Night life: 1642 near Echo Park
Elizabeth Fischbach became obsessed with a dingy little bar named Lupita’s tucked into a 1920s-era storefront on Temple Street. It wasn’t the lime green walls, dirty pool table or murals of naked women that drew her to the boite. It was a sense of familiarity that she couldn’t quite place.
When Lupita’s closed down and went up for rent last March, Fischbach — who was working as a studio manager for a fashion designer — decided to lease it even though she had never owned a bar. More than a year later, she reopened the bar, where the ragged edges of Filipinotown and Echo Park meet just northwest of downtown L.A., as a minimalist beer and wine hall called 1642.
She serves craft beer on tap and in bottles, hosts Derby Doll parties, and brings in the occasional old-timey band. She also assiduously avoids the dancing male ghost that her friend Barbara says lives in the women’s restroom.
“Barbara said he was not happy with the music here when the cyclists were doing a DJ night,” said Fischbach, who has never seen the ghost and speaks of him with a wink and a nod. “He doesn’t like me. Barbara said he doesn’t like my energy.”
She figures that’s because she was so stressed out before 1642’s opening. “I just haven’t had time to sit down and talk with him,” she said.
It’s little wonder that ghost whispering is low on her list of priorities. Opening 1642 was a full-time endeavor. She quit her job, dealt with protestors who wanted the bar to stay closed for good, lost a partner and sank more money than she could afford into what appeared to be an increasingly quixotic effort. She wasn’t sure why she kept at it. Looking back, she says it was almost as if she were guided by an occult hand.
“It was really strange,” she said. “Now that I think about it, who in their right mind would have kept doing this? But it felt like this place was calling for somebody and I was a sucker.”
Fischbach grew up in the sun-baked Las Vegas desert, and her father “hung out in grimy old bars.” She said they filled a spot in his life and made him happy. They filled a spot in hers too. As a young woman in Venice, she preferred divey neighborhood bars to the club scene. Then she moved east to Filipinotown and caught sight of Lupita’s.
It was frequented by tough, sometimes rowdy types. Some in the neighborhood said the bar was trouble, but others, like Fischbach, found its earthiness charming. When she showed her acquisition to her friends, it was derelict and musty. They wondered what on earth she was doing.
“I found a beer label dated 1947, I found a couple of bullets,” said Fischbach. But she spruced it up without making it feel fancy or precious. There is an exposed brick wall; no-nonsense concrete floors; a long, substantial wooden bar; and a sprinkling of tables and high-backed, black banquettes at the rear of the shotgun-style room. The walls are painted a dark, buttery yellow and the bathroom doors and the doorway leading to them are of the tall, wide, beautifully molded variety found in L.A.’s best Raymond Chandler-era apartments.
The beer selection is in keeping with the simple, welcoming atmosphere. California beers from Eagle Rock Brewery, Bootlegger’s (Fullerton), Sudwerk (Davis), Moylan’s (Novato) and Drakes (San Leandro) mingle with a simple wine list. The cold beer is best taken with a chaser of salted peanuts from simple tin serving dishes on the bar. Value drinkers won’t find the typical PBR but instead a frosty $5, 32-ounce can of Cold Springs.
The clientele consists of neighborhood types eager to get away from the rowdy bustle of the growing bar scene just a few blocks north on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The mood inside 1642 is mellow and relaxed, the air spiked with the soft hum of easy conversation and the free-flowing notes of the jazz that Fischbach enjoys playing on the stereo.
The dancing ghost, she thinks, likes the jazz too.
Where: 1642 Temple St., L.A.
When: 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sundays to Thursdays; 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Closed on occasional Mondays, call to check.
Price: $4 to $10, beer and wine by the glass
Info: (213) 989-6836
