Veteran real estate developer and civic leader Steve Soboroff has been named chief recovery officer for the City of Los Angeles’ rebuild efforts after the devastating fires that raved the area this month.
In the role, Soboroff, who raised his family in the Pacific Palisades, will work on “rebuilding and expediting the safe return of residents, workers, businesses, schools, nonprofits, libraries and parks in areas devastated by the fires,” according to the city.
“Our absolute priority is to return Angelenos to their homes and rebuild,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “Steve knows our communities, he knows how to activate City Hall, he knows how to engage the public, business, nonprofit and philanthropic resources needed for this massive effort. There is no one better equipped to create our rebuilding plan. We will work closely together to move a strategy forward to rebuild neighborhoods that are stronger, more resilient and more united than ever before. I am enormously grateful that Steve Soboroff agreed to give himself to Los Angeles once again.”
“This work is about Angelenos’ collective hope for the future,” Soboroff added. “For every resident, it may be the hope to return to a community they love as soon as possible. For others, it’s how to survive until they get to return to work in this 103-year-old community. Our mission is to start building a clear, practical and doable path to the Palisades and everywhere help is needed in L.A. That work starts now.”
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A number of individuals, companies and nonprofits have continued to give large sums of money to wildfire relief efforts. A few of the biggest from locally based groups to be announced last week include:
• NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge started a disaster relief fund to help employees, which has already raised more than $2 million. JPL is one of the largest employers of those impacted by the Eaton Fire.
• Gardena-based Sit ‘n Sleep is donating nearly $1 million worth of contributions to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, including 900 mattresses and $150,000 in funds.
• Beverly Grove-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has issued more than $250,000 in emergency grants to nonprofit organizations.
The Jewish Federation Los Angeles, Food Access Los Angeles, Inclusive Action for the City, the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California Essential Workers Fund and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles Community Response Fund also received grants to help pay for response needs.
“Whether it’s direct aid or volunteer efforts, Cedars-Sinai will continue to leverage all of its resources to help rebuild and strengthen our community,” Erin Jackson-Ward, executive director of grantmaking and social impact at Cedars-Sinai, said.
• Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg donated $5 million to the Motion Picture & Television Foundation for wildfire relief efforts.
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Legendary filmmaker and artist David Lynch died on Jan. 15 – just five days shy of his 79th birthday. A nearly lifelong smoker who had emphysema, his final decline in health came about after he had to evacuate his Runyon Canyon home on account of this month’s wildfires.
Lynch famously patronized a handful of iconic Los Angeles businesses during his peak filmmaking years. He would routinely enjoy a late lunch at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, typically arrivinag at 2:30 p.m. and ordering coffee and a chocolate milkshake according to the restaurant. A well-known photograph of Lynch with filmmaker John Waters with the Big Boy statue made the rounds on the internet in the wake of his death. Known for jotting his ideas on Big Boy napkins, Lynch reportedly took inspiration for the antagonist Frank Booth (played by Dennis Hopper) in his film “Blue Velvet” from a customer he once observed at the restaurant.
Legend has it that he wrote much of the script for “Blue Velvet” while seated at the bar at Jumbo’s Clown Room, the famed Los Feliz bikini bar.
After attending art school in Philadelphia, Lynch studied at the AFI Conservatory in Hollywood Hills, where he spent years creating his feature debut, “Eraserhead.”
Tributes abounded after Lynch’s death was announced on Jan. 16. Bob’s Big Boy played host to a vigil by fans that evening. Paperback Brewing Co. in Glendale remembered the director in a social media post of its label for Sour Peaks, a raspberry lemonade sour ale whose art was inspired by Lynch’s television series “Twin Peaks.” And the downtown movie theater Secret Movie Club, which has screened many a Lynch film, similarly paid tribute with a post from the film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk
With Me.”
Zane Hill contributed to this article.
