Preservation Projects Receive High Marks

The Los Angeles Conservancy has selected seven projects to receive the group’s 18th annual Preservation Awards. The winners are:

* The Egyptian Theatre: Left vacant and considered obsolete, this once-treasured theater on Hollywood Boulevard was transformed by American Cinematheque into a contemporary theater within the auditorium’s historic fabric, making it a state-of-the-art venue.

* African American Firefighter Museum: Fire Station No. 30 on Central Avenue, an all-black station from 1923 to 1955, was abandoned and vandalized for nearly three decades until being restored as a museum that documents the experiences of pioneering African Americans in Los Angeles fire service.

* LUMENS (Living Urban Museum of Electric and Neon Signs): The museum consists of the most concentrated area of original Art Deco neon signs in the world. The city’s Cultural Affairs Department restored about 60 historic neon signs in the Wilshire Corridor, downtown and Hollywood.

* Los Altos Apartments: This rehabilitation project reversed the deterioration of one of Wilshire Boulevard’s grand residential buildings of the 1920s and is a model for the provision of affordable rental housing in a historic setting.

* Rancho Los Alamitos Interpretive Tour and Education Program, Long Beach: An education and outreach program, Rancho Los Alamitos’ interpretive tour utilizes its historic site to help schoolchildren and adults explore the layers of cultural and environmental history of Southern California from Native American to the ranching era and modern times.

* Royce Hall, UCLA: The university overcame the challenges of major structural damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake to restore the public auditorium at Royce Hall, a Southern California landmark and visual symbol of the region’s largest university.

* Union Center for the Arts, Little Tokyo: The 1923 Union Church, once the cultural and social center of the Little Tokyo community, sat abandoned for more than 20 years and was damaged in the 1994 earthquake. The Little Tokyo Service Center transformed it into the Union Center for the Arts, a permanent home for the East West Players, an Asian-American theater company, and other arts organizations.

The conservancy also honored L.A. City Council member Jackie Goldberg for her role in Hollywood’s revitalization and for her efforts to assure that new development reflects Hollywood’s historic character.

L.A. County Museum of Art President Andrea Rich and the museum’s board of directors were honored for LACMA’s role in preserving and reusing the historic May Co. building on Wilshire Boulevard, now “LACMA West,” which housed the Van Gogh exhibit.

The award winners were chosen by a jury chaired by William H. Fain, Jr., FAIA, managing partner of Los Angeles-based Johnson Fain Partners.

Other judges were:

* Kevin Starr, state librarian and author of a series of books on California history.

* Laurie Olin, nationally recognized landscape architect of the Olin Partnership in Philadelphia.

* Julia M. Bloomfield, assistant director and head, department of publications and exhibitions of the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and Humanities.

* Elizabeth Goldstein, director of the Western Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Los Angeles Conservancy is the largest member-based local historic preservation organization in the country.

Born out of the struggle to save downtown’s Central Library more than 20 years ago, the conservancy has become the principal advocate for the preservation and revitalization of the architectural heritage of greater Los Angeles.

The Preservation Awards Program was founded to honor exceptional achievement in the field of historic preservation and is presented during National Historic Preservation Week each year.