The California Market Center—the biggest apparel showroom complex in the Los Angeles Fashion District

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The California Market Center—the biggest apparel showroom complex in the Los Angeles Fashion District—is undergoing a metamorphosis by adding more mammoth exhibition space and consolidating showrooms onto fewer floors.

The CMC’s latest transformation is the second floor of the three-building center, whose first phase was opened in 1963 in an ambitious project undertaken by Harvey and Barney Morse, local manufacturers who owned California Lingerie Inc.

All showrooms and offices on the second floor are being vacated in the next few months as the CMC’s owners convert the area into a vast exhibition hall.

“The CMC is becoming one of the most sought-after destination venues in DTLA [downtown Los Angeles], and we continue to see continued growth in event requests. Many of these requests require more space than we can provide on the 13th floor. The major renovation of the entire second floor will address these needs and provide a more convenient trade show and event space for the building,” the California Market Center’s executives said in an emailed statement.

“Currently, we work with large events such as The Makeup Show,Unique LA, LA Weekly's The Essentials, Coeur trade show, BizBashand many more. These changes will not affect the availability of showroom and office space, which also is in great demand at CMC. Our plan will create more-fluid floor plans throughout the complex.”

Second-floor occupants were informed in December that they would have to move in the next coming months—although no one received a written notice and no exact date was given.

The CMC said it was hoping to have the showrooms relocated before Los Angeles Fashion Market in March and have the service-industry offices moved by April.

The news was a surprise to people such as Barbara Kaplan, who has been in the same second-floor office in the B building for 40 years runningExtra Secretary. “This was brought upon us at the end of December,” said Kaplan, whose lease expired on Dec. 31. She now has to be out of her space by March 15, she said.

Currently, Extra Secretary has about 1,000 square feet filled with bulky copy machines, computers, a fax machine and other devices used for her business, which also offers notary services. Shelves of multicolored paper line the walls for flyers and announcements. Extra Secretary also publishes the Green Sheet, a weekly newsletter of classified ads and advertising for the apparel and textile industry.

Kaplan said she is tentatively set to move to the seventh floor, where many of the other second-floor service businesses will be relocated. “I am kind of excited about the move, having a clean and fresh start, especially after being here so many years,” she said, noting that the hall carpeting in her area is faded and the area hasn’t been upgraded in many years.

Next door to Extra Secretary is accountant Ron Cheifer, who also has been in his office for 40 years. He is still uncertain where he will land. “We are living one week at a time,” he noted.

The Bakery Nosh, Tony Shoe and Omid Travel & Tours still don’t know where their new locations will be. And Robert Rojas, owner of thePhonemart, who has been in his current location since 2000 and in the building since 1991, is uncertain where or when he will move. “It seems most of the service people are moving to the seventh floor,” he said.

The building’s second-floor mailroom is one of those services that will have a new spot on the seventh floor.

The move for Zen Dental, owned by Dr. Alessandra Raschkovsky, is more complicated because various building permits and health inspections that take approximately six months are necessary to set up a new location. Right now, she isn’t sure where she will move.

Showroom shuffle

All of the second-floor showrooms that are affected by the CMC’s new plans are in the A building—but currently only five showrooms remain:Stop Staring!, Mary Minser Sales, Alberto Makali, Frank Lyman Design and Creative Concepts/FashionLink Distribution.

The sales reps at Alberto Makali—Maureen O’Connell and Armida Herman—said they will be moving to the B side of the fifth floor. “We know they have to consolidate people,” O’Connell said.

Mary Minser still hasn’t decided where she will be moving—perhaps the A side of the third floor, which recently saw a major consolidation of showrooms from the B side of the third floor to the A side to make way for more exhibition space. “I’m up in the air,” Minser said, noting she has been in her space for eight years and in the building for 20 years.

Robert Friedman, who is the sales rep for Frank Lyman Design, only recently moved to the second floor. Now he is thinking he may move up to the A side of the third floor.

But Peter Jacobson of Creative Concepts/FashionLink Distribution said he is hoping to stay in his large space at the end of one hall until his lease expires in November.

Other showrooms—upon hearing about an imminent move—decided to leave the California Market Center and set up shop in other nearby showroom buildings.

Mystree showroom owners Judy and Jerry Wexler had been in the California Market Center since the late 1970s, when all 13 floors of the CMC were filled primarily with full-time apparel showrooms. With the consolidation of showroom areas, the Wexlers felt it was time to move to a new location.

“Under the circumstances, we felt we needed to be out as soon as possible,” said Judy Wexler, who said she and her husband never got a written notice about vacating their space.

The Wexlers moved to a new space in The New Mart on Jan. 1, even though their CMC lease doesn’t expire until the end of February.

Susan Burnett, who had worked in the California Market Center building for 34 years and had her Susan Burnett Sales showroom on the second floor for 13 years, decided six months ago she was moving when her lease expired on Dec. 31. She also relocated to The New Mart.

Michael Bush LA-Apparel and The M Showroom also moved recently from the CMC’s second floor to The New Mart.

When the showrooms and offices are vacated in the next few months, the second floors of the three 13-story buildings that make up the California Market Center will be nearly empty. The exception is the C building, which houses the fashion design department of Otis College of Art and Design. In July, the school is leaving its 38,000-square-foot space to move to the college’s main campus near Los Angeles International Airport.

All eyes on the flame as detailed Rio 2016 torch relay route is unveiled

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The detailed route that will be taken by the 2016 Olympic torch relay was announced at a special event in Rio de Janeiro on 24 February. The relay is due to begin in Brazil on 3 May, and by the time it has reached the host city for the 2016 Opening Ceremony on 5 August, it will have visited 329 towns and cities across Brazil, covering an astonishing amount of ground.

Starting in the capital city, Brasilia, it will travel 20,000 kilometres by land and 10,000 by air, reaching an estimated 90 per cent of Brazil’s population.



Following its traditional short relay of Greece, which will follow the Olympic Flame’s lighting on 21 April, the Torch will briefly visit Switzerland before being brought to Brazil. After departing Brasilia it will take in many of the country’s most stunning attractions, from the city of Salvador and the beaches of Bahia to the jungle-bound north, the mountains and wine growing areas of the south, to the vibrant city of Sao Paulo and, eventually, Rio de Janeiro itself.

“By taking the Olympic flame to the whole country, we will be keeping our promise to give millions of people the chance to participate in a celebration that will stay in their memories for a long time,” said Rio 2016 President Carlos Arthur Nuzman. “We want to see the pride of people in the streets, show our cultural diversity and our nature. We will reveal to the world the essence of our country.”

The relay will be a celebratory event and the public are encouraged to get fully involved. A special hashtag  – #ChamaGeral, which can be translated as #CallEveryone in English but features on pun on ‘chama’, meaning ‘call’ and ‘flame’, when read in Portuguese – has been created and a digital campaign will encourage people to get out on the streets and be a part of this historic occasion, wherever they are in the country.

The launch event, which took place at the organising committee’s headquarters, also saw the torchbearers’ uniform unveiled. There will be around 12,000 torchbearers in total, all handed the exciting task of carrying the Torch along different stages of its 95-day journey. As the IOC President Thomas Bach revealed last month, one of the torchbearers in the Greek phase of the relay will be a refugee from the Eleonas camp in Athens.

The torch itself has a uniquely Brazilian design, uniting movement, innovation and the local flavour. It is intended to reflect the essence of the torch relay as a meeting of the traditional Olympic flame and the warmth of the Brazilian people in all corners of the country.

More information on the Rio 2016 Olympic Torch Relay Presenting Partners can be found here.

 

Did You Know Krankl? One of Krankl’s most famous sayings was: “We have to win the match, everything else is primary.”

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Every footballing nation – and probably every team to play the beautiful game around the world – has matches that bring to mind particularly special memories, whether negative or positive. The Germans, for example, always enjoy recalling the 1954 World Cup Final, better known as the ‘Miracle of Bern’, while since 2014 the Brazilians have been attempting to process their 7-1 World Cup semi-final thrashing in front of a home crowd at the hands of the eventual world champions.
Even the four-time World Cup winners’ immediate neighbours Austria have special recollections of facing their long-time rivals. Whenever these two nations meet, football aficionados rummage through the history books to reference Austria’s 3-2 win at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina.
At that point, it had been 37 years since Die Rot-Weiss-Roten had last got the better of their more powerful big brother and then reigning world champions. This dispiriting run was finally brought to an end thanks in no small part to the efforts of striker Hans Krankl, whose brace elevated him to legendary status in his home country. The encounter is remembered as the ‘Miracle of Cordoba’ by one set of fans and the ‘Shame of Cordoba’ by the other.
“Back then we had the best [Austrian] national team of all time!” Krankl once said. “We flew to Argentina without any great expectations. We arrived as nobodies and proved that even a small footballing country can spring surprises. The highlight of it all was the match at Cordoba,” he recalled, before sounding a note of criticism about his nation’s record against the Germans: “We won once in 50 years – that was it.”
Krankl did not intend his comments to diminish the significance of the game. Instead, he was seeking to highlight how little the balance of power between the two nations has shifted in the intervening years, a fact that makes this unforgettable victory of scant consolation to long-suffering Austrian fans.
From Vienna to Barcelona...
In contrast, the game marked a breakthrough for the then 25-year-old, whose four World Cup goals prompted Barcelona to lure the striker to Spain. Krankl signed his new contract just seven days after the triumph over Germany. Strangely enough, he had already agreed terms with league rivals Valencia before Barcelona realised that his exceptional shooting ability, formidable left foot and aerial strength were reason enough to declare an interest of their own. He has since admitted that the decision to join the Catalan club was not a difficult one.
Krankl faced high expectations when arriving on the Iberian Peninsula. In the season before the World Cup, he proved his exceptional quality by netting 41 goals for Rapid Vienna and ending the season as Europe’s most prolific goalscorer. In the same year, he finished second only to England’s Kevin Keegan in the vote for European Footballer of the Year.
‘Hansi-Burli’, as he was affectionately known in his homeland, shrugged off the pressure effortlessly to score 29 of Barcelona’s 69 league goals in his first season and even surpassed the then record set by the legendary Alfredo di Stefano back in 1957.
Barça coach Lucien Muller was full of praise for his latest star, declaring him to be “the best left-footed player I’ve seen since Ferenc Puskas.” Krankl himself described Barcelona as “paradise – the best thing that could happen to a player.” He spent two years in the club’s distinctive red and blue strip and even managed to torment the Germans once again, scoring the game’s penultimate and ultimately decisive goal in a 4-3 win against Fortuna Dusseldorf in the 1979 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup final.
...and back again
Nevertheless, after a less successful second campaign in Catalonia, it was time for Krankl – who had even tried his hand as a goalkeeper as a 15-year-old – to return to his birthplace of Vienna and to Rapid, where his career began and where he felt most at home. By the time he hung up his boots, he had made 449 appearances for the Green and Whites, scoring 336 times along the way. In 1999 he was not only voted into Rapid’s team of the century but was also recognised as the club’s best player of the past hundred years. Appreciation for Krankl extended well beyond his hometown, and he was named Austria’s Footballer of the Year on five separate occasions – 1973, 1974, 1977, 1982 and 1988.
No sooner had his playing career drawn to a close than Krankl began a coaching career that did not bring him comparable success. He managed ten sides between 1989 and 2009, including a three-year stint at the helm of the Austrian national team. “I had my time. I had my successes – or failures, as my critics liked to call them,” he said, before adding with a smile: “My greatest achievement was 40 years of marriage.”
But Krankl’s talents extend beyond the football pitch. Since the 1970s he has also enjoyed success as a singer, releasing songs such as ‘Der Bätmän bin I’ and the Paul Anka cover ‘Lonely Boy’, which peaked at number two in the Austrian charts in January 1986. He was also a regular feature in the country’s artistic and intellectual circles.
Despite his many talents, the ‘Goleador’, ‘Saviour of Austrian Football’, ‘Hanse’, ‘Nachtfalke’ (Nighthawk) or ‘Graue Bomber’ (Grey Bomber) – to list just some of his many nicknames – will always remain a hero of Austria football, in no small part due to, or even precisely because of, the ‘Miracle of Cordoba’.

Did You Know?

• One of Krankl’s most famous sayings was: “We have to win the match, everything else is primary.”
• Krankl scored six goals for Austria in a single match during an emphatic 9-0 victory over Malta in 1977 - a feat none of his compatriots have yet matched.
• Krankl embarked on a musical career under the pseudonym ‘Johann K.’ from 1986 onwards, having already recorded two songs while still a player. Between 1974 and 2008, he released three albums and nine singles.
• Krankl remained true to his homeland for much of his career. In 20 years as a professional footballer, the father of three played for seven different clubs, with all except Barcelona located in Austria.