-
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
-
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
The New York Times - December 31, 1982, Friday, Late City Final Edition
|
BULLDOZERS, TRAFFIC JAMS AND SMOG DIM LUSTER OF PALM SPRINGS By ROBERT LINDSEY, Special to the New York TimesLike President Reagan, Frank Richards; a Chicagoan, arrived in the California desert this week to welcome the New Year and, not incidentally, to find a brief respite from the cold weather that is gripping much of the Middle West. This morning, while he and his wife struggled in 50-degree weather to avoid shivering, Mr. Richards looked over at a stand of the palm trees that are landmarks in this plush resort community and said, "I wonder how the palm trees survive in this cold." Palm Springs and its neighboring communities are experiencing one of their worst cold spells in years, causing embarrassment for local residents who are proud of the dry winter heat that normally prevails. Still, the cold snap has not interfered with the start of "The Season," as people here refer to the winter months, when thousands of people leave homes elsewhere and come to "The Springs" to party, golf, relax and rest. Bulldozing of Desert Two or three decades ago, the corner of the Mojave Desert that President Reagan, for a second year, has chosen as the place to spend his New Year's Eve, was a four-block-long hamlet that drew a few hundred wealthy and famous people each winter. Nowadays it has the look of a palm tree-shaded desert suburbia that grew too fast. The population of Palm Springs increased by more than 60 percent in the 1970's, to 32,000 people. And it evolved from being an exclusive enclave of the very rich to a resort for the upper middle class and the newly rich, and, in particular, into a retirement homeland for a generation of well-to-do entrepreneurs who move here after selling out the family department store or factory in Cleveland, Buffalo or Toronto. Urbanization has marched across the desert. Vast stretches of sand and sagebrush have been bulldozed to make room for condominiums and estates. Palm Springs has serious traffic, parking and smog problems caused not only by the recent new wave of long-term winter residents but also by overnighters and day trippers making a pilgrimage to the desert spot where Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Spiro T. Agnew, Gerald R. Ford and other celebrities have chosen to live. By and large, though, the rich and famous are gone from Palm Springs. A Touch of Long Island Stretching south from the city, on State Route 111-, a string of affluent new towns have emerged along a is-mile strip that is often so congested that it might have been transplanted from Long Island or the San Fernando Valley. Nowadays, almost all the celebrities who helped make Palm Springs famous live in wellguarded compounds in such new desert towns as Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. All the communities share certain qualities, though. Collectively, this is a world of walled country clubs and condominiums, of million-dollar homes and millionaire plastic surgeons, of swimming and golfing and social climbing, and above all, of wealth. Mr. Reagan is not likely to find many people here who are worried about double-digit unemployment. Although condominiums can be purchased for about $100,000, there are hundreds of homes valued at more than $1 million, and interior designers say that it is not unusual for newcomers to spend a halfmillion dollars redecorating. Guest of Publisher Mr. Reagan is staying at the 200-acre estate of Walter Annenberg, the publisher and former Ambassador to Britain, in Rancho Mirage. Called Sunnylands, it is a sumptuous, heavily guarded property filled with works of art that resembles, as much as possible in 20thcentury America, the estate of a medieval lord. Indeed, a stop at Sunnylands is often obligatory on the itinerary of visiting royalty, including a scheduled visit in February by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. Today the President and his wife, Nancy, prepared to dine at the Eldorado Country Club in Indian Wells, protected by fences and walls and a large security force. Nestled beneath the ocher-colored Santa Rosa Mountains, Eldorado attracts the kind of wealthy businessmen with whom Mr. Reagan has long' been most comfortable. Its membership includes many of the well-to-do Republican businessmen who financed his entry into politics as a candidate for Governor of California and who later served on his kitchen cabinet of advisers, including Justin Dart, Leonard K. Firestone, Wayne Hoffman, Earl Jorgensen, Henry Salvatori and Holmes Tuttle. . Other people who have emigrated to Palm Springs are less well known. According to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, more than 100 senior members of organized crime live here, in some cases sharing the same golfing fairways as retired politicians and captains of industry. In the underworld, Palm Springs is considered "neutral" territory, not subject to the kind of battles over territory and the rackets that prevail elsewhere. Some Are 'On the Bum' A man named Henry looked up at a cold, violet sky Wednesday and saw Mr. Reagan's helicopter headed for Rancho Mirage. "I'd sure like to be invited to that party New Year's Eve," he said. He was among 30 or so transients "on the bum," who, like more wealthy "Snowbirds," leave cities in the East to spend the winter in Palm Springs. Most congregate at the Sunrise Plaza Park, a few blocks from the center of town. As long as they do not bother anyone, the police let them cook meals on an outdoor grill and sleep under some nearby palm trees. This week a lot of the regulars were missing from the park. It has been so cold that they left town. But this afternoon temperatures began to rise slightly and there was some optimism that the cold snap might soon be over. "This is the most image-conscious city in the world," observed Dr. Borko Djordjevic, who came here from Europe six years ago and almost instantly became a local celebrity plastic surgeon specializing in face lifts. He said, "I found the first question anyone asks is: What do you drive? The next is: Where do you live?" New Type of Visitor "I liked it better in the old days," said Larry Perrina, who founded perhaps the town's best Italian restaurant 22 years ago on Palm Canyon Drive. "Before they were the very wealthy, classy people. Now, you look out the window and all you see are people walking along sucking on hot dogs." "Those days, people who had money didn't try to impress you," said his bartender, Jim Talley, who has worked here since 1948. "Now they brag and try to impress you with a RollsRoyce, except they can't make the payments on it." "It's the difference between chicken salad and chicken manure," said Herb Sloat, a retired New York garment manufacturer who was sitting at the bar at Perrina's. "Today, there's a lot of new money, a,nd the taste level is not always very good," said Ty Cullen, another customer, one of the community's best known interior designers. "Yeah," Mr. Perrina said. "It's not like the way it used to be." Still, he said, there was something that made it hard to resist the growth. "Once people get sand in their shoes, they keep coming back." |