Wheelchair Racers Roll Through Downtown

What the heck were the organizers of the marathon thinking?! The new course they devised went through way too many of some of the ugliest streets in Los Angeles, which says a lot about just how bad they were.

After tuning in to the coverage on TV today, I’m so turned off by what I saw that I find myself snickering at the idea of another Olympics coming to this city.

RE: Lannie200:

Ugggh!!! I detect the presence of a high horse!!! I hope you never fall off it… Wow- wouldn’t it be nice if the entire city (and world)was a pretty beachfront paradise filled with soy latte sipping, perfectly conditioned and immaculately dressed Fred Segal types who never had to imagine that there are “ugly streets”, much less people who might live in another type of life… I am thinking that most of the runners found the route fascinating and much more interesting than a route limited to “affluent” areas. I live at the corner of two of those so-called “ugly streets”, and I can live anywhere in this city I would like - yes, even right at the beach if I chose to. I live Downtown because it is real, it is interesting and there is a pronounced lack of people who seem to say things like I just read in your post. That was one of the ugliest posts I have seen in a long time. Shame on you… though you certainly have the right to your opinion.

It is time we realized what city we are in, and look beyond the carefully crafted “Hollywood” or “Chamber of Commerce” veneer. There is a whole lot of work to be done in LA, and it starts by being real and honest about what is going on.

Guys ! This is not the Las Vegas strip ! If the marathon were only run through the beautiful parts of L.A. it will be a very short race indeed.

Yes, most windows have bars over them. There is garbage littering every cracked and broken sidewalk. Yes many walls, trees, and even street signs are covered with graffiti.

This is not an image problem, folks, we can’t keep showing the world our glamour side, and pretend we are a happy city.

We have serious issues, much deeper than skin deep, such as crime, homelessness, high dropout rates, and poverty.

So, let the world see it, like it is. They could’ve ran from Santa Monica to Hollywood to Burbank. They didn’t… and maybe now those who tuned in will change their vacation plans. And our politicians will ask themselves, what have we allowed our city to become ?

On another note:

Congratulations to these brave and dedicated wheelchair athletes. I saw two Japanese racers a week before the race, scouting the route on their wheelchairs. The traffic in the streets was too crowded, so they rolled on the sidewalk.

I wonder how they managed to traverse our broken sidewalk system.

I swear I didn’t write the following words in Monday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times, from a column by Michael Newman:

“So I think I speak with some authority, if not much originality, when I say that much of Los Angeles isn’t very pretty. There’s only one way this race can be saved: Like a visiting relative from Wisconsin, it must be sent to the beach.”

And he’s not the only one with that opinion. Click on the second and third links from the top of this page at Google.com:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Los+Angeles+ugly

There’s an entry in this blog about the “Keep Los Angeles Beautiful” campaign. How about making the city beautiful to begin with?

Great article in the LA TIMES California section today, recounting yesterday’s marathon with some wonderful quotes from participants and bystanders. It seems, contrary to some of the above posts, the new route is a huge success. I had no idea the race was such a social event. Kudos to the planners for using the event to bring different areas of the city together.

Not only does the new route take better advantage of our mass transit system (and in doing so introduce it to people who have never used it before!), it also allows people to see areas of los angeles they wouldn’t ordinarily see (some good and some bad but all part of this city) and to be cheered on by the good folks who live in these divergent neighborhoods.

Bravo!

Michael Newman et al can have his race “saved” by moving it to the beach, (maybe call it the Malibu Matathon) and meanwhile the vast rest of us might look forward to seeing the 2008 LA Marathon in yet more diverse, non-cookie cutter neigborhoods. I don’t think he speaks with any authority at all, as aesthetics is a personal thing, and a big part of the beauty (if there is such a thing anyhow) of this city is the ethnic neighborhoods and industrial zones that offer a radical counterpoint to the mass-produced “lifestyles” in the suburbs. I’d like to see the race take in a little more of the Valley, and possibly be a straight line type of run, say from NoHo down over the hills to Hollywood and Downtown and then to Crenshaw, ending at or near Venice (if the miles work out). LA does not have 26.2 miles of beachfront, people - it has a few miles north of Santa Monica, a couple of miles north of LAX, the abandoned community along the airport’s edge, and then way down in San Pedro there’s a couple more miles. How would one set up that race??? It is the LA Marathon after all - and maybe at most about 4% of the city’s population live within a few blocks of the beach.

I can understand the desire to showcase the city’s best features - but there is something very satisfying to this person at least about it going through the neighborhoods (like Boyle Heights and Mid-City) that really represent what LA actually is. I have a hard time saying that the beach, Encino and Brentwood are necessarily “better” than Boyle Heights, Downtown and Exposition Park - sure, they might be prettier, but they are rather devoid of soul… comparatively, ‘es no sabor!