Tom Bergin’s landmark status: Will it matter?
The Tom Bergin’s restaurant and tavern property at 840 S. Fairfax Ave. was declared a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) by the Los Angeles City Council on June 18.
The designation excludes the two-thirds of the property used for the restaurant’s parking lot “because it is not a significant character defining feature of the monument.”
The property owner’s lawyer had insisted at the June 11 Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee meeting that the parking lot should be developed for multi-family housing.
In response to that lawyer’s arguments, the four PLUM members in attendance on June 11 (Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Gilbert Cedillo, Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Curren Price, Jr.) amended the recommendation of the Cultural Heritage Commission (to approve HCM status) by adding language to “clarify that the parking lot is excluded from the designation.”
Asked what he now sees as the future for Tom Bergin’s, Jim O’Sullivan, president of the Miracle Mile Residential Association, co-nominator for the landmark status with the Los Angeles Conservancy, said he has no idea, but added, “I am more hopeful than I would have been if we hadn’t got historic status. Then there would have been no hope.”
Category: News
