After Tragedy, Success

It is a project that languished on bureaucratic drawing boards for years. And the new Cypress Park Community Center might well be there still were it not for the death of a child.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez said the community center had been planned for many years before the September 1995 shooting of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen. But the shocking killing that made headlines across the country and drew the attention of President Clinton helped Hernandez find the money to complete the job.

“It took a tragedy to bring attention to the need for the center and for others to realize what we, the residents, had always known: that our community deserved this facility,” Hernandez said.

The new center aimed at curbing violence and crime in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood opened Monday, a year and a half after gang members fired on a car that turned onto a dead-end street, killing Stephanie.

The facility--which now houses a police substation, a Fire Department program for youths, parenting classes and a job assistance center--is at 929 Cypress Ave. at Maceo Street in a refurbished fire station. Originally built in 1923, the Spanish colonial revival bungalow-style firehouse had been vacant for a decade.

“It’s beautiful,” said Sadie Macchia, 83, who has lived just five houses from the firehouse since 1938. “I’ve seen some improvements lately. Big, big improvements. And this will help.”

The $1 million needed to renovate the old firehouse was quickly obtained from local and federal sources after Stephanie was killed.

Among the crowd of residents, schoolchildren and public officials who gathered for the ribbon-cutting Monday morning was Los Angeles City Firefighter Ralph Rodriguez, who grew up with Hernandez in Cypress Park.

Rodriguez said he will volunteer several days a month at the firehouse to run the department’s youth training and mentoring program called Los Bomberos--Spanish for firefighters. The program encourages youngsters in the mostly Latino neighborhood to look at careers as firefighters.

“People didn’t think I could do this job,” said Rodriguez, the department’s 1995 firefighter of the year. “It took a long time to get that credibility. Now I hope we can do something for the youth here.”

Perhaps happiest of them all will be Macchia, who believes she has lived in Cypress Park longer than any other resident and is known throughout the community for her love of dancing and her special chocolate cupcakes made with mayonnaise.

“I love my home,” Macchia said, rocking on a swing on the front porch of her white Craftsman-style house. “A lot of people moved out. There have been changes. But it’s getting better.”