‘Gateway to Studio City’ Carwash Will Close

A Studio City carwash, once the subject of a spirited campaign by neighbors who wanted it declared an official Los Angeles cultural landmark, will wash its last car this weekend.

Pat Galati, who operates the 28-year-old carwash and adjoining Unocal gas station at Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards, said Saturday will be the carwash’s last day of operation. The gas station will shut down at the close of business Sunday night, he said.

“It’s over,” Galati said Tuesday. “A lot of my employees have already found other jobs. We’re short-handed, and it’s really difficult to keep it going.”

The closures will take place just a few days before Oct. 18, when the businesses were scheduled to be evicted by developer Ira Smedra, who owns the property. Smedra plans to build a $15-million, 53,000-square-foot shopping mall on the site.

Although Smedra’s project has been delayed for at least seven months because the Los Angeles City Council ordered him to prepare a detailed environmental study on the mall, he had said in August that he would oust the businesses and put a chain-link fence around the property.

The adjoining Tiny Naylor’s coffee shop, which residents had also tried to preserve, closed two weeks ago.

A group of Valley residents fought a four-month battle to block Smedra’s plan, saying that the site was one of the last undeveloped corners in Studio City. The group unsuccessfully appealed to the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, contending that the buildings should be declared cultural monuments because of their architecture.

Famed Boomerangs

The carwash, sometimes called the “Gateway to Studio City,” is topped by a 55-foot-tall tower, a 1950s-style decoration shaped like three boomerangs, lit by floodlights at night.

After Saturday, Galati said, he would “sit back and take a few months to look around.” He said he had not been offered another job by Unocal, even though he had worked for the company for 35 years. “I’m greatly disappointed,” he said.