Black History Month Leo Branton Jr.
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- Category: Featured Resident
- Published on Thursday, 10 February 2011 19:14
- Written by Renee Montgomery
Visiting with Lafayette Square resident Leo Branton feels like time-travel through landmarks of 20th century history.
Branton, a famous civil rights attorney, served as defense counsel to Angela Davis, Hollywood blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, several Black Panthers, and innocent men arrested in the Watts riots.
Branton was also one of the first African American attorneys to provide legal representation to entertainers, including Dorothy Dandridge, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix, (until he fired the last performer for lack of cooperation, that is.) Local residents may also know Branton as host to Rosa Parks each winter in his home for the decade preceding her death.
Branton explains he had his first experience with discrimination when arrested as a teenager after he fought back when a store clerk struck him in his native Arkansas – a case later dismissed by a judge. Yet it was the acting bug that
inspired Branton to study law at Northwestern, after traveling with a repertory company and military service. The tireless attorney who has won numerous distinctions and is a sought-after speaker, was one of the first to hire a consultant to psychologically profile juries and to demand fairer diversity of juries. Other legal distinctions include winning cases upon appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court level. His persuasive closing argument in the case of People v. Angela Davis (where he served as Chief Counsel) is still used for instruction in law schools. Branton is most proud of his 40 year effort to free death row inmate Robert Wesley Wells.
Although retired for ten years, Branton, continues to do pro bono work, graciously accepting cases for individuals arrested on bogus charges who cannot afford representation on their own. He points to a painting on his wall by renown artist Edward Biberman expressing the equality of working people despite color difference – one of many museum-quality artworks adorning his modest home, including works by Charles White. However despite his 62 year career in civil rights (Branton was awarded the ACLU’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009), it is his late wife, Geraldine Branton, which he credits as his greatest inspiration: “When she saw a wrong, she tried to solve it.” He encourages young black people to take better advantage of the greater opportunities achieved through the Civil Rights movement. Branton has three sons and grandchildren. Despite macular-degeneration, at age 88, the very vital and sharp attorney shows no signs of slowing down and is planning an autobiography.
David Raposa, Restoring West Adams One Property At a Time
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- Category: Featured Resident
- Published on Tuesday, 03 August 2010 22:32
- Written by Mitzi March Mogul
Recently “This Old House” magazine sited West Adams as California’s best place to buy an old house. The revival of this historic community owes much to the efforts of local realtor David Raposa.
As a young man growing up in Boston, David Raposa was always interested in architecture, checking out houses that were for sale or under construction, sketching the homes and floor plans he had seen and sometimes even creating his own designs.
Graduating from Harvard University in 1980 with a Masters in Business Administration, David became a CPA, working in New York City. He eventually found work with a large financial institution and soon found himself on a plane to Los Angeles to help manage their West Coast office.
With a mind for business and a love for beautiful things, David began buying property, a home on the edge of Palm Springs, a Spanish-style duplex in the Pico Robertson area and by 1986 he was devoting himself full time to real estate and historic architecture.His interest and his professional background merged when David purchased City Living Realty in the mid-1980’s.
It was an ad for vintage houses that brought David to the West Adams District.
Enchanted by the quality and diversity of design, he felt a connection to the community. David’s commitment to Historic Preservation has been more than mere rhetoric. Literally putting his money where his mouth is, David bought difficult homes and meticulously restored them to their original luster. The first property he purchased in West Adams was a house designed by noted architect FrankTyler, which had been chopped up into nine illegal units. David restored it to a glorious single-family residence. He rescued another neighborhood nuisance that had been used as a crack house. Another had been clad in aluminum siding, painted bright pink, and had serious foundation problems. Many of these are now listed as either City or National historic monuments.
David has served on the Board of Directors of West Adams Heritage Association (who recently awarded him the Martin Eli Weil Historic Preservation Award), the Los Angeles Conservancy and he currently serves on the Board of the North University Park Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. He and his partner, Ed, live in a beautifully restored Craftsman home designed by the Heinneman Brothers.
Ron Hutchinson International Playwright
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- Category: Featured Resident
- Published on Sunday, 04 April 2010 04:49
- Written by Renee Montgomery
Out of all the neighborhoods, in all the towns, in all the world, he chose ours.
When acclaimed screenwriter/playwright Ron Hutchinson describes his block in Kinney Heights in West Adams, he uses descriptions like “a web of relationships” and “a little family”.
If teenage daughter Isabella is dressed up for a party, she goes next door to model for the neighbors. When one of Ron’s plays ran in San Diego, the whole neighborhood turned out in a bus. When a neighbor moves, it’s to a different house on the block. Even the piano relocated within the neighborhood. And a stray cat seems to have miraculously found a home here out of the back of a van.
No amusing or profound detail of his tightly-knit community, past or present, is lost on Ron, widely considered to be one of our most important contemporary dramatists. Best known for the screenplays for John Frankenheimer’s Against the Wall and The Island of Doctor Moreau and Robert M. Young’s Slave of Dreams, other credits include Emmy Award-winning Murders Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, The Burning Season, The Josephine Baker Story, Fatherland, The Tuskegee Airman, Traffic (nominated for three Emmys in 2004), The Ten Commandments, and Marco Polo. Equally renown are Ron’s nearly two dozen plays, such as Moonlight and Magnolias (2004), Topless Mum in Dead Hero Shocker!! (2007) and Durand’s Line (2009). Now in his early sixties, Hutchinson continues to write prolifically with a musical in workshop soon in New York. He also teaches screenwriting at AFI and is a popular “script doctor”.
Ron’s plays are produced all over the world so he and his wife, former dancer, Alisa Taylor, could have chosen to live anywhere but they selected West Adams for its live-able urbanity. After doing a stint in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, the couple moved to Kinney Heights in 1990 so their family could be exposed to a greater diversity of people. Ron was born in Northern Ireland but lived in Coventry as a child and spent several years in the London theatre world before falling in love with Los Angeles when one of his plays was in production at the Mark Taper Center.
“Pumpkin” the adopted cat abandoned on Halloween, the neighborhood racoon, the joy of the sun sending its last rays of light down the street-- spend some time with the wry, creative Ron on his neighbor’s Porch Sitting Club and you’ll soon be immersed in engaging stories that reassure the spirit and confirm the uniqueness of our community.
Gary Phillips Mid-City Noir
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- Category: Featured Resident
- Published on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 22:35
- Written by Renee Montgomery
Who better to profile in the TNN than long time Mid-City resident and acclaimed local writer Gary Phillips? It was Phillips’ short story that was chosen to represent the Mid-City section of the best-selling anthology Los Angeles Noir.
Characters from several of his internationally-known novels operate from our area -- peppered with references to places like Oki-Dog, The Cork and the day laborers at Lucy’s drive-thru. In his blog, Phillips waxes eloquent about Magee’s Donuts, and Pico Boulevard, which he calls “The Boulevard of Desire” typifying how “this city grew in its slap-dash manner . . . a mélange of auto body and auto repair shops side-by-side with beauty parlors, yoga studios, tropical fish stores, and tony tchotchke shops,” . . . where one can get their “yard bird” on at Golden Bird Chicken.
Barbara Bottner Favorite Children's Author
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- Category: Featured Resident
- Published on Thursday, 18 February 2010 21:51
- Written by Renee Montgomery
It must be the Adams first law-of-physics that our charming neighborhood should attract a charming children’s book author. Barbara Bottner, five-year resident of Western Heights is the author and/or illustrator of over 36 books for children and young adults.
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