Anyone know why the LACC is that color (of) Blue ??? what shade is it?
During the renovations I asked this question. I had to ask a few different people to get an answer. I was told that it was surveyed and blue represented freedom and so it was order by hubbard to paint it blue. I really don’t know if this is true or not.
Big Blue is a light aqua blue color and it is not painted. It is stained. The reason being is that part of Los Angeles is the epicenter of so much pollution, the Big Blue gets covered in dirt & grime. It's cheaper of them to put stain on the building than paint.
Problem is... they recently touched up the building with blue stain and instead of washing off the dirt first, they put the stain on it as is, and it is clearly recognizable what they did. It's nasty looking.
This isn’t true actually. Each building was pressure washed prior to the staining. They also had to do some stucco (or cement?) repairs to the outside due to all kinds of damage, some due to the Northridge earthquake which cracked several of the PAC Base buildings.
I personally liked the stained blue. I don't know how it looks now, but when you are there in person it looks really nice actually. Sort of a textured matt blue, not different than the blue on this web-site. I really thought it looked nice.
I was on staff during the 1990 renovations. I volunteered and loved doing the demos. I demo’d some walls on the basement level of LAD and man are those buildings built sturdy! The walls were SUCH a pain the ass to demo. They were steel rebar with steel mesh sheets strapped to the rebar with steel ties (like twisty ties for bread only metal and thick) which were then sprayed with cement plaster. Those building were built to last. Then you had to use a pick ax to tear down the steel mesh underneath. It was a lot of work.
I hated working on the weekends, but I insisted on demoing my own office – yeah *that* was FUN. I also used a sledge hammer to flatten the air ducts they pulled out of the building – those were the thickest, strongest air ducts I have ever seen. I think they were also made out of steel.
Then there was this flap – kept all hush hush of course, no need to scare off the cash cows now. The ceiling tiles were discovered to have been made out of asbestos, the demo’s were halted and they (PAC Reno’s) had to find and hire a VERY expensive environmental company to come in and remove the asbestos – you know all legal and proper like.
I was paying attention. I notice that all the RPF’ers and other PAC staff were called off and all work stopped (shocker to see the S.O. do something like that so I was instantly curious). Well when those professional asbestos removers showed up guess what – THEY HAD ON FULL HAZMAT GEAR. Masks, suits, gloves, special boots. There was even a special truck they brought in to place the asbestos and take it away.
All I could think about was why the HELL didn’t everyone else who had been working on it have that gear on? Why were staff and public around this area that required all that gear to remove? NO public, staff, S.O. member or RPF member had ANY gear other than those paper surgical masks on.
Funny – I didn’t think if this when I read about the Freewinds…..
BTW – I never saw so many S.O. members get RPF’ed in one short period of time as when the PAC Base renovations were started. At the time I thought of it as convienent. Now I see it as more than coincidence. The idea that people were RPF’ed just to get those done cheaper breaks my heart to think about.
:mindblow: :mindblow: :mindblow:
