The Brief

With admiration and some envy, Korean American filmmaker Christopher H.K. Lee has watched some of L.A.’s largest diaspora communities build cultural history museums over the last 30 years.

The Armenian American Museum is under construction in Glendale, scheduled to open next year. The Chinese American Museum and the Japanese American National Museum have been serving their communities for decades.

Then there is the planned Korean American museum in Koreatown. First proposed in the early 1990s, the project has struggled ever since, even as more than $20 million has been raised in private donations and government funds.

Those seeking information can only turn to a website run by the nonprofit trying to build the future Korean American National Museum. The homepage promises “new website coming soon” and asks visitors to “join the waitlist.”

Filmmaker Christopher H.K. Lee leads a meeting of community members demanding accountability around a long-stalled project to build a Korean American museum.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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Lee, who joined efforts to build a museum in the 1990s, is tired of waiting. He’s leading a new community group demanding greater accountability and action from the nonprofit’s board called Friends and Supporters of the Korean American National Museum.

He said it was embarrassing that the Korean American community didn't have a place to commune and celebrate their culture.

“Not having a home to go to — how do you call that a successful immigration story?” Lee asked.

Repeated delays

None of the nonprofit’s board members — headed up by JaeMin Chang, publisher of the Korea Times, a family-owned newspaper — would give interviews for this story. Neither would the former executive director Shinae Yoon, who said she stepped down April 1 to pursue other projects.

By e-mail, Yoon said she was still very hopeful for the future of the museum but said it was dealing with extenuating circumstances, such as delays caused by the pandemic, escalating construction costs and changes in city leadership.

“So there’s going to be a period of re-evaluation, and it’s going to take time,” Yoon wrote.

About 70 people turned out for a meeting last month in Koreatown to call for action on the Korean American museum project.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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The plan has been to build the museum on a municipal parking lot on the corner of 6th and Vermont in Koreatown through a unique lease arrangement with the city that costs the nonprofit virtually nothing for 50 years, but requires it to work closely with the city on the project.

Devyn Bakewell, a spokesperson for Councilmember Heather Hutt, who represents Koreatown, said in an e-mail that “the City has been a ready and willing partner to build this project for the last five years.”

The planned construction site for the Korean American National Museum is a city-owned parking lot in Koreatown on the corner of 6th and Vermont.

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But she said the museum project has been delayed by “the historical lack of funding and the constant changing of designs.”

Changing designs

The board unveiled its fourth design in a little more than a decade last month, frustrating critics who feel the project is going back to the drawing board.

Past designs included apartments. The latest one, inspired by the architecture of a hanok or traditional Korean house, does not. It’s not clear how the changes in designs or the removal of housing from the master plan will affect the lease agreement. Asked about the status of the lease, the City Attorney’s Office said it had no comment.

Lee contends the project is suffering from a lack of transparency from both the board and the city and is calling on greater community involvement.

More than 200 people have lent their name to the group’s website, and about 70 people met in Koreatown for the first time last month. There were questions about how the funds raised — $5.6 million in private donations and $14.5 million in city, state and federal support — were being used, and the acknowledgement that much more was needed for the project.

Others wondered where the art and historic items that have been donated to the future museum were being stored.

A former design for the Korean American National Museum released in 2019.

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Morphosis Architects

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Art historian Seungkyu Choi said that the longer the museum languishes in the planning stages, it’s missing out on building its collection. He pointed out that LACMA recently received its largest gift of Korean art in the museum’s history.

The 92-year-old Choi exhorted the group convened at the Korean Education Center to push for action.

“We can do it!” Choi said. “We can do it now — before we all die.”

Aside from attracting historians, the group also included leaders of Little Bangladesh, which is surrounded by Koreatown, and younger Korean Americans like Ashley Ham, a junior at the Harvard-Westlake School, who said she wanted to preserve her history.

High school junior Ashley Ham spoke out on the need to build a Korean American museum during a meeting in Koreatown last month.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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"It is my dream that the creation of this museum will serve as a bridge for generations of people to help them understand the importance of our roots," Ham said.

Lee, for his part, plans to chronicle the community effort to get a museum built which he expects to turn into a documentary.

LAX officials are considering a proposal Tuesday to increase the fees rideshare companies are charged to access the airport.

Currently, rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft generally pass a $4 to $5 airport fee along to their customers. You might see this listed as a line item on your receipt as an “LAX Airport Surcharge.”

But the Los Angeles World Airports Board of Commissioners could vote to increase that fee by as much as $2 to $8 depending on where the rideshare picks you up or drops you off.

The idea behind the proposal is to encourage the use of the long-awaited, much-delayed and over-budget Automated People Mover once it opens and decrease congestion in the central terminal area, the area of the airport that’s also known as the horseshoe.

David Reich, a deputy executive director for the city agency that manages the airport, told LAist that if the proposal is approved, LAX doesn’t plan on increasing the fee until after the Automated People Mover opens, which could be later this year.

The proposed increases

When the Automated People Mover opens, there will be new curb space for drop-off and pick-up. Known as the “ground transport center,” this new curb space will be a 4-minute trip from the terminal area via the Automated People Mover, according to Reich.

LAX-it will shut down as a rideshare and taxi lot once the train opens, Reich said.

If the proposal is approved, getting an Uber or Lyft to and from the ground transport center will come with a $6 airport fee.

Even once the Automated People Mover opens, you will still be able to get rides directly to and from the curbs along the horseshoe, but they will come with a $12 fee.

The proposed increases would also apply to taxi and limousine services, which currently operate under a slightly different fee structure than rideshare companies.

The increased fees are expected to generate as much as $100 million in the first year the Automated People Mover is usable, according to a report to the board.

Why the different fees for the different locations?

In a report to the board, Reich said the Automated People Mover represents a "significant investment” that aims to “fundamentally reshape how vehicles move through the airport.”

The idea behind having a higher fee for direct access to the curbs along the horseshoe is to encourage “use of new, high-capacity infrastructure” and preserve central terminal access for trips “that most require it.”

Uber is trying to fight the increases

Uber is trying to mobilize the public to fight the proposed fee increases.

“Raising the LAX rideshare fee from $5 to $12 at the curb would punish travelers, working families, and seniors who depend on affordable, reliable transportation,” Danielle Lam, the head of local California policy for Uber, said in a statement.

On Monday, Uber sent an email to passengers who recently used the rideshare service, urging them to write to city officials to “stop this massive fee hike.”

Lyft has not responded to a request for comment.

Ten state lawmakers who are members of the L.A. County delegation sent a letter on Monday to the board expressing their “strong opposition” to the proposed increases.

“Many Angelenos rely on a mix of options, including rideshare services and friends or family dropping off loved ones,” the legislators wrote in the letter. “Managing congestion cannot realistically rely on steep fee increases for certain transportation options.”

Eight of the 10 legislators who signed the letter have received campaign contributions from Uber or Lyft, according to an LAist analysis of state campaign contribution data.

Other ways to access the airport

Now is probably a good time to remind folks that there are other ways to get to the airport that don’t involve rideshares, taxis or even lifts from families and friends.

The FlyAway bus offers regularly scheduled rides from the airport to Union Station in downtown L.A. and Van Nuys. You can see the schedules here. 

Last year, the countywide transportation agency unveiled the LAX/Metro Transit center, which is accessible from the C and K rail lines and several bus routes. For now, an LAX shuttle is bringing travelers from the station to the airport. It will be one of the stops on the Automated People Mover once it opens.

The Newport Beach City Council is considering demolishing part of its quirky, beloved sculpture garden in Civic Center Park to make way for a new police station.

The city has been trying to figure out how to replace its aging police headquarters for years. It bought a property in 2022 with that intent. But an ad hoc City Council committee decided, controversially, it might be better to instead build a new station on the parkland next to city hall.

What’s so great about the sculpture garden?

The sculpture garden is a “museum without walls” treasured by art and nature lovers alike. It houses the quirky and once-controversial “Bunnyhenge,” included on the popular Atlas Obscura travel guide. Opponents of putting a new police headquarters on park grounds say it would compromise the environment, and decimate the sculpture garden.

What do supporters of the new station idea say?

Supporters say the current police station, built in 1973, is long overdue for an upgrade, and that the police force needs more space for things like servers to store digital evidence. The council ad hoc committee that studied the issue says the Civic Center parkland makes the most sense for a new building because the city already owns the land, and it would consolidate the city’s main services in one place.

Is it a done deal?

Far from it. The City Council is holding a study session Tuesday to present the plan publicly and gather input. If the council decides to go forward, the next step would be to hire a consultant to design the building and get started on an environmental impact report.

Here’s how to learn more and weigh in:

A new exhibit in L.A. — Vehicles of Expression: The Craft of the Skateboard — arrives this weekend, highlighting the cultural impact, history and artistry of handmade skateboards.

It’s the latest exhibit at Craft in America Center, a museum and library that highlights handcrafted artwork.

Todd Huber, skateboard historian and founder of the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, said before 1962, it wasn’t possible to buy a skateboard in a store.

“Skateboarding started as a craft,” Huber said on AirTalk, LAst 89.3’s daily news program. “Somewhere in the 50s until 1962, if you wanted to sidewalk surf, as they called it, you had to make your own out of roller skates.”

What to expect

Emily Zaiden, the director and lead curator of the Craft in America Center based in Los Angeles, told LAist’s AirTalk the exhibit was tricky to curate.

“What we wanted to do was focus on both the history and then expand into how this has been an object that people have interpreted in so many different ways since the very beginning,” Zaiden said.

Artists who craft skateboards not only think of design, but also of the features that give riders the ability to do tricks, such as wheelies and kickflips.

“The ways that people have constructed boards, engineered boards, design boards … people are really renegade, which I think is really the spirit of skateboarding overall,” Zaiden said. “This very independent, out-of-the-box approach and making boards that allow them to do all kinds of wacky tricks and do all kinds of things that no one imagined possible physically with their body, but through the object of the board.”

Know before you go

The exhibit at Craft in America Center opens to the public on Saturday. Admission is free. The museum is open from noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.