A friend and I once made a rule: Don't go to Glendale.
A section of Los Angeles a scant three miles from where we lived at the time, we instituted this rule after being, among other things, stuck in inexplicable traffic jams without fail on our way there (causing us to be repeatedly tardy for movie showings), as well as having, bar none, the worst car-shopping experience of most likely anyone's life there, wherein an elderly Chinese Nissan salesman chased after us as we tried to drive out of the parking lot shouting "We try for you make better lease payment!"
With these factors in play, plus always being vaguely uneasy about the possibility of being stoned by stuffed grape leaves at the hands of Glendale's copious Armenian population, we decided to institute a Glendale moratorium, and never looked back.
Recently, however, I had some time to kill after work before meeting a friend in Silverlake, the hipster haven on the east side of Los Angeles, at a restaurant whose patrons, regardless of gender, weigh less than 100 lbs and whose small, ugly dogs sport almost as many tattoos as their owners.
I also needed to make a stop at the Apple Store, and the most convenient location between Burbank and Silverlake, of course, was in Glendale. So I took a deep breath, and sallied forth to where I understood the Apple Store to be, at the patriotically named Americana at Brand.
"The ultimate shopping, dining and entertainment destination: The Americana at Brand in Glendale. Your Shopping & Entertainment Resort®" their website proclaims. (Note: Brand Boulevard is, in fact, the street on which the mall is located, however its name, combined with its dozen car dealerships, does lead one to believe that the street was created merely as an ode to commerce.)
Sister to the Mid-City neighborhood's The Grove, the Americana is an orgiastic splooge of retail in an already overly image-conscious community; the Burbank-Glendale axis is the one of $80K Mercedes' with tinted windows, whose drivers make up for in earing studs and oversized t-shirts what they lack in higher education. A collection of relatively high-end stores (J. Crew, Barney's Co-Op) and condos available for purchase, the Americana clearly strives to conjure up the feeling of the Grover's Corners town square of yore... albeit one with ambient Frank Sinatra music piped in. With its roving trolley and giant fountain reminiscent of the one in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Americana is, truly, both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
After parking and descending the escalators under an elaborate, chandelier that looked like something out of an Edith Wharton novel, I emerged into the cool Glendale evening, and made my way to the information kiosk. Try as a I might, I could not find the Apple store on the map.
"Where is the Apple Store?!" I barked at the bewildered girl working the hair extension/scrunchy cart next to the information kiosk.
"Apple Store? Across street," she responded, her middle-eastern accent as pronounced as her dark roots fading into the rest of her peroxide blond hair.
"Across the street?" I said.
"Apple Store is at Galleria is across street," she explained to me. "This is Americana."
And if this wasn't Americana, I don't know what was.
Across the street, I discovered, is the old, depressed, droopy-eyed step-sister to the new Americana, the Glendale Galleria. A holdover from the 80s, the Galleria's JC Penney and Lane Bryant easily fail to conjure up the same level of prestige as its flashy new rival. After feeling extremely white (whiter than even usual) after my trip through the Galleria, I finally fell into the Apple Store, sandwiched between a store called Shiekh Shoes and Mrs. Field's Cookies.
"I thought you were across the street," I said to the Apple store salesman.
"We're actually opening a store over there," he said knowingly.
After completing my purchase, I headed back to the Americana, in search of something inexpensive to buy to get my parking validated. As I made my way out of J. Crew with a new pair of socks, the hourly fountain show was in full swing. While "Come Fly With Me" crescendoed, a few of the already scant patrons at the Americana on a chilly Tuesday night took note of the fanfare. Most, especially the couples in velour track suits and sensible shoes, continued their shuffling and conversations in foreign languages, as did the old men puffing their cigars and cackling on the bench in front of Victoria's Secret. I, however, stopped briefly to contemplate this patriotic hymm to capitalism, and, looking around me, wondered if it was this, this Americana, that I and my fellow patrons were nostalgic for. Perhaps in the future, I'll stick to my rule, and just do my shopping online.
Best regards,
Dear Crabby
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