Fast Talker
Cool Harry, an artist who breaks the vocal speed limit every time he speaks, says City Hall instructed him weeks ago to channel all written and spoken correspondence to a suddenly prominent “relocation” expert in Long Beach named Mark La Bonte. Yesterday Mr. La Bonte, presumably speaking on authority from City Hall, informed Cool Harry that he did not have to shut down his business by a week from tomorrow after all.
The city — or Mr. La Bonte — was granting Cool Harry, a frantic, hand-wringing South African artist with a worldly reputation, an extension until March.
Harry’s Mission
Cool Harry says that in the store he has occupied for the past 3 years, he sells antiques, as far back as the 17th century, as recent as the 1970s, with an emphasis on the pop culture of the 1950s and ‘60s.
For months, the city has been shooing Harry and his business-owning neighbors along the 8800 block of National Boulevard, between Washington and Venice boulevards, out of the way of an oncoming train. The Metropolitan Transit Authority and City Hall have promised to build a terminal serving the final stop on a still-to-be-funded 9-mile light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City. Clearing the land of numerous artistically inclined businesses around Cool Harry’s store — in the neighborhood for a quarter-century — has met resistance that has ranged from little to outright refusal.
Harry’s response has been closer to the latter, although he had expected to be dark by Feb. 15.
No Balm for the Angry
The slight reprieve scarcely has soothed him. He is leaving, as ordered, but his attitude remains:
Feet first.
He means to have the final word. “Everybody around here has been demoralized,” he says. “All of us have been pushed out against our will.
“I am not sure people realize that this ground is going to be rebuilt by developers. They will make a lot of revenue for the city, which is actually blood money made on people who have been forced to close their businesses and move out.
“Some of them don’t have alternatives. They don’ have a place to go.”
Totaling up the Cost
How much is the move, out of Culver City, costing Harry?
“It not only is costing me a fortune in money but a lot of energy, time and disappointment to me, to my customers who see that I am going out of business.
“The eminent domain tactics the city has been using have caused hardship and sickness. This is really not the way to deal with people.
‘Does Anyone Care?’
“People should know that if you want to do business in Culver City, now to have to pay $4.50 a foot whereas a year ago you paid $1.
“Does anyone care there are disgruntled people all over town simply because the city wants to bring in more revenue?
“City Hall has been very unkind, ungrateful, unsympathetic, ungracious and undemocratic,” Harry said.
