Desk Job

Best headline of the week? month? year? in the L.A. Times, from Saturday's paper:

Caltrans Takes Heat for Dropping Its Drawers

Drawers flying, the desk dropped from the fifth-floor window and crashed onto the pavement below. Right behind it tumbled a file cabinet, a worktable and a bookcase.

It was spring cleaning, Caltrans-style.

Workers this week were sweeping out state transportation officials' former regional headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Chairs, drafting tables, cubical walls and dry-erase message boards were unceremoniously heaved out windows of the Main Street building as passersby gaped in disbelief.

Caltrans leaders — who moved eight months ago across the street to a new, $190 - million headquarters — labeled the old office furniture as unneeded junk. A wrecking crew hired by the state was emptying the abandoned building in preparation for its demolition.

The author of the piece, Bob Pool, points out that not only are plenty of charity organizations in need of office furniture, but that Caltrans could have made a mint on the retro stuff by selling it to a modernist furniture dealer. After all, this kind of 50s office furniture is popular with the trendies, and with a little restoration -- and the proper display in a La Brea, Melrose or 3rd Ave. boutique --could fetch an obscene amount of money.