Date Night at "The Grove"

I had a date Friday night – with my wife.

Because our daughter was in Santa Barbara visiting my mother and my sisters, my wife and I were at loose ends. Dinner and a movie seemed in order.

We settled on the movie quickly enough (“Dreamgirls”), but disagreed on where to eat and where to see the show. I suggested dinner at a sidewalk café in Los Feliz, followed by the movie at the Vista, a baroque and charming movie palace relic nearby. My wife shook her head. She preferred “The Grove.”

I regard the “The Grove” with a certain amount of distaste, but I am not a foolish man. I acceded to my wife’s wishes.

“The Grove” is a shopping mall disguised to look like a city street. The storefronts come in a mix of styles, but the overall result has a Disneyland feel. The mall opened in 2002 next to the Farmer’s Market in the Fairfax District just east of Beverly Hills and was an instant success. One of the most popular retail destinations in metropolitan L.A., it packs in the crowds, particularly on weekend nights and during the holiday season. A plush and very comfortable multiplex with stadium seating is part of the draw.

Why the distaste for a place so many people clearly find very pleasing? For me, much of it has to do with the architecture, which completely turns its back on Third Street. There is only one entrance on Third, and no windows -- just a warehouse-like series of facades that double as giant billboards. This is the “urban fortress” approach to retailing, with a barrier erected against the street and the surrounding neighborhood.

For those inside, the presence of a barrier may be reassuring. My own reaction is a twinge of claustrophobia. I’m in a big crowd and there are only so many exits. And the sociology -- let's face it -- is bad. This is an island, an enclave, an imposition on a neighborhood, a walled and guarded traffic magnet that stands apart.

Inside the mall, the “street” is winding, but very short. A double-decked trolley provides a comically brief trip to nowhere. There is a small park with a big fountain and piped-in Sinatra. Ersatz snow “falls” at Christmas, fed by a system of pipes along the roofline. The entire experience is engineered. Much of it seems adventitious.

My wife and daughter like it, however. They seem to like it quite a bit. There is a Nordstrom, an Apple Store and an American Girl store. The stadium seating in the multiplex almost ensures an unobstructed view. And it’s barely ten minutes from where we live.

The proximity helped Friday night, since I was delayed at work and we had to rush. We decided to see the movie first, then eat. We arrived at the parking structure 45 minutes before the movie’s start. The electronic bulletin board showed available spaces only on Level 8, the parking structure’s roof. We were already well inside the structure and it was impossible to turn around at that point. With no alternative, we raced to the top, only to circle for 10 minutes before we got lucky and a space opened up in front of us.

We made it to the theater in time to find good seats and settle in. I watched the theater fill up. It was a mature audience, largely comprised of people (like me) old enough to remember the Motown era. The lights went down and we were held spellbound for the next two hours-plus by a high-energy, well-staged and brilliantly acted musical, an entertaining melodrama that incidentally recalled an era and made some significant points about race and popular culture in America. Beyonce Knowles looked lovely and sang well, Eddie Murphy acted up a storm, and newcomer Jennifer Hudson dominated the movie with her big voice and strong personality.

We left the theater exhilarated and made our way to the restaurant next door, the Farm of Beverly Hills, for a late supper. The Farm falls squarely in the “clean, well-lighted place” category and the food is quite good. My wife had a small smoked-salmon pizza and I had ravioli in a garlic-and-cream sauce. We found ourselves talking about our daughter. Nice as it was to have some time to ourselves, we missed her.

After dinner we walked a little. I realized that my attitude toward The Grove had begun to soften. Our evening had been undeniably pleasant. All the same, I much prefer places where the pedestrian culture is more genuine, places like Old Town Pasadena, the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, and El Paseo and Paseo Nuevo in Santa Barbara. They all make use of the existing grid. There is no separation from the surrounding neighborhood and the ebb and flow of life on city sidewalks.

The evening’s high point (literally and figuratively) came when we returned to the roof of the parking structure to reclaim our car. The night was cold and clear and Los Angeles was a carpet of lights that stretched in every direction. Century City glittered to the southwest, Hollywood to the north, downtown L.A. well to the east.

My wife leaned into my shoulder as we took in the view.

“This is beautiful,” she said. And it was.