BLUE BOOK – GREEN PAPER
EXHIBITION designed by Robert M. Ochshorn curated by LAPD / SRHM&A’s John Malpede.

Nov. 22, 2022 – Jan. 28, 2023
Tue, Thu: 10am -5pm.

The Skid Row Now & 2040 Coalition releases its policy paper Containment and Community: History of Skid Row and its Role in the Downtown Community Plan with the exhibit Blue Book – Green Paper.

Bunker Hill, the triumph of capital over community. Tens of thousands displaced.  Get ready for Bunker Hill 2 –the sequel. A plan to raze Skid Row.

That was the situation in 1973 when Tom Bradley took office. The plan had been adopted before Bradley took office. People didn’t like it. Residents didn’t want to lose their apartments, housing activists were beside themselves, Developers in other parts of town wanted those redevelopment tax dollars for themselves.

Mayor Bradley Stopped the process.
Out of nowhere an alternative plan appeared. The Blue Book. In it, community activists laid out a plan to save the housing in Skid Row –and to protect it from development. City Council adopted this plan: no market rate housing would be allowed between Main and Alameda, 3^rd St. and 7^th St.

Now you can see the Blue Book plan come to life.
One Book, one table. See the activists who made the plan emerge from the Book. Turn a page and Catherine Morris jumps out of the book, her image appears on the table and she tells us how she got the idea to intervene in the planning process. Turn another page and thematically linked photos, videos, audio, and paper documents, pop up, and are projected. The show is designed by Robert M. Ochshorn curated by LAPD / SRHM&A’s John Malpede. Ochshorn is the co-founder of San Francisco based, REDUCT, Inc. where he designs media interfaces for extending human perceptive and expressive capabilities.

Why Now?
A new plan for downtown is about to go to City Council. It will define what’s possible in downtown development for the next 20 years. Now, there’s a sequel to the Blue Book Plan — The Green Paper (‘cause it’s got a green cover). Skid Row Now & 2040, a neighborhood coalition of grass roots organizations and residents, has been in dialogue with the planners to ensure that the final plan will benefit current residents of Skid Row: including housing for everyone, neighborhood amenities and no displacement. These concerns and recommendations are articulated in our paper, Containment and Community: The History of Skid Row and its Role in the Downtown Community Plan.

Come see The Blue Book come to life and get yourself a copy of The Green Paper. Help ensure this successor to the Blue Book is adopted and has a long, and fruitful life.