One Square Mile of Cool

As I stand outside North Hollywood’s Interact Theatre on a recent Thursday night, two things catch my eye: first, a couple of kids rocketing down Bakman Street on skateboards in search of an SUV to slam into in the dark. The other is a lighted sign on a storefront on nearby Magnolia Boulevard that reads: “Unfinished.”

If you’ve been on this stretch of Magnolia in the daytime, you know that underneath “Unfinished” is the word “Furniture,” and that the display windows below contain a forest of bare wood. But tonight, as patrons wait for curtain time at one of the many small theaters clustered in this part of town, the word, lighted like the marquee for the opening of a new Broadway show, seems to refer to NoHo.

NoHo, or, more formally, the NoHo Arts District, is an aspiring neighborhood of aspiring artists, unfinished, waiting for a final coat of varnish--or perhaps more appropriately, greasepaint.

Though it may appear to be just another flat strip of Valley from the window of a car, the approximate square mile called NoHo contains a surprisingly dense and diverse cluster of theater companies, dance studios, a handful of fledgling art galleries and enough old neighborhood restaurants and new, shiny eateries to be able to walk to dinner before the show. The only thing you can’t do in NoHo is see a movie--the one old movie palace in the area has been turned into NoHo’s largest legitimate theater, the El Portal on Lankershim Boulevard.

Bounded on the east and west by Cahuenga and Tujunga boulevards, and on the north and south by Burbank Boulevard and Camarillo Street, the area was dubbed NoHo by the city of Los Angeles in 1992, in an attempt to take note of the fact that there were a number of small theaters blossoming in the area, and perhaps to inspire other artists of all kinds to move to NoHo.

Instead, the NoHo moniker arrived just in time to cement its association with Southern California’s early ‘90s economic downturn, the 1994 Northridge quake and the invasive pavement surgery required for the North Hollywood MTA subway station, which opened in June 2000. For years, there was a broken street for virtually every light in NoHo.

Plus Lankershim Boulevard, NoHo’s main street, was--and still is--as much about automobiles as art, with dealerships and body shops outnumbering performance spaces. One half-expects to come across a sign for NoHo Repertory Theater & Discount Tire.

NoHo is a little tough, a little hard-edged, a little more resale than retail; younger and poorer than the well-established shopping strips nearby on Ventura Boulevard or cute Tujunga Village, Carmel-by-the-101, with its mellow house blend of gourmet pastries, flowery dress shops, power yoga and murder. (This block is home to Vitello’s restaurant, recently making headlines in the murder case of Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake. Vitello’s has long had a pasta-and-spinach item called “the Robert Blake.”)

A couple of upscale restaurants in NoHo (Eclectic Cafe, 5156 Lankershim, and the venerable, mildly spicy Salomi Indian & Bangladesh Restaurant, 5225 Lankershim) have made their homes here, but downscale Eagles Newsstand Cafe is a better landmark of the local culture. With its dark atmosphere, display of oddball license plates, worn board games and fingerprint-y candy machines stuffed with bubble gum and M&Ms;, it would fit right in at the funky east end of Melrose.

Sound engineering students Patrick Plummer, 25, and Christian Mendoza, 28, were studying here the other day. Plummer lives a few blocks away. “There’s a creative vibe here,” he mused, an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. “And this place, compared to Starbucks, has a personality. The person next to you could be writing a screenplay, or they could offer you a palm reading. You never know.”

The area’s strength--and hope--remains in its theaters. There are 21 of them, and 30 theater companies operate in the area. Some NoHo theaters have struggled for survival, including the El Portal. But others are moving into NoHo--and thriving.

One such newcomer is Deaf West Theatre, which casts its plays with deaf and hearing actors, and draws audiences that are about 75% hearing people and 25% hearing-impaired. The theater, founded in 1991, has been itinerant except for five years in the mid-’90s at the Heliotrope Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2000, Deaf West moved into a 60-seat space in a renovated Art Deco storefront space on Lankershim with a five-year lease, and it plans to remain permanently.

In a first for a NoHo theater, Deaf West will see one of its productions, the Huckleberry Finn musical “Big River,” move downtown to the 760-seat Mark Taper Forum this year (Nov. 14-Dec. 29).

Deaf West artistic director Ed Waterstreet wants to open a “Deaf Starbucks”--a coffeehouse for the hearing and deaf to exchange ideas--inside its Lankershim Boulevard building. Because of the presence of so many other artists, Waterstreet says, he “doesn’t feel handicapped” in NoHo.

In another coup for the area, Hollywood’s Fountain Theater is actively looking for a second space in North Hollywood. Says Fountain artistic co-director Stephen Sachs: “My interest in the area is that feeling of community; it’s a perfect area for theater to blossom. There are restaurants, cafes, street traffic, public transportation, nearby neighborhoods with families.”

David Cox is artistic director of the American Renegade Theatre, where “Red River,” a new family musical written and directed by Sally Wills, has just been extended through June 16. He is involved in a new plan by the Community Redevelopment Agency to add neon marquees to NoHo’s theaters to unify the district. “I think it’s an up-and-coming area, and, contrary to public opinion, a safe area,” he says. “If it continues as it has been, it could be wildly successful.” But, he cautions, “L.A. is a movie town, and if you lose sight of that and think it’s going to be a theater town, you’re in trouble.”

For a while, nobody seemed to want anything to do with North Hollywood, period. Former North Hollywood neighborhoods anxiously renamed themselves “Valley Village” and “West Toluca Lake.” Since the hilly area south of Ventura Boulevard has traditionally been the Valley’s answer to Santa Monica’s prestigious “North of Montana,” it seemed only a matter of time before all of North Hollywood was renamed “North of South of the Boulevard.”

Until recently, one thing that could be counted on to draw a visible crowd to North Hollywood was the annual NoHo Theatre & Arts Festival, where visitors could eat at food booths, listen to live music and shop for arts and crafts in a reassuring, contained area. This year’s 10th anniversary street fair takes place May 18 and 19.

But the image of NoHo seems to be changing. The MTA station is finished and so well used that the city has had to add an additional parking lot. Though many are simply commuters on their way to somewhere else, local business owners believe it’s only a matter of time before the public recognizes how easy it is to get to NoHo.

One of those people is Dan Hirsch, owner of NoHo Actors Studio since the bleak days of 1993. Hirsch says he can also tell how many people are rehearsing or taking classes in the area by how many outdoor trash bins are filled up (“See the new show in NoHo--it’s a four-trash-bin hit!”).

“I know I was the first business to call itself NoHo anything--and I got a lot of grief about it at first,” Hirsch says. “People hadn’t heard the term, and they hadn’t been to New York’s SoHo. I think it’s been a sort of astonishing turnaround.

“In the middle of that period when MTA was ripping up Lankershim Boulevard, and we had big, stinky diesel trucks, pipes, dirt, dust and street blockages, it was really rough. That was about as low as you could go. All this supposed redevelopment was going to happen--but it didn’t really start looking like something until the last three or four years.”

At least until the next NoHo Seismic Activity Festival, property values are rising. Businesses are opening, not closing. And the Los Angeles City Council recently approved NoHo Commons, a new $218-million development partnership, headed by builder J.H. Snyder, near the MTA station that will include offices, shops and apartments--as well as some live-in artists’ lofts.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences moved into sleek headquarters at Lankershim and Magnolia in 1990. But locals say that the entertainment industry landmark has never really shared the mission of the starving artists who struggle to exist all around it. Still, even those in the business find themselves mingling with the local artists for breakfast and lunch.

One such hangout is Ned’s on Magnolia, where regulars report seeing a lot of those actors whose faces you know and names you don’t, wandering over from the academy or its adjacent apartments. It’s an unpretentious diner offering great breakfasts and lunches for approximately the price of two Starbucks grande cinnamon spice mochas. A Ned’s specialty is sauteed “zucchini shredders,” a green alternative to hash browns. What you won’t find at Ned’s is Ned. Ned Forman, a North Hollywood native who opened the restaurant in 1995, retired and sold it to newlyweds Sean and Shelly Smith of Los Feliz around the first of the year. Shelly bakes the muffins and also offers them split and grilled in butter.

Sean Smith says Ned’s crowd of middle-aged regulars is mixing nicely with a newer, younger clientele. Some, he says, venture from the other side of the hill to Ned’s, and NoHo, because it’s “Silver Lake without the attitude.”

Or check out the Tokyo Delve’s Sushi Bar on Lankershim. Behind windowless walls, painted black, is the weirdest sushi bar on this planet. Cheerful sushi chefs shout “Irrashai!” (welcome) as you enter, and “Sapporo!” (the Japanese beer they serve) at random. Decor includes tiny sparkly lights and a miniature Ferris wheel. Dress code: The first Friday and Saturday of the month are “crazy hat” nights; the second Friday and Saturday call for “crazy sunglasses.” The third Friday features ‘70s music; the third Saturday flashes back to the ‘80s. Friday and Saturday of the fourth weekend are all about Hollywood glamour--but save those clothes, because if there happens to be a fifth weekend day, the theme is cross-dressing.

Then there’s the optimistically named HaHa Cafe, a must-visit location, not necessarily for laughs (“North Hollywood--it’s great if you’re looking for a futon!” ... “Too bad, I think the guy from Universal has already left!”) but because they ask everybody for ID, even if you haven’t been carded since 1989. The cafe’s bar is about the only energetic spot on this dark stretch of Lankershim on a weeknight. Do not, however, order the french-fried ice cream; it’s no laughing matter.

In L.A., where people know more about what goes on at Brad and Jennifer’s house than they do about their next-door neighbor, it’s easy to have missed NoHo, even if you live next door. There is a difference--and an anticipation--in making it a destination instead of just passing through.

The old joke goes something like this: “I spent a month in Buffalo one day.” The opposite is true of NoHo--it takes about a month of sporadic visits to piece together enough destinations to fill a day.

Theaters tend to be open only on weekends, and not every one has a show running every week. Restaurants and shops are spread out and seem to cater to the locals who work, live or attend classes here--not tourists. (There is no nearby university, but NoHo is a creative workshop capital, with myriad classes in acting, writing, dance, sound engineering and animation.) Business hours are odd and unique to each location. Unlike Universal CityWalk, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade or the Sunset Strip, NoHo is not about you.

That said, for a neighbor who doesn’t invite you over, NoHo is extraordinarily--and touchingly--welcoming if you knock. Business owners may provide an impromptu tour or open after closing time if they see you looking in the window. There is still almost enough street parking (bring quarters). They want you here. NoHo is no place for scenesters, fashionistas and others who thrive on possible rejection.

The welcome mat is out for budding artists here, too. In nearby Studio City and Burbank, many small businesses feature walls filled with head shots of actors you’ve never heard of. In NoHo, walls display the paintings, drawings and murals of artists you’ve never heard of. Most NoHo establishments offer their walls as gallery space.

Many artists volunteer their work, so quality is less blue chip than poker chip--that is, a gamble. Visual artists still struggle to become as established as the theaters (though onstage quality is a mixed bag, too). But much can be said for a place where the answer to the question, “Can I paint your floor?” might just be yes.

On Lankershim, what looks from the window like just another Color Me Mine pottery emporium is actually the NoHo Ceramics Gallery/Color Me Mine company’s international headquarters, with a professional ceramics gallery attached. The headquarters’ business office, located in back of the gallery, becomes part of the show, decorated with a brightly painted baby grand piano and equally bright arches of painted wood forming wild rainbows over the sofas--installations created by Nancy Mooslin, wife of Color Me Mine CEO Michael Mooslin.

The gallery also bears a plaque, and takes in the mail, for NoHo>LA, the local newspaper, though the paper’s offices are elsewhere (no one seems to know where, exactly). In October, the space, a brick-walled former furniture store, hosted NoHo>LA’s third anniversary bash, perhaps the closest NoHo has come to being hip, with celebrity guests and a show by Bubbles the Artist, presented by songwriter-multimedia artist-set designer-writer-director (and NoHo local) Allee Willis. On June 15, the gallery will open a juried show in conjunction with North Hollywood High’s “NoHo Varsity Clay” ceramics students.

“I love this area, I think it’s really interesting, but it’s not the safest place,” observes Nancy Lane, who manages the gallery. “There is still that grunge element happening, crime and homelessness; it’s just a little bit grungy. Which I also happen to like.”

Down the street and downstairs, at the Lankershim Arts Center, you can see work by local artists, both the bad and the good. Upstairs is the Road Theatre Company. Although artworks here are for sale (including one wall of pieces under $50), 30-year-old Dover Abrams, paint-spattered artist and gallery director, says he hopes people will see this as a place not just to buy things but also to spend time.

“We want to reeducate people; in art galleries, people think they have to be real quiet or put on something special. We want to be more user-friendly,” says Abrams. “If you are a writer, you can come here and write your short stories and be inspired by the art.”

The gallery also participates in an informal “art walk” that takes place on the second Saturday of the month, organized by the nearby Art Coalition at 5227 Lankershim. This is not a guided tour, but rather a designated time period in which various businesses on Lankershim between Magnolia and Weddington may lend gallery or sidewalk space to artists, as well as to fashion shows, live music or other types of presentations. In the last year, Abrams has seen more growth of NoHo as an arts center than in its previous nine years of existence. “I think it matters, I think it exists,” he says. “It’s right before the start line; it just needs a push.”