WHY I HATE THE BEVERLY CENTER
by Elizabeth Gill
It broods over the intersection of Beverly and La Cienega, that multilayered Moby Dick of material goods, that bloated behemoth of buy-and-sell, that gross Gargantuan of glitzy greed known as the Beverly Center. It wasn't always there. Neither was the Hotel Sofitel, the Beverly Connection, or that nearby leviathan of health care, Cedars-Sinai. In fact, when I was a kid in the 1950's, Beverly and La Cienega lay on the very outskirts of my geographical ken and meant only one thing. Well, actually two: Kiddieland (a.k.a. Beverly Park) and Ponyland. We're talking pre-Disneyland, okay? No one north of the Orange Curtain had ever even heard of Anaheim. If you lived in L.A. you took your kids to Griffith Park (zoo and Travel Town), MacArthur Park (for a boat ride), or Beverly and La Cienega.
Almost every Saturday my father drove us in our two-tone turquoise Kaiser sedan to that most magical corner. For me, it was my date with Daddy, who spent the rest of the week slaving away in some office building downtown. As soon as we entered the gates, I was pulling him from ride to ride as if it was the first time he'd ever taken me. While my brother, five years older, struck off on his own to wreak havoc on the bumper cars (he once knocked out a tooth), I preferred rides that went in circles, with my father as home base. My favorite was the smiling fishies painted in elementary colors (I always chose the blue one). You actually sat inside the fish which not only went around but up and down as well on a track of metal "waves." Then there were the boats-on-spokes which revolved in a tank of real water and had ropes you pulled to ring their bells. The slatted Western wagons drawn by cast-iron horses let you take the reins and imagine you were crossing the prairie. And of course the piece de resistance was the merry-go-round, partially enclosed in a canvas tent, a marvel of music and movement. The belt strapped tightly around my waist left a long leather tail flapping against the flanks of my enameled palomino. I loved to feel the carved undulations of its wooden mane and cling to the twisty brass pole as I lunged gently forward, up, and down, forward-up-down. There was always that moment when, disappearing from my father's view, I was seized by momentary doubt, by the thrill of some future danger. Would he be there on my return? What if he wasn't? Little did I know he would die only ten years later of cancer. But at Kiddieland, he was always there when I came full-circle, waving at me like clockwork.
I never stopped riding the merry-go-round but I did, as my childhood progressed, advance to the rollercoaster and the funhouse. The small-fry rollercoaster boasted (at most) a twenty-foot drop plus minor torques, but it made a suspenseful clackety racket as it changed gears and chomped curves. Twice around was never enough. From the outside the funhouse looked like anything but fun. It looked downright creepy -- jaundice-colored and decorated with what I seem to remember were distorted clowns' faces whose mouths electronically opened and closed, and a spider web and a witch's craggy profile. You could hear her cackle every time another car crashed through the doors and broke into the light of day. Most of the people were laughing but no one ever talked about what went on inside. Clearly the funhouse was an asylum, the horrors of which initiates sought to underplay in hopes of luring more innocent victims. The only way to know the mystery was to enter it. When I finally got up the nerve, I was mortally disappointed. It was a jerky ride through a dark space of melodramatic moans, dayglo bats and ghosts, and a couple of department store mannequins draped in muslin and lit green for ghoulish effect. I've had better nightmares in my own bed. But of course I never let on. I busted through the exit doors laughing too, mostly at myself.
We traditionally ended our day with a pony ride at the adjacent Ponyland. Separated from Kiddieland by a large unpaved parking lot, it had an entirely different feel. Whereas Kiddieland was an amusement park of colorful mechanical rides, Ponyland was a more organic experience, a dusty, dirty row of old wooden stalls with a three-track riding ring. Instead of ringing bells and buzzers and the lilting tunes of the merry-go-round's calliope, the ear caught pony snorts, jingling bits, creaking leather saddles, and sporadic "Giddyups." Instead of the olfactory allure of popcorn and cotton candy, the nose whiffed some pungent mixture of hay and horse pucky. The ponies were different from the ones on the merry-go-round: warm, soft, alive. They answered only to the horse handlers who set you on the saddle, cinched your belt good and tight and, with a smack on the rump, sent you off to one of three lanes. As I went from five to eight to ten years old, I advanced from the slow lane (walk) to the middle lane (trot) to the fast lane (cantor). The walk lasted the longest but lacked thrills; the bouncy trot tended to induced side stitches; but the cantor carried you in a rhythmic roll that almost felt like flying. After two times around the ring, the ponies immediately made a beeline for their stalls, but I usually talked my dad into one more ride.
Now the only time I go around in circles is in some multilevel parking lot looking for a parking space. Or my memories. In my mind, the Beverly Center breeds that particular type of urban Alzheimer's which besets the native Angeleno. Since my birth in 1948 in Good Samaritan Hospital (which remarkably is still standing), I have witnessed the demolition of several major memory sites, some felled by developers, others by earthquake vulnerability. Every time I drive through Hancock Park, the setting of my childhood, I barely recognize my elementary school at Third Street and June. Where once had stood a two-story brick edifice complete with neo-classic portico supported by stately pillars, there now sprawls a non-descript complex of flat-top one-story buildings which look, but aren't, temporary. My high school at Rimpau and Olympic, also once brick, now concrete slab, has been mistaken more than once for a county correctional facility. Gone are its former architectural glory days when it stood three stories high. Its auditorium, complete with U-shaped balcony, permanent hard-wood seats, and a quote chiseled over the proscenium ("Respect for others, mastery of self, joy in service - these constitute life!") rivalled UCLA'S Royce Hall. Gone too are its indoor swimming pool and its five-story square bell tower that tolled the hour and housed the leadership class.
The changes in the business block of Larchmont Boulevard is a subject unto itself. A movie theater with Saturday matinees, grocery stores that delivered, a "department store" that was one floor with a post office in the back, a record store where you could listen to the latest top single in a sound-proof booth - these are just some of the places I want to remember once existed there. On the plus side, the street is no longer the bastion of exclusivity it once was. People of color and cultural diversity now stroll the sidewalk. I only wish Larchmont had been as cosmopolitan in the fifties as it is now, although the last time I passed through I was shocked to find there wasn't a single food market left. Plenty of sidewalk cafes though, streaming a panapoly of ethnic fare.
Speaking of eating al fresco, thank God for the Farmers' Market, which seems to have lost little in the millenium transit. Despite the intrusion of Starbuck's, certain culinary flashbacks can still be experienced: Patty D'amore's straightforward pizza and manicotti, Gill's Ice Cream (famous for its fresh peach) which I used to pretend my family owned, Dupar's for pancakes, and that wonderful bakery where you can watch them decorate a birthday cake with besotted pink elephants sliding down a real champagne bottle. But other landmarks have disappeared: the Farmers' Market doppleganger across Third Street once known as "Town and Country," which had less food and more shops, making it possibly one of the first outdoor malls in L.A; the Gilmore Drive-In where I made out with my first boyfriend; Gilmore Field, where the Hollywood Stars played baseball, and a long-gone "pee wee" golf course and bowling alley on Beverly near the barely saved Pan Pacific.
So why hate the Beverly Center which is surely no more heinous than any other shopping mall? Because what was a funky permanent carnival on the outskirts of town is now one of the most profitable retail centers in the world; what was once Saturday in the Park with Daddy is now Mass Consumerism in the Mall, or: The Families that Spend Together, Blend Together. I would rather drive all the way to South Coast Plaza to shop at the same exact stores which are wiping out some Orange County baby boomer's memories, than support that 1979 real estate deal which eradicated my own. Like a book-memorizing character in LA native Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, I dedicate myself to reclaiming my past, and thereby that of my city: streetcars down Sixth, Bullock's Wilshire, Perino's, drive-ins like Scrivner's and Dolores, the Miracle Mile in its pre-LACMA heyday, shopping at Orbach's, Desmond's, Coulter's, lunch at Van de Kamp's, omelet's at the Egg and Eye - but there is so much I have already forgotten. If not now, when?
