Striking a Blow for the Neighborhood : Blythe Street: A graffiti-covered wall, long a convenient hiding place for drugs and guns, is reduced to rubble by local youths in exchange for seed money for a community sports club.
While not as dramatic as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a group of Panorama City youths gleefully smashed down a cinder-block wall Saturday that symbolized gang dominance over their street.
“This is great,†said Octavio Bonilla, 15, taking a sledgehammer from a friend. “It’s better to do this than throw rocks at cars and fight in the street.â€
“Let’s destroy it,†said Alex Larios, 13, wiping sweat from his face.
“It’s more than fun,†shouted his buddy, Cesar Fabian, 14, as he readied his sledgehammer for another whack at the graffiti-covered wall.
Alex, Octavio, Cesar and a score of friends knocked down the wall in the 14600 block of Blythe Street in return for a $400 donation from the property owner to their newly formed group, the Blythe Street Sports Club.
Buoyed by bilingual cheers of “Hit it!†the youths reduced the menacing, 6-foot-tall, steel-reinforced wall to pulverulent rubble in a half-hour.
It was violence. But, for once on Blythe Street, it was constructive violence.
The demolition of the wall was part of ongoing efforts by Los Angeles officials and private citizens to renovate the block of run-down buildings. The strip of Blythe Street across from the closed General Motors plant has been called the “worst block in the San Fernando Valley†by police. Last week, a religious group announced plans to open an office there.
In November, 1991, then-property owner Bill Brower installed the 80-foot wall in front and alongside 14657 Blythe St. to shield the house from gang members.
Instead, gang members plastered the wall with graffiti faster than it could be painted out. And when police cruised by, the gangbangers found the wall a convenient hiding place for drugs, guns or themselves.
“They used to stash their stuff behind the wall and then post lookouts all over the street,†said Officer Chuck Leber, who coordinates police patrols on the block. “Anything you can imagine has happened here: guns, drugs, stolen cars. You name it.â€
Eventually, the gangs scared all the tenants away, and Brower’s rental property remained vacant for about a year, no matter how many times he painted the wall or chased the gang members away.
“The property was completely out of control,†Leber said.
Genny Alberts, who already owns several other buildings on Blythe, purchased the property last year. Alberts decided the wall had to go.
“This wall was the most infamous thing on the street,†she said. “It represents all the bad activity we want to replace with good things to do.â€
Alberts, who has garnered praise for organizing tenants and rehabilitating her apartments, recruited the youths, some of them gang members, to attack the wall. In return she is donating $400 as seed money to help establish the sports club and offered the boys use of a vacant apartment for club headquarters.
“We want sports like karate or basketball,†Octavio said. “Anything to get us out of the street.â€
After the wall was battered to pieces, Leber walked through the rubble, watching youths heave shards of cinder block into a dumpster.
“Good riddance!†he said.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
