Published in the first issue of NoHo Magazine, Steven Lee Stinnett’s cartoon captures the moment of creation of the NoHo Arts District.

Anyone who has dealt with Chambers of Commerce anywhere in America will recognize the characters in Steven Lee Stinnett’s cartoon entitled “Behind Closed Doors at the Chamber of Commerce” which appeared in the first issue of NoHo Magazine in January, 1993.

Chambers of Commerce are notoriously conservative and provincial by nature, serving the narrow small business interests of its members who are always struggling make payroll, or simply make a living. The most active members of Chambers of Commerce are usually independent sales agents of one sort or another, peddling a variety of professional services such as insurance, accounting, real estate, etc. to fellow members of the chamber.

The North Hollywood/Universal City Chamber of Commerce was no different in this regard, but when David Cox joined the Chamber, he introduced a new, creative and inspired energy to what was a struggling organization serving a depressed and uninspired business community.

It was David Cox, operator of the American Renegade Theater, who had the vision of a thriving arts district centered at the intersection of Magnolia Boulevard and Lankershim Boulevard, and he saw the Chamber of Commerce as a vehicle for making his vision a reality.

In Steven Lee’s cartoon, that’s David Cox in the lower right corner, scratching his head. That’s the artistic visionary dealing with the reality of a chamber of commerce. The rest of the characters in the cartoon are fictional, but if I were to put names to caricatures, I would say that Mr. Poop, at the head of the table wearing the pinstripe, is Jim Mahfet, executive director of the Chamber, and Big Poop is Guy Weddington McCreary, whose family at one timed owned much of what is now North Hollywood.

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