Residents Fear Star-Crossed Future for the Walk of Fame : Renewal: Construction displaces four of the famed markers. Preservationists expect far worse when major projects begin.

The Hollywood Boulevard community got a glimpse of the future last week. It wasn’t pretty.

The jackhammers started tearing up part of the Walk of Fame. At least four brass-and-terrazzo stars on the walkway--including that of comic Stan Laurel--were removed to allow construction workers to take some fuel tanks from the ground to make way for the Hollywood Galaxy commercial development.

The stars’ removal took some city officials by surprise, and alarmed preservationists who fear that work on projects such as the Hollywood Galaxy and the Metro Rail Red Line subway could damage the famous sidewalk.

City officials said the stars should not have been removed without the permission of the Cultural Heritage Commission, which designated the Walk of Fame as a cultural monument in 1978.

Instead, city engineers got permission from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the business group whose alleged mismanagement of the walkway’s finances has been the subject of an investigation by the state Justice Department.

But commission officials said the mistake was merely procedural and that they probably would have given their approval had the city Bureau of Engineering asked for it.

“They should have followed procedure,” commission architect Jay Oren said of the city engineering officials. “I don’t know if someone dropped the ball or what. . . . They know now what to do.”

All in all, it was an honest mistake and a fairly insignificant one at that, since the developer of the big commercial project, Kornwasser & Friedman, has agreed to repair and replace the stars, city officials said.

Besides, according to a chamber spokeswoman, routine maintenance and construction activities over the past few years alone have resulted in at least 98 stars being replaced or refinished.

But some local merchants and residents say the dust and the noise raised by the work gave them an idea of just what they may be up against in the years to come.

“Is this the beginning of the end for the Hollywood Boulevard historic district?” asked one Hollywood activist, preservationist Robert Nudelman.

“If this is the way one simple thing was handled,” Nudelman said, “what does that foreshadow for when the real hardball gets played” if developers and transit officials need to permanently claim part of the walkway for their projects? He added: “So far the whole process has fallen apart, and no one seems to care.”

City Councilman Michael Woo and Chamber of Commerce President Brooke Knapp have played down such concerns, saying the city and chamber will be vigilant in protecting the cultural landmark during the work anticipated in the area.

Between now and 1998, Metro Rail officials will be burrowing under the boulevard to build the Red Line. At the same time, city redevelopment officials expect to be at work on the early phases of a nearly $1-billion overhaul of the core of Hollywood.

Consolidated Terrazzo Inc. of Los Angeles, which installs and maintains the stars, expects to replace at least 14 stars during the course of Metro Rail construction alone, said company Vice President William Paternostro.

Metro Rail executives and city officials have “assured that they will go to great lengths to preserve the integrity of the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” Knapp said in a recent statement. “The stars will be removed and will then be replaced ceremoniously with the dignity they deserve.”