Miracle Mile Residential Association Special Bulletin • Feb. 19, 2019 Miracle Mile

Residential Association Special Bulletin • February 19, 2019 • Los Angeles, California Click on photos to enlarge. Important Tom Bergin’s

Landmark Vote Scheduled

for March 7, 2019

A few hours of your time can save Tom Bergin’s

for generations to come… On March 7, 2019 the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission [CHC] will vote whether or not to recommend Tom Bergin’s “Old Tavern and Thoroughbred Club” to become a Historic-Cultural Monument [HCM]. The Commission’s recommendation is a prerequisite to bringing Bergin’s landmark nomination to a full vote by the City Council, who will ultimately determine if Bergin’s will be preserved.



In November 2018 the CHC voted unanimously to take the HCM nomination of Bergin’s under consideration. The following month CHC members toured Bergin’s as part of their fact-finding.



The City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Ordinance, enacted in 1962, allows for the designation of buildings and sites as individual local landmarks, called “Historic-Cultural Monuments.” The City currently has over 1,000 Historic-Cultural Monuments, providing official recognition and protection for Los Angeles’ most significant and cherished historic resources.



To date over 700 emails from every corner of Los Angeles – and all over the United States – have been sent to the CHC and Councilmember David Ryu supporting HCM designation for this well-known Los Angeles establishment. A “Save Bergin’s” Facebook page has been created by the “Friends of Tom Bergin’s.”



Widespread community support to protect Bergin’s from threats of demolition for redevelopment prompted the Los Angeles Conservancy and the Miracle Mile Residential Association [MMRA] to co-sponsor a HCM application for Bergin’s, which was submitted in September 2018.



P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council, which represents neighborhoods straddling Fairfax Avenue and Pico Boulevard south of San Vicente Boulevard, unanimously approved a Community Impact Statement endorsing HCM status for Bergin’s in October 2018.



Bergin’s is located within the boundaries of Mid City West Community Council, which provided financial support for the drafting of Bergin’s HCM Nomination.



One of the most iconic neighborhood taverns and restaurants in L.A., Bergin’s was built in 1949 and has the second oldest liquor license in the city. The clinker-brick structure on Fairfax Avenue is a fixture of the Miracle Mile and Carthay Circle communities. The ceilings of the venerable establishment are covered with many decades of hand painted shamrocks featuring the names of its regular customers, which includes many Hollywood stars.



“Bergin’s is probably the best known ‘landmark’ in town that doesn’t actually enjoy the protections of official landmark status,” said Ken Hixon, MMRA Vice President. “It was the place for locals to gather and rub elbows with its more famous patrons like Cary Grant, Bing Crosby, or Julia Roberts. Tom Bergin’s plays a very celebrated role in the history of the Miracle Mile. The MMRA and our partners are dedicated to the preservation of the building.”

What can you do to save

Tom Bergin’s?

Attend the Cultural Heritage Commission Hearing

Thursday, March 7, 2019

10 A.M

City Hall

200 North Spring Street

Room 1010, 10 th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Attending City Hall hearings is difficult for most people given their busy schedules – but this is why your attendance is absolutely crucial, because it demonstrates just how much preserving Tom Bergin’s means to you and the community. The number of supporters in attendance has a large impact on commissioners. It also provides you with an opportunity to directly address the commission on why Tom Bergin’s deserves to be a landmark. A few hours of your time can save Bergin’s for generations to come. Email Your Support Today!

Over 700 messages have been sent to the Cultural Heritage Commission and Councilmember Ryu supporting landmark status for Bergin's. We can easily surpass 1000 messages of support if each of you ask a neighbor, friend, or family member to join our cause. It’s fast and easy, just share the link: https://support.miraclemilela.com Or forward this bulletin and they can click on the shamrock:

Like us on Facebook:

Friends of Tom Bergin's In the news:

Circa 1957 postcard. Tom Bergin’s: Saving a Landmark,

Not a Memory By Tim Deegan – CityWatch, 5 Nov. 2018



If you ever drove through the Bergin’s-adjacent neighborhood and been repulsed by the faux mansions and cookie cutter boxes that have been slowly displacing charming hundred-year-old homes that you remember, you may feel the pang of preservation and want to say something to keep the facade of Bergin’s as a local landmark.



If you ever traversed Fairfax from Olympic to Beverly and noticed how Bergin’s pops out as a visual landmark -- along with Googie-style Johnnies, the Petersen Car Museum, LACMA, the-soon-to-be Academy’s Movie Museum, the Farmer’s Market and The Grove, and CBS Television City you may wonder why this stretch of road is so heavily marked with memorable structures that stick out. It’s mainly coincidental, but without some vigilance the architectural eye candy could melt under pressure from developers anxious to put their footprints and fingerprints on a very desirable swath of mid-city Los Angeles.







The professionals have also arrived, in the way of Architectural Resources Group, an architecture and urban planning firm with what they call “particular expertise in the area of historic preservation.” They have prepared an extensive study of Bergin’s that led to the Planning Department recommending to the Cultural Heritage Commission to “take the proposed designation of a Monument under consideration.” On Thursday, November 1, the Commission did just that, with a unanimous vote, taking the first formal step in the review process.



The commissioners heard presentations from applicants Los Angeles Conservancy and Miracle Mile Residential Association, and by Architectural Resources Group that helped create the application, and representatives from the Mid City West Community Council that also supports and helped fund the application. Now they will formally study the matter that is presented in the Los Angeles Department of City Planning’s Recommendation Report. The community goal is a declaration of the property as a Historic-Cultural Monument.



The originally-styled “Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe Tavern and Thoroughbred Club,” opened its doors in 1936 at 6110 Wilshire Boulevard and moved to its Tudor Revival architectural style present‐day location on 840 South Fairfax Avenue in 1949. It remained in near continuous operation as a restaurant and tavern until its closure earlier in 2018. Tom Bergin’s, in business for over 80 years, is entitled with the second‐oldest liquor license in Los Angeles and is one of Los Angeles’ oldest bars and restaurants.



Why does any of this matter? It’s not the history as much as the presence. It’s important for sustainable memory, a concept that urban planners may not articulate but one that supports what they do: creating a location that has resonance.







Eventually without tangible proof, we may forget that Bergin’s ever existed; the community is now forcing a “last call” that the If you ever got happily buzzed with friends sitting around the famous “horseshoe bar” in Tom Bergin’s Irish bar on Fairfax Avenue just south of Museum Row you may want to always be able to drive past the now-shuttered pub, glance at it, and smile at the memories. If it’s torn down for future development your memories may be crumbled, along with the walls.If you ever drove through the Bergin’s-adjacent neighborhood and been repulsed by the faux mansions and cookie cutter boxes that have been slowly displacing charming hundred-year-old homes that you remember, you may feel the pang of preservation and want to say something to keep the facade of Bergin’s as a local landmark.If you ever traversed Fairfax from Olympic to Beverly and noticed how Bergin’s pops out as a visual landmark -- along with Googie-style Johnnies, the Petersen Car Museum, LACMA, the-soon-to-be Academy’s Movie Museum, the Farmer’s Market and The Grove, and CBS Television City you may wonder why this stretch of road is so heavily marked with memorable structures that stick out. It’s mainly coincidental, but without some vigilance the architectural eye candy could melt under pressure from developers anxious to put their footprints and fingerprints on a very desirable swath of mid-city Los Angeles. Preservation of Bergin’s is now a hot issue with many locals saying “I’ll drink to that” -- “that” being an attempt to obtain Historic-Cultural Monument status for Tom Bergin’s. It may take a village, as the trope goes, but the Bergin’s supporters have also brought out the artillery in their preservation campaign. The local residential association (Miracle Mile Residential Association), the preservationists at the Los Angeles Conservancy, the neighborhood Council (Mid City West Community Council), an adjacent neighborhood council (Pico Neighborhood Council), and a letter writing campaign directed at Councilmember David Ryu (CD4) that supporters claim has risen to almost 700 letters urging his support for preservation. All these efforts are now working toward preserving Tom Bergin’s.The professionals have also arrived, in the way of Architectural Resources Group, an architecture and urban planning firm with what they call “particular expertise in the area of historic preservation.” They have prepared an extensive study of Bergin’s that led to the Planning Department recommending to the Cultural Heritage Commission to “take the proposed designation of a Monument under consideration.” On Thursday, November 1, the Commission did just that, with a unanimous vote, taking the first formal step in the review process.The commissioners heard presentations from applicants Los Angeles Conservancy and Miracle Mile Residential Association, and by Architectural Resources Group that helped create the application, and representatives from the Mid City West Community Council that also supports and helped fund the application. Now they will formally study the matter that is presented in the Los Angeles Department of City Planning’s Recommendation Report. The community goal is a declaration of the property as a Historic-Cultural Monument.The originally-styled “Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe Tavern and Thoroughbred Club,” opened its doors in 1936 at 6110 Wilshire Boulevard and moved to its Tudor Revival architectural style present‐day location on 840 South Fairfax Avenue in 1949. It remained in near continuous operation as a restaurant and tavern until its closure earlier in 2018. Tom Bergin’s, in business for over 80 years, is entitled with the second‐oldest liquor license in Los Angeles and is one of Los Angeles’ oldest bars and restaurants.Why does any of this matter? It’s not the history as much as the presence. It’s important for sustainable memory, a concept that urban planners may not articulate but one that supports what they do: creating a location that has resonance. Michael Ondaatje (“The English Patient”) has a new novel called “Warlight” in which the narrative deals a lot with “shifting memories” and explores an idea that our memories may not be what happened, but what we think happened. With Bergin’s gone, replaced possibly by a tower, our memory of it and how it integrated into the community will slowly disintegrate and we will need, like the “Warlight” protagonist, to stitch together what we think our memory of it was, instead of being able to confront it in reality because the building is still there in plain view. Preservation is a small-scale relief for a bigger scale riddle: how do we remember the Los Angeles that we once knew when the physical reminders of our memories are being transformed, forcing us to conjure up memories of what we think we knew?Eventually without tangible proof, we may forget that Bergin’s ever existed; the community is now forcing a “last call” that the Office of Historic Resources in the Department of City Planning and their Cultural Heritage Commission is seeing if they can answer. timdeegan2015@gmail.com . Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. Tim Deegan is a civic activist whose DEEGAN ON LA weekly column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appear in CityWatch . Tim can be reached at. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. Did we misspell or mangle your name? We're constantly updating our contact list and sometimes things get lost in translation. Please contact us if we made a a mistake: newsletter@MiracleMileLA.com UPCOMING EVENTS

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James O’Sullivan, PresidentJoseph Steins, TreasurerKen Hixon, Senior Vice PresidentMark Zecca, Vice PresidentHPOZ, Planning and Land UseKari Garcia, Vice PresidentMiracle Mile Neighborhood WatchKimberly Klein, Vice PresidentDirector of Communications