Well, I am sure this will look awful. But, since I cannot get to blogger, I must do it this way.
So, forgive an old man a small rant before the Nincompoopery.
Rant: In the olden days, when the sun was shining, the earth was new and Los Angeles wasn't full of New York rejects (who "miss the cold"), we have good department stores. We had Bullocks, Broadway, Robinsons, Buffums, May Company and others.
In fact, Bullocks was so upscale that their flagship store on Wilshire Blvd (a Green / Bronze Art Deco piece on history on the register of historic buildings) had it's own name: Bullocks Wilshire. Same as Sacs 5th Ave. (Originally only the Sacs store on 5th Ave was called Sacs 5th Ave).
Well Macys is evil. They came in and bought Bullocks and Broadway. Two great department stores that made money. Now, in the hands of Macys (which I always associate with San Francisco because that is where I had to deal with the horrible J.C. Penny's Junior), Bullocks and Broadway are gone. Now we have Macy's and their 365 day a year "Last Sale of the Hour" theme.
In Century City (different store, but suffice to say a very upscale outdoor mall in Beverly Hills), the Broadway and Bullocks were the anchor stores - so they changed to Macys and Bloomingdales (Macy's at twice the price, 3 times the attitude and half the selection). To combat the Borg of Retail, Robinsons and May Company merged into Robinsons May.
Robinsons May had a great Flagship store on the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica. Right next to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where the Golden Globes are every year (they share a parking lot).
Well, since this isn't Star Trek, the Borg have finally taken over Robinsons May. The Flagship store is a couple of blocks away from Century City, so the Borg is shutting it down. What will go up instead?
Two 12 story condos buildings, 4 townhouse complexes and 12 zillion people. At the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica. Currently 97,000 cars a day use that intersection. 97,000 cars a day is enough so that 1/2 the entire population of Madison Wisconsin could drive past that intersection every day. If you must drive through it, you stop blocks and blocks away and inch towards the intersection.
Two 12 story condo buildings and 4 townhouse complexes! At that corner, Wilshire goes from 8 lanes to 4 (in Beverley Hills, the street is narrower). At that corner Santa Monica goes from 6 lanes to 4 (again Bev Hills). So the added traffic will be quell nightmare.
Nin Com Poopery