First of two parts
Recognition. At last.
Outsiders are noticing.
The cultivation of Culver City by the media as a meritorious member of the family of grown-up communities is gathering steam and fogging windows.
Finally.
In the spirit of Abraham of the Bible, who became a Daddy at 100, recognition of Culver City’s maturation, especially the multi-colored garden of commercialism that has blossomed in Downtown, is coming later in the day than planned.
Hardly a fresh young face, two months ago Culver City turned 92 years old.
The headline is that the Heart of Screenland no longer is the backwater that has been its disputable image for nearly a century.
In truth, say city fathers and moms, formerly sleepy Culver City was about 82 years old before a band of property owners — beating somnambulant City Hall to the lever — said they had stared at a cemetery long enough as the centerpiece of Downtown.
It was time to overhaul the business district.
Making over the Heart of Screenland called for drastic measures, and strong residential support.
Politicians picked up a cudgel in one hand, a drawing pen in the other, and then dutifully obeyed the ambitious visions of commercial flamboyance in their minds.
With a new eatery opening, and at least a detectable tweaking somewhere Downtown every day — a decade after massive redevelopment began — Culver City finally is being invited to the microphone.
In recent days, it is appropriate to declare, Mayor Andy Weissman has been more widely heard and seen than any of his City Hall predecessors.
Meet the New-Old Kid
One week after National Public Radio West, which shunned mentioning its Culver City location on the air until its seventh anniversary in this town, NBC-4 dashed across Los Angeles from its nationally idolized Burbank base to a section of the Westside it may last have visited at the opening of the 85-year-old Culver Hotel.
No wonder Channel 4’s reporter was amazed by the robust, people-dense, restaurant-heavy Downtown that greeted his wandering eyes.
The reporter slapped his open palm against his forehead in shock and asked:
Can this be Culver City?
He wondered if he hadn’t wandered into a Westside enclave wth a glitzier image.
As the NBC-4 cameras panned dramatically remodeled Downtown, the reporter told his viewers:
“This could be any trendy thoroughfare in West L.A. or Santa Monica.
“Of all places, this is Culver City, a new, unlikely destination for dedicated gourmands and stylesetters.”
And then the reporter had to remind his audience of an historic truth.
“The area was not always so hip and happening. Twenty years ago, Main Street looked like this (cover your eyes).
“As one resident says —“
This was Mayor Weissman’s cue to step to the microphone:
“We were probably the classic dictionary definition for blight back then,” he said.
The common denominator in both megaphone-style interviews was the dapper and lawyerly Mr. Weissman who knows his way around a television or radio studio.
At the mike, he represented Culver City with the professional sheen that commonly has been assigned to other Westside communities, as polished as anyone from City Hall in Los Angeles on down.
The historic attitude used to be:
“Anyplace but Culver City,”
Fumes from that snooty old attitude filtered into both interviews with Mayor Weissman.
NPR West reporter Melissa Block wondered, “Why not tout yourself as Los Angeles?”
Mr. Weissman was ready.
(To be continued)
