BUS STOP PLANNER SHOULD BE BENCHED.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

RESEDA - Bea and Bill Adams wouldn't recognize their old Reseda neighborhood anymore, but the tiny, 626-square-foot house they lived in for nearly 50 years - the home designed for them by famed architect Lloyd Wright in 1939 - hasn't changed one bit.

It's still there for everyone to see on the corner of Tampa Avenue and Valerio Street - so unique in design and history that the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission designated it a Historical Cultural Monument in 1996 - the only such landmark in Reseda.

Now, the house that Frank Lloyd Wright's son designed for $125 at his father's request is getting another city designation.

A couple of Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus benches with ads on them right in front of the old Adams house - city historical landmark No. 629.

They'll be placed on a new concrete slab the city's Public Works Department poured in front of the historic house during the holidays after tearing out a sidewalk grass strip Barbara Adams has been watering and mowing since she and her late husband, Bob, moved into his parent's old house back in 1986.

Most mornings, Barbara was out front watering that grass strip to keep it green, then she'd walk back to the garage to get the cans of paint she uses to cover the graffiti sprayed on the gray bus pole at the corner and red curbs the night before.

After that, she would pick up the dirty baby diapers, fast food wrappings, chicken bones and other assorted trash that some pedestrians and bus riders leave behind in front of city historical landmark No. 629.

The graffiti, trash and vandalism she can live with because she really has no choice, Adams said Wednesday. Her house isn't the only one on the block like it was back in 1939 when Tampa was a one-lane dirt road.

Today, the street is wall-to-wall houses with six lanes of traffic whizzing by so fast that a couple of LAPD motorcycles officers spent a few hours Wednesday writing speeding tickets like they were shooting fish in a barrel.

No, the graffiti and trash she'll just have to live with, Adams says, but the city moving the bus stop right next to her driveway and putting in bus benches covered with ads - no way.

She figures the same city that designated her house a historical monument shouldn't be party to what she calls the ``uglification of a landmark.''

``Everything's getting uglier and uglier around here, and it's being done piecemeal with no consideration or concern for the neighborhood, or what the city calls one of its historical landmarks,'' Adams said.

``To me, those bus benches will be just one more graffiti magnet, one more thing I'm going to have to clean up and paint over to keep this place looking nice.''

Nice and clean is the way it looked a few months ago when more than 300 people on a Los Angeles Conservancy tour of historical landmarks in the Valley walked through the old Adams house completely unaware of the graffiti and chicken bones Adams had to clean up before they arrived.

``After the tour, people were raving about that house and her,'' said Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit historic preservation organization that works closely with the city Cultural Heritage Commission.

``All city departments should try hard to minimize the negative impact on designated landmarks, not add to them,'' Bernstein said. ``But unfortunately the commission is only consulted when a building permit or alteration to the landmark property itself is being sought, not the surrounding area.''

In Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chooses where bus stops will be put, but it's the city Department of Public Works that decides if bus benches will be put in.

Councilwoman Laura Chick said Wednesday she will push to block the bus benches from being built in front of the Adam's house, and have the concrete removed and the grass put back in.

``It's my understanding this is not a high-traffic bus stop area that calls for a bench, much less two,'' Chick said Wednesday. ``I want everything put back the way it was.

``Certainly we need bus shelters and benches, but they should be in key areas where a lot of people need them.

``This is all highly suspect,'' she added. ``Is this about people sitting down waiting for a bus or is it about making money for advertisers?

``Common sense tells you if a place is designated a historical landmark, maybe it's not the best place for bus benches,'' she said.

Calls to Norman Bench Advertising, which handles the city's bus bench advertising, went unreturned Wednesday.

Henry Ong, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works, said the person who handles bus bench placement for the department was not in the office Wednesday, and he had no specific knowledge about the benches going in on Tampa.

``But if someone wants to protest benches going in they can write to our street use inspection division downtown,'' Ong said.

Late some nights, when she can't sleep and the traffic outside is so light she hardly hears the cars on Tampa going by, Barbara Adams can almost see her father-in-law sitting at his old desk writing Frank Lloyd Wright a letter.

The world famous architect had publicly said that every working man should build his own home, and now Bill Adams was daring Wright to design an economical and practical house that he and his son could build with their own labor.

Wright wrote back that he was too busy, but he had sent some ideas and suggestions to his son, Lloyd, who had offices in Los Angeles.

Lloyd took the job for $125 - $50 of it up front. The fee was based on the anticipated cost of labor and materials - $2,500.

With plans in hand, her husband and father-in-law got to work building a home that would one day become a historical landmark.

When you've come from family stock like that, you don't let the city push you around over a few bus benches.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo: Two bus benches are planned in front of historical landmark 629, the Lloyd Wright-designed Adams House on Tampa Avenue in Reseda.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer