Taking a critical look at L.A. 'supergraphics'

Are "supergraphics" super ugly? After a failed effort earlier this week to block a pair of giant digital billboards downtown, L.A. Councilman Jack Weiss today targeted giant supergraphics ads. Weiss says that sprawling supergraphics that wrap up and around buildings are popping up in neighborhoods where they are illegal, and he wants the city to enforce laws and impose fines to keep them out of sight, reports Molly Hennessy-Fiske, who is working on a full story.

The councilman made his case this morning along with residents and billboard opponents at the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Overland Avenue, where a supergraphic for Gap stores was stretched along several stories of an office building (pictured here as it was being installed). Neighbors complained that unlike neighboring billboards advertising "American Idol" and "America’s Next Top Model," the Gap supergraphic and its lights are visible from blocks away and disrupt the feel of the West Los Angeles area neighborhood.

“It’s visual blight, a distraction to motorists, just treating the architecture of the city as a canvas,” said Dennis Hathaway, a spokesman for the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight.

Of course, with that dreaded Westside traffic, those supergraphics certainly give motorists something interesting to look at while waiting for the light to change.

-- Jesus Sanchez

Photo: Office of Councilman Jack Weiss

Comments

[Marcotico]

I like those supergraphics! Think about what you think of when you think of Tokyo, or if you've ever been to Copenhagen. You'll see that advertising can be a beautiful and interesting part of the urban landscape.

[Seen the Light]

Yes, these huge monstrosities make a neighborhood look very lower-class and industrial, and don't fit in places like the westside where people have worked hard to preserve their investments in their homes and communities. Community Specific Plans, Zoning and other "techniques" are in place to give residents some control over their neighborhoods. Certainly, they have more right to determine what is and isn't appropriate than some giant Billboard Companies, who don't care about that community at all, and just select locations with driveby traffic, placing these giant, ugly things precisely because they catch the eye from far away.

Are these particular Billboards being placed by ClearChannel/CBS, by the way? The company which has shaken down the city again and again, violating an agreement it reached with Rocky Delgadillo in 06, which required it to pay a $300/ per sign inspection fee, and that's for some 11,000 signs? Even THAT was against Rocky's orders from City Council -- Rocky got some $500 million in advertising from ClearChannel during his run for City Attorney, against anti-billboard, pro-Community activist Mike Feuer, not coincidentally. But ClearChannel/CBS has refused to pay even those fees, suing the city over that deal, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME DEMANDING THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT QUID PRO QUO, PUTTING UP SOME LARGER SIGNS. Which were supposed to be approved and subject to Community Specific Plans.

Just a couple of days ago, ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors succeeded in duping Councilmembers Jan Perry (who sounded frighteningly dumb during the hearings, by the way, accusing those tired of her side's "dog and pony show" which whitewashed ClearChannel, of "likening your brothers and sisters to dogs and ponies, to animals", taking it literally!!!) and Ed Reyes (who's long been on an active campaign raling against the westside and hillside communities for not allowing him to violate their zoning and Community Plans by putting low-income projects into Brentwood and on Mulholland Drive) into turning the whole issue of two lighted 7-story video billboards on a highway, into villainizing these westside opponents of ugly and dangerous billboards.

ClearChannel/CBS offered to kick some bucks toward a park in Perry's area IF they were allowed to violate all agreements and obligations to pay the City, via some convoluted tie-in deal involving the MTA. (The L A Weekly's Christine Pelicek and Jill Stewart have the stories, and Patt Morrison and David Zahniser of this paper had some pretty good but not as comprehensive articles on it.) By law and morality, these two issues should have been unbundled: ClearChannel/CBS should just give the money for the park, without obligating the westside (where it wants to put most of its blight) to taking these ugly signs and worse. ESPECIALLY WHEN CLEARCHANNEL/CBS OWES OUR CITY, WHICH IS IN MAJOR FINANCIAL CRISIS, TENS OF MILLIONS OF BACK DOLLARS ALREADY AND IS SUING US. Other billboard companies now demand the same rights, and are suing us, too. (Thanks, Rocky!) Worst of all, the westsiders who are looking out for the city and the law, are made out the bad guys in some contorted logic by Perry/Reyes and their misled community members. Sure, some of these groups have a rep as NIMBYs who oppose everything, but each issue should be looked at on its own merits.

I hope the Times gets the whole story sorted out, in correct detail, the next time around. Your articles have seemed afraid of a P C backlash lately, and have made Ed Reyes vs. Zev Yaroslavsky a story favoring the divisive Reyes come out ahead of the County Supervisor who is trying to preserve sanity in the face of all-out assault on the rights of property owners and long-time residents. (This is NOT simply an issue of AB1818 as it would apply to carefully planned developments along transit corridors and Boulevards -- Reyes is talking about all-out destroying every community plan and zoning regulation for his socialistic interpretation of "social justice."

[Seen the Light]

Marcotico: I've been to Tokyo, and you apparently missed the fact there billboards like this are only in Ginza and other highly commercial areas, the equivalents of Times Square. The affluent, residential areas shun them. Of course, it's harder to have low-rise and high-rise areas than here, and the former are now very, very expensive, making prices in L A and even New York look cheap, but the Japanese also have a VERY clearly defined boundary between commercial and low=density, desirable residentail. This spills into their suburbs, too.

In New York city also, you won't find this blight on the better residential streets, none in the east 30's to 80's and you'd be thrown in the River should you try this on posh Sutton place. Same holds for every city with comercial and residential areas. So stop trying to mix apples and oranges in an attempt to sound like some sort of superior citizen of the world, you're not: backpacking in hostels, you've only seen the tacky and flashy part of the cities you go to.

[The Critic]

You all need to lighten up. They're just signs for god's sake! If the architecture was worth anything, they wouldn't cover it up. Besides, there is some architecture that serves as nothing more than a billboard. You should consider moving to one of those polygamist ranches down in Texas if you want to control who can and cannot put a billboard on the side of a building. I love LA!

[SuperBlight]

It is always so very sad when people defend corporations rather than their fellow residents. Also how does some architecture serve as nothing more than a billboard? Do you really think it's a great idea having ads all over the city? How does it benefit the citizens to be subjected to looking at advertising all day even from within their homes? Also don't forget the facts...these 'supergraphics' are ILLEGAL! So you are basically taking the side of faceless corporations that are committing crimes over your fellow citizens.. maybe you should move to "those polygamist ranches down in Texas" . We need more people in L.A that actually care and want to improve the city not denigrate it! There are things that can be done to prevent the decline of cities , but sitting back apathetically is definitely not one of them!

[Tammy]

Right on, SuperBlight!
I was appalled by 'the critics' lack of civic pride and taste. Please, do, move elsewhere if you undervalue LA so much.

It is also important for us to make the distinction between cities like LA and Tokyo, as 'Seen the Light' does so well.

Comparing LA to Tokyo is silly. The actual residential and metro areas are quite intertwinded in LA. With this in mind, the city planners and councils should take care in determining where billboards are appropriate and where they are not. They currently clearly do not take such care, which brings LA down, and makes many neighborhoods, many where home values are in the $million+ range (now, maybe, not for long...thanks Delgadillo and Garcetti!) look like ghettos.

So sad.