Radio Korea’s main operations moved from Koreatown to La Palma, Orange County, last December—an address change for the station, but a painful reminder of what many listeners fear they’re losing in the neighborhood that raised them, especially after the 1992 un
At 3 a.m., Richard Choi used to be up—long enough to make it to Radio Korea in time to help carry the morning broadcast. For nearly 37 years, his commute from near Hancock Park on Wilshire Boulevard was short enough that he could keep his routine.
Then the station moved its main operations to La Palma in Orange County last December. Choi said he would have had to wake up an hour earlier to make the drive, and it simply wasn’t realistic. He retired instead.
“That just wasn’t realistic,” Choi said. “So I decided it was time to retire. If the office had stayed in Koreatown, I probably would have continued broadcasting.”
For some longtime listeners and former employees, the move has felt bigger than a new location. Choi said several longtime employees left the news outlet rather than make the commute to Orange County.
By the time he retired last year, he had become one of the station’s most recognizable voices. He remembers the station’s role most vividly during the 1992 L.A. civil unrest, when Korean immigrants across the city turned to Korean-language radio for updates and information.
Those ties ran deep in Koreatown. The station’s headquarters became so familiar that many in the Korean-speaking community referred to 3700 Wilshire Blvd. as the “Radio Korea building. ” and the area in front of it as the “Radio Korea lawn.” Now. the large Radio Korea sign in big. white block letters is gone—leaving behind only a shadow of an imprint.
Radio Korea spent years searching for another space in Koreatown after landlord Jamison Properties notified tenants in the Wilshire building that they would eventually need to vacate, CEO Michael Kim said. The developers plan to redevelop the commercial space into affordable housing.
Radio Korea looked for multiple sites, including one near Hancock Park, but Kim said it repeatedly ran into issues involving parking and cost. He said the station wanted to stay in Los Angeles.
“We wanted to stay in L.A. We really tried hard to stay, because of 1992 and all that,” Kim said. “If Jamison was going to renew our lease, we would’ve stayed.”
Kim also acknowledged the pull moving in the other direction—away from the city. He believes the center of Southern California’s Korean community has been shifting beyond L.A.
“I understand how people in L.A. might feel about this stuff,” Kim said. “But I noticed Koreatown was starting to become less and less Korean. and I started thinking. ‘Is Koreatown going to die?’ I certainly hope not. but what if it ends up like Chinatown. where all the Chinese people moved to the San Gabriel Valley?”.
He pointed to Orange County’s Korean communities and said Orange County now has two officially designated Koreatowns: one in Garden Grove, which received city recognition in 2019, and another in Buena Park, which was designated in 2023.
Radio Korea still operates a small satellite office in Koreatown, and Kim insists its reporting in Los Angeles remains the same.
“We’re not trying to abandon L.A.,” he said. “The only difference is that we are broadcasting from Orange County and not Los Angeles.”
For many Korean Americans, it can be hard to talk about Radio Korea without talking about 1992. The station became a critical source of information as chaos spread through Koreatown after the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department officers filmed beating motorist Rodney King.
During the unrest, more than 2,000 Korean-owned businesses were damaged or destroyed, according to some community estimates cited in the years since. Choi said Radio Korea helped the Korean community rebuild.
“Radio Korea played a major role in helping the Korean community rebuild. ” Choi said. “and the riots became the turning point that transformed the Korean community into true Korean Americans. Before that. people came here chasing the vague idea of the ‘American Dream.’ People suffered and worked endlessly. but after the riots. they realized that the lives they had been living in America were not truly immigrant lives in the full sense.”.
At the time, many Korean immigrants spoke limited English and relied heavily on Korean-language media. The station became an emergency information network as Koreatown residents felt left without police protection during the unrest.
Choi and other broadcasters stayed on air through the night. taking calls from neighbors reporting what was unfolding across the city. He said younger staff members leaned on him—because he already had decades of life in Los Angeles by then. Station accounts say Choi sometimes stayed on air for more than 20 hours a day at the height of the unrest.
Another former Radio Korea employee, Yong-ho Kim, remembers the fear in details that still feel immediate. He began working in the station’s advertising department a month after immigrating to the United States in February 1990—two years before the unrest. In his recollection, the noise and the uncertainty never left.
“My oldest child was only 2 years old,” Kim said. “I heard helicopters overhead, saw fires everywhere, heard looting and gunshots through the night. I was terrified.”
He said he stayed hunkered down at the station for several days. At the time, it operated out of a building near Alvarado Street and Olympic Boulevard.
The advertising department was separate from the station’s editorial side, but Kim said everyone at Radio Korea pitched in during the unrest. He later left the station and went into the restaurant business, opening Arado Japanese Restaurant in 1995.
“Radio Korea was my first real job in America. At the time. I didn’t speak English well. didn’t fully understand the culture. and they still gave me an opportunity. ” he said. “That experience shaped my business career afterward. Even now, I feel like Radio Korea runs through my blood. I love that station deeply.”.
Even now, he misses what that physical presence made possible. When he recorded radio ads for his restaurant before, Kim said he would go directly into the studio. Now, he said everything gets sent by phone.
Kim also said L.A. remains the “emotional center” of Korean American life, even as more Korean families move to Orange County and other suburbs. “That’s why there’s an attachment to keeping Korean-language media rooted in Koreatown,” he said.
The tension here isn’t only about distance—it’s about what Koreatown has meant during moments when help, information, and connection weren’t guaranteed.
Hyepin Im. a USC graduate student during the 1992 unrest. said the destruction in Koreatown and the struggle faced by Korean American business owners afterward shaped her later work in community advocacy. She said ethnic media organizations depend on physical relationships inside the communities they serve.
“The fact that they were here in 1992 made a difference,” Im said. “I think the lack of their presence here will be a loss to the community.”
Im has focused for decades on immigrant and underserved communities in Los Angeles through her nonprofit work with Faith and Community Empowerment. She argued that even as Korean populations grow in Orange County and elsewhere, the city still holds unique weight nationally within Korean communities.
“I could recognize that perhaps in Orange County. some of the things that I could see why they may choose there is a lot more Korean leadership in politics. ” she said. “And as such. just like the Chinese community moved to the San Gabriel Valley from Chinatown. perhaps there is going to be a shift that is happening.”.
She added that what happens in Los Angeles continues to ripple outward.
“I think proximity is always important and I would say it’s still what happens in L.A. that impacts the rest of the country, especially the Korean community,” she added.
For Choi, the heart of the matter goes back to what the station stood for during the unrest—and what that meant for Korean immigrants deciding how deeply to engage with American civic and political life.
“No matter how many Koreans move to Orange County,” Choi said, “the symbolic center of the Korean community is still Koreatown.”
Jamison Properties. the largest commercial office landlord in Koreatown and one of the neighborhood’s most prolific developers. declined to comment on several questions about the future of the Wilshire building where Radio Korea called home. It remains unclear when the company notified tenants they would need to leave. or what the timeline is for the planned residential conversion.
Radio Korea ultimately purchased a building in La Palma, where Kim said expenses were lower at a difficult moment for Korean-language media outlets already dealing with declining advertising revenue and lingering financial struggles following the pandemic.
The station’s move is now settled, but the community’s feelings about it haven’t quieted. The sign is gone from Wilshire Boulevard. For the people who tied their lives—and their sense of safety and belonging—to that spot, the loss doesn’t fit neatly into a change-of-address story.
Radio Korea Koreatown La Palma Orange County Michael Kim Richard Choi 1992 unrest Rodney King Korean-language media Jamison Properties affordable housing