"Downtown Dad" from Bert

Today I had to go to the downtown courthouse in Los Angeles, and I
thought again about Dad.  It is almost inconceivable to me to think of the city
without him in it.  As I walked up Spring Street, which is where he first
worked in this country in 1961, as a draftsman in the architectural firm of Smith,
Powell & Morgridge, I thought about how he would miss seeing the new projected
expansion of First Street towards City Hall in the east, where
all kinds of brand new buildings are going up.  The old State Building on
Hill and First is a gaping hole.  Of course this was not his particular
neck of the woods.  He avoided the courts and government buildings, and
thrived in the west side of the city.  He knew it so well.  Every nook and
cranny, every bar and art gallery, every restaurant and hide-away of the
old city of Los Angeles, he knew. Hill and Ord was his favorite
intersection in the government side, for here used to be the great
restaurant 'Costa's Grill' where he went practically every day for lunch
and drinks and dinner.  I had many fun lunches with him there.  The owner,
Al Mosca, loved Dad because of his love of Italian Opera, and allowed Dad
to pick his own cuts of meat for grilling.  This was in the sixties and
seventies.  He was truly sad when Mosca sold out to a cheesy 'Velvet
Turtle,' the ruins of which are still there in the undeveloped corner. But
after Costa's closed, he discovered Cook's Steak House, on the west side,
and he loved that place very much as well.  He was always there, and
everybody knew him.  Tout le Monde, of L.A.!  On the west side were also
his professional triumphs:  the offices at Boyd Jeffries & Co., a
photograph of which Felicia published on the net today, were in the Union
Bank building at Figueroa and Fifth.  He also did the offices for the
Sullivan Insurance Group and for Hotchkiss & Wiley (now part of Lloyd's of
London).  Then he chaired the interior design department at FIDM, through
the eighties and nineties, and that was at 7th. and Figueroa, a choice spot
for Art Deco buildings.  He would take his classes on a tour of downtown,
showing them the detail of the arches and gavettes, the Art Deco and
Jugendstil style of the old L.A. office buildings, famous now. Yesterday,
in my thoughts, he was "German."  Today he's "downtown Dad."  After I was
through in court, I went up to the roof of the courthouse to look at the
views of the city and beyond.  The courthouse is on Hill and First, across
from the gaping hole left by the State Building.  From up there you see all
of L.A., brown and misty towards the east and south, and bright and blue,
at least today, towards the west and north.  I looked towards Santa Monica,
I looked towards the Valley, and I felt keenly the absence left by Dad in
my home town, the place where we settled as immigrants in the USA.  His is
a whole history in the city, and of the city.  Looking down at it, the
Music Center, the Disney Hall, and beyond to the west, I couldn't help but
smile at Dad's downtown life, so many years that he loved so much.