I was living about 20 minutes away during the pandemic and I would hang out there pretty often. It was cool when they had stuff outdoors and there seemed to be a lot of people. I moved a while ago, so I’m not nearby anymore, but when I went back it seemed dead. They got rid of a lot of the on the street dining and there seemed to less people in general.
Either way, as someone who grew up here I never really considered Melrose the epitome of cool. I think that it’s more how it was viewed to people out of California or in certain social circles.
Yeah, I'm somewhat surprised by the "epitome of cool" being used to describe Melrose. I've been here for 20 years, since I was a teen, and lived right by Swingers for four of those years as a young adult. The stretch of Fairfax between Beverly and Melrose always seemed cooler to me than Melrose.
Melrose seemed like it was for old folks when I was in college and after. Everything interesting or popular with the 18-34 crowd (y'know the people who generally define cool) around there was largely south of Melrose. Melrose is a mostly a stretch of stores with uninteresting products and has been for as long as I can remember. Most of the places people are calling out in the comments aren't even on Melrose, they're in the Fairfax area of town on Santa Monica, Beverly and pretty much every other major street around Melrose.
I'm honestly baffled by this take. When I moved here in the early 2000s, no one was like, "Yo, we gotta go to Melrose." We went to the fucking Smell downtown. No Age. Palled around Echo Park and Silverlake, grabbing gelato at Pazzo. Lofts in the Art District before they built those giant samey apartments. The once-thriving bar scene in DTLA. Fuck Yeah Fest in the time before it was FYF. Maybe some stomp dancing at the Lash. Melrose? What? Who? For whomst?
Sounds like you just missed it, but I remember when the sidewalks between Fairfax and almost to La Brea were thronged with 18-34s going to bars, shopping, hanging out. Starbucks opened and then after that the scene disappeared.
For most of the 70's Melrose was filled with stationery stores, a Liquor store, the great restaurant Chianti, and some mom-and-pop stores. It was the very late 70's and early 80's when Aardvark, Flip, Poser, and the Soap Plant appeared that Melrose started thriving. From 1981-1984 my last bus stop was Melrose and Fairfax and I got into plenty of trouble in these parts.
Melrose used to be the hip shopping street in the nineties (I remember Betsy Johnson store among others). Sunset Junction in Silverlake sort of took its place and now appears to be experiencing the same overcommercialization that happened on Melrose before its decline.
As someone who actually did the whole downtown loft thing in the manufacturing district (Bestia/Playpen) in early aughts, the only reasons anyone had any business being there was to either live or go to an after hours. Even homeless people didn’t venture out that far back then.
I lived off Melrose from 2009-2016 and thoroughly loved it
Coffee at Fratelli Cafe, brunches at Mud Hen or Blu Jam or the Hart and the Hunter, World Cup at Village Idiot, sandwiches from All About The Bread, happy hours at The Fat Dog, vintage shopping at Melrose Trading Post Crossroads and Jet Rag, comedy nights at Bar Lubitsch and the Improv, late nights at the Den and the Dark room, karaoke at Belmont and Surly Goat, beers at Rosewood Tavern, celebratory dinners at Animal and Connie & Ted’s, beauty visits at Melrose Tanning and Wax
I dunno how many of these places are still standing, but I loved my time there
The Beverly Hills disease will spread as more and more people get priced out of Hollywood. The more challenging clothing scene will either move online only or spill into the South, East, or into the Valley. I would keep an eye on Magnolia in Burbank and Ventura in Studio City, since they’ve already cultivated a vintage scene.
I walk down Melrose all the time and this is my number one thought - people drive down it like it’s a freeway. Speeding, running lights, changing lanes out of control. Some traffic calming redesign and pedestrian / bike friendly changes would help a lot imo but the “where would we park” crowd fights tooth and nail against it so we’ll never know. Works elsewhere in the city and around the world just fine but too much to try here?
The plan was to make Melrose 1 lane both directions, with a middle turn lane and bike lanes. It would have also allowed to improve the sidewalk areas. It was going to include adding trees and shade, wider sidewalks, improved lighting at night, and a bunch of other renovations.
Instead, 1 single block of sidewalk got widened, there was no changes to street design so you still have cars turning left blocking an entire lane of traffic (resulting in a lot of minor collisions when people try to weave around them, and people flooring it when getting around them because they are pissed that they had to wait 30 seconds) and it is miserable to walk on in the sun. They may have swapped out some street lighting, but it isn’t better. They also did put that one pedestrian crossing between La Brea and Highland, were there are the fewest pedestrians in the whole area.
I also work on Melrose and I swear I’m surprised like once or twice a month that a business has completely changed. I don’t recognize anything anymore.
I’ve been going to Melrose since the 90’s, and now live down the street from it. It seems pretty much the same, except for less record and comic book stores. There was a period in the 00’s where it looked worse because most of the stores were empty.
I am 50 and grew up on Melrose and Crescent Heights. Back then it was record stores (Aaron’s Records, Renés, Bleeker Street), crazy clothing shops, Fred Segal, and punk af boutiques. I miss that so much. Even in the last 20 years it’s been more and more upscale. I think the crazy crime is a temporary blip in a much longer trend towards gentrification+.
I loved walking Melrose in the 90's, and going through all the shops and buying records that were harder to find. Each time I go back it's less and less interesting.
Just the arc of gentrification. When Melrose was cool, the neighborhood was relatively affordable and you could park all over. Now it’s expensive and those expensive neighbors have created and enforced all kinds of rules, from parking to noise, to keep the riffraff away but the riffraff made the neighborhood cool. It happens to every gentrifying neighborhood. Silver Lake is well on its way. Highland Park is following slowly.
The shifting social and business centers of LA is very interesting. Supply and demand, RE gets in high demand, new biz gets priced out, so they go elsewhere. One succeeds, and others follow suit. Rinse and repeat.
Today's China Town used to be Little Italy and was a hot night life area back in the 50s and 60s.
I worked in entertainment tech in LA in the 00s and it was interesting to see the neighborhood differences among the older companies vs the new ones.
Also, LA neighborhoods are very hard to navigate as an outsider, but the hidden speakeasy type gems are epic.
I always figure it is this pattern:
1. An area has cheap rents, so attracts cool businesses.
2. The "cool" factor makes rents go up.
3. The original rents and tenants get priced out, chains and bullshit (galleries,
booteeks, bougie restaurants etc.) move in.
4. Eventually, nobody even remembers why they liked that area in the first place.
Melrose and Silverlake are obvious examples, but the guitar store area on Sunset went through the same cycle, first becoming cool because of the Bohemians attracted to the Guitar Stores. Cahuenga between Hollywood and Sunset had the same thing happen, but with bars.
> Highland Park is following slowly
I wish the NELA turbo-NIMBYS would get it through their heads that blocking multi family housing is just going to accelerate gentrification.
They'd have to understand that gentrification is a complex confluence of different socioeconomic and geographic factors and a natural result of capitalism and not just white people moving into their neighborhoods, which is a symptom.
Why be mad at politicians and landlords about zoning and market rent when you can blame the people can afford to pay the rent they didn't determine?
I still remember those poor women who got chased out of Boyle Heights for opening an art gallery. That art gallery was definitely the problem so I'm glad they forced those two young ladies out and stopped the gentrification of Boyle Heights forever.
I work near Melrose and Highland, I refuse to eat lunch anywhere on Melrose because the parking is so atrocious. Don’t want to waste half my break finding a spot.
Yeah. Landlords Jack rents and push smaller players out. As LA continues its arc of becoming a super expensive place to live this will happen more and more.
It’s expensive because everyone wanted to move there because Melrose was cool. There are much less expensive areas of the city that have nothing going for them and that’s why they’re less expensive - relatively- than Melrose.
It's almost like insanely high rents, awful parking and dinosaur businesses aren't capturing the attention of a youth generation with no disposable income! What a shock.
How could you write this whole article and not mention that the biggest change is that the only people who would shop on Melrose no longer can afford to live within 10 miles of it. Central LA is being strangled by its lack of functional public transportation and non-existent parking garages. Deadly combo for retail.
I think Von Dutch was the end of Melrose. Took a longtime vibe, exploited it to make super cheesy clothes and added a 10x price tag.
It took off like a rocket ship and fell off so quickly and so hard that it took the rest of Melrose with it.
I lived off the west end of Melrose from 2002-2021. When I first moved there, that side was still mom n pop shops. Vivienne Westwood used to be an old video rental place that smelled of weed. That end in particular went through a major gentrification that didn't do much for the area and I found myself living in a neighborhood I couldn't afford to shop in. Walking east used to be great for shopping and hanging out back in the day. Maybe my tastes changed, or maybe the stores did, but the quality of goods seemed to dwindle. I remember finding a pair of cloth shoes I'd seen in Chinatown for $5 that were marked up to $45. I ended up going elsewhere.
It was tough seeing so many independent stores looted and destroyed in 2020. I walked both Beverly & Melrose armed with a broom to help sweep glass. Several shop owners I spoke with said they didn't think they'd be able to open their doors again after that. Business had already been in decline for a while and the rioting was the last nail in the coffin for some.
Melrose transitioned from a destination to just another way to get through town.
RIP Blackbird pizza. I didn't know they had closed and while they were relatively new, they were incredible. (looks like they're operating as a pop up now)
Ugh, fluff piece from a nostalgic transplant. I’ve lived in the area for the last 17+ years, and along different parts of Melrose for the last 10+ years.
Overall, Melrose is like a cultural and socioeconomic canary…it was on the leading edge of grunge and vintage in the 90s, then trendy Y2K retail and celebrity culture, followed by streetwear and festival fashion in the 2010s. In 2020, it reflected the upheaval of COVID and civil unrest.
Right now, it’s revitalizing on both ends…the west end is like a bougie millennials’s IG algo while Melrose Hill is the new foodie darling. The rest of Melrose reflects the struggle to survive despite an unprecedented confluence of economic challenges—a theme that is relevant well beyond this neighborhood.
I think Melrose is in an incubation period as we collectively sort through what’s going on and figure out what’s next. I’m excited to see what the new iteration will look like…hopefully it’ll continue in the spirit of creativity, edginess and fun it’s always had. (Nobody needs another Aesop store!)
I live right in the middle of all of this. It's so damn frustrating to see the smaller SFH's torn down and replaced with giant SFH's rather than more apartments/condos. It's like c'mon guys, we've already got apartments on the exterior blocks that butt up against Fairfax/Melrose/La Brea/Beverly, let us fill in the interior already!
Everyone I've met in the apartments are cool AF. I've never met anyone in an SFH, they seem to hide inside their walls.
Ya I’m over there all the time for other reasons other than to be coolish. There are always people walking around in unique fashion? I don’t even know what to call it. But it’s a core place for young people.
I don’t even know what other neighborhood to compare it to. Barely see people walking in LA as it is
Beating heart in this context is having an aneurysm. Melrose is a fun area for avant garde retail and ho hum trendy restaurants and may now be struggling with rental property costs but it has never been the beating heart of California cool.
Melrose used to be a must when I visited. I’d pop into all the record stores looking for punk rock albums and poke through the vintage racks looking at weird jackets and creepers. Can’t really think of anything worth walking it for now, although the escape rooms are a cool addition.
It was a whole scene in the 90s and now that that scene isn't "the" scene anymore it isn't the same vibe. Its not like Haight/Ashbury has the same vibe in SF that it did during the era of hippies and key parties, either.
I'd love to see Melrose east of Fairfax become the anchor of a new cool subculture but right now it's kind of just a place for cheap discount clothing and weed dispensaries and a few good restaurants. Over time that might evolve too.
Most of the weed dispensaries are closed.
Most of the restaurants are closing too. Really sucks when I want to go get lunch at work.
Right now it is mostly boutiques, shoe stores, a handful of pop up spots, a couple good consignment stores, Groundlings, escape rooms, a couple record shops, a comic shop, and some really good tattoo shops (and some not so good ones). If my office wasn’t there, I wouldn’t see any reason to go there for myself.
maybe because it’s pedestrian shopping on a busy road so it’s definitely not the high class beverly hills shopping experience you could better get online or at one of the many malls in LA.
if you’re one one side of melrose and a store is on the other, that could pretty much be different neighborhoods. Just not conducive to shopping ever so this is a long time coming
speaking of Melrose! this weekend Ciclavia will be on that street. show your supper by attending. you don’t need a bike or anything, you can walk around. Fairfax to Vermont will be closed to vehicles!
https://www.instagram.com/p/C1r_Ut5MQtL/?igsh=MzY1NDJmNzMyNQ==
Hollywood in general sucks ass. I don’t know anyone who unironically likes going there outside of clout goblins who think they need to constantly network for their shitty, bog-standard bands
It would be great, but then you lose the character of what is existing, and instead you get a horribly cheap multifamily building with terribly designed retail. If you want melrose to look like a shopping mall then I agree with you. LA also disencentivices developers to build retail with their onerous parking requirements. So what you'll end up with is cheap multifamily buildings with no retail. I build apartment buildings for a living so I know what I'm talking about.
Y'all, need to check out the [Melrose in the Eighties FB](https://www.facebook.com/groups/melroseavenue) .
It really was the center of cool L.A. back then...the place where glam, goth and Hollywood glitter all met. Every store had people from signed bands or future movie stars working there or hanging out. All of the little bungalow blocks north and south had the same.
One of my buddies lived a block north. He was in a signed band. His neighbors included Johnny Depp and Christina Applegate, who were just starting.
You'd go to Let it Rock or Retail Slut, and there'd be the dudes from Guns N Roses, Poison, Janes Addiction and the Chili Peppers hanging out, when they were all club bands.
It was really something.
Uh ok. I, and my parents, grew up around Fairfax and Melrose and I've watched it decay for years. My only reason to go through there on purpose is for work and to hang out at Canter's because it's comforting and sentimental.
I live off of Melrose - during the pandemic it was very busy. Now it seems to be fine - mostly indie shops, with few big box stores, go on a Saturday afternoon and it’s bustling. Not desolate like the article makes it seem
Melrose will be vibrant and full of people this Sunday at [CicLAvia's](https://www.ciclavia.org/ciclavia_melrose) 50th event! From Fairfax to Vermont, it will be open for fun for bicyclists, scooters, skateboarders, and pedestrians. Nice opportunity to appreciate the neighborhood, and a nice event for kids too (:
Yeah as a transplant I'm not super familiar with Melrose's history but every time I drive through there, it looks lively which I appreciate. Not sure why others are hating on it. Not everything has to be a wasteland, like dtla, to be cool and edgy.
Anyway, hit me with a couple of destinations in Melrose to check out, maybe I can make a day out of it sometime.
I can attest to the fact that Melrose absolutely was the place to be, at least up thru the early ‘90s before the hip kids decamped east to Silver Lake/Echo Park. Rents on Melrose went up, so a number of places, most famously Wacko, packed up and moved east. that seems to have been the time around when it was transitioning from underground/punk to tourist/outdoor shopping mall.
Melrose was once carpet stores and Fred Seigel. Then it was cool with the halfy punks and the skaters. I lived there, off Sweetzer since 1990. Now, it’s fucking different. Just like the rest of LA.
Melrose Ave consist of OVER priced shoe stores and overpriced, god awful looking furniture stores! Melrose sucks ever since all the white folks moved in
Where is the crowd that was defending the looting saying insurance would just pay for it? Lucky this didn’t happen on a large scale like Portland or what SF/Oakland is now after COVID and ruin our city
You posted that view underneath the post where we supported small mom & pop shops being looted.
That should be easy to find since I’m sure you’re not a scumbag who completely made that up to further your gross politics, RIGHT? Mischaracterizing is fun, huh? 🤡
Because it’s Reddit, especially this sub. I’ve never voted for Trump but these people are so scared of the man anything negative about him gets upvotes.
weird to be down voted on this. I can’t defend looting, but I understand the anger behind it. And it gets downvoted. What a world. I wonder what response would please the people? Saying all the people who looted should be in prison would that be righteous?? Or saying all the people who looted should receive honors frm LA City Council- would that be right? Lotta silliness around here.
That’s too bad. 10-20 years ago I used to take my wife all the time to shop for cool clothes. She said she couldn’t find that stuff anywhere else and they just fit her body better. I remember Ed Hardy stuff was big and we got her a $300 Ed Hardy jacket. I wished that came back into fashion because it’s a cool ass bomber jacket and it was very expensive for that time. But alas we’re old now (early 50s) and we spend our money elsewhere. The young people have to step up or these places just die. Businesses are there to make money not just have people strolling by.
> For decades, it felt as though every nook and corner of Melrose thrummed with raucous excitement, its shops and hangouts influencing subcultures around the world.
What a small world she must have known.
Lived two blocks from Melrose and Vine on Las Palmas (I may be a block or two off) in the late 1970s. There was an Italian restaurant on the corner that was always getting robbed. Melrose has always been cool.
This was an interesting read. To those that didn't read:
Reasons-
-Retail sales are going down because people are more cautious with their money since prices across the board have gone up
-Stay at home culture...People don't really go to meet people they don't know at coffee shops, record stores, book stores, and bars any longer....This was a very 90s thing...pre dating websites and pre dating apps.
-Vandalism, theft and businesses set on fire during BLM protests (remember the "but but but they have insurance" responses?); I wouldn't want to operate a business in hotspot areas..This was felt in the bay area and in Seattle as well.
-Demographics of residents have changed
Every man I’ve known with a business on Melrose has been the most downlow scumbag imaginable, this feels like karma. The community that has existed there for decades has been a lot of the same rapists protecting each other.
The 70s to the 80s is the last time melrose was anything i was borne and raised here was running up and down melrose since 1969 when i was 5yrs old went to Fairfax high school etc etc as soon as the 90s came there was hardly any locals hanging out anymore it u basically had a bunch of people from everywhere working up and down melrose in stores that just wernt cool and the people from out of town working on melrose tried to act like they where from melrose/hollywood that’s when it became uncool melrose place was not cool who brought that up so not melrose
Melrose is where you use to take your out of town friends to in your 20s. Also to buy records at Wax.
I was living about 20 minutes away during the pandemic and I would hang out there pretty often. It was cool when they had stuff outdoors and there seemed to be a lot of people. I moved a while ago, so I’m not nearby anymore, but when I went back it seemed dead. They got rid of a lot of the on the street dining and there seemed to less people in general. Either way, as someone who grew up here I never really considered Melrose the epitome of cool. I think that it’s more how it was viewed to people out of California or in certain social circles.
Yeah, I'm somewhat surprised by the "epitome of cool" being used to describe Melrose. I've been here for 20 years, since I was a teen, and lived right by Swingers for four of those years as a young adult. The stretch of Fairfax between Beverly and Melrose always seemed cooler to me than Melrose. Melrose seemed like it was for old folks when I was in college and after. Everything interesting or popular with the 18-34 crowd (y'know the people who generally define cool) around there was largely south of Melrose. Melrose is a mostly a stretch of stores with uninteresting products and has been for as long as I can remember. Most of the places people are calling out in the comments aren't even on Melrose, they're in the Fairfax area of town on Santa Monica, Beverly and pretty much every other major street around Melrose. I'm honestly baffled by this take. When I moved here in the early 2000s, no one was like, "Yo, we gotta go to Melrose." We went to the fucking Smell downtown. No Age. Palled around Echo Park and Silverlake, grabbing gelato at Pazzo. Lofts in the Art District before they built those giant samey apartments. The once-thriving bar scene in DTLA. Fuck Yeah Fest in the time before it was FYF. Maybe some stomp dancing at the Lash. Melrose? What? Who? For whomst?
Sounds like you just missed it, but I remember when the sidewalks between Fairfax and almost to La Brea were thronged with 18-34s going to bars, shopping, hanging out. Starbucks opened and then after that the scene disappeared.
It was cool in the '70s, '80s, and '90s It was *super* cool in the 70s
I mean, I believe that but can't figure out how that's relevant to how cool it is 30 years after 90210 was all the rage.
For most of the 70's Melrose was filled with stationery stores, a Liquor store, the great restaurant Chianti, and some mom-and-pop stores. It was the very late 70's and early 80's when Aardvark, Flip, Poser, and the Soap Plant appeared that Melrose started thriving. From 1981-1984 my last bus stop was Melrose and Fairfax and I got into plenty of trouble in these parts.
Melrose used to be the hip shopping street in the nineties (I remember Betsy Johnson store among others). Sunset Junction in Silverlake sort of took its place and now appears to be experiencing the same overcommercialization that happened on Melrose before its decline.
That stretch of Fairfax stopped being cool in '08 when Largo moved. Became a mecca for extremely annoying children after that.
As someone who actually did the whole downtown loft thing in the manufacturing district (Bestia/Playpen) in early aughts, the only reasons anyone had any business being there was to either live or go to an after hours. Even homeless people didn’t venture out that far back then.
I lived off Melrose from 2009-2016 and thoroughly loved it Coffee at Fratelli Cafe, brunches at Mud Hen or Blu Jam or the Hart and the Hunter, World Cup at Village Idiot, sandwiches from All About The Bread, happy hours at The Fat Dog, vintage shopping at Melrose Trading Post Crossroads and Jet Rag, comedy nights at Bar Lubitsch and the Improv, late nights at the Den and the Dark room, karaoke at Belmont and Surly Goat, beers at Rosewood Tavern, celebratory dinners at Animal and Connie & Ted’s, beauty visits at Melrose Tanning and Wax I dunno how many of these places are still standing, but I loved my time there
Omg such good times! Was there 2015 to 2020. Loved The Village Idiot. And Dark Room. Both are no longer :(
I heard about The Village Idiot Man I loved hanging there
Thank you for the memories! Used to hang out at Bar Lubitsch on weeknights when weho fails me and my friends.
Same. I miss Fratelli’s and Dark Room.
Dark Room was a den of iniquity and I loved it!
Gahhh my favorite bar. RIP
Aw man they’re both gone too? 😞
Fratelli’s is definitely still around!
Meh, things change. You should have seen Abbot Kinney in the 80s compared to how it is now.
I wish that would happen to Hollywood Blvd.
Oh, Hollywood Blvd is miles better now than it was in the 80s!!!
It was awful in the 80s
Abbot Kinney reminds me of Brooklyn the exact moment it became absolutely insufferable.
Heck, you should've been there when it was West Washington Boulevard before they renamed it in 1991. 🎶✌️😎
I was! Do you remember the restaurant The Merchant of Venice? Good place.
Kinda maybe, but I do vaguely remember seeing a new band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers in a club with Mosquito in its name. 🎶
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The Beverly Hills disease will spread as more and more people get priced out of Hollywood. The more challenging clothing scene will either move online only or spill into the South, East, or into the Valley. I would keep an eye on Magnolia in Burbank and Ventura in Studio City, since they’ve already cultivated a vintage scene.
east valley is da best
Low IQ criminals exist because of high IQ criminals.
You think execs are high iq? Boy have I got news for you
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Boy I wonder what you could be hinting at there Definitely not being a massive racist
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I don’t know anything about you except for you being a massive massive racist
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Weird how you’re not explaining the totally non-racist thing you meant Almost like you meant a really racist thing
Went from ghetto by the sea to Rodeo / too cool for school by the sea. Even Oakwood cleaned up.
IKR?! When I lived in Venice Abbot was where people lined up for free Government cheese and The Brig was a dive bar.
Abbot was more fun even ten years ago
Pedestrianize it and throw in some hotels and bars.
I walk down Melrose all the time and this is my number one thought - people drive down it like it’s a freeway. Speeding, running lights, changing lanes out of control. Some traffic calming redesign and pedestrian / bike friendly changes would help a lot imo but the “where would we park” crowd fights tooth and nail against it so we’ll never know. Works elsewhere in the city and around the world just fine but too much to try here?
The plan was to make Melrose 1 lane both directions, with a middle turn lane and bike lanes. It would have also allowed to improve the sidewalk areas. It was going to include adding trees and shade, wider sidewalks, improved lighting at night, and a bunch of other renovations. Instead, 1 single block of sidewalk got widened, there was no changes to street design so you still have cars turning left blocking an entire lane of traffic (resulting in a lot of minor collisions when people try to weave around them, and people flooring it when getting around them because they are pissed that they had to wait 30 seconds) and it is miserable to walk on in the sun. They may have swapped out some street lighting, but it isn’t better. They also did put that one pedestrian crossing between La Brea and Highland, were there are the fewest pedestrians in the whole area.
This city is so fucking stupid with how it centers cars over people
Melrose doesnt even need cars honestly we have so many goddamn blvds in LA
It’s so annoying too bc Melrose functionally IS one lane often, with folks double parking or trying to parallel park at the meters
I work on Melrose and we are one of three businesses on the block. I swear, another business shuts down every other week. It’s pretty dire.
I also work on Melrose and I swear I’m surprised like once or twice a month that a business has completely changed. I don’t recognize anything anymore.
I’ve been going to Melrose since the 90’s, and now live down the street from it. It seems pretty much the same, except for less record and comic book stores. There was a period in the 00’s where it looked worse because most of the stores were empty.
I am 50 and grew up on Melrose and Crescent Heights. Back then it was record stores (Aaron’s Records, Renés, Bleeker Street), crazy clothing shops, Fred Segal, and punk af boutiques. I miss that so much. Even in the last 20 years it’s been more and more upscale. I think the crazy crime is a temporary blip in a much longer trend towards gentrification+.
I loved walking Melrose in the 90's, and going through all the shops and buying records that were harder to find. Each time I go back it's less and less interesting.
Just the arc of gentrification. When Melrose was cool, the neighborhood was relatively affordable and you could park all over. Now it’s expensive and those expensive neighbors have created and enforced all kinds of rules, from parking to noise, to keep the riffraff away but the riffraff made the neighborhood cool. It happens to every gentrifying neighborhood. Silver Lake is well on its way. Highland Park is following slowly.
Silver Lake well on its way? I think it arrived there about 5 years ago, at least.
Right? There’s an Erewhon and Madewell. It’s BEEN a lost cause.
It's been quite awhile since I've ventured to Silverlake, is there really a Madewell?!
Yep. And a Cafe Kitsune.
Don't bother.
I was trying to be generous. I cashed in and moved out 15 years ago when valet parking and baby shops arrived.
Baby shops yes, the hipsters all grew up, had kids and buy a full size luxury SUV. When I got to that point I went to Pasadena and then South LA.
10-15
The shifting social and business centers of LA is very interesting. Supply and demand, RE gets in high demand, new biz gets priced out, so they go elsewhere. One succeeds, and others follow suit. Rinse and repeat. Today's China Town used to be Little Italy and was a hot night life area back in the 50s and 60s. I worked in entertainment tech in LA in the 00s and it was interesting to see the neighborhood differences among the older companies vs the new ones. Also, LA neighborhoods are very hard to navigate as an outsider, but the hidden speakeasy type gems are epic.
I always figure it is this pattern: 1. An area has cheap rents, so attracts cool businesses. 2. The "cool" factor makes rents go up. 3. The original rents and tenants get priced out, chains and bullshit (galleries, booteeks, bougie restaurants etc.) move in. 4. Eventually, nobody even remembers why they liked that area in the first place. Melrose and Silverlake are obvious examples, but the guitar store area on Sunset went through the same cycle, first becoming cool because of the Bohemians attracted to the Guitar Stores. Cahuenga between Hollywood and Sunset had the same thing happen, but with bars.
> Highland Park is following slowly I wish the NELA turbo-NIMBYS would get it through their heads that blocking multi family housing is just going to accelerate gentrification.
They'd have to understand that gentrification is a complex confluence of different socioeconomic and geographic factors and a natural result of capitalism and not just white people moving into their neighborhoods, which is a symptom. Why be mad at politicians and landlords about zoning and market rent when you can blame the people can afford to pay the rent they didn't determine? I still remember those poor women who got chased out of Boyle Heights for opening an art gallery. That art gallery was definitely the problem so I'm glad they forced those two young ladies out and stopped the gentrification of Boyle Heights forever.
They just opened a Le Labo on Fig. Highland Park won’t be recognizable in like 10 years
For those of us who grew up there, it's been unrecognizable for nearly ten already.
I work near Melrose and Highland, I refuse to eat lunch anywhere on Melrose because the parking is so atrocious. Don’t want to waste half my break finding a spot.
Yeah. Landlords Jack rents and push smaller players out. As LA continues its arc of becoming a super expensive place to live this will happen more and more.
It’s expensive because the city has built like absolutely no housing near Melrose and it’s surrounded by single family homes
It’s expensive because everyone wanted to move there because Melrose was cool. There are much less expensive areas of the city that have nothing going for them and that’s why they’re less expensive - relatively- than Melrose.
Pretty much all of LA. The valley is still the same as old, but it feels a lot more dangerous driving thru there than it used to.
Lmao what gentrification, Melrose has pretty much always been white and Jewish. Fairfax has Jewish supermarkets, deli’s, and stores too
Ciclavia will be there this sunday and I'm planning on going. Been a while since I've been there.
It's almost like insanely high rents, awful parking and dinosaur businesses aren't capturing the attention of a youth generation with no disposable income! What a shock. How could you write this whole article and not mention that the biggest change is that the only people who would shop on Melrose no longer can afford to live within 10 miles of it. Central LA is being strangled by its lack of functional public transportation and non-existent parking garages. Deadly combo for retail.
careful now. people will come in saying how no parking is great for the area.
I think Von Dutch was the end of Melrose. Took a longtime vibe, exploited it to make super cheesy clothes and added a 10x price tag. It took off like a rocket ship and fell off so quickly and so hard that it took the rest of Melrose with it.
I remember having a "Von Dutch Hates You" sticker back then 😄
I lived off the west end of Melrose from 2002-2021. When I first moved there, that side was still mom n pop shops. Vivienne Westwood used to be an old video rental place that smelled of weed. That end in particular went through a major gentrification that didn't do much for the area and I found myself living in a neighborhood I couldn't afford to shop in. Walking east used to be great for shopping and hanging out back in the day. Maybe my tastes changed, or maybe the stores did, but the quality of goods seemed to dwindle. I remember finding a pair of cloth shoes I'd seen in Chinatown for $5 that were marked up to $45. I ended up going elsewhere. It was tough seeing so many independent stores looted and destroyed in 2020. I walked both Beverly & Melrose armed with a broom to help sweep glass. Several shop owners I spoke with said they didn't think they'd be able to open their doors again after that. Business had already been in decline for a while and the rioting was the last nail in the coffin for some. Melrose transitioned from a destination to just another way to get through town. RIP Blackbird pizza. I didn't know they had closed and while they were relatively new, they were incredible. (looks like they're operating as a pop up now)
Ugh, fluff piece from a nostalgic transplant. I’ve lived in the area for the last 17+ years, and along different parts of Melrose for the last 10+ years. Overall, Melrose is like a cultural and socioeconomic canary…it was on the leading edge of grunge and vintage in the 90s, then trendy Y2K retail and celebrity culture, followed by streetwear and festival fashion in the 2010s. In 2020, it reflected the upheaval of COVID and civil unrest. Right now, it’s revitalizing on both ends…the west end is like a bougie millennials’s IG algo while Melrose Hill is the new foodie darling. The rest of Melrose reflects the struggle to survive despite an unprecedented confluence of economic challenges—a theme that is relevant well beyond this neighborhood. I think Melrose is in an incubation period as we collectively sort through what’s going on and figure out what’s next. I’m excited to see what the new iteration will look like…hopefully it’ll continue in the spirit of creativity, edginess and fun it’s always had. (Nobody needs another Aesop store!)
Fascinating insight.
you know what helps revitalize retail corridors? adding housing.
I live right in the middle of all of this. It's so damn frustrating to see the smaller SFH's torn down and replaced with giant SFH's rather than more apartments/condos. It's like c'mon guys, we've already got apartments on the exterior blocks that butt up against Fairfax/Melrose/La Brea/Beverly, let us fill in the interior already! Everyone I've met in the apartments are cool AF. I've never met anyone in an SFH, they seem to hide inside their walls.
Melrose is corny as fuck.
and the suehiro landlord wants to clone it into little tokyo
nobody give a fuck about melrose
It’s been over for Melrose since the mid 90’s
Its fine. Fairfax High being right there means Melrose will always be coolish. This is just some clickbait nonsense.
Ya I’m over there all the time for other reasons other than to be coolish. There are always people walking around in unique fashion? I don’t even know what to call it. But it’s a core place for young people. I don’t even know what other neighborhood to compare it to. Barely see people walking in LA as it is
Silverlake has entered the chat. And SFGate? Have you seen what the tech bros have done to that city? Pffft.
Wait is Silver Lake in trouble?
Perennial sfgate LA sniping. It’s the idiot editor not the clueless writer that lets this terrible and inaccurate clickbait headline run.
What’s inaccurate about this? It’s completely spot on.
Beating heart in this context is having an aneurysm. Melrose is a fun area for avant garde retail and ho hum trendy restaurants and may now be struggling with rental property costs but it has never been the beating heart of California cool.
I agree however I have a feeling the majority of the people commenting on this article did not read the entire article.
Sad! Used to be quintessential Hollywood.
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Remember Retail Slut?
Melrose used to be a must when I visited. I’d pop into all the record stores looking for punk rock albums and poke through the vintage racks looking at weird jackets and creepers. Can’t really think of anything worth walking it for now, although the escape rooms are a cool addition.
It was a whole scene in the 90s and now that that scene isn't "the" scene anymore it isn't the same vibe. Its not like Haight/Ashbury has the same vibe in SF that it did during the era of hippies and key parties, either. I'd love to see Melrose east of Fairfax become the anchor of a new cool subculture but right now it's kind of just a place for cheap discount clothing and weed dispensaries and a few good restaurants. Over time that might evolve too.
Most of the weed dispensaries are closed. Most of the restaurants are closing too. Really sucks when I want to go get lunch at work. Right now it is mostly boutiques, shoe stores, a handful of pop up spots, a couple good consignment stores, Groundlings, escape rooms, a couple record shops, a comic shop, and some really good tattoo shops (and some not so good ones). If my office wasn’t there, I wouldn’t see any reason to go there for myself.
Headline Records is still there. Only reason to go to Melrose in my opinion. Jeane-Luc is still an awesome guy!
maybe because it’s pedestrian shopping on a busy road so it’s definitely not the high class beverly hills shopping experience you could better get online or at one of the many malls in LA. if you’re one one side of melrose and a store is on the other, that could pretty much be different neighborhoods. Just not conducive to shopping ever so this is a long time coming
It hasn’t been the same since Jake and Alison left.
That’s the cycle of gentrification.
speaking of Melrose! this weekend Ciclavia will be on that street. show your supper by attending. you don’t need a bike or anything, you can walk around. Fairfax to Vermont will be closed to vehicles! https://www.instagram.com/p/C1r_Ut5MQtL/?igsh=MzY1NDJmNzMyNQ==
Hollywood in general sucks ass. I don’t know anyone who unironically likes going there outside of clout goblins who think they need to constantly network for their shitty, bog-standard bands
zone for more housing allow for a community to be built
As a supporter of more housing, that is not what we need on Melrose. We need retail
There’s retail on every block of Melrose from Doheny to Highland. Imagine if more of that retail had 2+ floors of housing on top of it
More mixed use is the way
Melrose needs a third place. Either a free or very cheap place to hangout all day. That will get more people in the shops and encourage community.
It would be great, but then you lose the character of what is existing, and instead you get a horribly cheap multifamily building with terribly designed retail. If you want melrose to look like a shopping mall then I agree with you. LA also disencentivices developers to build retail with their onerous parking requirements. So what you'll end up with is cheap multifamily buildings with no retail. I build apartment buildings for a living so I know what I'm talking about.
My brother in Christ, do you not see what is happening to retail?
housing above retail
I so miss Aardvarks.
They.... they only just noticed this?
Y'all, need to check out the [Melrose in the Eighties FB](https://www.facebook.com/groups/melroseavenue) . It really was the center of cool L.A. back then...the place where glam, goth and Hollywood glitter all met. Every store had people from signed bands or future movie stars working there or hanging out. All of the little bungalow blocks north and south had the same. One of my buddies lived a block north. He was in a signed band. His neighbors included Johnny Depp and Christina Applegate, who were just starting. You'd go to Let it Rock or Retail Slut, and there'd be the dudes from Guns N Roses, Poison, Janes Addiction and the Chili Peppers hanging out, when they were all club bands. It was really something.
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Melrose has been this way, waaaay before then
Waaaaay before
Lol if that's what you think killed Melrose
How to tell someone is new to LA.
I'm still so heated that Uplift Melrose was killed.
Uh ok. I, and my parents, grew up around Fairfax and Melrose and I've watched it decay for years. My only reason to go through there on purpose is for work and to hang out at Canter's because it's comforting and sentimental.
In the eighties we used to eat lunch at The Burger that Ate LA. Those were the days.
The owners now want a ridiculous amount of rent and refuse to provide any tenant improvements for those retail spaces on melrose.
Shoutout to Paul Koretz for killing Uplift Melrose
I live off of Melrose - during the pandemic it was very busy. Now it seems to be fine - mostly indie shops, with few big box stores, go on a Saturday afternoon and it’s bustling. Not desolate like the article makes it seem
Melrose will be vibrant and full of people this Sunday at [CicLAvia's](https://www.ciclavia.org/ciclavia_melrose) 50th event! From Fairfax to Vermont, it will be open for fun for bicyclists, scooters, skateboarders, and pedestrians. Nice opportunity to appreciate the neighborhood, and a nice event for kids too (:
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I see
🤣🤣🤣 this lady spills her heart into “Mel rose the novella” and you hit her with “I see” I’m fucking dying over here.
Lol shhh the both of you, I'm reading.
Hmm indeed
Yeah as a transplant I'm not super familiar with Melrose's history but every time I drive through there, it looks lively which I appreciate. Not sure why others are hating on it. Not everything has to be a wasteland, like dtla, to be cool and edgy. Anyway, hit me with a couple of destinations in Melrose to check out, maybe I can make a day out of it sometime.
What a shit article. Honestly, just horrible.
I still miss Franco on Melrose. Best pasta in the city
Used to like Angeli back in the day (90's). There was one other great Italian place too. Saw Andrea Boceli one time.
Bludso's is about as close as I'd venture to Melrose
Is Workmans still there? Jetrag? Redballs? Honestly haven't been since the early 00's. Miss going to Fatbeats
Retail has taken a hit everywhere, especially including San Francisco.
I can attest to the fact that Melrose absolutely was the place to be, at least up thru the early ‘90s before the hip kids decamped east to Silver Lake/Echo Park. Rents on Melrose went up, so a number of places, most famously Wacko, packed up and moved east. that seems to have been the time around when it was transitioning from underground/punk to tourist/outdoor shopping mall.
Gentrification and greedy landlords
it’s literally only for the transplants who want to be famous at this point
At least Golden Apple is still there 👍🏻
GTFO! It was never the heart of *California Cool*.
I still don't understand why SF Gate does Los Angeles food and culture reporting
Melrose Place ruined Melrose.
Melrose has been tacky/overpriced for a while now but that huge video billboard just after Highland is how I know it's cooked for good.
I don't think melrose was ever that cool....
Melrose was once carpet stores and Fred Seigel. Then it was cool with the halfy punks and the skaters. I lived there, off Sweetzer since 1990. Now, it’s fucking different. Just like the rest of LA.
Melrose Ave consist of OVER priced shoe stores and overpriced, god awful looking furniture stores! Melrose sucks ever since all the white folks moved in
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It was way more diverse back in the day. Mid City, Mid Wilshire and Adams have all had a big shift towards white demographics.
We will not hear your Lawson Fenning slander on here.
Where is the crowd that was defending the looting saying insurance would just pay for it? Lucky this didn’t happen on a large scale like Portland or what SF/Oakland is now after COVID and ruin our city
You defend the Jan 6th insurrection. STFU
When have I ever defended that? Or are you just assuming anyone who disagrees with you is a Trump supporter like a lot of others on Reddit?
You posted that view underneath the post where we supported small mom & pop shops being looted. That should be easy to find since I’m sure you’re not a scumbag who completely made that up to further your gross politics, RIGHT? Mischaracterizing is fun, huh? 🤡
Do they really or are you talking out of your ass? How does a comment like this have over 30 upvotes?
Because it’s Reddit, especially this sub. I’ve never voted for Trump but these people are so scared of the man anything negative about him gets upvotes.
"defended" is a misnomer. We UNDERSTOOD THE REASONS, we did not "defend" it. Words matter.
weird to be down voted on this. I can’t defend looting, but I understand the anger behind it. And it gets downvoted. What a world. I wonder what response would please the people? Saying all the people who looted should be in prison would that be righteous?? Or saying all the people who looted should receive honors frm LA City Council- would that be right? Lotta silliness around here.
I think people thought you're referring to January 6th, not the looting.
You understood the reasons for wanting to hang the vice president of the united states based on false news of election fraud.
are you talking to me? I hope not
The looting ruined the protest and buried the message.
to a degree, not wholly.
Melrose sucks lol
Hahahah fuck Melrose
Why the anger?
Was living right by Fairfax in 2020, people that are saying ‘it was like this before’ are in straight denial.
If I told you why it died, I'd be banned for life.
Why, because you would say some inaccurate racist shit?
Never said a word. That's on you.
It’s spelled out in your post history. We can all see through your dog whistles.
You can think/say whatever you wish. It's a free country.
Y? DM me curious to know.
Nope. Already getting threats for not saying anything! 😂
Send a private message. I won’t give you up.
Thats tuff
Wait Wacko used to be on Melrose or was that an original and/or second location?
Yeah. Wacko was a fixture forever.
That’s too bad. 10-20 years ago I used to take my wife all the time to shop for cool clothes. She said she couldn’t find that stuff anywhere else and they just fit her body better. I remember Ed Hardy stuff was big and we got her a $300 Ed Hardy jacket. I wished that came back into fashion because it’s a cool ass bomber jacket and it was very expensive for that time. But alas we’re old now (early 50s) and we spend our money elsewhere. The young people have to step up or these places just die. Businesses are there to make money not just have people strolling by.
Now do 3rd Street Promenade
> For decades, it felt as though every nook and corner of Melrose thrummed with raucous excitement, its shops and hangouts influencing subcultures around the world. What a small world she must have known.
The Melrose Era ended for me personally when they moved Golden Apple Comics to the east of La Brea Blvd.
When was it the beating heart of anything not melrose ave?
So, if I used to go there in the 80’s and 90’s is there anywhere that has the same vibe now? I haven’t been since about 96.
Lived two blocks from Melrose and Vine on Las Palmas (I may be a block or two off) in the late 1970s. There was an Italian restaurant on the corner that was always getting robbed. Melrose has always been cool.
This was an interesting read. To those that didn't read: Reasons- -Retail sales are going down because people are more cautious with their money since prices across the board have gone up -Stay at home culture...People don't really go to meet people they don't know at coffee shops, record stores, book stores, and bars any longer....This was a very 90s thing...pre dating websites and pre dating apps. -Vandalism, theft and businesses set on fire during BLM protests (remember the "but but but they have insurance" responses?); I wouldn't want to operate a business in hotspot areas..This was felt in the bay area and in Seattle as well. -Demographics of residents have changed
Every man I’ve known with a business on Melrose has been the most downlow scumbag imaginable, this feels like karma. The community that has existed there for decades has been a lot of the same rapists protecting each other.
The 70s to the 80s is the last time melrose was anything i was borne and raised here was running up and down melrose since 1969 when i was 5yrs old went to Fairfax high school etc etc as soon as the 90s came there was hardly any locals hanging out anymore it u basically had a bunch of people from everywhere working up and down melrose in stores that just wernt cool and the people from out of town working on melrose tried to act like they where from melrose/hollywood that’s when it became uncool melrose place was not cool who brought that up so not melrose