Out with the Old in with the New

Today is the day that if you weren't back to reality already you are now. Everyone is back to work. 2012 is well underway. Only the people you have yet to see are hearing the greeting Happy New Year from die hard New year's greeters. We are all immersed in our lives. The fun and frivolity of holiday cheer has ended. Closeout sales have been in stores since the first. Items are 50% to 80% off and since the first day of the year Valentines day paraphernalia has lined the shelves. Out with the old usher in the new. Keep moving never stop as something will seriously go wrong if we slow down. The world moves on. As it does, many people and places are discarded in it's wake.

Our current economic climate and computer culture has caused a great decline in several markets. Small businesses are being swallowed up by corporate conglomerates and large businesses are barely holding on.  Paddington's Tea Room was where I celebrated my last birthday with friends. It was a lovely family owned tearoom that gave you the best in quality tea for the past 20 years. They closed last year. Famima is a chain combo convenience store and take out place. It lasted well beyond my expectations but it no longer exists in Culver City. As a matter of fact many places in the once sleepy Culver City  have disappeared due to high rents. These places include El Pollo Loco, Mezza Grill, the Culver Plaza theater (which was once a Mann Theater and has a beautiful mural of old world Hollywood depicted on it's walls) and a local healthy restaurant.

Bookstores both large and small are dying in droves due to online cutthroat prices and the onset of nooks, kindles and the like. I would have never believed that a large chain like Borders would go the way of the Dodo. Sadly it is so. Even more sad to note is smaller more personal places are going down the same route. The Bodhi Tree bookstore has been a small wonderful bookstore located on Melrose since the 70's. It has provided patrons with hot tea, cozy reading nooks and great books for this entire time. On December 31st it's doors closed for good in that location. Rents were just too high to sustain the location. They hope to open again but it's just a matter of where, when and if a generous benefactor can believe in the sustainability of a brick and mortar store.

These are but a few of the many places in the metropolitan city of Los Angeles that have gone out of business due to varying factors. What gets me is that everyone is so obsessed with moving forward that the collateral damage seems to be but a glitch in the process. "Computers are better." "It's the way of the future." "That's just how it's down now." "It's so much easier." I ask you this, If the way of the future is so much better, why are there so many businesses profiting from "retro" materials? Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to toss out the old ways. Simpler times, simpler days the future isn't always brighter sometimes how we did it was just the right way.