Los Angeles in the Time of Covid

 

Right off the bat the title is pretentious. Los Angeles is a sprawling five hundred square mile megalopolis. (By comparison, Buffalo is fifty square miles.) To say I know this city is at best an exaggeration. It’s not possible. There are huge sections that are a mystery to me. Then again there is a whole lot I know very well. I can get around, get around. But this visit, constrained by the pandemic, I haven’t been outta Silver Lake, our neighborhood. Even so, we’ve noticed real differences between this visit and those halcyon before times.

TRAFFIC

Writing about LA and not about the traffic is akin to writing about the forest and leaving out the trees. For years I’ve defended LA traffic. Yes, it’s fearsome I’d say but it rolls along. But in recent visits it was clearly worsening.

This was particularly noticeable at our corner. We’re on a semi-major street that connects one block away to Sunset Boulevard, a maxi-major street. During our last stay on this corner, we were concerned that it was becoming untenable. The traffic never stopped. Day, night, it didn’t make any difference. It was loud, it was constant.

But not now. Day time traffic at our corner is back to ignorable. Night comes with long stretches of quiet.

                                                          THE NEIGHTBORHOOD

We’re in Silver Lake where the city begins to climb up the hills. It’s funky and flashy, a typical LA mix of classic SoCal cottages and contemporary wide glass windowed boxes. Flowers bloom everywhere. Palms sway in the breeze and all size and shapes of cactus abound. Parking can be tricky although during the day a new space opens up about every twenty minutes. Get a good spot and you’re loathe to leave it. Since just about everything we need is in walking distance my car hasn’t moved in days.

Nighttime used to attract crowds to the restaurants and shops on Sunset. Now two of the trendy restaurants have closed and the remaining places have, as best they can, moved outdoors. The crowds have thinned out. Saturday night around ten all was quiet.

 

                                                          MASK AWARENESS

 

Everybody here is much more mask conscious. Everybody is masked all the time. Basically you put one on when you walk out the door and don’t take it off until you’re home again.

 

                                                         DEVELOPMENT

The breakneck pace of development has ground to a halt. In before times those quaint California cottages were being ripped away from the hillside to be replaced with big undistinguished multi-tenant apartments. Over on Sunset the old Army Navy surplus store where once you could find anything if you could maneuver the narrow aisles between the big piles of stuff is gone. Construction of something new and way bigger was started but is now stopped. This all means our views west over downtown Hollywood has been, for now, saved. It also means that the abandoned Church across the street is now a total eyesore surrounded by plywood fences topped with concertina wire. Well, it was slated to be resurrected as a boutique hotel which would have added lots of coming and going. We can put up with it.