Broadway Nightclub Envisioned in Former 'Problem' Location

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - The last time a nightclub operated in Broadway’s Globe Theatre, it was known more for fighting than dancing. Frequent brawls, along with gang and drug activity, earned the nightspot a dubious reputation. That and multiple noise complaints from nearby residents helped cause the club’s eventual demise. 

That is not the kind of establishment Erik Chol plans to operate. Chol, a native of France, has embarked on a $5 million turnaround of the Historic Core property. He hopes to open it in November.

BE THE FIRST TO READ THE LATEST DOWNTOWN NEWS, FOOD AND CULTURE STORIES. CLICK HERE AND SIGN UP FOR OUR DAILY HEADLINES NEWSLETTER.

Chol’s venture, which he plans to call The Globe Theatre, would span 24,347 square feet in the Garland Building, reactivate the mezzanine balcony and reopen the Broadway entrance to the 1913 theater. The previous occupant, Club 740, had its patrons wait in line in a dark, dank alley.

“His goal is a wholesale rejuvenation of the building,” said Nikola Hlady, a planner in the Elizabeth Peterson Group office handling the proposed Globe Theatre’s entitlements. Hlady speaks for Chol as Chol’s English is limited, he said. 

Chol said he has secured 80% of the money for the turnaround, with most of the funds coming from himself and his family. While cosmetic improvements are underway in the theater, full-on construction should begin this month. 

In addition to upgrading the interior, plans call for restoring the Globe Theatre marquee. Having it illuminated at night would enhance Broadway, which 14th District City Councilman José Huizar has made a priority through his Bringing Back Broadway initiative. The plan includes restoring streetcar service to the street. 

Huizar asked Chol to rehabilitate and reopen the Broadway entrance, spokesman Rick Coca said, noting that the business would have a different focus than the troubled Club 740. 

“The Globe Theatre will be just that — a theater, with a wide range of live entertainment, from theatrical performances to music concerts,” Coca said.

In documents filed with the city, Chol called out the previous business operation as “irresponsible” and said that he is committed to operating the nightclub “in a markedly different fashion.” He pledged to work with Zoning Administration officials to ensure that the club will not adversely affect the community.

That would be welcome news to those who remember the past. Club 740 opened in May 2005 and initially catered to a mostly young, hip-hop crowd. By late 2006, the club had been referred to by then-City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s office as a nuisance location because of the number of assaults that occurred there. 

Los Angeles Downtown News reported in 2009 that the Planning Department case file on Club 740 detailed dozens of violent incidents at or near the club, including fights, sexual assaults, gang activity and a 2006 homicide. The club closed in 2011.

Chol’s venture would provide one security guard for every 75 patrons, whom the business owner described as a “higher-end clientele.” That ratio is industry standard, but Hlady said the security team would be flexible and adjust strategies based on the type of event scheduled. The Globe Theatre, he said, would host top international DJs, live performances, movie premieres and be rented out for private events. 

Chol, who ran clubs in Reims, France, is committed to operating a safe club in which all attendees are of legal drinking age, Hlady said. 

Still, Tracy Allen, a senior lead officer for the LAPD’s Central Division, remembers the problems from the previous club, and is concerned about a nightlife business occupying the vacant theater. 

“I am not happy to hear that another club will be going in there, especially considering how unhappy the residents of the Chapman building were with the noise and chaos from the 740 Club,” she said in an email.

Hlady said the project team recently worked with the manager of the Chapman Lofts to host a meet-and-greet, inviting residents into the theater to speak with Chol and learn about the project. It’s a dialogue that will continue once the venue is up and running, he said.

“He has the utmost interest in existing harmoniously with the neighboring residents and businesses,” Hlady said. “Mr. Chol aims to attract a respectful and engaged clientele, not those that wish to cause trouble and ruckus.”  

The fact that the historic theater will return to life is a positive for the neighborhood, said Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation coordinator Michelle Gerdes. She said she was pleased to hear that the Broadway entrance would be reopened and that Chol plans to maintain the historic integrity of the theater.

donna@downtownnews.com

Waitress Fired For Facebook Post Complaining About Bad Tippers

A waitress at a Famous Dave's BBQ restaurant in Bismarck, ND set off an online firestorm and lost her job after she allegedly posted a picture that implied Native Americans are bad tippers. No doubt her timing was off; she posted it during the United Tribes International Powwow held in the city, according to a report by the Bismarck Tribune.

It also didn't help that the founder of the chain -- which has outlets all over the country -- is Native American.

In the photo posted to Facebook, the waitress is wearing a Famous Dave's shirt and standing in a restaurant kitchen; she is holding a cardboard sign that reads:
The employees weren't identified, but the chain's founder Miigwetch "Famous Dave" Anderson, said in a statement on the Last Real Indian's Facebook page that the waitress in the picture was "very, very remorseful" and that she didn't understand how the picture might be seen as disrespectful. He is Choctaw and Ojibwe, according to Indian Country Today, and a former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior.

Mike Wright, owner of the Famous Dave's Bismarck franchise and the employees' boss, also posted a statement, which read, in part:

When an employee decides to make an ass of him or herself they can now do it for all to see. Sadly, for reasons unkown to me, often times bitter employees also try to embarass the employers and taint the businesses where they work. Clearly a recent post by a now former employee fits this description.

It isn't clear where the image first appeared, but it was copied to multiple places on Facebook, including the Last Real Indians page and the Famous Dave page, according to the Indian Country Today Media Network.

Jordan Linn Graham Allegedly Confesses To Pushing Husband Off Cliff

HELENA, Mont. -- A newlywed wife with doubts about her 8-day-old marriage confessed she pushed her husband face-first off a cliff in Glacier National Park, then lied about his death and told authorities he had driven off with friends, court documents said.
Federal prosecutors have given their version of what happened to Cody Lee Johnson, 25, two months after his body was found in an area of the park so steep and rugged that a helicopter had to be used in the recovery.
Jordan Linn Graham, 22, appeared Monday in federal court in Missoula on a second-degree murder charge in Johnson's July 7 death. Her attorney, public defender Andrew Nelson, declined to comment.
Johnson's family and friends had called for an investigation since the body was recovered July 12 below the Loop Trail near the sheer cliff drops of the park's popular Going to the Sun Road.
Johnson loved her and was excited for their marriage after a two-year courtship, but his relatives suspected that Graham didn't exactly reciprocate, family friend Tracey Maness said. She was aloof, didn't want to spend time with his family, and clammed up when she did, Maness said.
He told his mother that Graham would change when they got married, Maness said.
"Nobody ever could have thought something like this could happen," she said.
On the night Johnson died, Graham told a friend that she meant to talk with Johnson about "having second thoughts about having been married," according to an FBI affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.
Just before 9 p.m., she texted the friend that she was about to talk to him.
"But dead serious if u don't hear from me at all again tonight, something happened," Graham wrote, according to the affidavit.
Johnson was reported missing July 8 when he failed to show up for work, and Graham was questioned the following day.
She originally told investigators that Johnson sent her a text message the night of his death, saying he was going for a drive with a friend from out of town.
She said she arrived to see a dark-colored car pulling out of their driveway, and that Johnson was in it.
On July 11, two days after that interview, Graham told a park ranger in Glacier that she had found the body below the popular Loop area, the affidavit said.
The park ranger commented that it was unusual that she found it.
"It was a place he wanted to see before he died," she said, according to the affidavit. "He would come up here with friends to drive fast when his friends were visiting from out of town."
Five days later, Graham admitted to authorities in a second interview that she had lied, according to the affidavit. She told them she and Johnson had an argument, were upset and decided to go to the Loop Trail.
They continued arguing on the trail, and it intensified. At one point, she turned to walk away, but Johnson grabbed her arm, she said.
She turned around, removed his hand from her arm and "due to her anger, she pushed Johnson with both hands in the back, and as a result, he fell face first off the cliff," the affidavit said.
Maness described Johnson as a "big goofball" with a great sense of humor who was into cars, video games, four-wheeling and kayaking. He and Graham during their engagement would go to Glacier for some of the easy day hikes, most recently in May, she said.
She said the family is relieved that the investigation is finally complete and charges brought after two months.
"Two months probably isn't very long for an FBI investigation, but when you're waiting for answers, that's a lifetime," she said.

9/11 Anniversary Ceremony In New York Will Be Quiet 'Last' For Mayor Bloomberg

NEW YORK — When this year's Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony unfolds at ground zero, the mayor who has helped orchestrate the observances from their start will be watching for his last time in office. And saying nothing.
Over his years as mayor and chairman of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum, Michael Bloomberg has sometimes tangled with victims' relatives, religious leaders and other elected officials over an event steeped in symbolism and emotion.
But his administration has largely succeeded at its goal of keeping the commemoration centered on the attacks' victims and their families and relatively free of political image-making. In that spirit, no politicians – including the mayor – were allowed to speak last year or will be this year.
Memorial organizers expect to take primary responsibility for the ceremony next year and say they plan to continue concentrating the event on victims' loved ones, even as the forthcoming museum creates a new, broader framework for remembering 9/11.
"As things evolve in the future, the focus on the remembrance is going to stay sacrosanct," memorial President Joe Daniels says.
At Wednesday's ceremony on the 2-year-old memorial plaza, relatives will again read the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pa. Readers also will recite the 1993 trade center bombing victims' names.
At the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, where Wednesday's ceremony will include bell-ringing and wreath-laying, officials gathered Tuesday to mark the start of construction on a visitor center. The Pentagon plans a Wednesday morning ceremony for victims' relatives and survivors of the attacks, with wreath-laying and remarks from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials, and an afternoon observance for Pentagon workers.
Deciding how to mark the anniversary of the worst terror strike in U.S. history was a sensitive task for Bloomberg and other leaders in the months after the attacks, perhaps especially for the then-new mayor. Officials were planning a memorial service for thousands of families from 90 countries, while also setting a tone for how the public would commemorate 9/11.
"That was the challenge that we faced, and it was an enormous one," recalls Jonathan Greenspun, who then was part of Bloomberg's community affairs unit and now is a political consultant. "There was a recognition, by the mayor, that the ceremony had to transcend typical memorial services and the politics that are sometimes associated with them."
Officials fielded about 4,500 suggestions – including a Broadway parade honoring rescue workers and a one-minute blackout of all Manhattan – before crafting a plan centered on reading names at ground zero.
"Our intent is to have a day of observances that are simple and powerful," Bloomberg said as he and then-Gov. George Pataki announced the plans in 2002.
For years, the ceremonies did include politicians reading names and texts, and Bloomberg made remarks that over the years touched on Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 London subway bombings and the Biblical King David's grief at the death of his son Absolom, among other topics.
Bloomberg's role hasn't always been comfortable, especially for a mayor whose brisk, pragmatic personality and early criticisms of the memorial struck some victims' relatives as insensitive.
When the ceremony was shifted to nearby Zuccotti Park in 2007 because of rebuilding at the trade center site, some victims' relatives threatened to boycott the occasion.
The lead-up to the 10th anniversary brought pressure to invite more political figures and to include clergy in the ceremony. And when Bloomberg mentioned the idea of ending the name-reading the next year, some of the relatives were aghast.
By next year's anniversary, Bloomberg will be out of office, and the museum is expected to be open beneath the memorial plaza.
While the memorial honors those killed, the museum is intended to present a broader picture of 9/11, including the experiences of survivors and first responders.
But the organizers expect they "will always keep the focus on the families on the anniversary," Daniels said. "We see ourselves as carrying on a legacy."
That focus was clear as relatives gathered last September on the tree-laden plaza, with a smaller crowd than in some prior years.
After the throng and fervor that attended the 10th anniversary, "there was something very, very different about it," says Charles Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was killed in the trade center's north tower. "It felt almost cemetery-ish, but not really. It felt natural."