Dear Editor:
Just a few weeks ago consultant and lobbyist, Aaron Green from Afriat Consulting had a neighborhood meeting on Zoom for our Weho Heights neighborhood.
We were told it would be an hour meeting, which turned out to be a 23 minute meeting, we were all muted and all of our construction questions were never addressed or answered and now we know why.
In this Zoom meeting we were told mere things about the upcoming “renovation” where Supreme would be “just raising the roof a little and adding skylights” and then “just moving the window facing Sunset Boulevard a little bit over.” Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
But now we see this week that the building has been totally gutted where all the walls have been removed.
This was definitely not at all what Supreme discussed regarding the renovations with the neighborhood residents. This way Supreme cleverly knew without razing the building completely they could just do an “over the counter” permit at the planning department at West Hollywood City Hall, thus, bypassing the more formal longer process of going in front of the planning commission and city council.
Supreme knew this and made sure to avoid the risk of both city meetings where they would have to face residents speaking for two minutes about the construction plans and impact of this scandalous sneaker drop event business.
So now Supreme has turned the Tower Records building into a mere shell of a metal frame now. Sadly, the original bricks of the store were just taken away in dump trucks where I am sure many of the Tower Records fans would have loved to have one of those bricks as a memory of decades of the most amazing music store in the world.
Jerome Cleary
West Hollywood, CA
Move On!
I’ve lived 24 years with Tower Records as my literal backyard and want to make sure nostalgia and racism don’t take hold too quickly. Tower Records, when it operated, was an awful neighbor that regularly caused a nuisance on both sides of the block on which it’s sited. I did not mourn its closure. Since closing, the property has been nuisance bait of one sort of another for the best part of fourteen years. The building has all the architectural significance of a strip mall with none of the charm. I will not mourn the eyesore it has become. Any… Read more »
rAcIsM
WILL YOU BE OKAY??
Racism is kinda sorta bad, but … Pedophilia is much worse, elder abuse is much worse, serial killers is much worse
Where’s the outrage and marches for those far greater egregious atrocities?
My little feelings will be okay, my eaten body not so much.
I’ve lived 24 years with Tower Records as my literal backyard and would like to make sure we’re not letting nostalgia and racism cloud our judgment. That architectural nothing of a building has been vacant and semi-derelict for the best part of fourteen years now. For the past couple of years, it’s been a parking lot. By day, chock-a-block with aging Hondas and their hair-trigger car alarms. By night, drunken suburbanites barfing, peeing, and yelling under my bedroom windows. And, of course, the seasonal pop-ups and film crews that would turn up at 3:30 a.m. to start setup. And before… Read more »
That building is nothing more than block walls and a steel truss roof. There is nothing extraordinary about it or the former tenant. Let the building owner convert it into a dividend paying asset again. As far as the comments regarding the Supreme “clientele”. These sound racist. You may not be aware but the Bird Streets has a very high percentage of black homeowners. These are $10 to $40 million dollar custom homes built over the last five years outside of the City of West Hollywood. The residents of Bird Streets have experienced the same unacceptable spike in crime. As… Read more »
Agree 100 %
You may wish to categorize this as racist but it is really unacceptable behavior of and by whoever does the deed. The chips fall where they fall. If you get a chance, please visit the the Fairfax/Melrose area Supreme and other copy cat clones next time they have a drop and see for yourself. You can get on their mailing list.
Actually, it would be the Ethics Reform Task Force which could use some reform in its own ranks. Ethics have traditionally been a cornerstone of work ethic for many credible individuals. Ethics is not a dog and pony show that occasionally gets trotted out to indicate allegiance to ethical values. In reality it is in and of itself a bond at all levels of interaction.
Mr. Green might want to be first in line for the upcoming Ethics Commission Event.
Let’s ALL be honest with ourselves, SUPREME is just FAO Schwarz for thugs and f*ckboys. And I don’t care how much their reps tell the neighborhood residents that this is some sort of high-end clientele business…a 9 mm bullet causes the same damage coming out of a new Mercedes G-wagon as it does out of a old Kia. And how the HELL are we supposed to explain this BS to Liza Minnelli? Shame on local West Hollywood government for betraying its residents once again.
I agree with you that their shop attracts all kinds of drama, but what specific thing would the City do to stop it? It was permitted as a shop before, not turning into a sex shop or dispensary, so no change, no red flags. Otherwise, it would sound like they’re discriminating.
Amen. The city should be ashamed and voted OUT.
Before everyone gets upset, there are a several things to keep in mind. 1. While Tower Records was iconic, the building itself probably needed some updates, you can’t blame them for that. They deserve a building that functions well and that is well maintained 2. It’s kind of hard to protect an architecturally insignificant building like that 3. Most importantly, shouldn’t we praise the City for not wasting time reviewing a project that isn’t changing its use? In other words there’s NO good reason for planning to review it. From what I can remember from their drawings, they’re not even… Read more »
Too late, we’re already upset. Sorry, Mary.
Supreme is the worst marketing concept. People hot over shoes on Melrose twice Just another playground destined for trouble
How did you think they were going to raise the roof 4’1″ and put in full height windows as in the renderings every saw months ago?
Front bricks had to be removed to put in new glass.
Roof had to be removed to raise it.
Sheet rock had to be removed to upgrade 51 year old electrical and plumbing.
Being California, renovations are going to trigger ADA, earthquake and fire safety requirements.
Supreme’s choices were to either go through a long and expensive permit process with hearings, delays, back and forth, or simply lie about their plans and get the quick easy over the counter permit. If this City wasn’t so corrupt, filled with people as crooked as Donald Trump but masquerading as compassionate progressives handing out wads of other peoples’ cash to anyone in need, the City would get back to the owner and tell them: you need to restore the entire building back to the way it was, rebuild everything to the way it was before the demolition started, and… Read more »
It looks better already. I’m happy the building won’t remain empty. Tower Records wasn’t an inactive tenant. They had mobs of music fans. Now it will be sneaker fans. This is The sunset strip we’re talking about.
“When it’s no longer there, it’s no longer there”! A similar situation occurred when the architecturally defining elements were “accidentally removed” from a building @ 8001-8003 Santa Monica Blvd. Evaluated by a city sponsored Commercial Historic Survey. Seems an overzealous roofer sent to repair a roof leak grossly overstepped the over the counter permit and went wild ultimately painting the Spanish Colonial Revival structure black after erasing its original elements. The lobbyist then petitioned the HPC to have it delisted. An appeal was filed based on improper standard process and procedure that the HPC either ignored or was ignorant of… Read more »
Other places would require in that case that the elements be replaced. We should do no less.
There should be an immediate top work order on this site until they find out exactly what is going on there. And they should take their own sweet time doing so.
To be clear, which project are you referring to?