There isn’t much more that can be said about “The Grove”. It’s been open a few years now, and seems to have become the de facto downtown Los Angeles.
Californians don’t like surprises in their streetscapes, and The Grove doesn’t disappoint. The roll call of retail is lined up: Abercrombie and Fitch, Nordstroms, Barnes and Noble, Banana Republic, J. Crew, Apple. There are several thriving restaurants which dish out mediocrity and huge portions.
There are dancing fountains, a street car, ornate lampposts, potted plants, a village green, a bridge over a pond. The whole scene is patrolled by security guards, hidden video cameras, and even the mobile phone users are monitored by our government.
It has a well thought out organization. A parking lot behind the stage set has places for thousands of cars and is equipped with a digital sign that lets drivers know how many spaces are available on each floor.
The Grove has no homeless people, unlike Santa Monica, and no hidden corners of the property smell of urine or rotting garbage. The crowd is full of beautiful young and aspiring people and there are celebrities here too. I saw Jesse Metcalfe in the Apple Store last week.
Developer Rick Caruso has reinvigorated Farmers Market, which was formerly a vast blacktop and pidgeon filled old time tourist attraction. Now it is paved, landscaped and rationalized to maximize both profit and potential.
But Los Angeles is a fickle city. Only ten years ago, Citywalk in Universal was the IT place, and before that Westwood sparkled, and people once thought Melrose was cool. Even Beverly Hills is diminished in the imagination of Angelenos, and most locals avoid Rodeo Drive, despite a glitzy make-over.
We treat our city as entertainment, and when we are tired of what we see, we turn it off. The bubble will burst at The Grove, and it will one day seem as passe as a re-run of “Melrose Place”.
Here in Van Nuys 
I have never gone to The Grove and probably never will. I can go to those shops at the mega-strip-mall 10 miles down the road from my parents’ house in the far northwest Chicago ‘burbs–which works out great, since I only go home once a year. Instead of going to the movie theater there, I can see the same movies at the Pacific 14 in downtown Culver City, which is a vastly more interesting place and has the distinct advantage of not being lousy with Valley Girls and waste-of-organic-material “Industry”-types (despite the presence of Sony Pictures’ headquarters).
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I really hate the Grove. I loved the old Farmers Market. Sometimes old dusty places are so much more fun to hang out in. I could never understand why they needed another shopping mall over there anyway. Homeless people in Santa Monica don’t keep me away from strolling along the palisades or pier, I really don’t want to walk around a fake place with the same chain stores you can shop in anywhere U.S.A.
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