A Word from Richard Risemberg for December, 2003
A Tale of Two Spaces
This is a tale of two spaces, one not quite the best of its kind, the other not quite the worst, but different enough to illustrate two concepts of the use of space: one rich and effective, one contrived and mechanical. They are both in Los Angeles--both on the same large lot, in fact, with only a narrow access road between them. Yet they are as different as, say, Hank Williams and Britney Spears--and there is less crossover between them than you'd think, even though the trolley car that runs the quarter-mile length of the Grove's main pedestrian street makes the last of its three stops in the Farmers Market parking lot.
They occupy the large block of Third Street between Pan Pacific Park on the east and Fairfax Avenue on the west. One block north begins the Jewish quarter, with its busy sidewalks and myriad of small storefronts; about a mile south is Little Ethiopia, a darker-skinned version of the same thing. South on Third Street lies a thriving district of hip restaurants and designer boutiques; this peters out as you approach La Cienega and the hulkingly ugly Beverly Center mall, which covers an entire block and obscures the sky. To the east is Park La Brea, a Corbusier-style residential development, once open, but gated since the insecure 'Eighties; as well as dull little streets of quiet houses and sometimes charming fourplexes. Not far off is the lively, high-density Miracle Mile district where I live, and one of the city's "Museum Rows." At the center of all this sit the Farmers Market and the Grove.
The Farmers Market came first, growing casually over the last sixty years, slowly mutating from a glorified vegetable stand to a tourist trap to what one must acknowledge is a genuine American souk, a true marketplace where you can still get farm-fresh vegetables (from three different grocery stands); soaps, face creams, and prescriptions from a pharmacy; meats from two different butchers, seafood; breads and pastries from two bakeries; gourmet fixings from a French-owned market; toys from an old-fashioned toy store still commanded by its 87-year-old founder; a regrettable variety of tourist doodads; shoes and purses repaired; newspapers in dozens of languages from two kiosks; and a bewildering array of food from dozens of ethnic cookeries and two bars.
The Grove erupted next door, on an abandoned oil field, about three years ago. It is home to the usual array of chain stores--Banana Republic, Nordstrom's, Barnes & Noble, et al--you know the drill--and a number of restaurants of the corporate variety, some of which aren't too bad. It is a mall, but it tries hard to look like a European shopping street, with an open concourse paved in brick down which runs the aforementioned trolley track. And in a photograph it might pass for what it pretends to be. But when you're in it you understand how it was born to fail, and how its aging predecessor to the west surpasses it in both vigor and wisdom. The differences between the two--especially since the Grove's developers tout it as an example of progressive design--expose the difference between the corporate approach to communal space and the more natural conceptualization that brought about the Farmers Market.
To begin with, The Grove presents a blank wall to Third Street, a long expanse of stucco three stories tall, interrupted by billboards along its upper reaches and by some lost-looking palm trees and a few eternally-locked utility doors along the sidewalk. If you wish to walk in, you must find a driveway, or come through the Farmers Market. There is no break in the wall except for two widely-separated automobile entrances, which ultimately lead you to the seven-story parking structure, the largest building in the complex, towering over the buildings of the mall itself. The true pedestrian entrance to the mall is the parking structure--unless you enter from the Farmers Market.
Farmers Market, by contrast, consists of a perimeter of shops opened every fifty to sixty feet by walkways leading to the interior; most of the shops and restaurants have entrances on both inside and outside, and some have three entrances, with one on the passageway leading in from Third Street or the parking lot. Often the shops themselves become passageways--which is good for the shop owner as well as for the Farmers Market as a whole. It is highly permeable to anyone arriving by any means--foot, car, bicycle, or bus. Bike racks are everywhere. Doorways are everywhere.
In the Grove, the "pedestrian streets" are channels to guide you from the parking areas to the stores. They are really pedestrian freeways, with the store entrances as offramps. There is nothing much to do there besides move on. In the true pedestrian streets I have seen in Japan and Argentina, the shops intrude into the street, and the demarcation between communal and retail space is blurry; in the Grove the stores sit austerely behind their walls, and you must enter entirely into each one, enclosed and captured by it, with no danger of contamination from its neighbor. Clerks and waiters are proper but cold. It's just a job for them. They have rules to follow.
In the Farmers Market, stores and stands occupy the inner space as well, and you flow among and even through the shops, which, if they are enclosed, offer multiple doors. Some areas have a roof, some are open to the sky; tables are everywhere, and no table belongs to any one store. You can sit anywhere you like, for as long as you like. No one will ask you to move on. If you buy a meal at one restaurant or stand, you may eat it in front of another if you like the view or the temperature or the crowd better there. You can assemble a meal from two or three restaurants, making it a truly "interactive" experience as you create new "virtual" restaurants from parts of the dozens already on hand. If you don't know what you want, someone will take the time to help you, and be glad to be doing it. They will remember you the next time you come in.
In the Grove, each restaurant is separate, with separate seating. Even the outdoor seating stays primly behind little fences. You must exit the community before you may eat.
In the Farmers Market there are two or three security guards, kindly gentlemen from some West African nation; they are invariably gentle and respectful, even when dealing with the occasional disruption--which is inevitable in a place with two bars, though rare.
In the Grove there are dozens of security guards, cold and watchful sorts in stiff uniforms, whom you would not jest with as you can with the Farmers Market's gentlemen. The Grove's guards are decidedly enforcers, not protectors. If you linger too long, or act a bit loud, especially if you are in your teens, they will escort you out. There is a long list of rules of behavior for the Grove. The Grove's preferred demographic is the 25- to 45-year old yuppie, the archetypal Big Spender of the US economy.
There are no rules of behavior at the Farmers Market, except "Be Considerate." It assumes you know how to act and are there to be happy with your fellows. One regular is a resident of a nearby halfway house. He's eccentric, a huge bearded man who wears a tall, striped Dr. Seuss hat. Once in a while he'll act a bit pissy and speak inappropriately. His neighbors will chide him, or the security guard will remind him to be nice. There's a place for him there too. Everyone comes to the Farmers Market: children, teenagers, the old, the very very old, and even the beloved yuppie. It's a much broader world than the Grove's phalanxes of designer jeans can provide.
In the Grove, Muzak plays relentlessly from hidden speakers, inescapable. Every fifteen minutes the dancing fountain fires up with impressively loud, impressively bad renditions of 1950s standards. There is a patch of grass at one end of the street, by the Nordstrom's, surrounded by kiosks in imitation, apparently, of the Farmers Market. There's some hard iron benches and a couple of iron tables and chairs where you can squirm uncomfortably for a while as you eat your ice cream or pretzel. Hardly anyone sits on the grass, even when one of the forgettable live bands plays there. The bands stop playing every quarter-hour when the fountain fires up again.
In the Farmers Market, there is no Muzak, but there is the music of earnest conversation all around. People sit and spend time with each other, either actively with friends and acquaintances or passively with the strangers around them. That's why they go there. They seem to buy enough on their own without being relentlessly guided towards a purchase.
If you want real music, the Cajun restaurant sponsors live jazz on Thursday and Friday nights at the west patio. They've booked some excellent bands in the last year or so--so good that I suspect they are studio musicians amusing themselves after work. If you want to make some music, and don't embarrass easily, there's a long-running karaoke party every Saturday night at the east end. Hundreds of people crowd in with pizza and beer and have a great time together.
Both are private spaces that function as public ones. Both places are busy, even crowded; both make money. But at the Grove, you only buy. At the Farmers Market, you live. Only one of them makes the world a happier place to be in. Only one of them realizes that commerce should serve life, and not the other way around.
Richard Risemberg
Photo of the author by G. S. Morey
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