LA Poverty Department's "Skid Row History Museum" will be installed at The Box Gallery, in Chinatown from June 28 through August 2, 2008.
The show is open and FREE to all.
Open: Wednesday thru Saturday from NOON to 6 PM.
June 28; 6 - 9 PM - OPENING EVENT
Live From Skid Row: Jeff Dietrich and Catherine Morris of the Catholic Worker and the Hippie Kitchen remember remarkable people and initiatives. Music from SS Jones and Oscar Harvey. Performances by Ibrahim Saba and Kevin Michael Key. Food & drinks.
JULY 18, Friday, 6 – 9pm | @ Lamp Community Art Project Gallery
452 S. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013 Live From Skid Row: Pete White and Becky Dennison of LA Community Action Network (LACAN) remember remarkable people and initiatives. Music from UTOPIA/dystopia perfromance by Weba Garretson and Ralph Gorodetsky. Performance by Dr. Mongo, Michelle Autry and Sunshine Mills. Food & drinks.
JULY 25, Friday, 2 – 6pm | @ The Box Gallery - WORKSHOP
Live From Skid Row: Workshop for Skid Row residents with Lamp Community and the Downtown Women’s Center. Food & drinks.
JULY 26, Saturday, 6 – 9pm | @ The Box Gallery - PERFORMANCE & PUBLIC CONVERSATION Live From Skid Row: Mollie Lowery, founder and first executive director of Lamp Community remembers remarkable people and initiatives. Music from Code Zero. Performance by Tony Parker and Charles Porter. Food & drinks.
AUGUST 2, Saturday, 6 – 9pm | @ The Box Gallery - CLOSING RECEPTION
Live From Skid Row: Ted Hayes, founder of Dome Village remembers remarkable people and initiatives. Music from Ron Taylor, Lucky Dragon , Church of the Nazarene Gospel Choir. Performance by Riccarlo Porter. Food & drinks.
A major part of this exhibition are events such as the opening,
that will include public discussions with key figures of the Skid Row
community, musical and dramatic performances and workshops for Skid Row residents.
 FREE SHOPPING CARTS
Periodically the LA Police Department has made life difficult for people by claiming that their shopping carts were “stolen property.” The Catholic Worker bought shopping carts and gives them away to people who want them.
This "museum" is temporary and is a planning phase for a permanent "museum' in the form of a series of public artworks that would acknowledge the cultural contribution to the city of people who have lived and worked in Skid Row LA and recognize the history and shifting contours of the area.
Recognizing that the contours of the Skid Row and downtown Los Angeles
have always been dynamic, the museum will include history and events
outside the recognizable boundaries of Skid Row today --- and illuminate
the social dynamics and public policies that have and continue to shape
the area and public perception of the area.
Skid Row is an amazing place with amazing community assets. Skid Row
LA has the largest concentration of the most affordable housing in Los
Angeles County, Skid Row is the biggest recovery culture anywhere.
Skid Row's highly developed drug recovery consciousness includes free
recovery programs and numerous AA, NA and CA groups. Skid Row has the
largest concentration and most comprehensive set of services for
homeless people in LA County. In short, the community has long been a
generative site for visionary answers to social problems.
These visionary initiatives have come about through individual and
collective concern by community members and moments of enlightened
public policy and visionary non-profit efforts. Largely under
appreciated, is the extent to which the visionary efforts have been the
work of community members. Without the civic engagement of citizens of
Skid Row, the housing stock would not have been preserved, the people
and social services would have been dispersed and the Safe Haven
recovery community would not exist.
This show " The History of Skid Row Museum" is meant to highlight the
cultural, civic and political initiatives and the community people that
made them. This 'museum show" is a dynamic process. During the course
of the show we want to hear of additional people and initiatives.
During events connected with the show and in the gallery there is space
for you, the public, to contribute your knowledge of special people and
initiatives.
Eventually the "museum' will be housed out of doors as a series of
public artworks and plaques commemorating people in the places where
they lived and worked. We invite you to suggest people and designs for
these plaques. At the moment we are thinking of something like an
alternative to "walk of stars"→ because while these people are stars,
their concern for the wellbeing of their community means that they are
exactly not about setting themselves apart from everybody else, but
rather about raising everybody up together. Enjoy the show and help
us figure all this out.
 COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUES
3 possible designs for commemorative plaques honoring people and initiatives in Skid Row. The 3 represented in these mock-ups are all worthy honorees -- but at this point they are only possible honorees. Each, in his or her own way, contributed to important advances in the neighborhood: decent housing, recovery and community empowerment. We don’t know how many initiatives and people will be honored or who they will be. We don’t know what the design will be either. We want your ideas on people and initiatives and on the design.
Download 3 possible designs: commemorative plaques
TIMELINE
The timeline in the back room references significant events in the
history of the Skid Row neighborhood, and a few written artifacts
accompany the timeline. More artifacts and extensive written materials
on the events in the timeline are to be found in the notebooks on the
resource table.
PULL UP A CHAIR
The resource table is there for two reasons: to give you more information and to activate you to throw in your own two cents (and gazillion bucks) worth of ideas for plaque designs and worthy recipients. The resource table includes in-depth written material on the history of Skid Row and on initiatives featured in the show and other equally worthy Skid Row initiatives. There are artifacts in the form of fliers, notes, etc. Other books on the resource table include a book of shapes and examples of other commemorative plaques from other places. The large book is for you to write and draw your own commemorative plaques.
 IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK
This is a recreation of the television at Another Planet, an outdoor
community arts center started at a former gas station by Clyde Casey,
(pictured, at right) at the southeast corner of Wall and Boyd Streets
on April 15, 1988. Another Planet burnt down a little over a year
later, in the summer of 1989. Also recreated from Another Planet, is
the suspended planet being watched over by a cupped hand. Much more on
Another Planet is in the notebooks on the resource table. In keeping
with the futuristic spirit of Another Planet, the “It’s later than you
think.” monitor features images and text on many more possible
commemorative plaque honorees.
 COMMUNITY ASSETS
A big wall including only some of the many, many people and initiatives creating community on Skid Row and Skid Row adjacent real estate. In April 2007 los Angeles Poverty Department initiated its UTOPIA/dystopia project , seeking to find out how flesh and blood people living and working downtown envision the future of downtown and what kind of downtown they would like to be a part of. This instead of being told what people want by newspapers, political leaders and developers.
 4118 D SIGNS
This law, enacted in 1968 to disappear Hippies from Hollywood
Boulevard, has been periodically dusted off and utilized to harass,
displace, arrest and or separate homeless people from their belongings.
Every time it’s been dusted off, it’s gotten itself in trouble with the
law: the Courts and the Constitution of the United States. In September
2006, Judge Kim Wardlaw of the 9th District Court of Appeals wrote that
the LAPD cannot arrest people for sitting, lying or sleeping on public
sidewalks in Skid Row as such enforcement would amount to cruel and
unusual punishment because there are not enough shelter beds, and Judge
Wardlaw concluded that prohibiting homeless people from sleeping on the
streets was a violation of the 8th Amendment which bars cruel and
unusual punishment. The judge told LAPD and the City to reach a
settlement with the ACLU. LA City Council put off settlement for a full
year, reasoning they could continue to enforce 41.18d until a
settlement was reached. Nevertheless its proponents have trotted it out
again and again, each time tweaking it, in hopes of making it
constitutional. It hasn’t happened yet. A number of these failed
attempts are documented in this show. They stand in counterpoint to the
rest of the show which celebrates effective policies and individual and
group initiatives.
 RESIDENTIAL HOTEL
Veronica Doleman of LA Community Action Network (LA CAN) made a model
of an affordable hotel and its happy tenants. The hotel made a
statement about the need for an ordinance to preserve affordable
residential hotel stock, in a time of “adaptive re-use.” Veronica’s
hotel model was one of LA CAN’s contributions to the monthly Downtown
Art Walk. Largely through LA CAN’s ability to bring together hotel
tenants to advocate for their own interests, the LA City Council
recently enacted legislation to permanently preserve the affordable
hotel stock. On video Veronica, Steve Diaz and other LA CAN members
talk of their efforts to prevent the displacement of the long time
resident community of downtown.
 SIDEWALK OUTSIDE --- DESIGNATED SLEEPING ZONE
Another example of the resurgence of the 41.18d mentality. In 1997, in
an effort to make 41.18d legal, certain areas were designated as
“sleeping zones.” If you slept there —and disappeared by 6 am— the
promise was that you would avoid police harassment and possible arrest.
Jim Hahn was LA City Attorney from 1985 to 2001 and he consistently
refused to prosecute the homeless for sleeping outside unless the City
provided them with an alternative. Hahn’s principled and reasonable
stand had a number of unintended consequences that included not only
1997’s “designated sleeping zones,” but also the infamous “Urban
Campground” opened by Mayor Tom Bradley in 1987, on a dusty lot at 4th
and Santa Fe, by the LA River. More on the Urban Campground, in the
timeline and resource table located in the back room of the gallery.
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