BLOG: Reflections on Crescent Heights at Santa Monica Boulevard, circa 1985

The West Hollywood City Council's decision to allow the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Boulevard to become a Walgreen's is a big mistake for the area.

Why does City Hall keep approving these "multi-purpose" projects by building more and more store fronts that will be almost impossible to rent out? The traffic problem alone should be a major concern. Obviously the city doesn't care about the traffic issues ANYWHERE in the city!

I moved into a  cheap apartment ($275.00/mo!!) at 1030 N Crescent Heights Blvd in July, 1985. Rock Hudson was in the news the week I moved in due to a "mystery illness" he had and everyone was speculating he had AIDS.

It was a perfect apartment to live in because it was close to everything. There was a Chinese restaurant on the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica, along with a donut shop, dry cleaners, beauty supply business and a Pioneer Chicken.

The layout of the mall was perfect for neighborhood walkers and it was always fun to go walk up to the corner and get something quick and cheap to eat at Pioneer Chicken. The entire block had a nice,neighborhood feel to it, despite being on the corner of a major blvd.

The living room window of my apartment faced Crescent Heights and every afternoon around 3pm the backup of cars traveling north toward Sunset would build up and sometimes get backed up all the way down toward Melrose! Street parking was next to impossible and all that traffic made it nearly impossible to find a parking spot and get home before 8 p.m.

And that was in 1985! 27 years later it is even worse than before and that intersection is very difficult to get through going north on Crescent Heights Blvd.  This new development will cause so many problems regarding traffic that none of it makes sense.

I am just as interested in change as the next person, but why this particular corner? This has been going back and forth for years because all the businesses (except the donut store) were ran out years ago and the entire block is empty now.

The city should have left it alone and found another place for this type of development. I could think of several parts along Fairfax between Sunset and Melrose where this would have made more sense. The City Council is slowly destroying everything that makes West Hollywood such a special place to live. All this development is going to come back to haunt us.