L.A. Uprising: Curfew at the Edge of Koreatown

“Don’t Burn!  Black Owned!”

So said the note taped to the glass front door of my apartment building.  It was put there on the afternoon of April 29, 1992 by my very white, very Jewish landlord, who managed 12 units for our very white, very Russian building owner.

I was living in the flats of Hollywood, near Hollywood and Western.  The chaos was bleeding its way north.  Live TV showed looters plowing cars through storefronts at Santa Monica and Western.  Rioters had already partially torched the building on our corner.  Panic was in the air.   My landlord told me shopkeepers were firing shots from rooftops in Koreatown.  Others were posting “Don’t Burn! Black Owned!” signs on their windows.  Lacking firearms, she thought a sign was our building’s best defense.

I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.  I threw together a duffel bag of clothes, loaded up my car with my favorite CDs and VHS tapes (the only things worth saving in my bachelor days), and headed north on the Hollywood Freeway.  Destination: the perceived safety of my parents’ house in the Beverly Hills area, although word on the street was that “Beverly Hills is next!” 

Exiting at Highland and winding my way along Mulholland Drive, I pulled over at the Hollywood Bowl Overlook.  That’s when the magnitude of the uprising hit me.  Plumes of smoke rose all along the L.A. basin.  I tried to count the individual fires, but lost track after 65.  Others stood beside me, watching our city burn.  None of us said anything.  It was like we were all in collective shock.

I returned to my apartment building later the next day.  It was still standing.  My landlord said she hadn’t slept a wink since I last saw her.  National Guard units marched past our building in camo.  I ran outside to take pictures.  A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on Los Angeles. 

Wait a minute: a curfew?

I had recently graduated USC Film School and was supposed to screen my thesis film at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences auditorium on Wilshire Boulevard that night.  Part of the school’s annual “First Look” festival of student films.  Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers would be in attendance.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, then with Walt Disney Studios, would be the host.  A good screening could launch a career.  This was without a doubt the most important day of my life.  But just like that, it was officially cancelled due to some… some… stupid riot.

The “First Look” screening  ended up happening in June, as the city began to heal.  Katzenberg honored his commitment as the host.  My film was well-received, though it certainly didn’t launch my career as Hollywood’s Next Big Director as I had hoped. 

But back on April 30, how quickly I had changed once the riots became personal.  Over the first 24 hours, my heart bled for my beloved city, my head swirling with nightmarish images from the news and some Mulholland turnout.  I feared for all our futures.  But it was only after a curfew was imposed that my life’s trajectory was directly thrown off course.  Instantly, my brain recalibrated.  Worst civil disturbance in U.S. history?  Fifty-four people dead?  Screw that, don’t they know I have a date with Disney?

Looking back, I can still taste the fear in the air that first night of the riots.  But then it’s eclipsed by an even greater emotion.

Shame.