A New Mall Helps Complete BeBeFaLa

My husband and I moved into our house near Beverly Boulevard between Fairfax and LaBrea, the area my husband and his best friend call BeBeFaLa, a little over a year ago. We had been living in Laurel Canyon for several years and were tired of having to get in the car to drive down the hill every time we ran out of dog food.

On the first and especially the second time I saw the house we would eventually buy, my ears were so distracted by voices in my head telling me the monthly mortgage would be too high that I didn’t notice the sounds of jackhammers and bulldozers a mere two blocks away.

Shortly after moving in, however, I became all too aware of the sounds associated with the birth of the Grove, or what a large temporary banner posted at the construction site informed me would soon be my “Outdoor Shopping and Entertainment Resort.”

The Grove opened a week ago, and I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about it.

The anti-consumer in me is disgusted, even outraged, by the thought of what is, despite its clever self-description, essentially a shopping mall. It has imported the usual suspects such as Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel and Nordstrom to what was previously a street notable for Ross Dress for Less and, charmingly, Anna’s Linens.

The New Yorker in me, however, is excited about, even grateful for, being able to walk, yes, walk, to a 14-screen theater complex and a multitude of restaurants.

The Grove is everything I hate about Los Angeles (chain stores, parking lots) mixed in with all the things I’ve longed for since moving here five years ago: evening strolls home from the movies, Christmas shopping nearby, restaurants within a block of each other, and all within two blocks of my house.

During the construction period, helicopters had been a regular presence in the sky above my house, and not just the usual helicopters going to and from the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. These were helicopters that dropped off various objects too large to have been brought to the inner sanctum of the resort by other means.

Optimist that I am, I had taken to thinking of these helicopters as carrier pigeons, albeit loud ones, that brought messages of friendship and goodwill to the residents of my area from the mall’s developers.

“Don’t worry,” they cooed reassuringly, “it’s really going to be fun!”

I know not all my neighbors see it that way. Most see the presence of the Grove only as increasing traffic or worsening already scarce parking on our little street. Others are ethically opposed to the gentrification they feel is represented by the Grove. Still others resent their view of the western sky being partially blocked by the Grove’s five-level parking structure.

But I tell myself, and the neighbors I’ve spoken to about it, that the Grove will enhance our area, and I don’t mean just by increasing property values and saving us from ever having to go to the Beverly Center again.

No, when the jackhammers, bulldozers and helicopters were replaced by idling Hondas and Mercedes-Benzes waiting to make their turns into the parking structure on Stanley Avenue, I arrived on foot to do some window shopping, lay down a little cash, but mostly just to look for something that reminds me of a real, old-fashioned neighborhood.