All the build up to the move out here was a very real thing. Old video procured, swanky apartments found, gold-era clothing purchased. Don't believe me? The summer before I was working at WGBH in Boston. A fellow co-worker twice my age had previously lived in southern California, and sometimes we would get out the Rand McNally road atlas and turn to the map of LA and Orange County and just look. We'd look at it and marvel, like some sort of treasure map. There's gold in them hills. GOLD! "What's this town like? How is it living over here?"
I'd been in town post-graduation a few months or so and shared some 70s and 80s photos with longtime residents, and they commented "You know what you should do? You should take pictures now." Why? Who cares? "Because someday, THAT'S going to be your 'old neighborhood.'"
They were right. In this era I am in a real mood to get rid of shit: scan, digitize, etc. With that spirit in mind I got out a photo album I received as a gift from a girl who was polite but also very keyed into playing cat and mouse...and looked at all the photos. Well, things certainly do not look like THAT anymore. Those folks who said that 20 years ago were right.
Sunset & Vine
Upon arrival the northwest corner had a rather nondescript mini mall. One of the shops was a photo shop, a place where I later learned had some great anecdotes to share...in another blog. Anyhow, to the north of that sat the TAV Celebrity Theater. Back in the day, that's where things like Merv Griffin and all of his owned shows taped in front of a live studio audience.
Once Merv ended the talk show and sold the game shows, it sat largely unused, save for the occasional taping of something else. It's vacancy lead to squatters...which lead to a fire. In the mid-90s. This was NOT the mid-90s. So, for half a decade, it sat looking like this:
The back area, which would house parking and then the mini mall, was not in good looking times. But it was at this moment something important was happening north west of here: Hollywood and Highland. In the gleeful need to create a tourist trap to end all tourist traps, developers and dipshit city councilman Tom LaBonge said why does that intersection get all the fun? So, the mini mall was VERY quickly shut down and razzed...and so was the TAV theater. What was going to spring up? Oh, shops and condos, not unlike any other section of the neighborhood.
When finished it wasn't anything special..and, well, now, it's even less than...
This is looking at the same vantage point as the TAV. What this DOESN'T show you is a 75% vacancy rate, homeless hotel directly in that pathway, and an overall grime. It's the same hellhole I wrote about in September. Swankness of a whole different sort. In the end, is it really any different from a bombed out theater?
Vine Theatre
In QT's love letter to this town, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you saw a well done effect of Hollywood Boulevard at night. The Vine Theatre was one of them shown...
Twenty years ago and today - pretty much the same.
The marquee is blank, but that's only because it's about to be set up for the shot in that film...it's back to the usual now, showing random current and relatively current films. It still fights on. Maybe it's meant to live forever.
Pacific Theater
At the start of this blog nearly 15 years ago (!) I wrote about sneaking in to the Pacific...and just like the Vine...
Again, minimal differences in the marquee from QT's movie, and that's about all. It still stands, empty. It's there, people officially go in and look at it, they try to "figure something out" - do you get the building attached to the theater, so on. Thankfully, it's here and we can only hope one day for good use.
Ritz Theater
Oh, what it once was...
Once the Pussycat chain went down, like many things of that ilk, it attempted to go legit.
It got a new name (or back to its old name?) and was likely cleaned many, many times. But even that ended...by the time I moved in, it was a church! May the circle be unbroken.
That area under the Ritz sign on the marque later became the legendary, late and lamented Skooby's hot dogs. Oh the tales of that place. But the church left, so did Skoob's...and now it's...
I honestly have no idea what the fuck this is...but it's a giant sign that says smoking lounge. So, not all bad I guess.
Vogue Theater
Because it's, well...ok, you know me well enough to not be surprised that just this morning I heard a radio commercial for the film Hardbodies and at the end the announcer said it's playing at the Vogue Theater. Nice. And 20 years ago, the mainstream films had left but there was always some kind of action there...over the past 20 years people have tried keeping it a theater, a "supper club" or something, halving it, and, fuck if I know.
Again, I have no idea what the hell this is or was or supposed to or will be, but it sure doesn't look open. Someone should do something with it - a tourist friendly restaurant right next door...you'd think that would be enough.
You'd also think, after many false starts, someone would get a "big idea" and razz the place. But as we've seen in the last 2 decades, unless you are the victim of arson, your shell will sit...and as so many of these did 20 years ago, I could walk deserted streets, listening to FEAR on the discman and look at the dark marquees left to wonder and hope. Now, the reality is as clear as day, and it's harder to go back.
