lasting.”
Bush is a brick supporter, asserting that although bricks might
cost more than asphalt, they will be long-lasting, easy to maintain
and, hence, less expensive in the long run.
She believes the community will agree when there is a careful
review of the alternatives.
“They are going to see that they would rather spend the extra
money on something that’s going to be beautiful, something that
you can take care of, something you can be proud of,” she said.
But others, like teacher and Venice homeowner Debra Miller, think
the bricks are an unnecessary extravagance and simply the wrong
look for Venice Beach.
“I don’t like the cost,” Miller said. “I don’t think it’s roller-skater
friendly. It’s certainly not jogger-friendly, and I’m a jogger.
“Aesthetically it’s against the values I share in the community,”
she said. “We need too many things to be spending that much on
bricks.”
Make-over proposal
The brick idea came out of sessions architects Michael King and
Diana Pollard had with business and community groups working on
a make-over proposal for Venice Beach.
The resulting Venice Beach Refurbishment Plan, a blueprint for
spending $7.2 million of the park bond funds, was backed by organizations
like the Venice Boardwalk Association, the Chamber of Commerce
and the Venice Action Committee. Based on the results of Coastal
Conservancy workshops held in 1990, the plan proposes a historic
look and calls for antique street lights, sidewalk love seats,
street performer areas and historically themed bathroom buildings.
The plan argues it is neither practical nor cost-effective simply
to restore the 2 1/2 -mile asphalt boardwalk, officially known
as Ocean Front Walk. It recommends replacing the asphalt with
bricks.
Bricks, the plan asserts, would be attractive and durable, and
would lend an Old World flavor, like that of the great plazas
of Europe. Laid in patterns, the bricks would play off the turn-of-the-century
facades of the buildings and arcades still standing from the original
“Venice of America” and recall “the splendor of Abbott Kinney’s
original vision for Venice as a re-creation of Venice, Italy.”
Pat Snyder, who walks her dog on the boardwalk every day, is all
for the brick look proposed in the plan.
“Asphalt is dreary,” she said.
“Brick would be a lot nicer looking and warmer and actually goes
nicely with Venice.”
Jeffrey Stanton, author of the book, Venice California, Coney
Island of the Pacific, said the boardwalk actually had boards
in 1905, but they were replaced with concrete a year or two later.
The asphalt came probably after World War II, he said.
He believes the asphalt road has been neglected for some time,
and is getting dangerous in some parts. Paving materials were
not discussed in the 1990 workshops, but now with the bond money
such specifics are important.
He has no objections to brick.
“It would look like someplace that people care about rather than
just a crummy roadway.”
Gentrification decried
But one person’s warmth and Italianate splendor can be another’s
commercialized kitsch. Opponents have charged that the “antique
look” of the Refurbishment Plan is really a scheme to gentrify
the funky neighborhood and get rid of the street performers, itinerant
vendors, hippies and roller skaters that are associated around
the world with Venice Beach.
“People want an area to look nice,” said Michael Feinstein, a Westside Green Party organizer and opponent of the plan. “But it’s clear to me that
the laying of the brick is the first step in the economic upscaling
of the rents, the businesses, the surrounding residential neighborhood
and as a consequence, ultimately the social mix of the boardwalk
itself.”
Feinstein charged that by adopting the Refurbishment Plan the
city would be using public funds to “subsidize the for-profit,
private gentrification that will mostly benefit property owners.”
Until these issues are “debated and assented to by residents and
visitors alike, there will be no democracy and should be no spending
of public funds,” Feinstein said.
Anti-nuclear activist Jerry Rubin, whose peace table has been
a fixture on Ocean Front Walk for many years, also thinks the
plan will lead to gentrification. He calls it a “designer brick
boardwalk.”
Fancy finishes may be fine for the likes of Santa Monica’s Third
Street Promenade, Rubin said, but brick is “aesthetically unpleasing
in a place like Venice.”
Rubin is promoting an alternative plan that would simply give
Ocean Front Walk a new coat of asphalt and use the rest of the
money for other things, like restoring the Venice Pavilion.
Mark Ryavec, who represents the Venice Boardwalk Association,
one of the business and community groups that worked with King
and Pollard on the Refurbishment Plan, does not subscribe to the
theory that a brick walk will create an upscale neighborhood.
“It’s really silly to suggest that the difference between possible
surfaces is going to make much difference,” he said.
“Did they yuppify the Sistine Chapel by restoring it?” he asked.
“Did they yuppify the Los Angeles Public Library by restoring
it and adapting it to contemporary needs?”
Ryavec said he “specifically did not want another Santa Monica Promenade,” when he worked on the Refurbishment Plan and though brick would
give the boardwalk a historic feel, like restored parts of downtown
San Diego.
Some of the strongest objections to using brick rather than asphalt
have come from roller skaters, who dispute the idea that any brick
could be “skater friendly,” as the plan proponents have said.
Brick proponents point out the bricks proposed in the Refurbishment
Plan would be laid without mortar so the surface would be smooth
and without the grooves often associated with brick surfaces.
Feinstein, who frequently in-line skates down Ocean Front Walk, and professional
skater Gerry Clark tried out the brick by skating on a brick median
strip in Culver City with a surface similar to the one proposed
in the Refurbishment Plan.
Both Feinstein and Clark said they were able to skate easily.
Feinstein, however said the bricks at that location were too smooth.
Skaters, he said, need more traction.
The specifically made paving bricks proposed for the boardwalk
are denser and smoother than the “common brick,” said Dale Adams,
of Pacific Clay Brick Products.
The Lake Elsinore company served as a consultant for the Refurbishment
Plan.
Quick repairs
One of the selling points of a brick walkway, he said, is that
repairs can be made simply by pulling up the broken bricks and
replacing them.
Other surfaces either have to be replaced altogether or patched.
The same principle makes it easy to lay in or repair underground
utility lines, he said.
The cost of a brick boardwalk in Venice, estimated at $4 to $12
a square foot, depends on the extent of work needed to prepare
the road for installation. If the existing road bed needs to be
torn up, the job will cost more. King has said previously that
the asphalt could be ground up and used as a base, saving money
on materials.
Installation is an issue for Venice Beach merchants who are worried
their customers won’t be able to get to boardwalk shops for weeks.
The area affected includes about 13 blocks of retail shops, restaurants
and residences on the east side. During the summer the Venice
boardwalk can draw almost as many tourists as Disneyland.
Merchant Hwan Song fears his sportswear store could lose thousands
of dollars a month in business while the popular walkway is repaved.
Song is chairman of the Venice Beach Merchants Association, a
group of 180 businesses along Ocean Front Walk. The group presented
city officials with petitions opposing a brick paving plan for
the Venice boardwalk, although they aren’t too happy about asphalt
either.
Brick proponents have tried to convince merchants that installing
the brick will not significantly affect their businesses.
The work would be done during the off-season, the proponents said.
It could be divided into small sections to minimize disruptions.
Each section would take about five days and customers would be
able to step over the work area.
Asphalt supporters assert the asphalt paving would go faster than
brick.
Workers, for one thing wouldn’t have to tear up the existing roadbed,
said Diana Rey, of Del Rey Paving. The Westwood-based company
served as a consultant to Rubin’s alternative boardwalk refurbishment
plan.
On the day the work is being done, people would have to walk around
the section being worked on for no more than six hours, she said.
A combination of oil, rock and sand, the asphalt would create
a smooth, black surface once it is laid out and compacted, Rey
said.
Parts of Ocean Front Walk -- a section near the Venice Pier, for
instance -- are in good enough condition and would not have to
be paved over, cutting the cost to approximately $1.30 per square
foot Rey said.
Los Angeles city parks officials said if left to their own devices
they would have chosen neither brick nor asphalt for Ocean Front
Walk.
Concrete considered
“We were probably going to go with concrete,” said Kathleen Chan,
project manager for the city Department of Parks and Recreation.
She said concrete holds up longer -- an assertion proponents for
each of the materials made.
The department, Chan said, uses concrete on many projects, even
for basketball courts.
Saying there was too much disagreement in the community to back
one plan or another, the city Recreation and Parks Commission
in April postponed committing the bond funds, instead deciding
to award King and Pollard a $98,000 contract to continue working
on ideas for Venice Beach.
King and Pollard’s company, Studio of Architecture, is to hold
workshops, conduct “special studies,” develop design concepts
and come up with a detailed estimate of what it might cost to
improve Venice Beach and Ocean Front Walk.
Venice resident Steve Oles is disappointed that the commission
delayed the renovations to continue the debate
“The plan was overall such a good thing and such a positive thing
for the community and so needed for L.A.,” he said.