An Eyesore of Historic Proportions : Culver City: It’s old and run-down, but it’s also a historic landmark. Now, the Ivy Substation is slated for a $1.77-million renovation.

The drab, gray, barn-shaped building at Venice and Culver boulevards is adorned with graffiti inside and pigeons outside. Half of the roof is missing. Chunks of stucco have fallen off the walls, revealing the brick underneath. The surrounding dirt and weeds are littered with pigeon feathers and beer bottles.

The squalid eyesore is situated a stone’s throw from downtown Culver City. Oh, yes, and it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Officials hasten to point out that it’s not Culver City’s eyesore, but the property of Los Angeles. Determined to correct the misperception, Culver City is taking matters into its own hands and overhauling the 83-year-old Ivy Substation, which once provided power for the Pacific Electric Railway Co.

Under a 40-year agreement with the city of Los Angeles, Culver City is leasing the substation, as well as the adjacent Media Park, a trapezoid-shaped, two-acre patch of worn grass that is frequented by homeless people. The lease is for free, but Culver City is paying for a $1.77-million renovation of the property. The plans are now in various Los Angeles city offices for approval.

The agreement, signed in June, 1987, capped decades of negotiations over the substation and park.

The two-story building, with its scalloped end-walls and arched windows, is built in Mission Revival style. It once powered three Pacific Electric lines that served Venice, Culver and National boulevards. When the Red Cars stopped running in 1951, the building was taken over by the Southern Pacific Co. and later abandoned. Los Angeles acquired the building in 1977 and designated it a cultural and historic monument.

Media Park originally was Culver City’s, but city founder Harry Culver gave it to Los Angeles in 1933. The park was a stepchild in part because of its location: Sandwiched between two busy thoroughfares, it was far from an ideal spot for a romp or a picnic. Transients, however, found it a sanctuary because it was outside the jurisdiction of the Culver City Police Department.

Starting in the 1960s, a variety of plans for the park and station were bandied about, but nothing came of them. Culver City unsuccessfully asked Los Angeles to consider transferring jurisdiction over the park to Culver City. Los Angeles proposed selling the park to Culver City so that the proceeds could be used to buy a park in the Palms neighborhood.

In 1969, Los Angeles auctioned the parkland to two private developers for $130,000, after failing to get its asking price of $200,000. But the sale was blocked by then-Councilman Tom Bradley, who said the developers were getting too good of a deal.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Culver City and various private and community groups approached Los Angeles about buying or renting the park and the substation. Private developers wanted to convert the building into offices, a folk dance troupe wanted it for its headquarters, and the Culver City Model Railroaders proposed a museum.

Los Angeles had no use for the building, “but it’s an important historic building, and we (were) trying to figure out a way for it to be rehabilitated without using city funds,” said Jay Oren, staff architect for the Cultural Heritage Commission.

Los Angeles finally decided to lease the station and park to Culver City, but the idea still had to wind its way past a procession of Los Angeles officials and agencies, including:

* The Department of Public Works;

* The Department of Recreation and Parks;

* The Recreation and Parks Commission;

* The Cultural Affairs Commission;

* The Cultural Heritage Commission;

* The City Council’s planning committee and, ultimately, the City Council. The lease was approved by the council in the fall of 1986.

Meanwhile, homeless artists were squatting in the substation, using it as a studio, gallery and home. The artists, who were evicted in 1987, dubbed the dilapidated structure “The Castle.” Inside, they fashioned sculptures from bedsprings, hubcaps and junk from the streets and painted philosophy on the walls, which remains today. “My failure and fortune has left me but I still exist. I myself am not alone in the path I follow,” is one example.

The station was scorched by trash fires. A hunk of the roof blew away in the 1980s. Its elegant arched windows and entrances are boarded up with faded plywood.

This was an embarrassment to Culver City, which aspires to the upscale ambience of its Westside neighbors, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.

The property is at the east entrance to Culver City’s downtown, which itself is the focus of ambitious revitalization plans.

“We suffered the detriment, and the damage, as the result of that being sort of the entrance way to Culver City,” Mayor Steven Gourley said recently.

Gourley said he often receives phone calls about the property from people who assume it is in Culver City and want to either “restore it (or) complain about it.” He criticized Los Angeles officials for all the time they spent brushing aside Culver City’s advances.

“They don’t bargain seriously. We always get shunted off to a low-level flunky. . . . They wouldn’t clean it up, they wouldn’t get the drunks out,” he said.

Culver City was left with no choice but to undertake the restoration, Gourley said. “There’s no sense in remodeling our entire downtown if we’re not going to take care of that corner.”

One Los Angeles official defended his city’s tending of Media Park, at least. “We used to maintain it regularly. It wasn’t that scruffy,” said Al Carmichael, planning officer in the Department of Recreation and Parks. As for the substation, that “is not really our concern.”

The site may have posed just as many frustrations for Los Angeles as for Culver City, he added. “It’s right at the doorstep of Culver City. That’s why we wanted to get rid of it. It looks like an entrance to Culver City.”

Since signing the lease, Culver City has posted a 10-foot wire fence around the substation and “Welcome to Your Culver City Park” signs around Media Park.

The refurbishing, which could start early next year, would bring the substation up to seismic standards. The shell of the building will be kept, and the 3,500-square-foot space inside will be used for recreational activities by community organizations. Restrooms and areas for storage, food preparation, and exhibits or small offices will be built.

The building’s appearance will be close to what it was in 1907, said Susan Berg of the Culver City Redevelopment Agency, who is overseeing the renovation. “(We’ll) retain as much of the existing historical fabric as possible,” he said.

Media Park will sport new drinking fountains and a gazebo, and most of the existing eucalyptus and coral trees will stay. Palm trees and lighting along the street will be added.

Under the agreement, the facilities are to be used for public park and recreational purposes, by Culver City and Los Angeles residents equally.