NoHo COOL

Sabrina Palmersheim grew up in Van Nuys but spent so much of her childhood in her grandmother’s North Hollywood home that, she says, “I grew up here, too.”

Early last year, North Hollywood became home again to the 27-year-old Spago restaurant controller.

She paid $170,000 for her grandmother’s Weddington Street home, a three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath house with six fruit trees in the spacious backyard.

Since her return, Palmersheim has noticed something different about the area. Whenever she and her two roommates go for a late-night dinner at Sitton’s--the same Magnolia Boulevard coffee shop that Palmersheim used to frequent with her grandparents--”there are always cool, artsy people hanging out.”

The vintage clothing shops and hip coffeehouses hadn’t escaped her attention, nor had the explosion of live theater venues.

But asked if she was familiar with NoHo, Palmersheim responded, “No, what is it?”

Since 1992, the NoHo Arts and Entertainment District--NoHo for short--has been the name for a formerly depressed section of North Hollywood surrounding Lankershim and Magnolia boulevards, the target of a Los Angeles-financed redevelopment effort to capitalize on the area’s proximity to entertainment-industry employers and to build on its own burgeoning identity as a center for live theater.

To some of the restaurant and shop owners who have bet on the district in the last few years, it was to be “the next Melrose.”

But to many outside the area--and even to Palmersheim, who lives there--the transformation of the San Fernando Valley community remains subtle, if it’s noticed at all.

NoHo is situated just north of the Ventura Freeway and east of the Hollywood Freeway, extending roughly from Tujunga Avenue on the west to Cahuenga Avenue on the east, and from Hatteras Street on the north to Camarillo Street on the south.

First-Time Appeal

Most of the single-family homes in NoHo were built in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s and range in price from $100,000 to $200,000, with values tending to increase as one moves south, closer to Ventura Boulevard and the higher-priced neighborhoods of Burbank, Studio City and Toluca Lake.

“NoHo is still an area for first-time buyers,” said Pam Nelson, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas in Studio City. “On the northern end, you have a lot of tract housing, two-bedroom homes that are between 900 and 1,400 square feet. The more expensive custom homes are in the southeast.”

But even to the north, first-time buyers such as Wendy Wells, a 33-year-old hairdresser, have found pockets where the redevelopment efforts have taken hold.

In 1996, Wells paid $134,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bath 1,200-square-foot, Spanish-style house on Satsuma Avenue near Burbank Boulevard.

“There are a lot of young professionals on this street who have fixed up their homes,” she said, “and it’s really coming together.”

Wells, who previously rented in Studio City, had observed the area through its difficult period. When it came time to buy, she liked what she saw on Satsuma but was concerned about the neighborhoods just to the north, still plagued by graffiti and unkempt properties.

“But I figured this street was once like that, too,” Wells said. “Little by little, things are improving.”

Ned Forman grew up in the area, graduating from North Hollywood High in 1963. In 1995 he opened Ned’s on Magnolia Cafe, a popular eatery just east of Lankershim--in the same section of town where, some 40 years ago, Forman remembers riding his bicycle along a thriving commercial strip.

“I’d really like to see this area come back,” Forman said. “We all watched it go downhill, to the point where, maybe 15 years ago, it wasn’t a very safe place to be.”

Indeed, by the late ‘70s, what is now NoHo had lost much of its retail business, and crime was a major concern. In 1979 the area was targeted by the city for redevelopment.

And, as community improvement efforts gained momentum in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, many of the entertainment-industry residents began to turn their energies toward invigorating the local theaters.

“Since retail wasn’t going to be our strong suit, we needed something else that made North Hollywood unique,” said Lillian Burkenheim, North Hollywood project director for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

20 Theater Venues

That something was theater. From the handful that existed when the ‘90s began, the area now has more than 20 theater venues.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences built a large complex on Lankershim, adding to the area’s entertainment portfolio. An old DWP building was turned into the city-financed Lankershim Arts Center. NoHo became home to numerous video, recording and dance studios.

In 1992, the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce joined with the Valley Theater League in renaming the area.

“I thought it was a natural,” said David Cox, then-president of the Valley Theater League.

Cox, who once lived in SoHo, the artsy New York City district that inspired the NoHo name, is credited with spearheading the drive to bring more theater to North Hollywood.

“This was a depressed area,” he said, “but it was also surrounded by the world’s media, so there was a lot of potential.”

Though most NoHo residents believe the potential has yet to be fulfilled, they’ve been heartened by the changes that have occurred.

For one, the crime problem has virtually disappeared. Last year’s infamous Bank of America shootout, though it occurred well outside of NoHo, tagged all of North Hollywood with a reputation that NoHo residents and business owners say is undeserved.

David Delgado, senior LAPD lead officer for NoHo, confirms that the crime numbers have been going down in NoHo for several years.

“It’s a very quiet area,” he said. “We used to have some problems on Lankershim, but it seems like the more improvement they do to the area, the less crime we see.”

NoHo has an annual arts festival, with part of Lankershim blocked off for two days of free performances and art exhibits each June.

And if artists haven’t exactly flocked to NoHo since its designation as an arts district, their ranks are steadily growing within the already ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods.

“On our street, we have Armenians, Latinos, Europeans, Valleyites harking back to the ‘40s. It’s an interesting mix, and everyone seems to get along,” said Fred Licht, a commercial photographer who lives with his wife and 2-year-old son in the three-bedroom, 1 3/4-bath house that he bought for $235,000 in 1990.

Not every NoHo resident has embraced the change.

“You can’t create an arts community artificially,” said Gary Hendrickson, 54, a member of the Project Area Committee, an elected group of residents and business owners that advises the redevelopment agency. “This isn’t working.”

The Next Melrose?

No one ever expected NoHo to resemble SoHo. But Brian Sheehan was convinced that the area was about to follow the lead of the Melrose District when he opened the Eclectic Cafe on Lankershim in 1992.

Sheehan, 35, still believes NoHo has a bright future. Business at his restaurant is booming. But Melrose it’s not. “It seemed like that area changed overnight,” he said.

NoHo has taken much longer, Sheehan noted, for two main reasons.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake served a devastating blow to the fledgling community. The historic El Portal Theater, two weeks from reopening after a major renovation, was badly damaged, as was Cox’s American Renegade Theater facility. Both remain under construction.

NoHo residents and business owners also complain about the ongoing construction of an MTA subway station on Lankershim.

“For the immediate two or three years, this will not be a destination for tourists,” Sheehan said over the distant sound of jackhammers. “What’s our big attraction? Construction?”

“It seems like good things are happening,” said Jody Dunn, a 45-year-old marketing consultant who paid $190,000 for a two-bedroom, 2 1/4-bath townhouse on Morrison Street in 1990. “But it’s moving at such a snail’s pace that you hope people investing in the area can hang in there.”