Comfortably situated in her favorite living room chair on Monday morning, the only one facing the door, Adele Siegel looked lovely the day before her ninetieth birthday. Handsome in a silky gold print dress with a root beer-colored knit shawl around her slim shoulders to ward off any random chill, she sure enough is a ninety-year-old granny. Only technically. Just not the traditional kind. Starkly different from every ninety-year-old granny, even any fifty-year-old granny, you ever have heard about. President Bush and the National Security Agency, both her mortal, mortal rivals — dare we say enemies? — probably know more about what is going on across the political universe than Mrs. Siegel. Hardly anyone else does, though, from Condi Rice to Gov. Schwarzenegger to City Hall. Equally adept at scrutinizing the political landscape of Culver City, the country or the world, she has been retired as a teacher for about twenty years from LAUSD. The main change that brought to her daily routine was to give her more time to peek under carpets, behind chairs, inside of sources to learn a version of the truth that varies from that held by quite a few Americans.
Teachers, District Reach 2-Year Agreement
All it evidently took to cure two years of rapidly growing rancor between the Teachers Union and the School District was one sit-down session with a mediator. The District announced late Monday that a tentative two-year agreement has been reached with the Teacher Union, whose three hundred and fifty members have worked without a contract the last two school years.
Based on the initial description of the terms of the new contract, the Teachers Union appears to have scored a major victory. Union members apparently have won retention of the full board of health benefits, which were going to be pared to eliminate key elements for teachers hired after July 1. But, observers said, it is too arly in the process “to speak with such certitude.”
San Gennaro Went Thataway
After three raucous weekend nights of partying in the teary-eyed bosom of normally sedate Culver City, the still-dazed San Gennaro Café, hung over on Monday for the last time, was emptied out during the daylight hours, per eviction notice. By midnight, it was scheduled by the landlord to be pronounced dead.
With that, the restaurateur Jay Handal waved a thin farewell into the slate gray light and drove north to his next destination, Camden Drive, north Beverly Hills.
154 Culver Students Were Truant
• See bizarre mass-produced threatening ‘excuse note’ below
About forty percent of the whopping number of 346 students who were absent from classes at Culver City High School on the day of national pro-illegal immigration rallies have been marked down as truant.
David Sotelo, Asst. Principal for Attendance, said that an “unexcused absence” notation has been placed in the files of 154 students, possibly affecting privileges they will seek later. (Curiously, this was the same number of students whom Culver High officials estimated had participated in a hurriedly organized, peaceful immigration protest rally on Monday, March 27, in front of City Hall.) The Assistant Principal sought to put the number of unaccounted for students into context. “If this is the only day a student was absent, that is one thing,” Mr. Sotelo said. “If not, the day of truancy may place some students in jeopardy, for example, for getting work permits this summer.”
From the Right, Mr. Noonan
[Editor’s Note: For the first time since we began working on the same newspaper, my liberal but talented colleague Frederik Sisa and I have reached roughly similar conclusions on a subject. Please stress “roughly.” Today, we present our views in tandem.]
Possibly the only worthwhile question to curl out of the distinctly anti-American march for illegal immigration on May 1 was whether the hooligans would have any effect on policymaking in Washington. Except for the historic penchant of the political class to wobble and cave before pressure groups of any size, the inquiry would be absurd. For sober Americans, however, the carefully scripted rallies in each of thirty American communities represented the nadir of nonsense. Marching to honor those who blatantly broke the law, boast about it and now are demanding further handouts is a stunt that deluded doctors of distraction, such as our town’s Tim Robbins, should limit to the confines of a playhouse. Or risk falling into America’s doghouse.
Next: Its Handal of Beverly Hills
Second of Two Installments
The Man in Black, one of the most recognizable faces on Culver City streets, is down to his last three days and counting as the major domo of San Gennaro Café, which turns to dust on Sunday night, an hour before midnight. Brash-talking Jay Handal, who could be recognized in the dark except that he almost always wears all black clothing, goes into the history books the same way he came into town eleven years ago, talkin’ pretty straight up. Although he usually divides his working days between his Culver City and Brentwood stores, he will be fulltime visible in Downtown this weekend. For those people who have feuded with the feisty Mr. Handal over the years — please line up to the left — and note a change. The casket will be open for community viewing all three days of the weekend, including Saturday during the 9 to 3 Car Show, a time when San Gennaro usually is shuttered. But since the restaurant is closing for good at the end of Mother’s Day, friends and pseudo friends want to hoist a cold one for auld lange syne. And so, the man who is still trying, with futility, to bring horn-rimmed glasses and a crewcut back into fashion, will be omnipresent.
Siegel Night at the Council
One of the more remarkable Progressive political activists in America, Adele Siegel of Braddock Drive, turns ninety years old on Tuesday morning. She is in the news, or actually in thefrontpageonline.com, because she and her ninety-three-year-old husband, Henry, keep making news by very publicly voicing their contrary opinions on the School Board and on the City Council. This very week, the Siegels sat in the front row of Council Chambers to deliver a vehement protest of a controversial vote by the Council two weeks earlier. Somehow, and the Siegels are not quite sure how it was engineered, the Vice Mayor, Alan Corlin, won a surprise-from-nowhere vote, by three to two, to unseat their favorite elected official, Mayor Gary Silbiger, on the hottest committee in town, the Light Rail Committee.
Back to the 50s Car Show
About four hundred classic cars and more than fifty vendors will be strategically positioned on Saturday morning in a closed-off Downtown for the third annual George Barris “Cruisin’ Back to the ‘50s” Car Show, along Washington and Culver boulevards.
Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., the Car Show will provide the spectacle for visitors along the two major thoroughfares of Downtown, between Duquesne Avenue on the west and Ince on That section of the business district will be roped off to auto traffic while, in the background, a 1950s-style band will play popular music of a half-century ago. The show is free, and
open to the public.
Handal Explains San Gennaro Closing
 Mr Handal |
In a mildly nuanced, heavily tree-shaded setting that pleasantly contrasted with the turgid turmoil of recent months, Jay Handal, the best known restaurateur-philanthropist-activist-lightning rod in Culver City, sat down yesterday afternoon to candidly talk about the abrupt closing of San Gennaro Café this Sunday night, at the end of Mother’s Day.
By nightfall on Monday, if the creek doesn’t rise and the moving vans can outlast or outwit Downtown traffic signals, there won’t be a pebble of evidence that a restaurant named San Gennaro ever flourished at 9543 Culver Blvd.
The Uniqueness of Jay Handal
Four months after lease negotiations began to deteriorate, Jay Handal, the owner of San Gennaro Café, arguably Downtown’s flagship restaurant, will close his doors on Sunday night, following the final round of dinners in honor of Mothers Day. It probably is no exaggeration to say that he has aggressively left a deeper imprint on the development and vitalization of Downtown than any other entrepreneur. Logically, it follows that Mr. Handal will be missed more than any other Culver City restaurateur. At an hour when Downtown is blooming, perhaps more than at anytime in its nearly ninety years of history, the departure of the genial Mr. Handal will evoke a shower of tears and a tidal wave of unremitting sadness. That it is over will be mourned partially because there was no public period of preparation, no buildup for the letdown, no chance for the many fans of the high-flying Mr. Handal and his restaurant to start getting accustomed to the idea that San Gennaro was going away. By a mile, Mr. Handal, a ubiquitous, fast-talking New Yorker who believes he can mend nearly everything, is the most flamboyant entrepreneur operating Downtown. The stories of his known philanthropy and his discreet off-stage generosity will outlast him even if he lives to be a hundred and fifty years old. Every morning for years there have been gentlemen doing busy work and practical labor around the restaurant. Not necessarily former subscribers to Forbes Magazine in their previous lives, they came to Mr. Handal’s store for a handout. They had heard he specialized in picking up unlikelies who desperately need a boost.