Lost Feliz

The signs were all there. Stores selling aromatherapeutic candles and Guatemalan renderings of the Sorrowful Virgin had sprung out of nowhere. Parking-friendly streets previously inhabited by the stray Datsun were suddenly lined fore to aft with rogue Beemers, Miatas and lemon Lifesaver-hued Mercedes SLKs. Lines for the Vista theater and the Good Luck Bar wound up one block and down the other. Dining at Farfalla or Vida, even on a weeknight, required the patience of Job and command of American Sign Language to communicate over the din. But it wasn’t until I waited in line for one half hour watching cell phone-wielding coolsters take up perfectly empty tables at the House of Pies, for cryin’ out loud, that I realized it was too late. Los Feliz was gone, just another scene of the crime--a crime of fashion.

Blame it on the media, blame it on “Swingers,” blame it on the fact that it really is a great neighborhood, but it seems everyone wants a piece of James M. Cain’s literary backdrop. Westsiders who once greeted the disclosure of my address with a smirked, “Oh, that’s that place near that park, isn’t it?” are falling all over themselves to go swing dancing at the Derby and eat sushi at Katsu. Suddenly I can’t walk down Vermont Avenue without having my foot mashed by a blue-and-white-striped Aprica navigated by out-of-towners gawking at the tattooed and pierced denizens of the Onyx. The gawking is mutual, charming, sort of, in its worlds-collide way--”Rent” meets “The Philadelphia Story,” maybe--but some of us are trying to have lives here, just get a little shopping done, walk the dog.

I’ve been a Los Feliz booster from way back, and it gladdens my heart to see some of my favorite businesses thriving. I love sitting in Palermo, watching much of Silver Lake and half of the LAPD rub elbows over what is truly the best pizza in town. I’m glad they’ve taken a mop and broom to Sunset Boulevard, bringing in a few new businesses so Uncle Jer’s--my favorite store in the universe--doesn’t have to bear the entire weight of the Sunset-Hollywood harmonic convergence on its gypsy-shawled shoulders. I like that those from the chilly reaches of Venice and Santa Monica are learning there is life and love this side of the 405. I just wish they didn’t have to learn it quite so loudly on my front stoop at 3 in the morning every weekend.

And some of these visitors are coming to stay. Property values are rising, which is good for many, bad for some--George’s diner, a much-beloved dive on Vermont, closed last year, replaced by Freds 62. And houses? Well, my dear. My fiance and I have been looking for months now and the sad truth is, we can’t afford to live in the neighborhood I’ve loved for so long. When I think of the time and energy I spent convincing friends to “consider Los Feliz, it toils not, neither does it spin.” Now I wish I had kept my big trap shut. Already there’s talk of an impending Starbucks; can a Noah’s bagels, a Jamba Juice be far behind? If I wanted to live in Larchmont Village, I would have moved to Larchmont Village. Except, of course, I can’t afford it.

So we’re moving across the river to Glendale. We hear it’s the next hip place.