‘We wanted the picture to look like a cross-section of Los Angeles, not a Downtown corporate outing.’ : From Corporate Into Cool: Artist Gets a Lesson in L.A. Style

This was one picture that was supposed to be worth not merely a thousand words, but $135,000--the estimated yearly price of a “luxury suite” at a new sports arena proposed for Downtown Los Angeles. The picture--an artist’s conceptual drawing, actually--was commissioned by the developers to show the city’s fat cats the spiffy private club that would be at their disposal if they leased one of the 162 suites that will ring the arena along the Harbor Freeway, if it comes to fruition.

But when the drawing came back from the artist, the developers couldn’t help but have a good laugh. “We said to ourselves, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ ” recalled John H. Semcken III, the marketing director.

The problem was not “The Club” itself, as depicted in the drawing. As ordered, it was the epitome of glitz, with a cavernous bar and glass walls overlooking the Downtown skyline on one side, the basketball court--or hockey rink--on the other.

But the people. The PEOPLE! That was another matter.

The artist, you see, was this guy from Chicago, Gilbert Gorski, an architectural illustrator renowned for his renderings of everything from high-rises to stadiums. When it came time to paint in the bodies in that club, Gorski thought naturally of his own experience as a hockey fan in the Windy City, where the business elite fill the high-end seats and where, he explained later, with a touch of apology, “people get dressed up. . . .

You’ll see women wearing minks, furs.”

Gorski knew enough not to put minks in sunny and animal-friendly Southern California. So he sketched the few women in his crowd with the tailored shirts and blouses befitting the business set. Around them, in greater abundance, were shorthaired white gents in suits and ties. A few in bow ties.

Then Gorski shipped the drawing West, figuring his clients would appreciate the “nuances of the architecture.”

Instead, “We sent it back,” Semcken said.

*

It’s no secret that image is at the heart of sales--and municipal identity. Los Angeles has played with a few over the decades, from Raymond Chandler noir to surfer land to would-be ethnic melting pot. But the image with legs, as they say, is Hollywood hip.

Still, that has not stopped poor old Downtown L.A. (where gents actually do wear ties to work) from fighting for its own image in recent years, and the Establishment there has touted one in particular: Business Capital of the Pacific Rim. But that pitch has not quite hit the image strike zone, as Semcken and his partners learned while struggling to develop a $1-billion international office complex on their property along the Harbor Freeway.

“We’re not looking at it any longer as hey, this is the capital of the Pacific Rim,” he confided the other day. “It’s been that for five years and we still don’t have anything built. That’s why we changed the project.”

Goodby office complex, hello sports arena.

“And that’s why we don’t want people to think, ‘This is Downtown.’ We want them to think, ‘This is L.A.’ ”

Artist’s Conception II arrived promptly in the return mail from Chicago.

To begin with, Gorski had sketched in more people. The scene was busier now--it looked like a true crowd. And a different crowd.

On the floor of “The Club” this time were funky dudes in beards and ponytails and open shirts. And blondes with cleavage. And black guys. And no bow ties--except on the waiters.

“I think the original one may have conveyed the wrong message,” Semcken said. “I’m not saying we don’t want corporate people, but basically we wanted the picture to look like a cross-section of Los Angeles, not a Downtown corporate outing.”

Arena proposals are hot in Downtown L.A. these days. The one on the Harbor Freeway is among several competing to lure the local pro basketball and hockey teams--the Clippers, Kings and Lakers--with promises of state-of-the art $200-million sports palaces. In each case, the developers speak of the need to bring Downtown to life after dark, in the process injecting more dollars into its hotels, restaurants and shops.

That means keeping some of the huge Downtown work force from fleeing by 6 p.m.--but also convincing other parts of L.A. that the city’s hub just might be a destination for entertainment other than the symphony or opera. Attracting the “outsiders” is especially important when it comes to filling the features that have become the financial mainstays of modern sports facilities, those luxury suites.

You can only fill so many of the glassed-in boxes from Downtown corporate headquarters and law firms. As everyone knows, the epitome of free-spending in L.A. is found elsewhere.

“So I asked (Gorski) to put some Hollywood character in there, like you see at basketball games here,” Semcken said.

“He said, ‘I can see what I can do.’ ”

*

You have to look closely to see him among the miniature figures, but he’s there, unmistakably, in Artist’s Conception II. In the bar, in the front row, a bit right of center: this 50-plus fellow with a high forehead capped by a widow’s peak, the rest of his black hair slicked back over his collar; and on his miniature face--though it may take a magnifying glass to see it--an evil grin straight out of “The Shining.”

It couldn’t be L.A.’s No. 1 basketball fan, one Jack Nicholson, now could it?