LAFD Fiddles While LeBong, SAG, RAP Commission Burns Firefighters' Memory

We've already reported the lengths to which T-LeBong and his Performing Ego would go just for a press op. Even "revisionist history" isn't beneath the Autocrat of Griffith Park in his rabid desire for a little camera time.

What's truly amazing is that the LAFD are just sitting on their collective hands while LeBong and the Rec and Parks Commission conspire to kiss some SAG administrator's gi-normous derriere on this one. The death of 29 men in just 20 minutes during the horrific 1933 Griffith Park firestorm is the worst loss of firefighters in California State history. (correction: ...in American history.) Until now, the LAFD had been tireless stewards of the memory of these men. Men whose memory has been included in the LAFD's annual Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service which, ironically, takes place this Saturday.

When even the LAFD can't be trusted to look out after their own history, the designation of Griffith Park as a Historic Monument is an idea whose time has definitely come. --


From SaveGriffithPark.org :

GRIFFITH PARK'S DEPRESSION DEAD TO BE DISHONORED.
WHAT WOULD PAUL NEWMAN THINK?

An eerie episode is unfolding behind the scenes that in its own perverse way reinforces the necessity of obtaining Historic-Cultural Monument status for Griffith Park.

At its meeting of October 3, 2008 – the 75th Anniversary of the catastrophic Fire of 1933 in Griffith Park that killed 29 men laboring for subsistence wages in the worst year of the Depression – the Board of Commissioners of the Recreation and Parks Department was asked to approve the installation of a monument to the tragedy in the Mineral Wells area of Griffith Park. The proposed plaque commemorating the event will not honor the men who were burned alive – it will honor the Screen Actors Guild.

Worth reading is the attached report to the Rec & Parks Board which employs semantic juxtaposition to link a pivotal SAG organizational meeting that took place the evening of the fire with Warner Bros Studios' loan of klieg lights to rescuers to light the search for victims. Students of labor movement and motion picture history will know that in 1933 anti-union film moguls and SAG existed in separate, adversarial worlds. The lights were not lent because of SAG. There is no evidence that the union's members fought the fire. There is no evidence that SAG sent aid to victims and their survivors at all, much less to any degree that would warrant their bring singled out for recognition.

Nevertheless, SAG was founded in June 1933, so this year marks its 75th Anniversary, too. While these separate but coincidental anniversaries are enough of an historical relationship for Councilmember LaBonge to conceive this photo op, should it be reason enough for a well-respected union like SAG to participate in trivializing dead workers? Save Griffith Park doubts that SAG's dues-paying members are knowing participants in this empty honor. Classy SAG member and philanthropist Paul Newman once declined a national medal he actually deserved calling the recognition "honorrhea." How would he describe this ghoulish episode?

Public support for Historic Cultural Landmark status for Griffith Park will help end Orwellian rewrites of our local history. Encourage people who support this long overdue designation to let the Cultural Heritage Commission know by sending a letter to:

Cultural Heritage Commission
Office of Historic Resources
L.A. Department of City Planning
200 N. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012