Fellow USC-er Peter McFerrin read my mind: we've both been thinking about Glendale lately, more specifically Brand Blvd.
I've been in that area a lot over the past month. It's an interesting ride on the 92 from my part of Silver Lake: past Fletcher, Glendale Blvd is a gnarled, winding mess before crossing the river and giving way to the linear calm of Atwater Village, which seems to end at a lonely-looking overpass (near the post office) and eventually kinda mutates into downtown Glendale. Brand Blvd opens with a flood of car dealerships, low-rent strip malls, and freestanding '70s-era Chinese restaurants, and once that's done it starts becoming more gentrified: there's the intractably immense Glendale Galleria, while an empty lot across the street, fortified by wall-high "coming soon" signs, promises "the Americana at Brand" (aka "the Grove East"). Then there's a movie theater, a CPK -- this portion of Brand is a bit thrown-together, with nothing that really unifies it (it reminds me of some half-assed revitalization attempt on a dying outskirt of Queens). After that, though... well, here's an excerpt of a comment I posted earlier.
Brand becomes this idyllic (and realistic) Main Street U.S.A.: the wide sidewalks that reward pedestrians by making them feel like the city is rolling out the red carpet for them, the cohabitation of chain stores and thriving (often ethnically owned) mom 'n' pop businesses, the way it seems like it's not really "for" one particular income group even though the high-end stuff is there if you want it, the way it's not JUST the one main street but that the urbanism spills over onto the cross streets and pulls the activity on Brand into the rest of the neighborhoood. I also like that the shopping/dining district comes to a somewhat abrupt end, which puts the brakes on the sprawl and provides a nice visual seam for the neighborhood, like wrapping up one chapter of a book so the next can begin.
The Alex: Brand Boulevard's Art Deco crown jewel:
A vintage LAPD squad car stakes out on Brand a few hours before Cruise Night:
maybe you'd like this: http://www.radicalcartography.net/?cityincome
Posted by: j | July 25, 2006 at 10:33 AM