It Didn’t Say Anything About Socks

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Gerald Alcantar, vice president of diversity development at Fox Entertainment Group, left his shoes on during the recent Barefoot Thursday event at the Los Angeles Midnight Mission in downtown’s Skid Row. And that was despite a press release urging participants to bare their feet in a show of solidarity with the homeless, who received about 2,000 pairs of donated shoes.

Apparently Soles4Souls, a non-profit shoe charity that organized the event with Fox, didn’t check with the mission’s management before publishing the release.

“It’s not the most hygienic area,” mission spokeswoman Mai Lee said of the pavement surrounding the downtown location. “We don’t encourage people to go barefoot.”

One person who did anyway was a former Miss Massachusetts who now lives in Los Angeles and helps promote the cause.

“It was a little out of my safety zone,” Cristina Nardozzi admitted. “But nothing bad happened to my feet. Nothing, at least, that a wet washcloth couldn’t take off.”

Countered Alcantar: “I held on to my shoes.”


Make a Brand New Start of It

Even billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad has run into difficulty in the unforgiving real estate market.

Broad listed his New York apartment for sale in August at $15 million but made several price cuts to just under $11 million. He lined up one buyer who eventually backed out, Broad said, and his broker took the apartment off the market this month. He plans to relist it once the markets rebound.

Broad, who also owns homes in Brentwood and Malibu, has been looking to unload the two-bedroom, two-bathroom Manhattan apartment since purchasing a new place there in November.

As he put it: “I don’t need two.

“We currently own four (homes) one more than we need in New York.”


Shipping News

Carol Rowen admits she didn’t know much about the local ports until she was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by then-Mayor Richard Riordan in 1993. She served until 2001, the year Riordan left office.

“By the end of that, I had fallen in love with the local maritime community,” Rowen said. “The people are just so warm and passionate about what they do, with many having strong ties in their families to the port-related business community for generations.”

Spreading the word about the port community is a mission she’s taken to heart, and in 1999 she founded the L.A.-based International Trade Education Program. The 74-year-old now dedicates herself full time to the program, which teaches about 1,800 students annually about careers in international trade, shipping, logistics and the like.

Last month, Rowen became the 76th person to win the Stanley T. Olafson Bronze Plaque Award from the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce for her efforts in shoring up young local talent to pursue work in trade-related jobs. In the last year, she noted, trade figures may be down but the students are undeterred.

“Trade has been around from year one, and has only grown since then,” Rowen said. “You don’t get through life without ups and downs.”


Staff reporters David Haldane, Richard Clough and Francisco Vara-Orta contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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