Japan Foreign Investments Los Angeles

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and hotel workers union leader Maria Elena Durazo were greeted by dozens of union supporters at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday after a 10-day trip to Japan and Indonesia to "even the playing field for American workers," Jackson said. The trip included a meeting with the heads of the New Otani Corp. in Tokyo to discuss the unionizing efforts of workers at the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and hotel workers union leader Maria Elena Durazo were greeted by dozens of union supporters at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday after a 10-day trip to Japan and Indonesia to "even the playing field for American workers," Jackson said. The trip included a meeting with the heads of the New Otani Corp. in Tokyo to discuss the unionizing efforts of workers at the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo.

City Hall staffers and others who gravitate to the New Otani Hotel & Garden in downtown Los Angeles are confronting an unsettling obstacle: pickets urging would-be customers not to patronize the Little Tokyo hostelry and its popular restaurants. "Boycott! Boycott!" a phalanx of exuberant protesters chanted as a busload of shaken Japanese tourists was hustled inside the 20-story hotel, situated across 1st Street from Los Angeles' government core.

It was a small matter, really, in the multibillion-dollar world of the Sony Corp. Seven shipping containers crammed with televisions, radios and electronic gadgets had disappeared from a terminal at the Port of Los Angeles. The incident happened nearly six months ago, but port officials were still jittery about it when they called on Sony officials here last week. "The numbers are insignificant," said Ezunial Burts, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

More than 100 noisy protesters ringed the Mitsui Bank building in Los Angeles on Thursday to oppose the world's largest bank merger, involving two Japanese firms that rarely make loans to home renovators, nonprofit church developers, fledgling inner-city businesses or most other ventures fighting urban decline in California. A diverse coalition including the city of West Hollywood, Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles and Little Tokyo Service Center alleges that Mitsui Bank Ltd.

For two days, Mayor Richard Riordan relentlessly pitched a new Los Angeles--safer, cleaner and more economically robust--to the well-heeled tourists and investors of Japan. And while Tuesday's unexpectedly early verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial prompted Riordan to cut short his planned two-week Asia trade mission, in the eyes of Japanese, the city is slowly rehabilitating its image as a chaotic metropolis torn by racial conflict and crime.

City Hall staffers and others who gravitate to the New Otani Hotel & Garden in downtown Los Angeles are confronting an unsettling obstacle: pickets urging would-be customers not to patronize the Little Tokyo hostelry and its popular restaurants. "Boycott! Boycott!" a phalanx of exuberant protesters chanted as a busload of shaken Japanese tourists was hustled inside the 20-story hotel, situated across 1st Street from Los Angeles' government core.

Architect Ted Tokio Tanaka is an ocean away from most of his clients. His base of operation might be Venice's Market Street, but 48-year-old Tanaka figures 60% of his business today is in Japan. "I feel I was in the right place at the right time," confides Tanaka, whose family moved to Phoenix from Tokyo when he was a teen-ager. "I speak the language and know the culture. I have a little advantage over other people."

For two days, Mayor Richard Riordan relentlessly pitched a new Los Angeles--safer, cleaner and more economically robust--to the well-heeled tourists and investors of Japan. And while Tuesday's unexpectedly early verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial prompted Riordan to cut short his planned two-week Asia trade mission, in the eyes of Japanese, the city is slowly rehabilitating its image as a chaotic metropolis torn by racial conflict and crime.

A shadow looms behind the tranquillity of the Riviera Country Club, the historic golf course that sprawls across a verdant bluff overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades: The club's Japanese owners are suspected of laundering money tainted by corruption back home. U.S.

Rejecting the more passive style of most other Japanese investors in Hollywood, media conglomerate Fujisankei Communications Group on Thursday announced the formation of an independent production company that will wield full creative control over its films. Fujisankei California Entertainment, which has a $50-million start-up budget, will release up to six modestly budgeted pictures a year.

Architect Ted Tokio Tanaka is an ocean away from most of his clients. His base of operation might be Venice's Market Street, but 48-year-old Tanaka figures 60% of his business today is in Japan. "I feel I was in the right place at the right time," confides Tanaka, whose family moved to Phoenix from Tokyo when he was a teen-ager. "I speak the language and know the culture. I have a little advantage over other people."

Eric Owen Moss is flipping through architecture magazines in his Culver City office. There's Moss' 708 House on one cover, his Petal House on another, his Adams House on another. Nearly two dozen magazines are marked to indicate photographs of his projects, but he hasn't a clue what the captions say. He can't read Japanese. Moss hasn't built a thing in Japan. He was invited to compete for Tokyo's New National Theatre a few years ago, but he didn't get the commission.

When the Japanese come calling in Hollywood, one of their first stops is usually talent agent Michael Ovitz's sleek new I. M. Pei building in the heart of Beverly Hills, attorney Peter Dekom's elegant wood-paneled office high above Sunset Boulevard, or Jake Eberts' table at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, where the London-based producer frequently resides.

The mysterious buyer of the Biltmore hotel and office complex is Town Development, a small Japanese developer and owner of hotels, according to sources and a published report in Japan. Biltmore Partners, a limited partnership, said Monday that it had agreed to sell Biltmore Place, as the complex is known, to a buyer known only as T.A.T. Los Angeles. The owner of the Delaware corporation, however, was not revealed.

Shuwa Investments, the Japanese real estate company which has spent billions of dollars to acquire U.S. property, said Monday that it is studying plans to develop a major downtown commercial project on parcels of land now occupied by Southern California Gas Co. If Shuwa goes through with its development, it would become the third Japanese company to become a major player in the renewal of downtown Los Angeles.

Japan's largest airline and two Japanese developers will build a $250-million hotel, condominium, office and retail complex that would be the largest single development in the Little Tokyo area of downtown Los Angeles, they announced Thursday. All Nippon Airways, through its real estate and hotel subsidiaries, and two Japanese developers agreed to build the 1.

Rejecting a plea to stop the sale of public assets to foreign investors, Los Angeles County's Small Craft Harbor Commission on Wednesday endorsed a Japanese bid to buy a long-term lease on a Marina del Rey yacht center for $5.1 million. The Board of Supervisors still must approve the sale of the Aggie Cal Yacht Center to an American subsidiary of Yamaha Motors. The 7.2-acre property includes 115 boat slips, a boat showroom, a storage area and a parking lot.