The Half-Blood Prince Arrives in Town
Close to 300 people of all ages and sexes lined up along Platform 9 in front of Village Books last Friday at midnight. The festive mood gave Swarthmore'”Diagon Alley”‘a party atmosphere as people milled around, greeted friends and worked on Harry Potter trivia and word searches while waiting for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” to go on sale. There were no Dementors around (in Harry Potter’s world, the kind of people who suck out happiness and hope, leaving misery) as the line stretched past Mort’s Deli. A thick fogged creeped in, mixing with the street lights, lending an air of Holmesian mysteriousness. Before joining the line, Corinne Bourdeau and Andrew Koski held a Harry Potter wizard gathering at their home for 26 children and 14 adults. “We had a martini party to help ease the pain of coming out here,” said Corinne, who had read all five books. Many had ulterior motives for standing in line so late. “My son goes to sleep-away camp at 7 a.m. and I wanted him to have it,” Suzy Pion said. “We’re driving to Idaho tomorrow with our two children,” Ruth Wesson said. “We’re gettting Harry Potter on tape for the 21-hour car ride.” Seven women from the Smith College class of 1976 were visiting Colleen Quinn for a mini-reunion. They were in line to buy the book. One of the women, Mimi Dolan, a professor of biology at the University of Indiana, was headed to the airport. “Colleen got a pre-paid copy for me, so I can read it on the red-eye tonight.” At the very end of the line was Charlie Pasternak and his girlfriend, Taylor Fisher. “I have not read any of the books and I’m not reading any of them until the seventh is out,” said Pasternak. “I’ll read them all at once. I’m only here because of Taylor.” Taylor conceded that it was a nice boyfriend who would come and stand in a midnight line with her. Mrs. Weasley’s chocolate chip cookies, Honeydukes’ Avalande Surprise, cauldron cakes, cockroach clusters and butterbeer (cream soda) were available to waiting customers, many of whom were in costume. Donna Shapiro-Castillo, dressed as Dumbledore, laughed and said, “One of my children had it as a Halloween costume this past year and I stole it.” Once inside the store, Muggles and wizards over 21 were treated to glasses of Muggle juice (champagne). Signs around the store reflecting the Wizarding World, like potions, defense against the dark arts, and sorcery, were made especially for the occasion by Jackie Doyka, 16, a student at Marymount High School. At exactly 12:01 a.m., the doors opened to customers eager to purchase the sixth installment in the wildly popular J.K. Rowling series. Greg Aspell, 14, was at the front of the line. Store owner Katie O’Laughlin had donated the first spot as an auction for the Relay For Life, a cancer benefit held at Marquez in May. Rex Kirshner originally won the raffle, but he gave his winning spot to his friend Aspell for his birthday. There were 17 entries in the poster contest. Winners were Jake Boyle, 7, in the 7-and-under; Mia Ahmet, 11, in the 8-11; and Kathryn Wilson, 13, in the 12-15 category. Honorable mentions were given in all categories, with imaginative awards for “striking use of red,” “magnificent use of watercolor,” and “excellent depiction of a Quidditch match.” Boyle also won best Harry Potter costume in the 7-10 group; Lili Boyle, 9, was best witch; Patric Verrone, 10, Sirius Black (most original); and Marianne Verrone, 8, Dobby (best representation). In 6-and-below, Tommy Daigle, 6, and Teddy Verrone, 5, tied for first for best Harry Potter costume. In the 11-13 category, there was a tie for first between Johnny Lazebnik, 11, a Dementor, and Tait Johnson, 13, Draco Malfoy. Palisadian-Post intern Alex Boone read the book in one sitting. “It’s good’a fantastic story with excellent characters,” he said. “It has the same qualities as her other books, but I was disappointed that it was shorter (652 pages) than her previous novels. She could have gotten into the story quicker.” When the series originally started, Boone had no interest in the “other” world fantasy that Rowling’s books inhabit. Friends offered to give him $50 if he would read the first two books and tell them truthfully that he didn’t like them. After Boone finished, his friends kept their money. Boone was in London when the fourth book came out at midnight. He was one of the first Americans to have a copy and read it before booksellers in America were even allowed to sell it. Village Books opened at 8 a.m. Saturday, with eight people already in line. By the end of the weekend, 558 copies of the Potter book had been sold. “I’m super grateful for everyone who bought it here, ” O’Laughlin said. She still has copies available.
Shula’s 347
Restaurant Review
SHULA’S 347 Sheraton Gateway Hotel 6101 Century Boulevard Los Angeles 642-4820 Shula’s 347’Hall of Fame football coach Don Shula’s first west coast restaurant’opened recently at the newly renovated Sheraton Gateway Hotel just outside of LAX. Los Angeles-based Kor Hotel Group, renowned for its boutique hotel image, has put $14 million into the 802-room hotel. The new Shula’s 347 restaurant fits right into the new sophisticated urban design of the hotel. Shula owns two dozen successful steak houses located primarily in the South and the East. Part of Coach Shula’s restaurant success can be attributed to the custom center cuts of certified Angus beef and the particular aging process. I can attest that this is a terrific piece of beef. Furthermore, the restaurant is most attractive with black ebony furnishings and red faux ostrich print embossed leather, along with plasma televisions and state-of-the-art audio/video system. A starter sampler gave us a taste of both east and west with Chinese five spice seared ahi tuna served with a bit of avocado and an excellent cilantro-ginger vinaigrette; a Maryland-style crab cake with a fine cajun remoulade; and barbecued shrimp wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon and stuffed with basil. Each was well executed and full of flavor. Filet mignon with sauteed mixed peppers and button mushrooms was superb. Not only was the beef delicious, but the vegetables were flavorful and perfectly cooked. These same vegetables accompany all of the steaks from the 10-ounce filet mignon, to the 16-ounce bone-in cowboy steak, or 16-ounce New York strip steak, or the 24-ounce slow roasted prime rib. For non-beef lovers, there is a seared ahi tuna steak, or French cut chicken breast, as well as an Australian lobster tail. A true vegetarian will find Mediterranean linguine with tomatoes, basil, garlic, kalamata olives, capers, olive oil and crispy fried feta cheese. We tried two of the sides; tasty creamed spinach and smashed potatoes (all of which are whimsically priced at $3.47). Other sides include roasted vegetables, cole slaw, jumbo baked potato, French fries and more. Freshly made coffee and an apple cobbler made a fine finish to our dinner. This is a first-rate destination restaurant despite being near the airport. Because this is still a hotel restaurant, you may get a hickory burger, chicken or fish sandwich, or French dip composed of thinly sliced prime rib on a toasted ciabatta roll, at dinner time, along with the dozen entree listings. Prices are just as you would expect. Starters are $9 to $14, salads are $8, and entrees start at $17 for the linguine; the chicken breast is $19, and steaks range from $29 to $34. Desserts are $8. Wine prices are moderate and a number are served by the glass. Shula’s 347 is so named as a tribute to Coach Shula’s 347 game-winning record. Naturally, the restaurant bar features a special variety of pre-game and post game cocktails. The restaurant opens daily at 11:30 a.m. and serves until 10 p.m. except on Friday and Saturday when they remain open until 11 p.m. Parking is validated for diners.
Palisadians Win PTC Junior Open
For several years, the Palisades Tennis Center has played host to an annual tennis tournament. Yet until last week it had never held an event sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association. Tournament Director Scott Wilson changed all that with a lot of persistence and a few well-timed phone calls to make the inaugural Palisades Tennis Center Junior Open a reality. Strictly for junior players, the tournament was staged on courts at the Palisades Tennis Center and Santa Monica High last Tuesday through Friday. Wilson was concerned that holding a tournament right after a holiday weekend might affect the turnout, but he was pleased that the event drew 127 participants. “Everything turned out great and we had some great tennis out here,” Wilson said. “All of the divisions were very competitive.” Players from all over Southern California and as far away as Nebraska and Nevada showed up to participate in the event, which included 10 divisions–five each for boys and girls ages 8-18. Several Palisadians won their age divisions, including Robbie Bellamy in the boys’ 10-and-under division and 15-year-old Katie Nikolova, who won both the girls 16s and 18s divisions. Nikolova beat Caroline Richman in the 16s final and Dalya Perelman in the 18s. Bellamy, son of PTC founder and The Tennis Channel co-founder Steve Bellamy, lost the first set of his championship match against Kaelan Hicks in a tiebreaker but recovered to win the last two, 6-4, 6-2. Neither Bellamy nor Hicks lost a set en route to the finals. Bellamy has been on quite a roll recently. He took second place in the 10-and-under division of the Santa Barbara Tennis Open–one of the largest annual junior tournaments in Southern California. The following week he played up an age group (in the boys 12s) and won the 10th annual USTA Mountaingate Tournament. Palisadian Spencer Pekar advanced to the round of 16 in the boys’ 12s while Jordan Alper reached the quarterfinals of the 14s. Kathryn Cullen reached the semifinals of the girls’ 14s and the girls’ 16s draw featured Palisades High players Mary Logan and Sarah Yankelevitz. In the 18s, Krista Slocum, PaliHi’s No. 1 singles player, beat Erika Lee in the first round, 6-0, 6-1, before losing to the eventual champion, Nikolova. Local player Anthony Rollins was runner-up to Justin Gold in the boys 16s and Thomas Norminton won the boys 18s singles, defeating Chris Nguyen, 7-6, 6-0 in the finals. Jordan Brewer won the girls’ 12s championship with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Andrea Kinnerk. Brett Alchorn won a three-set final over Brian Foley in the boys’ 12s and Evan Teufel beat Tom Griffiths in straight sets in the finals of the boys’ 14s singles. Many other local players reached the finals and semifinals in their respective draws. Meagan Wilson lost in the 10-and-under girls finals, 12-year-old Krystal Hansard lost in the girls’ 14s finals to Marie Zalameda, Alex Baettig advanced to the semifinals of the boys 12s, Naomi Rosenberg reached the semifinals of the girls 10s and Perri Zaret made the semis in the girls 12s. The PTC will be hosting another event, called The Tennis Channel Open, August 15-19, which will be open to all USTA junior players. “We’re hoping we get as good a turnout for that as we had for this tournament,” Wilson said. Since 2001, the PTC has been the site for the Palisadian-Post Tennis Open–a tournament for players of all ages. PTC teaching pro Francesco Franceschini reached the final of the men’s Open draw each year.
A True Comedy of Manners: “Fashion” Lights Up the Stage
Theater Review
With the current taste in theater for verisimilitude, where audiences are obligated to take sides, mistake the plot for truth and make moral judgments, the comedy of manners has become extinct. Even revivals of Restoration comedy (Sheridan and Congreve) are far and few between, so Theatricum Botanicum’s revival of Anna Cora Mowatt’s “Fashion” is a bold move. The play is a keen good-natured satire on American nouveaux riches, and Mowatt was more than equipped to dissect the New York social scene, with all its pretense and gullibility, its tendency to ape Parisian customs, and its exaltation of money. Born in 1819, Mowatt came from a respectable New York family, and was the first American woman of society to help set the American theater on the path from social and moral contempt to respectability. Written in 1845, “Fashion” was her most popular play, and one of the first examples of a distinctly American comedy of manners. The play opens with Mrs. Tiffany (Barbara Tarbuck), the wife of a newly rich business man (Steve Matt) whose extravagance is ruining him. He, unbeknownst to her, has been caught in financial misconduct by his clerk Snobson (Jeff Bergquist), who will say nothing as long as he is promised Tiffany’s daughter Seraphina’s (Elizabeth Tobias) hand in marriage. Meanwhile Count Jolimaitre (Mark Lewis), an impostor with his own designs on Tiffany’s money, is wooing Seraphina. The source of “Fashion”‘s comedy is its satirizing of social pretensions, which starts right off with the hilarious repartee between Mrs. Tiffany and her French maid Millinette (Abby Craden), where butchering the French language (jenny-says quoi) is played to the hilt. Director Ellen Geer recalls that when she was 16 her father, actor Will Geer, was in an Off- Broadway production of “Fashion.” “It made an indelible impression on me and has stayed with me all these years,” she said. “Fashion” was first produced at the Park Theatre in New York in 1845 in a splendid production, which has been repeated at the Theatricum. The cast, which includes several Theatricum veterans, moves in and around the bucolic stage in Topanga. But the opulence is magnificently displayed in the costumes. Designer Kim DeShazo defines the arriviste’s uncertainty in matters of taste by overdressing Mrs. Tiffany in the most outlandishly inappropriate silks and satins. The colorful palette of men and women’s attire saturates the stage. While letting the script stand on its own funny two feet, Geer has also added tunes from the era, accompanied on piano by Evan Alparone, including “The Pig and the Inebriate,” and “I Wish I Were Single Again.” The delightful part about this show is that these characters, despite their vanities and banalities, do not offend our moral sense. We are amused. Performances continue through October 2 at various times, depending on the dates, at the Theatricum, 1419 Topanga Canyon Blvd. There will be a pre-show discussion on Saturday, July 16 at 7 p.m. For tickets, call 455-3723.
Sri Lanka Orphans Tell Colorful Stories
Even in disaster, color abounds. The aqua blue, lime green and saffron-colored images that brighten the walls of Terri’s Restaurant in Pacific Palisades tell many stories of life in Sri Lanka before and after the tsunami pummeled the island off the coast of India last December. Most of the narrative paintings are colorful expressions of women harvesting the fields or bathing in a stream, but some portray scenes of upturned cars, people and houses swirling in a blue sea or a tearful woman clutching her baby. The striking images pop off the walls at Terri’s, many accompanied by photographs of the children who created them. The young artists live at the Sri Yasodara Orphanage, located near Colombo, the capital, and only half a mile from one of the tsunami disaster areas. Many of them are girls who have lost their parents to the civil war between the Tamil Tigers terrorist group and the Sinhalese government; others to suicide or extreme poverty. What is perhaps most moving is that these orphans’ illustrations, which are available for sale at Terri’s, will help raise funds for the orphanage to take on an additional 50 children who lost their parents in the tsunami. The money will go to basic needs for the orphans, such as clean food and lodging, as well as to their education and endowment funds. Loku Maniyo, a Buddhist nun who started Sri Yasodara in 1985, has already rented another facility to house some of the children in Weligama, a southern coastal village that was hit particularly hard by the tsunami. The home, called Yasodara Shanti Nikethanaya Hostel, will provide lodging for 23 girls, pending government approval. “The fact that these amazing paintings come from children of war is one thing that gets to people,” says Gable Carr, a Palisades resident who brought the artwork to Terri’s through her work with Loku Maniyo and Art Refuge, a program in which children who have experienced trauma or loss paint and tell their stories. Sponsored by Friends of Tibetan Women’s Association, Art Refuge first came to Sri Yasodara in 1999. The painting program is about “bringing all the kids together and teaching them about nonviolent, peaceful conflict resolution,” says Carr, 25, daughter of Didi Carr Reuben, whose husband is the senior rabbi at Kehillat Israel. One painting of two soldiers helping a woman is inscribed with “We don’t wont wor, We wont peas.” Providing the children with the opportunity to tell their stories has evoked some startling images and memories. One girl, named Nimali, painted “Disaster” about her last memory of her mother, whom she lost when she was a very young child to landslides, or “earthslips” during the monsoon season. “Nimali remembers her mother had on a green blouse and she remembers her carrying her when the hillsides started crumbling,” says Kitty Leaken, program director of Art Refuge, who photographed the artists. “Then they were separated and Nimali woke up in a relief camp in Nuwara Eliya. It was there that Loku Maniyo found her, after she had lost both of her parents.” Because Sri Yasodara Orphanage is not government-funded, the orphans, who range in age from one to 24, do not have to leave when they turn 18. “It’s important that we are able to send them to international schools so that they can learn English [in order to qualify for better jobs],” Carr explains. Currently, two of the older girls are studying English through an exchange program in New Zealand. “Terri’s really doing a good deed by having the paintings in the restaurant,” Carr says about owner Terri Festa. The restaurant is located at 1028 Swarthmore, across from Mort’s Deli. Carr reproduced the children’s original watercolor and oil crayon paintings as giclee prints (high resolution prints in which the image is sprayed in ink onto archival, museum-quality paper). For the 11″ by 14″ paintings, she is asking a minimum donation of $100; for 16″ by 20″, a minimum donation of $150; and for 20″ by 24″, a minimum donation of $175. Note cards with the images are also available for $10 at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. “I do have some originals,” says Carr, who has already sold 19 pieces. She began working with Loku Maniyo and Art Refuge in January, and started selling the paintings at Terri’s more than two months ago. “It’s just another way that I want to educate and make people aware of what’s going on at the orphanage, and that there’s another way to donate to tsunami relief.” For more information on the Art Refuge project, visit www.artrefuge.org. To purchase a painting, visit Terri’s or contact Gable Carr at gablecarr@adelphia.net.
Joe Napolitano Succumbs at 105
Joe Napolitano, an Italian entrepreneur who was born on a freighter off Gibraltar in 1899 and lived an active, colorful life until his final weeks, died peacefully on July 4 at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 105, and the town’s oldest known resident. “I’m now feeling fine,” Napolitano wrote in a letter to the Palisadian-Post in April, as he recovered from cancer surgery. “I can still pass the DMV tests for driving. No glasses needed.” Indeed, he delivered the letter in person, driving to our office from Iliff (he had a restricted driver’s license) and parking just down the street. He even renewed his subscription for another two years. After his third wife, Reva, died in 1996, Joe lived independently at home, cooking his meals, keeping the place tidy, cultivating his numerous backyard fruit trees and tending to his stock market investments'”not for the money,” said his niece, Tonia, “but as something that was challenging for his mind.” Last August 19, when photographer Rich Schmitt and I visited Joe on his 105th birthday, he was still mentally sharp, with eyes so good he could read his birthday cards without glasses. Face beaming, he welcomed us into his modest home and led us to the kitchen, where he was cooking a large pan of homemade applesauce, made from the gala apples he had picked from his own tree. “I freeze it and then I have frozen applesauce every night for dinner,” Joe said. “It tastes wonderful’just like apple ice cream.” He spooned out a bowl for me to sample and said, “With my compliments!” I told him, quite honestly, that it was indeed delicious. When we sat down to visit, I asked Joe how he felt. “I feel good today,” he said, lighting up his beloved pipe. “I don’t take any pills or medicine and I don’t have any aches or pains’just old-age wear. I want to die like my grandfather back in Italy. He was 97 and he smoked a pipe up until a week before he died. He wasn’t sick or anything; he just didn’t want to live anymore.” In the mid-1890s, before Joe Napolitano was born, his parents, Carlo and Antonia, accepted a free boat trip from Italy to Brazil in hopes of becoming rich by working on the coffee plantations. Instead, after three years, they realized they had become indentured slaves to the plantation owner, and when Antonia became pregnant with Joe (after already giving birth to a daughter in Brazil), she told her husband, “If I have to have another child in this country, I’m going to kill myself.” And Carlo told her, “If I don’t get you out of this country before the child comes, you can kill me.” Fortunately, the Napolitanos were able to board a French freighter bound for Italy, just ahead of their self-imposed deadline. Joe was born at sea, “two days before I reached earth,” he liked to say. After a few years, Carlo Napolitano followed his four sisters to America, where he worked his way across the country as a railroad surveyor. When he saw Los Angeles, he remarked: “This is so much like Naples, this is where I will bring my family.” About 1911, Joe and three of his brothers came to America, penniless and not knowing a word of English. In fact, their luggage had been stolen at the docks in Genoa and all they owned were literally the clothes on their backs. “We arrived on a large ship and when they put down the gangplank [at Ellis Island], everybody crowded into that giant hall,” Joe recalled in a 1999 interview, his brown eyes glistening. “Everybody found their way until not a soul was left, just us four brothers. There had been a mix-up outside, but nobody told us what to do or where to go. So we just stood against the wall because we were scared that somebody would come up behind us. We were there all day, without any food, and I remember thinking, ‘We’re in America’but where is it?’ “Finally, my mother arrived with one of our uncles and when she saw us, she started crying and shouting to the guards in Italian, “Those are my sons! Those are my sons!” and we were brought together. A great moment. I wish I could draw the picture.” After a boat ride to Manhattan, a long ride on the ‘I’ to the Bronx, and another lengthy ride by street car, the boys reached their aunt’s apartment. “She set the biggest table and served the best Italian meal you could imagine,” Joe recalled. “I’ll tell you’the joy of that first meal in America!” Several months later, Joe and his siblings and their mother rode the train out to Los Angeles to join Carlo, and within two years, with all the kids working at odd jobs, the Napolitanos had scraped together enough money to buy a little brick house with dirt floors next to Chavez Ravine. Although Joe left school after the ninth grade, he had tall, dark and handsome features that might have yielded a Hollywood career. When he began taking drama classes (with the likes of Ramon Navarro) in his early 20s as a way to sharpen his English-speaking skills, the teacher was impressed. “She said, ‘You should go into acting. You have a personality, you have a voice,'” Joe recalled. “And other people said, ‘You can run rings around Valentino.’ The guy was short and had a squeaky voice. But I didn’t like the acting life that I heard about’the wild parties, the drinking, taking dope, and having to sign slave contracts. I’m glad I didn’t go into that whole mess.” Instead, Joe capitalized on his sharp mind for business and a work ethic built upon wise advice from his father: “A bull has his horns, a man has his word.” In 1924, he started his own olive oil business, buying a press in Redlands that he moved onto a lot in East L.A. and building a two-story plant with his brother, Nick, where they processed olives from all over California. Napolitano Olive Products lasted until 1950, when Joe realized he couldn’t survive against larger, well-heeled rivals, plus the fact that farmers were selling their olive trees to make way for housing developments. Over the years, Joe earned his real estate license and an insurance broker’s license, worked for an Italian newspaper printed in English, and even ran for L.A. City Council (13th District) in 1931. He lost that race, despite the fervent support of one newspaper editor who wrote on the eve of the election: “Joe Napolitano is NOT A DYED IN THE WORLD POLITICIAN, neither is he past the age of discrimination to the best needs of the district; he is youthful, energetic and with an ideal in mind….A new broom sweeps clean, and a strong character does a good job. Go to the polls and ELECT JOSEPH NAPOLITANO, you worthwhile people of the THIRTEENTH!” In 1951, Joe and his beloved second wife, Lila, bought the 17th Street Nursery on Wilshire in Santa Monica, moving into a little house on the property. He operated the business until 1961, when the owner sold the land to an insurance company. By that time, Lila had fallen ill with cancer. “I spent three years taking care of my wife,” Joe said. “She was the sweetest thing in the world but she suffered from so many things. When she died [in 1994], I sold our house on Chautauqua and moved in with my sister for six months. They gave me everything free but I decided I had to do something different. So I came back to the Palisades and bought my house on Iliff.” Soon he met Reva Aronson Grant at a Democratic Club meeting and they got married when Joe was 81. “She was the baby in her family, so she never learned to cook, never learned to sew, not a damn thing,” he said affectionately. “But we had so much fun together, traveling to places like Mexico and Canada.” As I left Joe’s home after a visit in 1999, he pointed out his latest pride, a scrawny little apple tree that he had recently planted in the front yard (since there was no more room for fruit trees in the back yard). “It’s just a sapling right now,” he admitted, “but I’ve got it going pretty well, so I have to live long enough to enjoy it, maybe two or three years from now. When you have a reason to live, something to look forward to, it helps. Always look for the next day.” Joe Napolitano was predeceased by the two children from his second marriage, Joe Jr., who was a fireman and arson investigator, and daughter Nita. Survivors include eight grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and 21 nieces and nephews. His Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Corpus Christi Church in the Palisades this Saturday, July 16, at 10 a.m. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, and a reception will be held at his home in the afternoon.
Jim Braunger; Former Palisadian, Carpenter
Jim Braunger, a former Pacific Palisades resident, died on March 27 in Camarillo. He was 84. Born on September 28, 1920, Braunger graduated from Hollywood High School and serve 2-1/2 years in the Air Force during World War II. He and his family lived in the Palisades for 35 years before moving to Camarillo 20 years ago. Braunger spent many years as a finish carpenter until his retirement. He traveled extensively with his wife of 63 years, Bettie, and enjoyed bicycling. He also volunteered his time to help Food Share. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Bonnie Giannone of Woodside, California; son Kyle of Santa Barbara; and grandchildren Monica Braunger of New York and Matthew Giannone of Woodside. He was predeceased by his son Greg, who died in an accident in Big Sur 15 years ago.
Herbert Kahn, Noted Architect with Kappe
Herbert Louis Kahn, a former longtime resident of Pacific Palisades, died May 26 in Santa Cruz, where he had resided since 1974. Born in Queens, New York, Kahn moved to San Diego in the 1930s to work in the naval shipyards before World War II. During the war he served in the Air Force outside of London as a mechanic for the bomber squadrons. In 1946, he married Erika Fluss. The couple moved to Los Angeles, where Herbert graduated from USC and began a long and distinguished career as an architect. President of the Southern California Institute of Architects and a member of the architectural firm of Kappe, Kahn and Lotery, Kahn specialized in designs of corporate, civic and community projects, including the San Fernando Police Headquarters, Charmlee Park in Malibu, the Los Angeles People Mover and the City of Inglewood. His proudest professional achievement was saving the artistic landmark Watts Towers from being demolished. After moving to Santa Cruz, Kahn designed the Louden Nelson Community Center as well as numerous buildings of the UC Santa Cruz campus. He is survived by his former wife, Erika Kahn of Carpenteria; sons Cary Kahn of Santa Monica, Philip Kahn of Paso Robles and Peter Kahn of Seattle; and six grandchildren.
Pali Elementary Stages Olympics Day
Citius, Altius, Fortius. These three seemingly simple Latin words for swifter, higher, stronger make up the Olympic motto. But what they signify far outweighs their literal meaning. These words represent the drive to constantly improve, and never be complacent. Many athletes take these word to heart in an event in which hundreds of nations compete every four years for the honor of representing their country and being known as the best in the world. In that spirit, the students at Palisades Elementary, held their own competition as they competed in the school’s fourth annual Olympics Day on June 21. In order to create a more international atmosphere, the students were divided up into groups, and each group was given a nation to represent. Countries represented included Malaysia, New Zealand, Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, the Czech Republic and Ireland. The countries battled for the gold in a variety of events, some of them Olympic standbys like relay races, long jump and a one-third mile run. Other more unusual events included tricycle races, handball, the obstacle course and tug-of-war. The opening ceremonies began as the students listened to guest speakers talk about athletics and their experiences competing. Palisades Elementary then presented its donation to the Special Olympics, which was accepted by Special Olympian Eddie Mack. Afterwards, the students recited the Olympic Creed, and the “games” began. Win or lose, first or last, the students all enjoyed themselves. Said third-grader Jeffrey Goldsmith, “I like the Olympics because everyone always has a good time.” The keynote speaker was Paul Sunderland, former gold medalist and former Los Angeles Lakers play-by-play announcer. Sunderland played basketball and volleyball at the University of Oregon before transferring to Loyola Marymount University. He played Olympic volleyball in 1976 and 1980 before winning the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He said of his gold medal, “It’s just a piece of metal, but it represented a culmination of a passion for me.” He actually brought the medal out for the students to look at, along with a 2002 NBA championship ring he received from the Lakers. After the Olympics, Sunderland wanted to continue to work in sports, but was unsure about what he could do. “When my playing was over, I needed a job,” he quipped. “And I needed one now.” He got a job working at Reebok, and later covered three sets of Olympic games as a correspondent with NBC, including the 2004 games in Athens. Sunderland spoke about all the jobs students could have in sports. “If you like math, you can be a statistician. If you enjoy speaking, you can be an announcer,” he said. “There are many ways you can be involved.” Swimmers Excel at Industry Hills Palisadians Brian Johnson, Peter Fishler, Cara Davidoff, Alexa Merz, Eric Hamer, Julie Wynn, Samantha Brill, Jasmine Punch, Alex Fujinaka, and Dan Fox, all swimming for Westside Aquatics, participated at the Summer Senior Swimming Championships last weekend in Industry Hills. They helped their club team to an eighth place finish out of over 30 teams from all over the state. On the men’s side, Palisades High junior Brian Johnson won the 200 backstroke and placed second in the 200 Individual Medley. Peter Fishler won the consolation final in the 50 Freestyle and placed sixth in the 200 Butterfly. Eric Hamer was seventh in the 50 Freestyle while Daniel Fox, also swimming for The College of New Jersey, placed 10th in the 200 Butterfly. Scoring for the women, Cara Davidoff (Tulane University) was victorious in the consolation final of the 200 Breaststroke and swam fourth in the 400 Freestyle. Stanford-bound Alexa Merz placed third in the 800 Freestyle and eighth in the 200 Breaststroke. PaliHi sophomore, Julie Wynn finished 12th in the 50 Freestyle.