Two years ago this month, the Frank del Olmo Elementary School was dedicated in a ceremony. I was honored to be asked to participate in the ribbon-cutting (above) of the school. Thanks to Godzilla fans and Platrix Chapter No. 2 of E Clampus Vitus, we dedicated a plaque at the location where Raymond Burr's scenes were filmed.
The Los Angeles Times published this article on November 2, 2006:
Del Olmo School is dedicated in memory of Times columnist
By Howard Blume, Times Staff Writer
November 2, 2006
The new campus on the edge of Koreatown occupies the site where the
first American version of "Godzilla" was filmed. So one early
suggestion for a name was Godzilla Elementary, which would go with
the motto: A monster of a school.
But Principal Eugene Hernandez and the naming committee inclined
another way. And on Wednesday morning, an array of dignitaries,
including some "Godzilla" fans, dedicated Frank del Olmo Elementary
School in honor of the Los Angeles Times associate editor and
columnist who died in 2004 at 55.
The speakers included Del Olmo's wife, Magdalena Beltran-del Olmo,
who said that when she was approached about the honor, "My jaw
dropped; I was touched."
"When I found out the location of the school, it was more poignant,"
she said, "because Frank fought so hard for the Belmont area to get
more schools to serve these kids who have been dealing with
overcrowded conditions."
The three-acre, $42.9-million school opened in August, more than a
year behind schedule, at 100 N. New Hampshire Ave., a block west of
Vermont Avenue south of the Hollywood Freeway. An important cog in a
$19.3-billion school construction program, it adds 975 seats to one
of the most crowded student corridors in the Los Angeles Unified
School District.
Del Olmo's first column was about education, and among his last
causes was advocating to finish the star-crossed Belmont Learning
Complex, which he championed even after the project was abandoned.
That school, resuscitated under Supt. Roy Romer, is expected to open
in about 18 months.
Romer spoke briefly, along with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Also on
hand were Del Olmo's daughter, Valentina, a county psychiatric social
worker, and son, Frankie del Olmo Jr., whose struggles with autism
became a periodic subject of his father's columns.
Frankie, 14, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, stood quietly to one
side during the 90-minute ceremony.
"Frankie is doing a lot better," his mother said. "That first year
and a half was brutal. He missed Dad. He couldn't cry for him. He
couldn't express his emotions. He couldn't talk.
"It's wonderful that my little boy has gotten to a point with his
autism [where] he can hang with a ceremony like this — not only its
length and the noise and many people talking, but just the emotion of
it," she said. "It's about his dad."
Villaraigosa and others described a columnist who was eloquent,
relevant, fearless and just — and always demanding of public
officials.
"I remember some [columns] that were not too kind to me," the mayor
said. After reading about Frankie, "my perception about [del Olmo]
completely changed…. I saw a father with love so deep for his son. I
just waited for those pieces." He said he was also moved when the
columnist decided to stop writing about his son, to give him some
privacy.
Early in his career, Del Olmo almost single-handedly represented
people of color at the newspaper. He helped change the face of the
newsroom.
Even Armand M. Vaquer, the representative of the Godzilla Society of
North America, had to agree that the new campus' name was fitting —
while also noting the school's site as the very place where actor
Raymond Burr uttered the immortal phrase: "Look at the size of those
footprints."
On Wednesday, those words applied metaphorically to Del Olmo, who
would have appreciated the public officials who spoke in Spanish and
English, as well as the child mariachis and the school chorus, which
sang a Swahili unity ditty and a new school song whose lyrics include
the line: "We are Frank del Olmo. We love to show our pride."
Above, the plaque at the school's entrance.
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