THE BLUEST LADY

Living Green. It seems like this term is being given some serious lip service lately. We raze buildings of historical fascination and merit with an almost palpable glee in Los Angeles. Sadly last year saw the demolition of The Ambassador Hotel and the adjoining Cocoanut Grove Nightclub. For those non history buffs of my generation, this was the seminole spot to see and be seen back in the day, and the site of the Robert Kennedy assassination. By the time conservationists had drawn up petitions, the building was a crumbling mess and a preservation nightmare. Costing far more to renovate at current green standards than demolishing. How did we let such a place, fall into this state of oblivion?

Los Angeles however, is not alone in her blatant neglect. France is guilty on a world wide scale with the debacle that was the decommissioning of the Clemenceau and now the SS Blue Lady. "Floating Ecological Disasters", is the term most environmentalists use. These once majestic ships are now being beached in Bangladesh and hacked apart for scrap, poisoning the workers and the land. Rich with asbestos and a host of other toxins they are left to die in parts of the world with very lax environmental laws and even less enforcement. Often they are beached before any protests or environmental oversights can be started.

In a culture so apt to replace rather than fix, have we left history (and our green future) out in the cold?


the esteemed SS France/Norway/Blue Lady.

* update - March 2007