Today is Los Angeles's birthday--the city is now a spry 227 years old. So young, really. But like a stern parent, a Los Angeles Times OpEd uses today to give a somber talk to the city about disregarding the past. Respect your elders! Otherwise, it's more of the same: Goodbye Olvera Street, goodbye Chinatown, goodbye Ambassador Hotel. "In a place with so little history left to preserve, the efforts of preservationists can sometimes seem comical, like the crusade to save an architecturally generic Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard because some famous rock stars used to sign albums there. Nonetheless, such battles are welcome in a region that has paid a price for its headlong obsession with modernity. The lack of a common narrative about the past contributes to the sense of L.A. as a collection of communities in search of a city." [LA Times]
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