HOLLYWOOD STREET CORNER LOOKS FOR A HAPPY ENDING

Ambitious Developers Show Promise Of A Brighter Future Where Hollywood
Boulevard And Western Avenue Meet, But It's Got A Long Way To Go.

HOLLYWOOD--It wasn't unusual enough to make the news when a man was
stabbed in the gut at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western
Avenue on a recent morning.

The man stumbled, bleeding, into the outdoor foyer of the St. Francis
Hotel, then into a Metro Rail subway car, before checking himself into
a hospital emergency room.

"The word is that he was ripping people off, taking money for drugs
and disappearing," said George Voissonault, longtime daytime desk
clerk at the St. Francis. "He kept repeating [the scam] in this same
place, he came back and someone remembered who he was."

Later, the stabbing victim, who was treated and released, refused to
cooperate with detectives. No suspects have been arrested, said Los
Angeles Police Department officials.

The incident was merely the latest act in a decades-long play of drugs
and gangs on this corner, a place where the Armenian and Korean
shopkeepers are often reluctant to talk to police or journalists for
fear of retaliation.

Of the 500 arrests made by narcotics officers in Hollywood last year,
60 were made at this intersection, according to Detective Supervisor
Michael Anthony Mitchell.

The department has responded by removing or limiting the use of the
dozens of pay phones at or near the intersection that were used for
drug dealing (see sidebar), and increasing the number of undercover
stings.

But while it may seem to casual observers that a superhuman effort is
needed to completely scatter the desperate, glassy-eyed prowlers that
still can be found lurking at or near this corner every night, it may
not be the face-off between the drug trade and law enforcement that
ultimately transforms this intersection.

It's salvation might well be delivered by several groups of developers
swooping in to begin a spate of urban renewal.

Such as a group of investors, who became friends while undergraduates
at UCLA, who specialize in opening hip businesses in troubled
neighborhoods.

"I like to bring art and entertainment into my environments," said Urs
Jakob, who with partners Carol Shandler and Randy Johansen bought the
St. Francis Hotel in May.

When the Los Angeles city attorney's office put the residential hotel
under its nuisance abatement program, after a night manager was killed
on the premises in 1999, the old owners decided to sell.

Jakob is renovating the hotel with hopes that it will be a "funky,
trendy, artistic place," that rents rooms daily, like The Gershwin
Hotel that Jakob and partners opened in Manhattan, and The Cadillac
Hotel they bought and renovated in Venice Beach, both in the early
1990s.

The trio plan on renaming the hotel The Hollywood Gershwin by the end
of the year. They've contracted designer Karim Rashid to design the
interior and commissioned L.A. artist Brad Howe to create sculptures.

The trio of investors are also waiting to close escrow on two
buildings across the street, including the historic Louis B. Mayer
building, which was recently renovated with city Community
Redevelopment Agency funds. They hope to rent office space to
entertainment businesses and open a cabaret and two
restaurants.

Other developments may help make the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and
Western Avenue an intersection less inviting for drug dealers:
developer Ira Smedra is in the final stages of construction on a
senior citizen home and a Ralphs grocery on the northeast corner. And
builder McCormick & Barron, along with the nonprofit Hollywood
Community Housing Corp., are building new residential housing behind
the metro stop. The firm has developed such properties across the
country, according to Roxana Tynan, spokeswoman for Hollywood City
Councilwoman turned state Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg.

The combined investment could lift up the community, Jakob
said.

"I've seen it happen a number of times in the places where I open my
hotels," he said. "As the international tourists come, and legitimate
businesses open, the drug dealers start to feel intimidated and are no
longer comfortable operating there."

And yet Voissonault has seen a lot happen on this corner in his years
as a hotel clerk and he isn't convinced that these concrete changes
can reverse the forces that have been pulling the neighborhood down
for so many years.

"This [the St. Francis Hotel] is a stop on the hobo railroad," he
said. "Every recently released ex-con and their family, recovering
people, an endless stream of Hollywood wannabes with resumes and head
shots move in here."

Voissonault said he isn't afraid to call the police if he suspects
someone is selling or using drugs on the hotel premises.

"In a strange, machismo way the bad element respects us for standing
our ground," he said. "We want to raise the class level at this
intersection, we want a better class of criminals, a better class of
hookers--you're never going to change life in Hollywood, you just do
the best you can."

And the police know that the inertia of decay is hard to turn
around.

"It's gotten better from a few years ago when every 20 feet someone
would try to sell you drugs or rob you," said Arman Sevdalian, senior
lead officer for the Hollywood Division. "But is it safe to bring my
family. No. It's got a long way to go."