Strong House

I’ve admired the house from afar (its style, but not its condition or use) for over 15 years. But your article about the Edward Strong residence (and a name and history of which I was unaware) initially saddened me--it brought me closer to the house and to the possibility of the loss of an old friend. But so it goes in Los Angeles.

The article, however, says much about our city’s condition but ignores the central cynicism of the owner of the house--the Community Redevelopment Agency. The CRA has all of the necessary legal, political and financial might to relocate and rehabilitate the house. Indeed, as an agency empowered to redevelop the city, that the CRA can convince reporters, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Cultural Heritage Commission and “city officials” that it can’t do anything but sell the house or demolish it is “magic” itself.

JOHN WILLIAM O’DONNELL

El Monte