Midtown business people survey ruins, seek leadership to rebuild.

Midtown merchant David Bang thought he was home free.

Two hours after the not guilty verdict in the Rodney King case was handed down April 29, Bang's Pico Boulevard fish market was doing a slow-but-steady business, apparently immume from the devastation that was rocking nearby Koreatown. Then, suddenly, about 20 Hispanic and African-American youths descended on the mini-mall where Pico Seafood is housed, torching a nightclub and karate supply store before directing their rage on Bang's small establishment.

"They ruined my market but I'll rebuild," the Seoul, Korea, native said quietly last week, as construction crews tore out broken windows and metal supports. "I have nowhere else to go. Besides, you'll be amazed by the Koreans that will still be around. Our life is here."

Bang, who estimates his riot-related damage at $40,000 and daily sales loss at $2,500 daily, is one of the lucky ones: His five-year-old property wasn't burned and his insurance covers civil unrest.

While Midtown's devastation was less pervasive than in South Central Los Angeles or Koreatown, the area a week after the unrest looked like it was hit by a selective cluster bomb that ravaged some businesses but left unscathed others just blocks away. Still patrolled by private security guards, stucco-facaded stores near 9th Street and Pico were open for business. But a few miles to the southeast, whole commercial shopping centers looked like Kuwait City after the Persian Gulf War.

Sandwiched between the Mid-Wilshire area to the north and Baldwin Hills to the south and west, Midtown is a patchwork of strip malls, many of them minority-owned, medium-sized office buildings and low- to middle-income residences.

Now, however, thousands of Midtown residents will have no jobs to return to once the military and National Guard depart. Boarded-up shoe repair and eyeglass stores have posted signs giving customers phone numbers to call or imploring citizens to "Honk for Peace." Scribbled in paint across dozens of damaged buildings was the question: "Where was the police?"

Said one of Bang's friends, who asked that his name not be used, "We should put (Los Angeles Police Chief) Gates and Mayor (Tom) Bradley in jail. They were supposed to protect us but they didn't."

Councilman Nate Holden, who represents Midtown, said between 200 and 300 of his constituents completely lost their businesses, with hundreds of others facing huge repair bills. Figuring out Midtown's total financial loss may take months, Holden added.

"My area was devastated, but we'll help them rebuild" through small business loans and government aid, Holden said, noting he was skeptical whether much outside, private investment money would flow in.

Typical of the area was a mini-mall at Crenshaw Boulevard and 18th Street, just north of one of Los Angeles' biggest black-owned businesses, Golden State Insurance Co. A pawn shop and Korean-owned aquarium were reduced to charred ruins, mirroring the burned-out frames at the Pioneer Chicken outlet and Sav-on Drugs across the street. The owners were nowhere to be found.

"To be frank, it's impossible to estimate the damage here because it's so widespread and we don't know what survived, like fixtures," said the mall's property manager, Cary Hall of Long Beach-based Corporate Property Management Inc. "Generally, the little guys don't have insurance because the insurers redlined (discriminated on insurance rates or coverage according to locale) the hell out of them. It's a mess and unless things change, it's going to happen again."

For Audrey Scates, the damage at her salon, Hair Design, pales in comparison to the twisted steel and smoldering beams at the adjacent Wherehouse record store, Security Pacific National Bank branch and a sneaker outlet. Yet Scates, a black woman in her early 30s, figures that unless those outfits are rebuilt, her business will suffer permanently because fewer customers will be drawn to her area on the border between Midtown and Baldwin Hills.

After debuting only 13 months ago, Scates' salon was looted of its hair supplies, computers and money the day of the verdict by a group wielding pipes and bats who entered through the back door. Scates said her losses would probably total $50,000, though she has insurance.

"I'm ----- because I'm losing business. I'm ----- because I have 15 employees who want their jobs," Scates said over the roar of a crane that was clearing the wreckage at the nearby Foot Locker. "After the verdict last week, we thought somebody would be targeted, but we expected it in Simi Valley, downtown corporate L. A. or City Hall -- not here."

Asked how she could manage a smile with so damage around her, Scates replied, "If I can survive the recession, maybe I can survive this."