The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Tourists Invade Pacific Palisades and The Getty Villa Reopens

Last week was the 6-month anniversary of the fires that obliterated Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. It’s encouraging to see the progress Altadena has made, though many people are still grieving and wracked with uncertainty. Will they rebuild? Nearly 9000 homes and businesses were lost in the close-knit, artsy community. The Army Corps of Engineers has removed the debris from 95 percent of the homes that vanished. Meanwhile, money has poured in from FEMA for homeowners and renters. This week Full Circle Thrift, a beloved local thrift store, reopened on Lake Avenue. Customers rushed in.

I have yet to set foot in Altadena. Now that the thrift store is back, maybe I will? But so much of the community I knew--the quirky shops, the small restaurants, the historic neighborhoods, the trails I hiked--is gone. I’m not eager to see that. Even friends whose homes were spared are sad. They feel guilty.

Over on the west side of LA, the Pacific Palisades is going through its own version of hell. The once gorgeous, lush neighborhood on a bluff overlooking the Pacific looks like a war zone. More than 6000 structures were destroyed. Agencies are fighting. The department in charge of recovery doesn’t have enough money. Residents are mad at Mayor Karen Bass and her consultants for being opaque.

I haven’t driven through the Palisades, either. Why would I? The photos are disturbing enough. But apparently the fire-bombed neighborhood has become a thing with disaster tourists. Busloads of them have been rumbling through the charred ruins of people’s lives. What are they hoping to see?

Go trek to the Hollywood Sign, for god’s sake, if you’re going to be that clueless. And don’t care about upsetting locals. LA tourism is a shambles as it is, thanks to the menacing presence of the National Guard, the immigration raids that have targeted hotel and restaurant workers, and the fires.

At a city council meeting, Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, let loose about the tour operators. “My office and others have received numerous reports about commercial tour operators conducting disaster tours in the Pacific Palisades,” she said. “They’re looking to profit off of destruction and other people’s losses. It’s really gross and it needs to be stopped.”

In response, the council voted to ban “disaster tourism” buses not just from the Palisades fire area, but any area declared part of a national disaster emergency. From now on. The vote was unanimous.

This is what I call responsible tourism. Besides, there are plenty of other places for you to see in Los Angeles that are perfectly lovely.

Which brings me to the good news I wanted to share with you. The Getty Villa, the museum oil baron and art collector J. Paul Getty built to house his vast collection of Classical and Renaissance art, has reopened. Perched dizzily on a hill overlooking Malibu, the Getty is one of my favorite museums in LA. The two-story building is supposed to be a replica of Herculaneum’s Villa dei Papiri, a Roman villa swallowed in the eruption of Mt.Vesuvius in AD 79. It has Doric and Corinthian columns encircling a landscaped area, a reflecting pool and bronze statues. I love taking visitors there. It’s so unabashedly odd.

Although the Palisades fire did breach the 65-acre property, torching its landscaped hillsides and eucalyptus trees, the building itself and its galleries were unscathed. Largely due to the foresight of the Getty’s staff and emergency preparedness measures.

Still, with the Palisades devastation ever-present, it was touchy to re-open. Getty officials did not want to be insensitive. They took their time. “We want to be a symbol of some kind of life in the neighborhood, but we don’t want to look like, ‘Hey, everything’s good over at the Getty, so sorry,’” Katherine E. Fleming, the Villa’s President and CEO, told the NY Times.

So I hope you’ll visit The Getty Villa. Please let know if you do! Maybe I’ll see you there.