Two landmark Melrose Avenue shops whose eye-catching storefronts and eclectic merchandise helped define trendiness in Los Angeles for nearly two decades will close Saturday--victims of changing times.
Merchandise at the Soap Plant and Wacko is no longer being snapped up by a new breed of shopper that frequents the famed Hollywood thoroughfare, their owner said Thursday.
"This street has gone to the dogs, and they're yapping at my heels," said Billy Shire. "This used to be rock 'n' roll and happening. Now it's a street of jeans shops and shoe stores."
Wacko, a toy and trinket shop with a bizarre inventory ranging from eyeball magnets to "mystic smoke for fingertips," is famous for its colorful neon name sign that has become an icon of hipness known worldwide.
Soap Plant, part bookstore, head shop and art gallery, symbolized Melrose's outrageousness with its weirdly painted exterior and its jarring series of window displays--including a four-foot inflatable penis that once caused such a stir that the police asked that it be removed after six hours on view.
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This week, passersby were startled by a fake tombstone surrounded by pink plastic pigs in the store's front window. Its inscription asked that Melrose Avenue rest in peace.
"Being here used to be a gas," said Shire, 46. "This used to be a place for kids with colored hair . . . now it's for tourists from the Midwest. I don't belong here anymore."
Shire, an Echo Park resident, said he plans to keep a 2-year-old combination Soap Plant and Wacko store in the Los Feliz area open. It is on Hollywood Boulevard near Vermont Avenue in an area that some have already labeled "the next Melrose."
Departure of the two stores from the current Melrose was being mourned Thursday by shoppers and rival shopkeepers alike.
"I've been saying for years that this street's dying. Everybody's moving east," said Brian Waters, a 27-year-old guitarist from the Fairfax area who was in Soap Plant shopping for a book.
"There used to be a lot of unique shops. Now, everything's the same. Things on Melrose just got weak."
West Hollywood resident Marcia Dacosta, who was buying a 1960s-style set of hanging beads, said: "It's true. Melrose is changing."
Across the street, merchant Richard Jebejian agreed. He is a furniture maker and upholsterer who was born 53 years ago just a half-block from his shop.
