Shoppers’ Remedy: a Time Capsule
This is it, your last day to shop. Don’t screw it up.
By that, I mean don’t make the mistake of going to a mall or one of those discount stores the size of the L.A. Coliseum. You’re only going to hate yourself and resent the loved ones you’re shopping for.
What you need to do is go back in time to a place where parking is simple, the pace is slower, and you’re not quite as inclined to hold your fellow man in contempt.
There are alternatives: Honolulu Avenue in the Montrose section of Glendale, for example.
And guess who, besides me, is a fan.
Rick Caruso, creator of the Grove and the man who is soon going to break ground on a Glendale shopping center that will be the antithesis of the Montrose experience.
I had smart-alecky things to say recently about the Grove and Caruso’s proposed Glendale project, which he calls a “lifestyle center.” Caruso invited me to lunch, where he joked that a contract had been put out on me. At least I think it was a joke.
While dining next to Vegas-style dancing water at the Grove, where they shoot fake snow off the roof every night, we got onto the subject of my suggestion that the Grove lacks soul and originality.
You been to Honolulu Avenue? I asked Caruso.
“I love it up there,” he said.
There you go. The man who is remaking the American mall says he’d love to figure out how to re-create the feel of Honolulu Avenue. More on Caruso in my Sunday column. But first, Montrose.
After my Grove lunch I took the elevator to the seventh floor of the parking garage, where digitalized scoreboards list the number of spaces available on each level. I got into the Nissan time machine and next thing I knew, I was at Faye’s ladies’ shop in Montrose, which appears to have successfully resisted every fashion trend of the last half-century, God bless them.
Honolulu Avenue is three solid blocks of one-story Mom & Pops, homespun but not quaint or cute, and it’s a modern miracle that the entire stretch hasn’t been blown up and turned into a Wal-Mart.
Against all odds, there are still stores like Grayson’s Tunetown musical instrument shop, Olde Towne Sandwich Shoppe and the Montrose Bowl, with kids hanging around on the sidewalk out front playing with yo-yos.
People strolled the avenue as if they were in a parade, and absent from their demeanor was the look of panic and self-loathing that goes hand in hand with last-minute holiday shopping.
I parked for free, no sweat, and wandered down to Tony’s Barber Shop for a haircut, next door to Frank’s shoe repair. “No, it hasn’t really changed much up here,” said Tony Madrid, who opened for business 23 years ago.
After a trim, Tony escorted me to meet Tom Russell, owner of Anderson’s Pet Shop. Russell wasn’t there, but an employee kindly volunteered to get him on the phone, and Russell suggested several merchants I should talk to.
Heading west, I bumped into an elderly couple out for their late afternoon stroll and asked how long they’d been making this trek.
“Fifty-four years,” said Mario Castellani, who lives a block away with his wife, Cathy. “There’s a few new stores and restaurants; the rest is the same. I’d never go to a mall.”
Mario and Cathy told me the whole family is joining them for Christmas dinner tomorrow, 20 people in all.
“We’ll have the pasta of course, along with the ham, and then everyone brings something,” Mario said. “You should have seen the line at HoneyBaked Ham.”
While we all reminisced about great holiday dinners, the Castellanis’ son Steve approached on foot, along with grandson Joey, a chance meeting outside Faye’s.
“Hey, Ma, how you doing?” Steve said, hugging his mother.
Just off a construction job, and still wearing the dust to prove it, Steve was shopping for his wife, Laurie. And he’d brought Joey along because Steve has no idea what he’s doing. He’s the type who, if left on his own, would buy her a waffle iron.
We said goodbye to Mom and Dad and I tagged along with Steve and Joey to Honolulu Jewelry, which is owned by Steve’s neighbor John Aydin.
“You been shopping awhile?” John’s daughter asked Steve as if he were the kind of guy who would go to a dozen places trying to get it just right.
“No,” Steve said. “I’m going to come clean on that.”
Several wristwatches were laid out in front of them, and Joey took over, pointing to a Citizen.
“It looks nice,” Steve said.
If wife Laurie is reading, I’m going to ask that she skip the next few paragraphs.
Inside of 10 minutes, Steve and Joey had the watch and a pair of diamond earrings, mission accomplished, Merry Christmas. At the Grove, they still would have been trying to figure out the digital parking signs.
“I think it may be coming back around to this,” Steve said wishfully. “You go to a mall and get stuck in that turnstile trying to park. If I’m going to spend my money, I want to do it here where the people know you.”
We walked across the street to Landry’s Sporting Goods, owned since 1979 by Steve’s buddy Paul Roberts. Paul reminded Joey of the time he accidentally lost his St. Christopher’s medal in the dressing room roughly 10 years ago.
“He was going to give it to his first girlfriend,” Roberts said as he waited on Team Mom Cindy Porcell, who was buying gifts for the Crescenta Valley girls’ basketball team.
Just up the street, I met Dale Dawson of Mountain Rose Gifts.
“With these new malls they’re building,” Dawson said, “they’re trying to capture what we have up here naturally.”
Key word there is “trying.” When it’s real, you don’t need dancing water.
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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.
