Quote:
Originally Posted by unihikid
i hate mcmansions...that area needs to stay the way it is,with the last part of the PE line gone on santa monica,the only thing thats left from the past is the apple pan,even the westside pavillion has changed!and thats like 30 yrs old at most
|
The neighborhood changes all the time
unihikid. The Pico Drive-in (1934), a first for California, used to be where the Westside Pavillion is now. The drive-in gave way to Westland (1950), a very early shopping center. I remember it well. Westside Pavillion replaced it in 1985, retaining only the 1949 parking structure and May Co building. Not liking enclosed malls, I rarely ventured in it. An annex was built on the other side of Westwood Blvd in 1991, displacing the Charles S Lee -designed Picwood Theater (1948), our nice, old local movie house plus the Picwood Bowl and Coffee Shop A "skybridge" connected the the two parts of the mall, the building of which was furiously objected to by local residents. I remember the developer at one meeting crying out in exasperation, "You got your environmental impact report, it cost $100K. What do you people want?!" We did get the bridge limited to about a quarter of the proposed width. The developer wanted it wide enough so he could rent out shops in our air. We were still mad about the Picwood. We weren't gonna give the guy any free "real estate". The annex failed, turning into an empty eyesore. It was replaced with the Landmark Theaters in 2007. The damn bridge is still there though.
The Apple Pan ("Quality Forever, Since 1947") hasn't changed...much, although the extension on the east side wiped out a charming bit of landscaping. My little girl confided to me once that it was a haven for faeries.
I think the reconfigured Santa Monica Blvd is a disaster, although there's a slight entertainment value in watching drivers get lost in it's confusingly competing traffic lanes. Century City Shopping Center (1964), built on part of the 20th Century Fox backlot (formerly part of Tom Mix' ranch), only expanded in '76 on the city's (later broken) promise to build a freeway spur from Beverly Hills to the 405 with an exit at the mall. (dunno why we were supposed to pay for the convenience of people in BH). The shopping center thrived without it. The AMC14 theaters were added in 1987. We spent some happy afternoons watching construction helicopters agilely and expertly position big steel beams to build it. Those theaters were gorgeous, many like big neighborhood houses, with really comfortable seats and double aisles. They were trashed in 2004. Westfield's took over in 2002. Three Westfield bigwigs came up from Australia for the reopening and were wandering around introducing themselves while passing out stuffed, toy kangaroos to kids. I told them renaming the place "ShoppingTown" was a big mistake (there's a Tiffany's there for heaven's sake), not the first person to do so I'm sure. The execs looked more than a little worried but waited three years before changing the name. Westfield's has built over every bit of available footage, eking out every possible square inch of rental space. It now seems cramped and unpleasant, but I'm not possessed of disposable income at the moment anyway.
Combining Big and Little Santa Monica Blvds into one monster road (no longer technically a freeway) was finally supposed to start in 1994, but we were saved by the '94 earthquake, the money being needed elsewhere in the city for repairs. When the project came up again, the neighborhood resisted mightily. A couple of small parks and a jogging trail were wanted on the old P.E. right-of-way, maybe not the ideal location, but the neighborhood is desperate for open space. Ramps to the 405 from Olympic, already a monster road, would have lessened the traffic on Big Santa Monica. Endless meetings ensued while the city reps took notes of our wishes. When the city's final plan was unveiled we were faced with...a new, big, monster road. The anger was not lessened by the reps' assurance that they had listened to our every word and taken our every desire into account by designing a big, monster road
lined with trees for the benefit of Beverly Hills. The city people were angry at us because, after bowing to our every whim, it turned out we were ingrates. What a charade, and a 35-year one at that. I'm still amazed that the widening of Overland Ave between Pico and Santa Monica Blvd has at least been temporarily halted, a fight that's been going on for more than fifteen years.
So,
unihikid, the neighborhood continues to change, but most of the decisions are not made here, they're made in Sydney or where ever, or downtown in those wretched, secret confabs between the city government and developers, far from public scrutiny or local control.
Picwood Theater (1948) Charles S Lee:
islandora
Near the end, 1990:
coffeeinspace/flickr
All ten squirrely lanes of combined Santa Monica Blvd/California State Route 2:
google maps