Sharing Hidden History, from Place to Policy
Cindy Olnick 0:00
Hello Save As listeners. Cindy Olnick here. We recorded this week’s episode before we knew what we know now about the onslaught of actions by the Trump administration that seriously threaten our field, our colleagues and the people we serve. The Save As team is, of course, outraged. We may do more in the days ahead. At the very least, we will continue to bring you these stories of how our amazing students and alumni use cultural heritage to improve people’s lives and builda more just society. Thank you for listening.
Trudi Sandmeier 0:35
Today on Save As:
Elysha Paluszek 0:36
I started to sort of think about the way that African American history in Los Angeles isn’t always obvious, you know, in a place like L.A. where the history is so layered. And so I started thinking like, How can I increase awareness?
Trudi Sandmeier 1:00
Welcome to Save As: NextGen Heritage Conservation, an award-winning podcast that glimpses the future of the field with graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Trudi Sandmeier.
Cindy Olnick 1:12
And I’m Cindy Olnick. So Trudi.
Trudi Sandmeier 1:15
Yes, Cindy.
Cindy Olnick 1:16
Today we have a Where Are They Now episode with alumna, Elysha Paluszek.
Trudi Sandmeier 1:23
Yeah, Elysha Dory, as I knew her when she was a student here. It’s been a minute since she was here at USC, so she’s off doing some really cool stuff.
Cindy Olnick 1:31
Yeah, yeah. It was good catching up with her. And so she did her thesis on the Los Angeles African American Heritage Area: A Proposal for Development. So we’ll hear a little bit about that and about some great, innovative work she’s been doing out in the wilds of Los Angeles.
Trudi Sandmeier 1:52
So let’s not waste any more time, and we’ll head straight into the interview with Cindy and Elysha.
Cindy Olnick 2:01
We are here with Elysha Paluscek. Elysha, welcome to Save As. Please introduce yourself for our listeners.
Elysha Paluszek 2:09
Thank you. Cindy. Hi everyone. I’m Elysha Paluscek. I’m an associate architectural historian at Architectural Resources Group.
Cindy Olnick 2:16
Great. Well, welcome. Great to have you here, and you graduated from the Heritage Conservation program back in 2010. How did you find your way to the lovely world of heritage conservation?
Elysha Paluszek 2:32
Well, I’ve always loved history. It’s always been a passion of mine. And I majored in history in college, and as I was trying to decide sort of what to do with a B.A. in history, you know, sort of my options were teaching, becoming a professor, or doing something else. And when I realized I didn’t want to go on and get my PhD, I was sort of searching around for things to do, and stumbled across architectural history as part of a field school at Colonial Williamsburg, and fell in love.
Cindy Olnick 3:04
Really? What did you fall in love with? What do you love about it, in, you know, 25 words or less.
Elysha Paluszek 3:12
I loved discovering the stories that buildings can tell if you sort of know what to look for.
Cindy Olnick 3:20
Yes, if you know what to look for, that’s a great way to put it. So then you found your way to University of Southern California.
Elysha Paluszek 3:27
I did. I visited the program, and it just seemed like a great fit.
Cindy Olnick 3:33
Okay, so tell me about your thesis. What did you write about?
Elysha Paluszek 3:40
My master’s thesis was focused on the possibility of creating a heritage area or a heritage trail related to the African American history of Los Angeles, sort of with a focus on Central Avenue.
Cindy Olnick 3:53
Great. And why this topic?
Elysha Paluszek 3:57
I knew I wanted to do something related to African American history. I started to sort of think about the way that African American history in Los Angeles isn’t always obvious, you know, in a place like L.A. where the history is so layered. And so I started thinking like, How can I increase awareness, especially as someone who is initially not from Los Angeles, but sort of fell in love with it in that aspect of its history. So there are probably other people who aren’t aware of that history. And how can that be made more visible?
Cindy Olnick 4:33
That’s a great perspective. As someone who didn’t grow up around you know these stories in this history, but actually discovered it. So a heritage area, there’s heritage area, there’s historic district, there’s heritage trail. Is there any sort of difference between or among them?
Elysha Paluszek 4:53
There is. So a heritage area or a heritage trail, they’re similar. A heritage area is larger, whereas a trail tends to be more linear, more like a corridor. And the difference between those and a historic district is that a heritage area or a corridor is sort of more flexible because it doesn’t focus on like architectural significance, but it’s more about the cultural significance, and especially in a place where you might not have buildings standing anymore, or there isn’t the architectural integrity anymore. It’s a way to capture that cultural significance in a way that a historic district might not be able to.
Cindy Olnick 5:36
And you write in your thesis that heritage areas often emerge in communities under stress, where the economic base of the past is no longer present, or the history embodied in the built environment is in danger of disappearing or being forgotten. That was sort of surprising to me, but it makes sense that you would, you know, want to do that, to sort of shine a spotlight on areas that are hidden or threatened.
Elysha Paluszek 6:05
Yes, and one of the things that I also explored in my thesis was the possibility in heritage areas to kind of create awareness and create education, and also, in some cases, sort of bringing heritage tourism into some of these areas that could benefit, you know, sort of trying to find a balance between the history and the existing community that lives there, the existing built environment, and recognizing, like in the case of L.A. and Central Avenue, you know, it’s no longer the center of the African American community. And so what does that mean? And what does that look like, especially if you’re talking about creating something like a heritage corridor, heritage area?
Cindy Olnick 6:50
Yeah, exactly. And you looked at some models around, well, around the country, but around the city too. I noticed you wrote about Curating the City. Thank you. I actually worked on that project at the L.A. Conservancy, and I, you know, live to tell [laugh]. No, it was a great project, and I’m glad you founded a model. So, talk a little bit about these sort of curatorial approaches to history in a place like Los Angeles.
Elysha Paluszek 7:23
So what I examined in my thesis was sort of Central Avenue, actually, starting in Little Tokyo, because that was the center of the African American community, both very early on, and there aren’t remnants of that anymore in the built environment, as well as during World War Two and it was known as Bronzeville during the war. And then kind of carrying south along Central Avenue towards Watts. And so that was the area that I focused on in my thesis.
Cindy Olnick 7:51
And many people may not know, especially people outside of the field, that Little Tokyo was populated by African Americans during the war, because it was emptied out after the forced internment and relocation of Japanese Americans and Japanese residents to these incarceration camps during the war.
Elysha Paluszek 8:11
There was a big influx of African Americans during the war. They came looking for jobs in the defense industry and things like that. But because of restrictive covenants and other segregationist housing practices, they could only live in a certain area, and a lot of that was along Central Avenue. They ended up being sort of boxed in basically. And Central Avenue became very overcrowded during the war, and so they started looking for other places to live in and one of those, sort of the big one ended up being Little Tokyo.
Cindy Olnick 8:43
Most people probably know this, but Central Avenue was a vibrant hub, and is for arts and culture.
Elysha Paluszek 8:50
It was. I focused on it, since it was sort of the kind of primary and the most well-known center of the African American community in L.A. It certainly wasn’t the only one, but it was really well known for its jazz scene in the ’20s, and so just sort of using that as a kind of starting point, or an entry point for African American history, since it is the most well known, like I said.
Cindy Olnick 9:13
Right, right. So the actual tour would be, would be what? Would be in person, would it have a digital component?
Elysha Paluszek 9:22
I examined both and the models that I talk about in my thesis kind of include both. Like you said, I looked at Curating the City, which is online, but I also looked at models in Washington, DC and in Chicago and in Boston, and some of those are walking tours. Some of them include an online component, I believe. And so there’s a lot of possibility in something like that.
Cindy Olnick 9:50
Do you recall some of the sites that you proposed to include?
Elysha Paluszek 9:53
So some of the sites that I looked at, like I said, some of them are still there, you know, something like Second Baptist Church is still there, but then a lot of the jazz clubs, the buildings are no longer there. Or another example might be the church that hosted the Azusa Street Revival in what is now Little Tokyo, but the building is no longer there. I included it in a possible heritage area,
Cindy Olnick 10:21
So you ended up with a proposal with, what, a dozen or so sites perhaps, that were not necessarily linear and not necessarily walkable, but sort of given an overall picture. You know, it’s it’s one thing to be specific and to be in those places. That’s why we do what we do, because it’s important to actually go and see the places that you can, but also to sort of pull back and see, you know, sort of a bird’s eye view of a part of the African American experience in Los Angeles, the struggles. You know, you’ve got the Black Panther Party headquarters in there, which doesn’t even exist anymore, but also the many, many contributions and and the joy you know of the experience in LA.
Elysha Paluszek 11:08
Yeah, I like the idea of a heritage area for something like this, because it does allow you to sort of pull back and get a holistic and wholesale view of something like that. Whereas now you don’t necessarily see African American history on Central Avenue, because so many of the sites no longer exist, it’s hard to find. And so a heritage area or tour allows you to see it again, essentially, and to find it.
Cindy Olnick 11:39
Yes, yes. Now, I know this was an academic project for you, but have you seen anything like this actually come to fruition in the area?
Elysha Paluszek 11:49
There has been an effort and a project actually kind of related to this. I was not involved, but there is now a sort of in a sense a heritage corridor on Central Avenue as part of Angels Walk L.A., which is amazing.
Cindy Olnick 12:05
Yeah, Angels Walk is sort of a citywide series of what, like pole signs, in a way. Not the banners that you see, but like, there’ll be a pole and then sort of a wrap around display. It’s compact, you know, and it’s, and it’s just sort of a marker, really, with some photos and some text. So I’m glad that’s made its way to Central Avenue. There are also some some great projects that have helped spotlight the area, like when Dunbar Hotel was rehabbed into senior housing. It won a preservation award from the L.A. Conservancy, and probably other wars as well, in the 28th Street Y by Paul Revere Williams, that was also rehabbed and added on to because that is a thing, old and new, for affordable housing and community services. So yeah. So it’s great.
So then you graduated, and then what?
Elysha Paluszek 13:24
I have been working since then as an architectural historian and a consultant. I worked for GPA Consulting for a number of years, and now I am at Architectural Resources Group.
Cindy Olnick 13:35
What do you spend a lot of your time doing?
Elysha Paluszek 13:38
I get to spend my time doing what I love. A lot of it is research and writing, which is one of my favorite things to do in the world. But, you know, it’s also things like working with regulatory compliance, landmark nominations, historic resources surveys, historic context statements, which are one of my favorite things, you know, sort of for the research and writing component that I get to do. And yeah, I I love it. I love my job.
Cindy Olnick 14:06
Many of you know what historic context statements are, but they’re essentially what like narrative histories of a city’s development. Is that how you would sort of describe it?
Elysha Paluszek 14:16
Yes, the way I think about Historic Context Statements is that it’s not a comprehensive history of an area, but it’s rather the history of an area as expressed through the built environment and using that lens.
Cindy Olnick 14:30
Okay, so development patterns, transportation demographics, how things evolved over time, exactly. Okay. Cool. And then cities use these as a planning tool for identifying potential historic places to protect, or how to, you know, plan developments appropriately, or how do they use them?
Elysha Paluszek 14:53
Yes, exactly. It’s often used as a planning tool for city planning departments.
Cindy Olnick 14:58
And then came an award winning project for West Hollywood a couple years ago that is different from a Historic Context Statement. So tell me a little bit about that.
Elysha Paluszek 15:09
Yes, the West Hollywood Historical Context Study is, you’re correct, not a context statement, but rather an examination of discrimination and segregation in sort of a particular area, and how that has affected the built environment, whether it has affected it or not, but sort of racism and discrimination as examined through policies that affect the built environment, like land use and zoning, but we also looked at regulations that perpetuated discrimination or segregation. Examined that through the 20th century.
Cindy Olnick 15:55
West Hollywood has been, is relatively progressive, and actually reached out because they wanted to actually acknowledge right, the history and the context of its discrimination.
Elysha Paluszek 16:08
Correct, the city initiated the project.
Cindy Olnick 16:12
Cool. As a communicator, I really was struck by the terms, you know, you define terms, definitions, language up front, which is super important, and we know language is always changing and evolving, but I thought that was very cool, and that you referenced some lot of style guides out there that exist to help people use more conscious language.
Elysha Paluszek 16:35
That was something that I was sort of very deliberate with, because language does have so much power, and it can have so much power, and it has historically, and it does today. And so what are the ways that we can be sensitive to that and be inclusive about that? And we’ve done that in that project and a number of others since.
Cindy Olnick 16:55
Excellent, excellent. All right, so West Hollywood has a very cool history from when it was Kizh land, Indigenous land. Then it was known as Sherman.
Elysha Paluszek 17:06
It was, it was known as Sherman, named after one of its founders. And it sort of started as a kind of workers community because of the railroad, the rail yard that was there. And then it kind of grew from there.
Cindy Olnick 17:19
And being on the outskirts, you know, right across the city lines, of Los Angeles, in unincorporated county territory, how did it differ from the city, and how did those differences influence its development?
Elysha Paluszek 17:34
Yeah, the fact that West Hollywood was an unincorporated county was very important for its development. It ended up sort of playing a key role, as did its location between like Beverly Hills and Hollywood. You know, Sunset Boulevard developed with bars and clubs that were very popular with those in the entertainment industry. And then, because it was located in unincorporated county, it had less regulation than the cities around it, so it sort of became a place that was a haven for people that kind of needed a safe space, honestly, like the LGBTQ plus community, where in the City of L.A., a bar could be raided by the LAPD, or there was sort of increased regulation, but in the county, regulation sort of more lax, and the Sheriff’s Department sort of didn’t tend to have as much oversight in West Hollywood, and so it became sort of a safe place for people, you know, sort of as early as the ’20s.
Cindy Olnick 18:38
Wow. And not just LGBTQ, but also people of color, Jewish residents, there was a Russian population that at some point, maybe later than that.
Elysha Paluszek 18:48
Correct, yeah.
Cindy Olnick 18:49
But, you know, it wasn’t always rainbows and sunshine, right? A lot of what you write about in the context study is federal, state regulations and discriminatory practices, you know, of course, rampant in the real estate industry and, you know, redlining, but also within West Hollywood itself. There were some things, like when the Chamber of Commerce asked the Board of Supervisors, the County Board of Supervisors, to give American citizens employment opportunity, which was sort of an anti-immigration.
Elysha Paluscek 19:22
Correct? Yeah, even in West Hollywood, you do see it happening. And because of West Hollywood, sort of small size, I mean, because it was in an unincorporated county, sometimes it was challenging to find those instances, but we definitely found them. And we found instances where restrictive covenants were enforced. A woman of Indigenous ancestry was told that she wasn’t allowed to live in her home in West Hollywood and her daughters as well because of their Indigenous ancestry, whereas her husband, who was white was told that he could stay. And that was like a specific instance that we found happening in the late 40s I want to say.
Cindy Olnick 20:07
Great for a marriage. Was this Isabel Crocker?
Elysha Paluszek 20:09
Yes. Isabel Crocker.
Cindy Olnick 20:11
Okay, yeah, yeah. So what happened? Did she have to, did they fight it? Did she have to move?
Elysha Paluszek 20:15
They did fight it. And if memory serves, the NAACP got involved, the ACLU got involved, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to find out in the historical record what ended up happening.
Cindy Olnick 20:30
That’s right, that’s right. Okay. Listeners, here’s your assignment. Go find out and let us know. Okay, somebody knows. All right.
Elysha Paluszek 20:38
Love to know what happened.
Cindy Olnick 20:41
Okay, we’re on the case here at Save As and then, of course, there’s the very well-known sign in Barney’s Beanery that went up in like, the ’30s that was horrible, conveying that LGBTQ patrons were not welcome in a horrific way, and that sign stayed up for decades and decades.
Elysha Paluszek 21:06
It did. It stayed up until West Holly was was incorporated in 1984.
Cindy Olnick 21:12
How would you characterize the sort of turning point after it became a city?
Elysha Paluszek 21:18
From the get-go, the city was what seems to me as very intentional about the legislation that they passed. A lot of it was anti-discrimination legislation, you know, designed to protect the people that live there and sort of try to right past harms.
Cindy Olnick 21:36
Yeah, I didn’t realize so many of the residents were renters. So there was a huge tenant rights push as well. So you had a lot of legislation supporting LGBTQ people as well as people of color, Jewish people, people with HIV and AIDS, and the Russian residents. And so West Hollywood was, you know, early supporter legislatively, of, you know, the gay rights movement, and there was a Social Justice Task Force, and you know, again, this was back in the ’80s. Now, you know, in the conclusion, you do sort of acknowledge that, you know, you can have policies and laws and structures in place. But, you know, just add humans, right? That people will still sort of not behave.
Elysha Paluszek 22:29
Yes, and that is something we sort of see time and time again. But I think it’s crucial to have the laws so that you do have a structure in place for protection, so that people feel like they have recourse in the event that something awful should happen.
Cindy Olnick 22:47
Right, right. Anything particularly challenging? You mentioned it was really hard to find certain information, even with your love of research, so it must be super hidden or not documented in the first place.
Elysha Paluszek 23:00
Yes, that was definitely something that we ran into, and I’ve run into projects since then, because unfortunately, discrimination and segregation were codified and essentially just the way things were. It wasn’t being reported. You don’t find something like that in the L.A. Times, for example.
Cindy Olnick 23:26
It was just the norm.
Elysha Paluszek 23:27
Yeah, it was the norm. So it is hard to find documentation of it. It becomes easier as you get sort of past the mid-20th century, and you have the different civil rights movements that start to happen, and people start to stand up and say, No, this is unacceptable. Then you start to find instances that are being reported more often, but before that, it was very difficult to find.
Cindy Olnick 23:54
And you do say that, you know, this isn’t about recommendations. You just gave the context, the historical context, correct?
Elysha Paluszek 24:02
We just, we did the research and we reported the facts, and then we turned it over to the city so that they could use it as a basis for future work.
Cindy Olnick 24:10
Great, great. It’s pretty innovative, right? I mean, is this pretty new, this whole idea of looking at policies versus places in our field?
Elysha Paluszek 24:19
It is. It definitely is. I don’t think there are very many cities that have done it in the past. West Hollywood was one of the first. It was the first one that we worked on, but some cities since then have done them. We recently completed sort of a similar study for the City of Los Angeles, the Historical Housing and Land Use study, which was a big effort that examines sort of racism and discrimination through the lens of zoning and land use.
Cindy Olnick 24:47
Oh, my goodness, yes, wow. All right, we’ll clear off another space on the shelf.
Elysha Paluszek 24:55
Yes. And we completed one for the city of Culver City, and we are in the process of completing sort of a similar project for the City of Pasadena that specifically looks at freeway displacement.
Cindy Olnick 25:08
Have you gotten backlash on these types of projects?
Elysha Paluszek 25:12
We have occasionally faced sort of pushback. Sometimes it’s been online. Sometimes it has been through our community engagement like, for example, why is a city spending money on something like this, right? But since we are purely the sort of fact-finding mission, we just try to keep it at that essentially, you know, we’re just reporting the facts, and that’s what we’ve been asked to do.
Cindy Olnick 25:52
So you know, you’ve been out in the working world for a few years. Have you seen any changes in the field since you graduated?
Elysha Paluszek 26:03
I would say yes, and I think they’ve all been exciting. They excite me honestly. I think there has been a shift towards recognizing something like cultural significance, which I realize is sort of part of a much longer shift in the field, but I feel like I have seen that happen just since I’ve graduated. I think there’s also been a shift towards recognizing underrepresented communities and their history, which is much overdue and very exciting. It seems like there has also been a shift in talking about things like integrity, which, when you’re looking at something like cultural significance, how do you treat something like that? And I feel like those conversations have kind of gone hand in hand.
Cindy Olnick 26:50
Right, right. Places that are significant for the stories more than the design or the materials or that may not look like they did when whatever makes them meaningful first happened. What are you saving? What are you protecting? But you know, we still have far to go so let’s give you your magic wand. You can wave your magic wand and change one thing, what still needs to happen? What do we need to still keep focusing on?
Elysha Paluszek 27:20
Well, the thing that immediately came to mind was, if I could sort of wave a magic wand, is, I would update a lot of our regulatory guidance, honestly, to sort of account for some of these changes that are happening in the field, recognizing cultural significance, perhaps being more flexible with something like integrity of a building, especially when you’re looking at cultural significance, and I feel like the shift is happening in the field, but our guidance, all of the written language that we use in our in our work and in our job and to guide us, hasn’t kept up.
Cindy Olnick 27:56
Right, like the treatment, standards, designation, criteria, stuff like that.
Elysha Paluszek 28:01
Yes, or something like even, you know, like the National Register bulletins. I realized that the Park Service is doing things to update that, like publishing white papers and things like that too.
Cindy Olnick 28:13
Yes, yes. It’s a big ship that we’re turning, so it’s good that it’s happening. It’d be great if it happened faster. So if there’s a listener out there who’s sort of, you know, curious about this field, heritage conservation, and wants to learn more. Maybe wants to get involved. Do you have any sort of advice or ways they could sort of learn more about it?
Elysha Paluszek 28:36
I think that one of the most accessible entry points for something like the work that we do is just being involved in communities, people’s communities, and being curious about the history of the places that they live. And I feel like it kind of goes from there.
Cindy Olnick 29:00
Yeah, just show up. Just start showing up. Yeah, that’s how I did it. I just started showing up. Like, what’s going on here? I want in. You never know. You never know where it’ll take. You look at us now, yes, okay, all right. Well, Elysha, I want to thank you for your time and your insight today, and thanks for being one of our amazing alums. Thanks for all the great work you’re doing to make the world a better place.
Elysha Paluszek 29:26
Thank you for having me. It’s been a lot of fun.
Trudi Sandmeier 29:33
Thanks, Cindy, that was a great interview, and it’s exciting to hear about this sort of new work that’s happening out in the field, and not just in the City of West Hollywood, but even in the City of L.A. and hopefully in cities all over the United States are going to start to do this work.
Cindy Olnick 29:51
Yeah, yeah. She just mentioned that briefly, but I would encourage everybody to check out this new study that was released just last fall for all for the City of Los Angeles, called Historical Housing and Land Use study, and it’s a big project. Took them several years to do it, so it’s worth a look. We will have it linked on our episode page at SaveAs.place.
Trudi Sandmeier 30:15
Tune in next time for an interesting conversation about the role of photography in heritage conservation.
Sam Malnati 30:22
You can take your iPhone outside and take a photo, and that looks good enough for Library Congress, but it really isn’t.
Cindy Olnick 30:35
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Save As. For photos, show notes and transcript. Visit our website at SaveAs.place. If you haven’t already, please subscribe. Leave us a review. Tell a friend.
Trudi Sandmeier 30:52
This episode was produced by Cindy Olnick and Willa Seidenberg. Our original theme music is by Stephen Conley. Save As is a production of the Heritage Conservation program in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
