The Fight for Beauty Los Angeles citizens prove elimination of eyesores good business, contagious example.

By ANDREW HAMILTON*

ORLD War I1 and the boom of w t h e late 1940s changed Los Angeles into a sprawling industrial giant, with all the evils of unplanned urban growth. The downtown area was becoming a concrete-and-asphalt jungle, litter was piling up in the alleys and on vacant lots, highways were sprouting a forest of billboards. America’s third largest city was be- ing called its “ugliest and dirtiest.” Old-time residents, remembering Los Angeles’ earlier charm, were ashamed of the city they loved.

On August 13, 1949, a worried group met with Mayor Fletcher Bowron and other civic officials. The spokesman was a well tailored woman with blue eyes and upswept gray hair. She was Valley Knudsen, wife of the owner of the Knudsen Cream- ery Company, one of the largest dairy product firms in the West.

“We are a citizens group known as Los Angeles Beautiful-organized to help stem the rising tide of ugli- ness,” hlrs. Knudsen said. “We offer our cooperation to the city.”

Mayor Bowron, a long-time resi- dent himself and a former Superior Court judge, smiled indulgently. “I’ve seen dozens of such groups

* Rlr. Hamilton is public affairs officer a t the University of California, Los An- peles, and a free lance writer whose articles have appeared in all the leading national magazines. Aside from Navy duties in the Pacific during World War 11, Mr. Hamilton has been an almost lifelong resident of Los Angeles.

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come and go,” he said. “I’ll give yours just one year.”

Eut Los Angeles Beautiful did not die. “Mayor Bowron’s remark made us mad, then stubborn,” says Valley Knudsen. “It was good shock treat- ment and we set out to prove him wrong.”

Today, after twelve years of trial and error, patience and hard work, the impressive accomplishments of this independent citizens group form a pattern to aid any community dis- tressed about its civic countenance.

Good landscaping is now a part of most Los Angeles industrial plants, business offices and public build- ings. Approximately 200,000 new trees have been planted. Freeways are without billboards and miles of landscaped center “islands” have been developed. Insurance rates have dropped as rubbish fires have been cut 55 per cent. The rat population is a t an all-time low. Thousands of children participate each year in gardening and planting contests. Los Angeles’ anti-litter campaign is a year-round effort, not a sporadic drive to be quickly forgotten.

More than four hundred civic and business leaders-many of them as- sociated with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce-have in- vested time, energy and money in Los Angeles Beautiful. They include ban!< presidents, corporation Iaw- yers, steel and petroleum executives, newspaper publishers, landscape

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architects and builders, heads of city and county agencies.

One of Los Angeles Beautiful’s first successes was the landscaping of San Vicente Boulevard, a four- mile thoroughfare that curves from West Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. When the Pacific Electric Railway removed its tracks from the center of this broad street, an ugly, 37-foot-wide ditch remained.

Some merchants and homeowners, with an eye on tax rates, suggested filling in the scar and paving it with black-top at minimum cost. Others, who preferred landscaping, appealed to the newly formed Los Angeles Beau ti ful.

At a meeting of property owners, newspaper publishers and city of- ficials from Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Dr. Samuel F. Ayres, Jr., a dermatologist and Los Angeles Beautiful volunteer, showed colored slides of coral trees in bloom. The vision of four miles of magnificent, flame-colored blossoms wiped out any thought of black-top. San Vicente Boulevard was the first of many land- scaped center islands-not only in Los Angeles but in Glendale, Bur- bank, South Pasadena, San Marino and other nearby communities.

Los Angeles Beautiful volunteers also saw an opportunity to rejuvenate downtown Los Angeles by planting trees along the sidewalks. Valley Knudsen approached Charles Jones, president of Richfield Oil, who is also president of the Los Angeles Men’s Garden Club. He gambled $15,000 to install thirteen trees around Richfield’s downtown build- ing. The cost included not only the trees themselves but also labor to

rearrange underground water and electric lines to accommodate the roots and to install wrought-iron sidewalk grills and guards around the trees.

Ficus retusa, commonly known as Indian laurel, was chosen for the experiment. This hardy tree has glossy evergreen leaves, needs little care and thrives despite severe prun- ing and traffic fumes. A score of other trees-many of them of flower- ing varieties-have been planted in the suburbs. * * *

In the downtown area, other prop- erty owners followed Richfield’s lead. To date, some $200,000 worth of trees in downtown Los Angeles have been given to the city without charge by such firms as the Southern Cali- fornia Edison Company, Union Oil, Standard Federal Loan, Innes Shoes, Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, Title Insurance and many others.

When Valley Knudsen thanked Harold Quinton, chairman of the board of the Southern California Edison Company, for his company’s contribution, he said: “Don’t thank us. We’re doing ourselves a favor by making Southern California a pleas- ant place to live. Civic beauty is good business.”

Los Angeles Beautiful decided that business and industry in the outly- ing areas should also be encouraged to provide handsome plantings. “Some of us got in our cars and drove around,” says Valley Knudsen. “When we saw a factory or a busi- ness establishment with attractive landscaping, we took photographs and presented the flabbergasted owner with a parchment scroll.”

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This program was soon put on an annual basis. Last year 40 awards were made from some 300 nomina- tions-ranging from churches to animal hospitals, stock brokers’ of- fices to laundries, department stores to service stations. Businessmen and industrialists have found that good landscaping improves employee mo- rale, increases the value of their investment, attracts customers and creates sound community relations.

At about the time Los Angeles Beautiful was organized, the Holly- wood Freeway was nearing comple- tion. More than a hundred applica- tions were on file with the Los Angeles City Planning Commission to erect signs along its six-mile length. The volunteers swung into action.

“We knew that if ‘billboard alley’ were established on this freeway, it would be repeated on all the others,” says Valley Knudsen. “So we took direct action. We went to the out- door advertising people and asked them, ‘HOW would you make the freeways beautiful?’ They admitted that signs were not the way to do it.

“It also helped our cause that the State Division of Highways refused to landscape a freeway within a city unless there was a billboard control ordinance. We got agreement on an ordinance and it was passed without opposition from the outdoor ad- vertisers. ”

In order to make the effort a part of the city’s official program, Los Angeles Beautiful proposed the for- mation of a Mayor’s Liaison Com- mittee-composed of the heads of city government and representatives

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of Los Angeles Beautiful. This worked fine at the highest levels but not so well when it came to trans- lating policy into action. So the job of city beautification coordinator was created, to be followed later by a county beautification coordinator.

“Now we get things done,” Valley Knudsen says. “In return, we take a lot of pressure off city hall by answering letters and telephone calls from the public about the city’s planting program.”

Los Angeles Beautiful conducts a year-round anti-litter campaign. Thousands of automobile “litter- bags,” to be used inside cars, are dispensed by Los Angeles clubs, service stations, department stores, even banks. Week in and week out, newspapers, radio and T V stations and bus posters carry the message, “Don’t Be a Litterbug! ” The strik- ing TV and radio spot announce- ments, developed by Los Angeles Beautiful, were so successful that they are now used all over the United States in anti-litter campaigns.

A few years ago trash containers went unnoticed in the clutter of mail boxes, newspaper stands, fire boxes and bus stop signs on Los Angeles street corners. Now they are easily seen and among the most stylish in the nation. Los Angeles Beautiful asked the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors to work out an eye- catching color scheme. Robert Doyle and Renri Jaffa suggested desert gold and jade green in combination with slogans that gently chide the public-(‘Hey There, You With the Trash in Your Hand,” or “Stow It -Don’t Throw It.”

Los Angeles’ twelve-year fight

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against litter has turned back the tide of paper and cans. W. D. Sedg- wick, state highway maintenance engineer in Los Angeles, said that his department bought two vacuum-type roadside cleaners several years ago. “We have a hard time keeping them busy today,” he said.

Another recent project is “Opera- tion Eyesore.” “We have become so used to living with ugly buildings and rubbish-covered vacant lots that we sometimes don’t even see them,” says Mrs. Knudsen. ‘‘ ‘Operation Eyesore’ is designed to take off the blinkers.” * * *

Most Los Angeles parking lots, for example, had a disreputable shack in the center where the opera- tor punched tickets. Walls at the side and back were usually covered with old tattered posters. Volunteers started by approaching various park- ing lot owners. As an experiment, William Bruce fixed up one of his Allright California lots with an at- tractive brick wall and tropical land- scaping. His competitors noticed that his business picked up. Now they are beautifying also.

Los Angeles Beautiful soon found that good ideas are contagious. To- day, some 90 communities in Southern California look to the group for example and advice and letters of inquiry pour in from many U.S. and foreign cities.

What are the ingredients of this winning formula? Mrs. Knudsen ticks off five essential points:

“First, we’re a volunteer organi-

zation. Aside from the salary of one city beautification coordinator, Ben Morris, all expenses are paid from a $50,000 annual budget contributed by individuals, business and industry. The only salaries paid by Los Angeles Beautiful are those of Fred Chase, an ex-Los Angeles newspaperman who has been executive director since 1956, and his secretary.

“Second, we work closely with city, county and state officials. There are some things that citizens cannot do independently and others which gov- ernment cannot accomplish without citizen support. Cooperation between the two is essential.

“Third, we have kept our budget at a minimum. If the budget is plush, people do not have the satisfaction of giving of themselves.

“Fourth, instead of fighting for what we want, we persuade and ex- plain. If we lose one year, we come back the next with better plans and better arguments. As my mother used to tell me, ‘Try all the keys in the bunch.’

“Fifth, ours is a year-round effort. You can’t accomplish lasting results on a hit-or-miss basis.”

People sometimes ask Mrs. Knud- sen, “Why go to the trouble of beautifying Los Angeles when eye- stinging smog often hangs over the city?” Valley Knudsen answers: “Smog is being worked on by capable scientists, and one day they’ll lick it. When the skies are clear again, we want to be well along with our program-to have a beautiful city to enjoy.”