L.A. Riots, 20 years later

2:30pm, 4/29/92 I strolled into my weight training class at El Camino College in Torrance. I pumped iron, admiring my reflection as I tortured another boy with thinly veiled overtures of which I had no intention of delivering. Yes, I was a self-absorbed tease. I was 23. My world revolved around the gym, college, clubs and booze.

"Where's coach?" someone asked. Despite my little game of cat and boy I'd noticed that our "professor" had stepped out, gone for about 20 minutes. He returned with the last sort of news I ever expected to hear. "They're comin' up Crenshaw, burnin' cars, smashin' store windows. I'm gonna get the fuck outta here, y'all can do whatever you want." As he was a big black man, I assumed he knew better about such things.

We'd propped the doors to the weight room open as it had been a gorgeous day. Now the smell of burning cars and buildings began to waft into the weight room, which moments before had just smelled like sweaty jocks. In a daze, I retrieved my clothes without changing, found my car, and out of curiosity pulled onto Crenshaw. In my rear-view mirror, I saw them, like in the movies when they say "something's coming." It was like a huge ball of smoke and anger. And it was getting closer.

My whole world was the opposite direction. North took you into the ghetto. Go south and you'd end up in Palos Verdes, the Beverly Hills of the South Bay. I stopped at my restaurant, Houlihans Restaurant and Bar. I was scheduled to work that night. Charter Root, our "one blue, one hazel" eyed manager was running around the parking lot like a madman. At this point, I didn't know if this was local. Our bar was filled with TV's for viewing sporting events. News channels had just started to pick up what was going on. I thought this event must be confined to a few blocks. But Crenshaw was a direct route from the ghetto and the riots were flowing towards us like a volcanic eruption.

As if under threat of a nuclear strike, L.A. ground to a screeching halt. My house was a mile from the restaurant. Me, grandmother and the neighbors glued ourselves to the TV. By then, the Reginald Denny beating was being played over and over. "Can't we all get along?" would come later. We soon realized how serious this was as the riots spread like wildfire.

I tossed and turned that night. Our island of beaches, pristine yards and perfect houses seemed in peril.  The next morning, the news showed clips of burning buildings and melee, but also people with shopping carts calmly helping themselves to whatever they wanted in local box stores while hopelessly outnumbered LAPD watched.

Phones were out. I had no idea if my friends in Hollywood were OK.  I couldn't drive there for fear of violence or arrest.

The most disturbing part was watching people destroy their own neighborhoods. In Redondo Beach, someone smashed a storefront window by CJ's Pantry, probably a kid trying to be cool. Martial law was declared in the City of Los Angeles. Anyone on the street was subject to arrest. The military arrived with machine guns. In Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes we were free to go wherever we pleased as long as it was within our boundaries.

I roared to the top of Palos Verdes in my little silver sports car. Suddenly, nothing I did seemed important. L.A. was dying. I wept from a deep place because I knew L.A. would never be the same. For those of you who weren't here, this may sound dramatic but I assure you it wasn't. Columns of smoke coming from South Central, Hollywood, Koreatown, Inglewood...like bombs had been dropped. I've never felt uglier energy in L.A. Overnight, our placid subtropical city was transformed into a war zone.

On Day 7, the riots had been officially declared "over," although we knew there were still spot incidents popping up. Day 9 my friend Sam and I went to Catch One, one of our favorite black clubs on Pico, right in the middle of it all. We fancied ourselves brave venturing that deep into "it." It was more a show of solidarity than anything else. When we arrived, everything around "The Catch" had been burned. The building across the street was still smouldering, the whole area smelling like a trash fire. Big, muscular black queens had formed a human chain in front of the club, refusing to let the looters destroy it. I think that's one of my favorite stories of the riots. Inside, things were as they had always been, 5 dance floors offering everything from disco to contemporary, sizzling dancers entertaining us.

The riots brought racism to the surface. But it did something else. Before the riots, it was common to hear people who lived here say how much they loved L.A.  After the riots, we were in flux. What did us in was the Northridge quake, destroying many buildings that had survived the riots, barely bandaged together. It was too much for some people who moved away, never to return. After the riots, it was (and still is) rare to hear people crow about how much they love living in L.A. In those 6 days, we lost our city pride, the Northridge quake kicking us while we were down.

We tried to return to a semblance of normalcy, but we were all on edge. My ex-boyfriend's boyfriend (they were together at the time) smashed the window of Fredricks of Hollywood and stole Madonna's pointy bra. My ex returned it after the riots. I probably would have kept it. Madonna had plenty of bras.

L.A. has always been and will continue to be the place people come to fulfill their dreams. I love it here, always have, riots notwithstanding. I believe someone can be gang-raped and go on to live a good life. I believe the same thing is true of Los Angeles. 

The L.A. Riots exist in grainy video and our memories. Physical evidence has been erased, the burned buildings replaced by beige strip malls. One good thing came out of the riots...long-ignored buldings in Hollywood and Koreatown were brought back with gleaming restorations. Koreatown experienced gentrification and came into its own in the mid-90's, a haven for new transplants seeking cool digs with cheap rent, same with East Hollywood. L.A. is a survivor.