Once upon a hill…

    The Fox Theater in Westwood is currently under
renovation.

By Linh Tat
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

From a once-budding college town to one trying to revitalize
itself, after 70 years Westwood Village continues to endure growing
pains.

Few, if any, merchants or residents would describe the village
of yesteryear as dismal. On the contrary, many were proud to be a
part of such a dynamic college atmosphere.

“The Village was adorable, so nice and pretty. You knew
everyone by name. Students just sauntered around at night. It was a
real college town, a wonderful place to live,” said former
store owner Tom Crumplar to UCLA Magazine in fall 1989.

Though the village still hints at its former glory days, it is
no longer the thriving neighborhood it once was, and it has lost
some of its student-oriented focus.

A complicated web of expansion in population and new
construction projects, traffic congestion and changing clientele
visiting the village contributed to this change. But change
doesn’t have to be bad, and many continue to marvel at
Westwood’s history.

In 1820, a Spanish soldier named Don Maximo Alanis became the
first property owner in the area. Later, the Mexican governor
granted him 4,438 acres of land from Sepulveda Boulevard to Beverly
Hills. This area came to be called San Jose de Buenos Aires.

After the land changed hands several times, the Janss brothers
bought the area and settled in Westwood in April 1929. The new
village and university celebrated their birthdays in Westwood the
same year, for in September, UCLA moved from its original location
on Vermont Avenue to its present location.

    Eurochow now occupies this historic building on
Westwood Boulevard. With hopes of harmonizing the university and
village through architecture, they hired Allison & Allison, the
same firm that designed Royce and Kerckhoff Halls, to design their
new dome-shaped office. Then, as now, the dome was decorated with
blue tiles and gold leafing.

Today, the “Dome” building on Westwood Boulevard is
a historical landmark occupied by Eurochow restaurant.

In fact, many of the buildings in the village, though housing
modern movie theaters and restaurants, are protected as historic
buildings.

Following on the heels of the university’s move to the
village, Campbell’s Book Store relocated to Westwood,
becoming the first retail business in Westwood.

Husband and Wife, Bob and Blanche Campbell, situated the store
on Le Conte Avenue, the street closest to the university.

“They were such nice people, they would let students sign
an I.O.U. for textbooks and pay later,” said Steve Sann, UCLA
alumnus and Westwood historian.

According to Sann, not just the Campbell brothers, but the
entire village was meant to cater to the university from the very
beginning. The first male dormitory was located in Westwood, on the
second floor of the Janss dome building. Meanwhile, female students
were housed in Holmby Hall, now known as the Clock Tower.

Students frequented Tom Crumplar’s, a restaurant famous
for its malts. Originally on Westwood Boulevard south of the
village, the restaurant eventually relocated to the corner of
Weyburn and Broxton Avenues where California Pizza Kitchen now
stands also in a historic building.

By 1931, Hi-Ho Drive-in Cafe, one of the world’s first
drive-in restaurants, came to the village at what is now the
Oppenheimer building on Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards.

Today, students still like drive-throughs, and many line up at
the only one in Westwood ““ In & Out on Gayley.

    Westwood has its share of Spanish style
architecture. This is one of the buildings adjacent to California
Pizza Kitchen

Also in 1931, the Fox Theater opened and immediately launched
countless movie premieres, this summer hosting the opening of
“Space Cowboys” and “What Lies Beneath,”
among others.

Six years later, The Bruin theater opened across the street.
Both movie houses are now operated by Mann Theaters and serve
community residents of all ages.

Nearby the theater stood the Village Delicatessen.

“At any given moment, you could see some movie star or
some sports person eating there,” said Shelley Taylor, a
long-time Westwood resident who recently started a village Web
site. “We used to get a kick out of calling it the
“˜V-D.'”

Schlotsky’s Deli and Jerry’s Famous Deli are now
located near the theaters. Celebrity spottings frequently occur at
Jerry’s, where students study upstairs late into the
night.

Another place that catered to students was a recreation center
on Broxton Avenue, featuring a soda fountain joint, pool hall and a
“Mom’s Bowling Alley.”

“That’s where the tough kids hung out and
that’s where college students were,” Taylor said.

There hasn’t been a bowling alley in Westwood since the
student union, which had one, was recently remodeled.

As UCLA and car usage grew, parking on and around campus became
more and more of a challenge.

In the place of parking lot 32 was once the world’s only
year-round ice rink, the Tropical Garden. With its 10,000 bleacher
seats, it soon became the home rink for UCLA’s hockey
team.

Growing up side by side, it was not surprising that Westwood
Village took part in the university’s celebrations. Starting
in 1933 and lasting for some time, the village hosted UCLA’s
homecoming parades.

“The whole community got involved,” Taylor said.
“There was a whole camaraderie with the students and family.
There was the UCLA marching band. It was kind of a real emotional
thing.”

But the warm relationship between merchants and residents and
the younger generation started to change as tension built between
ideals for a quiet community village and for an edgy, hip
crowd.

Some residents say things started changing when the Mann
National General Cinema, known today as the National Theater,
showed “The Exorcist” in 1973. For more than a year,
the movie ““ which features a young girl being possessed by
the devil ““ was so controversial that no other theater showed
it.

Then a series of violent incidents erupted among the younger
crowd that flocked into Westwood. At nights and on weekends,
pedestrians often filled the streets, and at times Broxton Avenue
closed to vehicle traffic at night.

The village’s safe and quaint reputation suffered a blow
during the 1984 Olympics when a reckless driver careened down
Westwood Boulevard, killing one person.

Then on Jan. 30, 1988, a visitor to the village, Karen Toshima,
was killed when she got caught in the crossfire of gang members on
Broxton Avenue.

Westwood’s reputation quickly changed and the crowds
dwindled.

An increased awareness of violence in movies and the the rampant
teen cruising in the late ’80s and early ’90s made
visitors more wary of the village. Then, new shopping centers in
Santa Monica, Century City and elsewhere, lured many businesses out
of the village, according to Sann.

In the past two decades, the village’s Business
Improvement District, an organization of landowners and merchants,
has tried to reverse the trend.

With storefronts closing faster than new stores are coming in to
replace them, revitalization efforts are ongoing.

Officials keep a positive outlook, but whether the BID will
succeed in its mission remains to be seen.

“Westwood was a college town but it was also a
neighborhood village and it’s lost both of those,”
Taylor said.