[hughfb3]

By the way... I was talking with a real estate developer and they told me about a "secret gentlemen's agreement" between Beverly Hills, LA, and Metro that may or may not be true... It is that in order for Beverly Hills to give the go ahead to allow the subway to go through their city, Los Angeles would have to commit to cleaning up downtown and MacArthur Park. As many of us know, the original subway was supposed to go down Wilshire but was blocked in part because it was the 1990's and the political climate allowed Beverly Hills to block the plan. Metro then used the money to build the red line to hollywood and a Wilshire stub to western. If any of you have noticed, MacArthur Park was closed earlier this month for "renovations" and has been fenced in, much like Echo Park. With the fencing, LA would be able to kick out people every night and prevent camping. Without the fence, people could camp overnight and then have squatters rights or some "interesting" law/ordinance we've concocted. I also heard that allegedly, the MacArthur Park area is now the most expensive land per square foot in all of LA and a developer owns a grand historic property adjacent to the park with plans for a major high end hotel.... I dont want to name names, but I was shocked at what hotel brand was mentioned

Could we be witnessing a massive upgrade beginning with the park closure??? Not sure but we will see with time if all of the riffraff gets cleaned up prior to the opening of the subway extension