Content area
Full Text
CORRECTION: SEE CORRECTION APPENDED; Kenneth Ross -- The obituary of Kenneth Ross, founder of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, in Saturday's California section stated that the Watts Towers were nearly demolished in the early 1970s to make way for a restaurant. The towers were under a demolition order by the city of Los Angeles in 1957 but were saved by preservationists in 1959.
Kenneth Ross, the founder of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs who spearheaded the restoration of Hollyhock House by Frank Lloyd Wright and the preservation of the Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, died Monday, according to his son, Murray Ross. He was 95.
Ross, who also helped establish the Municipal Art Gallery and the Junior Arts Center that are part of the Hollyhock House complex in Barnsdall Park, died of natural causes at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. In recent years he was a resident of Silver Lake.
As director of the city's arts programs from 1949 to the late 1970s, Ross built the original one-man operation into a department with a staff...