Ratkovich Company / Wende Board of Directors
Wayne Ratkovich is President and CEO of the Ratkovich Company. He is also Chairman of the Wende Board and an emeritus trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
PROFILE
Wayne Ratkovich
Guest
FROM Wayne Ratkovich
Design and Architecture
Connecting The Bloc A bird's eye view of The Bloc in downtown LA. Photo courtesy The Bloc The old Macy's Plaza in downtown LA, designed by Charles Luckman, had a fortress-like quality. It was cut off from the street and the 7th Street/Metro Center station below it. Developer Wayne Ratkovich bought the property, re-branded it as The Bloc , and, with design by Studio One Eleven, has opened a pedestrian passageway connecting to the Metro station. Does this signify a new embrace of mass transit users by retailers in Los Angeles? Can a more urban shopping experience keep up with changes in retailing?
Which Way, L.A.?
Silicon Beach and the Perils of Gentrification For a long time, people in Silicon Valley would fly to LA when they had to. Then it occurred to them that people who work in technology and content could actually live in the same place. Now, Google has come to Venice, greeted warmly by the Chamber of Commerce, but regarded by some long-time residents as an unwelcome invader. We look at the changing nature of that formerly funky community with 300 new high-tech companies altogether. But that only accounts for half of the new, mainly Westside, phenomenon called Silicon Beach. (Parts Two and Three of KCRW's series on Silicon Beach will run on All Things Considered tomorrow on Friday. You can hear them all at KCRW.com/siliconbeach .) In addition to our guests, we also hear the voices of Jonathan Gold, food critic for LA Times and KCRW's Good Food ; Marissa Gluck, tech consultant for Radar Research and Oscar Hermosillo, owner of Venice Beach Wines and Oscar's Cerveteca on Rose Avenue.
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