Real in L.A.

Mysterious happenings at the Glendale Blvd. strip mall in Silverlake: Enterprises are shutting down, slipping away silently into the night.

Ralph’s is still there and CVS has a big sign announcing it will be open during construction. But what construction?

It’s whispered that a make-over is planned. Only it’s been more than a year, maybe two, since stores began closing their doors. For now, as with other Silverlake construction projects, it’s in limbo.

Gone are Baskin-Robbins, Roundtable Pizza, 20 DVD (once known as 20 Video), KFC, and a barber shop. Wong Wok and Winchell’s are hanging on.

I didn’t patronize any of the closed businesses, 20 DVD excepted and that only when we didn’t feel like driving over to Video Journeys. (It was staffed by stereotypical adolescent male  clerks with zero interest in customer service.) But the empty storefronts make our neighborhood mall look like collateral damage from the Great Recession: It’s dirty and down-at-the-heels. And, despite fewer stores, the parking isn’t even better!

Another place in the ‘hood where Something Better is supposed to come along, but all we’ve gotten is Nothing.

Tagged: 90039, commerce, Silverlake

§ One Response to Open during construction

• There goes the neighborhood | Real in L.A. says:

  July 3, 2013 at 4:00 pm

  […] official: That re-do of the Ralph’s shopping center on Glendale Boulevard in Silverlake that I wrote about in the spring will feature, according to the L.A. Times, a Whole Foods store. Right now, the closest WF is in NE […]

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