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Letters: They way Wilshire was

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Re “It all begins on Wilshire,” March 24

I have always been fascinated by Wilshire Boulevard, the great thoroughfare analyzed by Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne.

While I had a job on Wilshire near Vermont Avenue as a twentysomething in the early 1970s, I found the area to be of great interest. I spent entire lunch hours roaming through the elegant Bullocks Wilshire as well as the nearby I. Magnin & Co. department store (both now sadly defunct). I spent many happy hours at Lafayette Park and its little branch library. Noontime organ concerts at the First Congregational Church were another option.

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My commute from West Hollywood would take me past the La Brea Tar Pits, Miracle Mile, the Brown Derby and the Ambassador Hotel. During the holidays, a local stockbroker would put up a reindeer on his office’s roof.

Thanks to Hawthorne for bring it all back.

Jill Anderson

Pismo Beach

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Hawthorne repeats a misconception that has appeared in The Times before. He writes that the construction of the Wilshire subway “was halted by a powerful and well-funded opposition based largely on the Westside.” Actually, what it took to halt construction was not money but poor management and an explosion.

After a methane gas explosion near the subway route in 1985, Rep. Henry A. Waxman cited safety concerns and removed federal funding from the project. Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, previously a strong supporter of the Wilshire line, reversed himself after it had been revealed that subway construction was faulty and way over budget. He backed Proposition A in 1998, and Los Angeles County voters by a lopsided margin denied the use of sales tax money for subway construction.

Richard S. Harmetz

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Los Angeles

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