Beverly Hills has changed
I went to pick up a present this morning - in Beverly Hills. Had not been down Rodeo Dr. in a while. Its not my kind of place. Tourists like it though.
So there I was walking along Via Rodeo, with a gaggle of tourists from all over the world, seemingly the only people up on Rodeo at the ungodly hour of 10AM, when I saw some of the decorations and thought a picture tells it best.
Locals will tell you that Rodeo is not at all what it used to be. Somewhere during the recession of the early 90’s a lot of the smaller unique specialty shops went out of business and were replaced by Pottery Barn and The Gap.
Yes there still are some international mega-boutiques. Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton - all the usual suspects. But strictly local shops have dwindled away. And what good is Louis Vuittin or Tiffany when you can find them in every upscale mall in the country. Rodeo at one time had stores that you could not find anywhere else.
As I walked along, all I could think of was a visit I had with the brokerage of Drexel Burnham Lambert over twenty years ago. I worked for a gentleman at the time who was a member of the family that owns Pep Boys. He and parts of his family did business with Michael Milken, the broker who almost single handedly created the Junk Bond Market of the 80’s. Milken worked out of DBL until he was busted and went to Club Fed for quite a number of years.
It seems ironic that the street that once, more than any other on the West Coast, stood for incredible wealth and decadence has been taken over by the Pottery Barn’s of this world. And if you are a tourist who wants to see some unique stores and very chi-chi LA Westside merchandise as opposed to mass manufactured kitsch - I recommend you check out Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.
With the white-flight of the past 20 years…. oh excuse me, that was so un-pc ! With the shifting demographic percentages of the Los Angeles populous, and the ever increasing westward pressure of immigrants it seems that Santa Monica has become the new favorite locale of smaller merchants. (Hey don’t laugh, I am an immigrant too)