Billionaires Destroying History

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L.A. Couple Goes to Court in Battle to Demolish Marilyn Monroe's Iconic Former Home https://t.co/Ou5iHIs9tP
- People (@people) May 9, 2024
The home’s owners filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles to prevent it from being declared a historic and cultural monument so they can demolish it

Comments

[lamppost1911]

Oof. Possibly an unpopular opinion but I dont see anything wrong with them wanting to demolish it. Wouldn’t remodeling it be just the same? It’s not desecrating her or her legacy. I could be easily proven wrong though.

[skyler_white_yo]

I dunno I think with remodeling you could keep certain aspects of the home intact. My gut is telling me they want to demolish and put up a grotesque mansion like crispy is doing

[lamppost1911]

Oh, they’re for sure planning to make a sterile basic McMansion/mansion. Otherwise why bother demolishing a well known home?

[skyler_white_yo]

If the home had major structural issues I could see demolishing it. But if that was the case, I’m guessing the owners would have provided that info to the city.

In my area they had to tear down a historic building and people got big mad over it. The building was in danger of collapsing into the main drag so they did a controlled demo. People were still fussing about it because it “could have been saved”. I get wanting to preserve history but I also don’t want to be walking in town and have a building fall on me.

[flyingpigs_live]

I'm curious what they'd intend to replace it with. More luxury, unaffordable housing??????

[bethmai]

reminds me of this situation in the UK last year - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crooked_House

some folk bought a beloved local pub called The Crooked House (cos it sank), illegally destroyed it (by allegedly setting fire to it, blocking the access road for firefighters, then demolishing it a day later against instructions), and have now been court ordered to rebuild it brick by brick to exact same specs (including the lean) LOL.

people don't fuck about with their 'history'

[bitchsdangerous]

That ending is absolutely satisfying and delightful

[steffi_333]

It's happened a couple times in the UK! A housing developer got told to rebuild a pub they knocked down too

[bethmai]

Is it this one by any chance? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Tavern - bloody amazing thatthey had to pay so much fucking money for it to rebuilt to the exact same as it was

[varioussaints]

honestly, the idea of the city being able to control what you do with your freehold private property (beyond things like bylaws/safety standards/etc. that apply to everyone in the area) is difficult for me to accept. my first instinct is to say that the committee seeking to preserve it should have to buy the owners out at fair market value. if not, the owners should be able to do what they want

[komnene]

Heritage listing is about there being things in our environment that are bigger than ourselves. Private property becomes secondary to the idea of the common good - that a place can become imbued with such meaning to the community that it no longer should be up to a single property owner to do whatever they want with that place because in doing so they're not just affecting themselves, but potentially causing a loss to one of the threads of the story that make up our community. In the same way that planning codes protect the community from rooves falling on their heads - but more fulfilling.

[varioussaints]

I understand that, but unless the community is also going to pony up the funds required to ensure that maintenance and upgrades adhere to the designation requirements, it’s not an equitable outcome for the homeowner to be unilaterally saddled with the financial burden. maybe if we actually lived in a society that wasn’t run by capitalism on steroids, I would feel differently, but that’s not the world we live in. some people really do just buy housing to be housing and a lot of older homes, heritage or otherwise, need work. buildings are made of organic materials and they cannot last forever.

[komnene]

Yes I think that's fair - they should be better funded and better supported. And the best way to conserve a building is for it to have a use, so for most buildings it's about sensitively managing change.

[frankthesheep]

Controversial opinion here. Is the house she lived in really history? I'd understand if it is being preserved for architecture and design reasons, but being preserved because she lived here is a bit too much idolisation for me. We can't preserve the house every single "iconic" famous person lived in. Anyway these are rich people problems, it isn't going to be turned into affordable housing anyway so I have no dog in their fight.

[lamppost1911]

You said it better than I could.

[therearewords]

Honestly, my question. What does this house 'do' for her memory? If it would be turned into some kind of halfway home or a place for women - yeah. But this is - for the owners - only about the location.

[steffi_333]

Is it also the house she died in? Because then I feel like it opens all kinds of extra weirdness and concerns too.