Last night, I needed to drive from my house on the East Side to West Hollywood which despite its name is kind of right in between the west side and the east side. I took Santa Monica Boulevard and along the way took in the local architecture AKA a bunch of strip malls.
Between one and three stories (in rare cases four) these are the commercial buildings that comprise most of this fair city. Perhaps that’s what’s so disconcerting about this city: it’s a metropolis assembled from the building blocks of suburbia. In a certain light, you could say LA is one enormous strip mall, occasionally separated by houses and streets.
In most cases they’re beige or gray or taupe or some variation therein. They look tired—the signs that unceremoniously decorate the doors of each business seem to be drooping, even if recently installed. There was a strip mall I used to see from the bus all the time with a store called “Forever Sexy Xoxo,” a shingle hung with hubris, because below it was a sign that said “PERMANENTLY CLOSED.”
The businesses that populate these edifices can vary wildly—treasures may lurk behind humble exteriors. Expert tailors, Michelin starred restaurants, aerial yoga studios, churches—upon close examination, the nondescript signage reveals surprising delights.
Most boast a parking lot that never has enough spaces for the corresponding businesses. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find a spot right away, but more often than not you’ll circle and wait in equal despairing measure, eventually departing just as someone finally vacates a space that’s immediately snapped up by a vehicle that just entered the parking lot.
Sometimes, in an attempt to combat this chaos, the parking lot has a valet. That’s right: someone to help you park in the middle of a parking lot. If you’ve never had the unique pleasure of paying five dollars to watch someone park your car three inches from you then you’ve never been to that ramen place in Koreatown on a Friday night.
But what if the parking lot is at capacity? It often is, and the valet cannot help you. You’re on your own, much like you would be if there was no valet at all, which makes you kind of wonder why there is one in the first place even though it a job for a human being and that’s rare these days.
I’ve never been to a strip mall that allowed me to complete two errands in the same place. The businesses contained in each are not open at the same hours, do not cater to the same clientele, and perhaps do not even exist in the same universe. If you’re parking, you’re parking for one thing only, and as previously stated, that thing could be as varied as Boba Tea or tux tailoring or medical imaging. One time I went to a dentist that was right above a really popular crab restaurant.
Though humble, the strip mall encapsulates the promise and disappointment of this city: nothing makes sense and everything is possible.
Wonderful, hopeful ending!
Face it. LA’s a mess.