Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Going Up and Coming Down

Elevators are not ordinarily found in San Fernando Valley houses, so builder Frank Thompson thought--what with the soft real estate market and all--that putting them into eight of his new two-story Woodland Hills hillside houses might be a great marketing tool.

“Frank figured elevators might appeal to an untapped group of buyers,” said Jeff Oblas of Fred Sands Realty who is in charge of selling the houses and lots in the mini-development. “He thought that maybe disabled people might be interested, or people with bad backs or gimpy knees.”

It didn’t work out that way at all.

According to Oblas, all five of the eight houses with lifts that have been sold were bought in spite of them, rather than because of them. Oblas thinks that’s because people in the Valley are only used to thinking of elevators in commercial buildings or apartment houses, where someone else is responsible for their maintenance. “I think people were concerned about what would happen if something went wrong. They probably worried that the kids might get stuck in them or that they would break down,” he said.

Oblas said that instead of stressing the elevators, maybe the sales promotions for the development should have focused on the view the houses offered of the surrounding hills and valleys, or maybe on the fact that the three houses that are left have been reduced in price $150,000 or more, from around $750,000 to between $575,000 and $600,000.

Oblas, on reflection, remembers one weekend when the place was swarming with elevator aficionados, however.

“We tagged utility poles with little notices about a weekend open house in the homes with elevators, and about 50 neighborhood kids dragged their parents over to see them,” Oblas said.

Wheeler Dealers in Training

Jack Ohringer, general manager of the newly redecorated Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks, thought it would be capital to invite Monopoly addicts to play in the fancy, newly decked out Center Court area of the mall.

It was a strange promotional idea for a mall manager since most of them would rather have people spending money than watching other people playing with it.

But Ohringer said the promotion did what it was supposed to do: create interest at the square.

About a dozen or so hard-core Monopoholics were expected to be interested or confident enough to give up a weekend to play in front of back-to-school shoppers.

What a shock to have more than 100 of the greedily acquisitive come to play, Ohringer said, with about 80 signing up in advance and 20 more just showing up.

To anyone supposing money lust had become unfashionable--what with the rumored downfall of The Donald, or the downfall of professional greed heads like Ivan Boesky and our own Valley boy Michael Milken--a trip past the hotel-building, opponent-bankrupting gamesters playing at the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square would have meant being quickly disabused.

Little Russia in Reseda

Glasnost came at an opportune time for Soviet refugee Ark Kivman. When he arrived in the United States from Odessa five years ago, and opened his Moscow Nights restaurant on Sherman Way in Reseda, his patrons were mostly fellow Soviets looking for good borscht.

All that changed with the “big thaw,” according to restaurant manager Lisa Lizshin, who says the place is filled with people toasting Gorby with one of the restaurant’s 80 brands of vodka. “The people started coming in because Gorbachev is a big hero and Russian things are such a big trend. But I think they keep coming back because they like the food and because we are a place for a party,” Lizshin said. “We have a lot of fun here.”

The food runs to roast duckling stuffed with apples, prunes and oranges, Cornish hen marinated in lemon, garlic and dill, and skewered, marinaded lamb, pork and chicken, as well as beef stroganoff, cured fish, red caviar and stuffed cabbage. Complete dinners, with salad, borscht, vegetables, rice or potato, entree and dessert (like the walnut-filled Kiev cake), run between $15 and $18.

But Lizshin says the best fun is when people come with a party of four or more. “For $27 a person on Friday, $35 a person on Saturday, or $25 a person on Sunday you get a huge platter of 16 different Russian hors d’oeuvres, six different main courses to choose from, a bottle of liquor, like vodka or champagne, and any dessert you want.”

The fun comes from the music, which includes a little show put on by the six-piece band--a sort of Gypsy-Russian-Yiddish extravaganza--followed by an evening filled with lively, danceable continental tunes. It is an eye-opener to see the lambada done to a balalaika backbeat, Lizshin says.

Women’s Liberation? Yes and No

Twenty years ago, women coming into college were mostly concerned with whom they were going to marry rather than what they were going to do.

Now, according to Jane Prather, who has a doctorate in sociology and teaches at Cal State Northridge, it’s just the reverse.

“I used to ask women in my classes where they thought they were going to be and what they would be doing in 10 years, just to get them thinking about their own careers and the future,” she said. Even in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, women told her they didn’t know, because they didn’t know whom they would marry. Everything hinged on that.

Now, Prather says, women are marrying later, if at all, and are vitally interested in making correct career decisions. It’s simply assumed that they are headed for the career fast track, she says.

With a notable exception.

Some of the women students in her classes are first generation in this country, with parents whose values are firmly rooted in the Middle, Near or Far East.

“These women are not quite so liberated,” Prather said. “They are still attending class under the old suppositions that they will go to school for a little while, then become good wives and mothers. Getting educated, for them, is something their parents allow as an indulgence,” the sociologist said.

One of her brightest students wanted to go to San Diego to law school, but her Armenian parents said they couldn’t allow such a thing, the educator said.

The student told Prather that traditionally Armenian girls are expected to marry when young, and are not allowed to leave their parents’ home until they become brides. Going away to school would not be allowed because the woman would be unchaperoned.

Prather said teaching these cloistered young women has been a learning experience for her, and adds a new element to her classes.

“At one end of the spectrum you have the liberated women and at the other end, those who are completely sheltered.”

The men in her class, she said, are right in the middle, not entirely comfortable with either side.

Overheard

“I think the reason they don’t play water polo here is because two horses drowned.” --A 6-year-old speculating to a chum at Northridge Park pool