Boom goes the market. Pop go affordable abodes. Ameriland developer Ruben Islas’ neighbors were priced out, seemingly overnight, in San Francisco’s Mission District after the dot com explosion. Islas is determined this will not happen in L.A. I’ll call him an entrepreneur with a heart of gold. You’ll be calling The Alexandria, his affordable housing development, the Chelsea Hotel of the West.
Since 1907, the Alex has had many faces. In oughts and the teens it was a Hollywood mecca where so many big deals were made the lobby floor was nicknamed the “million dollar carpet.” The Tiffany glass, gold leaf, and crystal chandeliers sparkled until the opening of the larger Biltmore Hotel in the ‘20s. The Great Depression, and the decline of the Historic Core through the ‘50s contributed to the hotel’s downward spiral.
Most recently, until Islas’ crew stepped in, it was a low-income voucher hotel at the point of no return. Instead of passing President Taft on your way to the historic Palm Court Ballroom, you came upon raves in the neglected spaces, sundry unscrupulous characters, or Ms. Martin, a dancer from Broadway’s golden age, carrying her weekly shopping into shaky but functioning elevators like she has for the past 31 years.
Mr. Islas’ team is stripping away the layers of white-painted damask to get to the Cararra marble heart of the Alex, making way for a flood of new occupants. Creative denizens of downtown such as the painter Emmeric Konrad and Nico Bella, a curator and burlesque show producer now living in Laurel and Hardy’s former suite, are making the Alex their home. “The energy is tangible,” Emmeric says.
But tenants like Ms. Martin aren’t going anywhere. “The diversity is what makes this community,” Islas says. He grew up in affordable housing and he’s trying to lift the negative stigma that often comes with such developments without raising rents. This is the hardest thing for the Alex’s veteran residents (and nay-saying action groups) to believe. No, the rents won’t go up even though every room is being kitted out with all the mod cons of a “micro loft” and the common spaces and ground floor retailers are getting a much needed face lift.
With action-oriented people like Islas and Besten on the job, the Alex is poised as an anchor of downtown’s cultural scene, addressing the community’s affordable housing needs and becoming a focal point for activity. If we love the (as Nico puts it) “dodgy and delicious” downtown we know, this synergy between development and community is vital. “Ruben supports artists, so we should support him,” says Emmeric.
As Richard Montoya of Culture Clash notes, “You can’t just buy buildings and buy culture and fill the buildings with bought culture. It happens from the ground up, in the bars, the galleries, the studios, the lofts, late nights at the speakeasies. But something else must be present—that notion that we are not only building things and conquering new frontiers, but that we are leaving this place better than we found it. It’s no fun to walk into hipster bars downtown and see 200 kids all dressed exactly the same with Von Dutch hats on yelling at the service. I can go to Silver Lake or Echo Park for that shit.” Luckily, the Alex is just the first of Islas’s downtown projects.
If Montoya wants a downtown that reflects us all, then he must like what he sees at his corner booth at Charlie O’s, the bar at the Alex. Rejuvenated, but not homogenized, here, the old guard and new guard share drinks. If you’re a fresh face at the bar, Woodsy, an aging wheel-chaired regular, is likely to welcome you with your next round of poison. “Why L.A. isn’t throwing Islas a parade down Main Street, I don’t know,” Montoya says. “Except that it would depend on who’s council district it’s in and who could get permits.”
For more info on The Alexandria, see www.thealexandria.net
Saskia Vogel has contributed to Swindle magazine. She has completed a nonfiction book on relationships and sexuality in the BDSM scene called Lessons From the House of Sin.