The Village, People: The Militant Takes On The Village at Westfield Topanga

Ah, the shopping mall. The grand cathedral of consumerism. Like the hamburger and surfing, it wasn’t invented in Los Angeles, but we created the archetype by which it is widely known, as well as an entire culture built around it.

The brand-spanking-new The Village at Westfield Topanga, which opened on September 17, is the latest rookie drafted onto the Southland shopping mall roster. Though technically, it’s an outdoor-centric extension of the existing Westifeld Topanga mall, which stands on the other side of Victory Boulevard.

It’s perhaps one of the few outdoor malls that are not a product of one Rick Caruso (shouting at the sky, shaking fist in the air: “CARUSOOOOOOOOO!!”), although Caruso deserves the credit and/or blame for making them the de facto standard for the modern So Cal shopping center. Instead, this one is owned by the great Australian shopping mall megaconglomerate, Westfield, which runs yet another shopping center directly to the south, the Westfield Promenade.

The Militant decided to take a nice long ride on the Metro Orange Line to Warner Center and check this mutha out.

Located in Woodland Hills' Warner Center district (a.k.a. "The Downtown of The Valley," although The Militant thinks the much-more centralized and pedestrian-oriented Van Nuys is more deserving of that title), named so due to the area (including the land The Village now sits on) once belonging to one of the Warner Brothers (no, it wasn't Wakko or Yakko) as a horse ranch from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The Village's design is very SFV: Low-rise (the tallest building is two stories, not including the parking structure, of course), sprawling, and the architecture harkens back to the agricultural and light industrial structures which where once common in the Valley landscape. The ivory-colored facades look a bit odd, though -- one would assume that every store was either a Banana Republic or Sees Candies.

The SFV backyard aesthetic of The Village at Westfield Topanga's street furniture.

But it's also a very 21st-century setup: Aside from the outdoorsy feel, the place is abound with native and drought-tolerant plants -- no expanses of manicured green grass anywhere in sight (save for  artificial turf). The folksy "street furniture" resembles the type of furniture one would find in a San Fernando Valley backyard. And there are elements of appropriated urban hipsteresque accoutrements: Randomly-placed "little library" book kiosks, bocce ball enclosure, doggie treat/dog waste bar receptacles, and yes, a designated space for food trucks. The drinking fountains even have water bottle dispensers (which have digital counters; The Militant's water bottle was the 970th and 974th bottle filled at this particular dispenser), and he's even heard of a large rainwater capture cistern on the property. Very cool. But The Village succeeds in integrating the outdoor food commons of the Costco (long the hallmark of big box shopping center suburbia) into its outdoor mall layout.

"Look honey, food trucks! I think we should try some of those exotic soft tacos!"

But here's what totally blew The Militant away, and made this otherwise average outdoor mall worthy of mention on This Here Blog: The public art incorporated into the shopping center is very...militant.

It kind of hit him as The Militant walked the long stretch of Owensmouth Avenue after alighting from his Orange Line bus, trying to find out where exactly this new-fangled "Village" place was. He was ready to ask the few people walking along the street where it was when he spotted a large parking structure in the distance and finally saw "The Village at Westfield Topanga" sign on the corner of Owensmouth and Victory (which was a long-ass walk, he'll get to that later).

A dirt hiking trail beckons the militant along the northern (Victory Blvd) side of The Village at Westfield Topanga!

Walking westward on Victory, he saw the dirt hiking path that ran parallel to the sidewalk. Almost luring The Militant in to chose the dirt path option than the sanitary concrete option. So hiking path it was. And then he saw it.

It was a large billboard-sized mural, depicting a very natural San Fernando Valley 300 years ago, with  labeled images of the native flora and fauna of the SFV done in great detail, centered around the he Los Angeles River, depicted in its once-naked glory.

A section of the one of the very militant natural history murals at The Village by artist Elkpen

And then he saw another, which focused on the human history of the San Fernando Valley, depicting a cast of characters from Tongva medicine woman Toypurina (though she was actually a San Gabriel Valley gal), Father Juan Crespi, Isaac Van Nuys, William Mulholland to Amelia Earhart. There's even a little Red Car (labeled "Red Car") in the mural.  Yet another mural explains the importance and relationship of water, and even educates the public on what a watershed is.

"Our thinking about The River is evolving."

Like, whoa.

These murals, which were placed on the outside wall of the new Woodland Hills Costco (part of The Village shopping complex) were done by local muralist Elkpen (a.k.a. Christian Kasperkovitz), who is known for her nature-centric murals with a decidedly educational/awareness bent (see her "Birds of Hollywood" mural on Fountain Avenue). Elkpen's Los Angeles River/SFV History murals are part of a project called "Meet Connect Become" which explores the murals' subject matter in deeper perspective through the medium of the Internet (YOU NEED TO VISIT THIS WEBSITE! THIS IS AN ORDER! http://meetconnectbecome.com/home.html).

In addition, Westfield partnered with UCLA's School of Arts and Architecture for some of The Village's other public arts pieces.

Nova Jiang's "Red Car" sculpture at The Village.

As if The Militant wasn't already blown away by those Elkpen murals, on the Topanga Canyon side, hanging above the 2nd floor rafters above the main plaza was a sculpture of a Pacific Electric Red Car, depicted as an oversized plastic model kit. Very clever. The sculpture was done by UCLA Art school alum Nova Jiang, and a stylized map of the Pacific Electric system (with the San Fernando Valley stops emphasized) dons the wall on the floor below (surrounding the beverage vending machines).

This is like...wow.

The Militant didn't really buy anything at the stores but he was hankering for an ice cream on this 90-degree So Cal Early Autumn night. He found it at Sloan's, which looked exactly like a 6 year-old girl's candy store fantasyland, and a place The Militant would probably feel embarrassed to be in, but dude...it's ice cream, so he got himself a waffle cone full o' dat.

After consuming his cone, he wandered about the rest of The Village. There was a kids' play area, a KCSN-FM studio storefront (no one was inside, the station seemed to be on auto-pilot), and a "trolley" that transports shoppers to the larger Westfield mall on the other side of Victory.

While walking along the Topanga Canyon side of the complex, he spotted this:

From Crate & Barrel to the Los Angeles River.

It's a good mile hike to the Los Angeles River's headwaters on Owensmouth, but props to Westfield for taking this whole Los Angeles River thing seriously. This is amazing.

Now, since The Village has a hiking path along its western and northern perimeter, and they hope to have people hike in the oppressive heat of the San Fernando Valley, you'd think they'd want to make it more transit-friendly. The Village is equidistant from both the Metro Orange Line's Canoga and Warner Center stations (0.7 mile), but who wants to walk nearly a mile when it's 95 degrees outside? Perhaps it might be prudent to have an additional Orange Line station at Owensmouth and Victory, or at least get those cheesy Westfield trolley buses to serve the Orange Line terminus at Warner Center.

But the place is still new, and some of its businesses, most specifically its eateries, are still not yet ready for primetime at the time of this writing (they will be by this weekend). It's just another outdoor mall, really. But do check out those public art pieces. Hopefully people will pay attention and appreciate their Valley on a more deeper level.

In Woodland Hills, The *Real* Grove Grows

The Militant took advantage of the free
(M) Red and Orange line rides on CarmaChameleon Saturday to do some Militant exploration in the San Fernando Valley.

It wasn't a very long bike ride from the Orange Line Pierce College station, through the bike path, down Corbin Avenue and down a few blocks south of Ventura Boulevard to see it.

The Militant took a virtual trip back into time to pay a visit to Bothwell Ranch, the last commercial orange grove in The Valley.

 

As you may or may not know, around the same time Los Angeles hosted its first Olympic games, the San Fernando Valley was a huge agricultural area, boasting over 15,000 acres of commercially-farmed citrus groves. Now, almost 80 years later, all but 14 acres remain in a quiet, affluent part of Woodland Hills, just a few blocks east of Taft High School.

Located along Oakdale Avenue, Bothwell Ranch is home to some 2,000 Valencia orange trees, which are mostly cordoned off, although  premature green oranges can be found hanging outside the rusty wire fence. Most of the grove is visible along Collier Street, which runs along the southern end of the property (You'll also find this school across Collier from the grove, which will give you your LOL for the day).

As CalTrans workers hammered away at half of a concrete bridge less than six miles to the southeast, only the sound of birds, the breeze and occasional dogs can be heard here. Listen close, and the whoosh of light traffic along the nearby 101 can be heard, albeit faintly.

It's almost as if The Militant really did go back in time. Come to think of it, this sign on a telephone pole in front of the property (pictured left) not only contains a "Bell System" logo, but a local 213 number for The Valley.

Most of the orange trees have recently been harvested, as July is their harvest month, though a number of them towards the eastern end still bear fruit that will probably be picked soon. Valencia oranges are usually farmed for orange juice.

The agricultural era in the SFV ended mainly due to rising water costs (Oranges need lots of H2O) and poswar suburban development.

Although this is the last commercially-farmed orange grove in the SFV, there are other smaller groves in the area, mainly for educational and non-profit use: The city-owned Orcutt Ranch (12 acres), Cal State Northridge (8 acres) and Bishop Alemany High School (1.5 acres). The map below shows you where to find all of them:

View Remaining Orange Groves in the San Fernando Valley in a larger map

Bothwell Ranch is still family-run, headed by Ann Bothwell, the 93-year old family matriarch. Her late husband, Lindley, once owned a company that owned orange groves across Southern California. The grove is also home to Lindley's rare classic car collection, 75 in all, which includes a 1913 Peugeot race car. Her grandchildren maintain the trees and cars today.

When an operative who works in the area tipped off the location to The Militant a few months ago, he was overcome with delight. We are well familiar with vestiges of our local history being eaten away, but orange you glad that there are still some folks who preserve some of it for us today?