Defamer
Hot on the heels of their gripping exposé of what it's like inside an American Idol taping (apparently that studio is much smaller in person, and there's a man wandering the aisles prompting the audience to applaud!) the NY Times continues their series Things On the West Coast That Don't Begin To Exist Until We Acknowledge Them Years After the Fact with a look at The Grove. What to make of the dancing-waterist, most trolleytastic consumption experience west of the Rockies? Best to submit yourself willingly to this seductive simulacrum of Main Street, U.S.A., filled with all the ma n' pa Apple Stores and charming cellphone accessory carts of your youth:
The Grove is everything that is horrible and spectacular about our brand-saturated American lives.
It's a living version of every pretentious theory you may have read back in grad school: a facsimile of a space, a scripted zone, a generic city, a vituperative quote by Baudrillard or Deleuze. But it's also totally great! [...][A]s long as we continue barreling along our path of unmitigated consumerism, the future will not look smooth, white and sleek. It will look like the Grove: a Frankensteinian hodgepodge of branded facades that we walk into and out of, forgetfully.
"A Frankensteinian hodgepodge of branded facades?" Leave it to those neurotic, East Coast intellectual types to overanalyze a good thing. As anyone who maneuvers the streets of L.A. with any regularity can tell you, the Grove owes its success to its one seemingly obvious, but maddeningly elusive feature: The easy-to-master parking structure. One night spent in an unfamiliar corner of Hollywood + Highland's Level 5, huddled by an exhaust vent for warmth with only a few stray popcorn kernels from your coat pockets for sustenance, is enough to make you reconsider ever revisiting a state-of-the-art shopping facility again.
- Only Your Money Is Not Pretend [NY Times]
Comments
" a Frankensteinian hodgepodge of branded facades"
sounds like Times Square to me.
Two paragraphs on Abercrombie & Fitch (revealing the author's fixation on shirtless men) and nothing on the movie theatre, still the best reason to visit the Grove? Those liberal elites just don't understand us in the heartland.
Someone is cashing in on their $10 words!
Sorry, the Grove wreaks of trying-too-hard. I fucking despise the grove with every ounce of my body. Okay, maybe I'm going a bit over board, but I really dislike that place. Gives me goose bumps.
"The easy-to-master parking structure". Oh, Seth. Clearly you need to be in the car with me and my man as we debate whether it's better to be on the outside of the circle going up and the inside going down or vice versa. Now that debate has brought about many a vituperative quote.
@OldTowneTavern:
"...a vituperative quote"
excellent use of a .25 word. kudos! i too, have felt that emotion, especially during the holiday season. and by emotion i mean locking myself in the vehicle so i don't jump out and strangle the idiot in the escalade that is trying to park in a 'compact' car slot. 12 tries and counting.
Arden B. gets no respect. Though some of their clothing looks like QVC workout-wear from 1993, they have the most luscious sweaters and the best sales.
Also: "[A]s long as we continue barreling along our path of unmitigated consumerism..." Somebody plagiarized every plagiarized undergrad essay written in the last 5 years.
Hollywood & Highland is not a state-of-the-art shopping facility, unless it exists in a spatial and temporal singularity of suburban Detroit in 1987.
My best friend in LA lives within WALKING distance of the Grove so we go there all the time,it's not that bad and there are always many celebrities to gawk at too!
Also what the article did not mention is that it is joined to the farmers market that has been there since the 1930s,it's not a Union Square kind of thing,it's actual wooden structures with great local produce and a fantastic Mexican restaurant that is our first stop after getting off the American Airlines 12 noon flight from JFK.
The best thing about the Grove is the Farmer's Market. Next comes the dancing fountain, then the overpriced movie theater, and finally the easy-to-use parking lot with a great view of the sunset.
I just wanted to put all that out there. I haven't actually been in any of the stores other than Barnes and Noble and Victoria's Secret. But, the Farmer's Market has some of the best cheap Mexican, Cajun and Indonesian food in LA.
I thought NYT only covered the Grove because writer Mike Albo (Underminer) is living in LA for a bit.
What the NYT doesn't appear to realize is that they can have a near-identical experience, minus perhaps the pleasant weather, just across the Hudson in any number of clone malls in Jerz.
@Steverino: This is the only possible explanation. And they're planning massive journo layoffs at NYT...why?
@LadybirdRamone: Agreed about the Farmers Market. NYC has all manner of seasonal, weekly farmers' markets, but nothing permanent that I can think of like the one at the Grove, or the Central Market in downtown LA. Am I wrong?
@SW-2: That's more a function of the chill in February. Veggies come pre-frozen then.
The Economist did something on the Grove a few months ago, so this must be coming to NYC via Heathrow. The article is positive enough that Caruso (the Zeus whose lightning bolt brought the Grove into being) gots it on his website.
[www.carusoaffiliated.com]
I'll take the Grove's parking any day of the week over Century City. You come out of the movie theatre and then sit down and start thinking about which new car you'd like to buy because it just isn't worth trying to remember where you parked.
A few months ago me and my gf were looking to get a place. We were scouring the valley(mostly Sherman Oaks, Encino,Toluca Lake), but we looked at a few places in L.A.
We saw an ad for a place via craigslist on Gardener and Fountain. Looked good in the ad, sorta Cape Coddish in design. Went over to see it, some old Russians showed us the extremely overpriced shitty habitats available. Small as virgin pussy. As soon as the old Russian lady showed us the "kitchen" I was like, "this place is $1,800?", she replied yes and I said thank you. Me and my gf promptly left in disgust.
On the way out we ran into a young guy and he asked me what I thought of the place. I told him it sucked and it was overpriced suckage at that.
He went into this thing whole about being 'near the Grove' and trying to play it up like it's prime property, good location, because again it's by the Grove. I was like yeah dude, that's all you; Cya!
Basically, I can't believe people pay stupid high prices for garbage just because of something like the Grove. Oh brother.
Me & the gf ended up finding a sweet spot in west L.A., lower priced and I walk to work.
You can keep the Grove, I'll take Westwood village to 3rd St. promenade.
I do live near the Grove and like most of my neighbors, I usually only go over in the mornings before the rush of tourists and morons. A matinee, a quick nosh and we're out by noon. That said, I can walk so it takes some of the "Man, I could totally kill someone today" edge off. Until, that is, I walk past the Ross...
@Benovite:
I live four blocks from the Grove and I pay $1200 and get 1100sq. ft, an in home washer/dryer, dishwasher, bathtub and two off street parking spaces.
You just have to know how to look better...
Granted, but my point is I didn't want to live near the Grove. It's not a factor and actually, I can imagine it being a negative.
@Benovite:
That's not the negative. It's a great movie theatre within walking distance and that's it.
The big negative in the neighborhood is the 99cent stores...
The one on Lankershim in NoHo actually carries good wines(Aussie, NZ, Chilean, Argentinian) sometimes.
Same stuff you see at Cost Plus/World Market, but it's 99 cents a bottle instead of $8.99.
And I've got a great movie theater in my house. ; p
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