Fairfax Avenue

The Los Angeles City Council delayed a decision Wednesday on a proposal to widen a stretch of Fairfax Avenue to give Councilman Nate Holden more time to work out a compromise with residents opposed to the project. Holden requested the one-week delay so he can again meet with residents from the three-quarter-mile stretch from Venice to Pico boulevards. He met last week with leaders of the Fairfax Homeowners Assn.

For all its storied history — the Farmers Market, Canter's Deli — Fairfax Avenue's finest foodie days may be yet to come. In the wake of Animal's 2008 opening, the neighborhood has gained gourmet coffee (Coffee Commissary), eco-conscious butchers (Lindy & Grundy), a top-shelf burger (The Golden State), a reasonably priced brunch spot (Black Cat Bakery) and now perhaps its biggest surprise yet: a laid-back steakhouse with 28 craft beers on tap. At Rosewood Tavern, which opened officially on May 20, customers will find bar stools instead of tablecloths and ale options written in chalk rather than manuscript-size menus.

A two-block stretch of Fairfax Avenue will undergo $300,000 worth of transit-related improvements thanks to a grant from a nonprofit agency, a spokesman for City Councilman Mike Feuer said this week.

Hoping to halt the conversion of the Fairfax Theater into apartments, neighbors joined preservationists and community activists Saturday to collect petition signatures and to celebrate the cinema's 80th birthday. "We view the Fairfax not only as a historic treasure, but as a social and cultural treasure, given the role it has played in the Fairfax District for the past 80 years," said Hillsman Wright, co-founder of the Los Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation. "It's much more than a physical structure," he said.

For seven years, I lived in an apartment so close to Fairfax Avenue that I could open my living room windows and breathe in a full-course meal. The lightest southerly breeze would send in the peppery scent of Sichuan food stir-frying at Yung Hwa. Or if the wind blew from the northwest, the spicy aroma of falafels filled the room. From due west would come dessert: the thick, sweet fragrance of butter cookies baking at Canter's delicatessen.

The gas fumes that forced Wells Fargo to close its bank branch on Fairfax Avenue apparently came from an old gasoline spill, not underground methane deposits as first suspected, according to a report from a geological testing company. "We have no conclusive evidence at this point, but there is a strong suspicion that gasoline is part of the problem," said Wells Fargo spokeswoman Kathy Shilkret.

In its heyday, Fairfax Avenue stood at the heart of Jewish life in Los Angeles, a bustling thoroughfare of kosher butchers and delicatessens where the sounds of Yiddish mixed with the smells of sweet pastries and sour pickles. But the ethnic enclave that once defined an entire community now finds itself in the midst of change as a new crowd roams its main street and fills its storefronts, forging a modern-day hipster district amid the city's premier Jewish quarter of the past.

Sixty-odd years ago, when Boyle Heights was a Jewish neighborhood and Canter's restaurant was on Brooklyn Avenue, Dean Zellman would stop in at the deli for his usual: a corned beef or pastrami sandwich and an egg cream. He would settle into one of the booths with his Uncle Al, or sometimes he would get a lunch to go for his father, who ran Zellman's Menswear across the street.

Ooga Booga is a retail apparel store that doubles as an affordable art gallery, carrying items including clothing and accessories by Opening Ceremony and Slow and Steady Wins the Race, as well as pieces from well-known artists such as Mike Kelley, Ed Templeton and Terence Koh. The shop, open for almost six years, has become a beloved Chinatown destination known for its quirky merchandise and ongoing roster of events. To reach out to those who don't cross the 110 Freeway too often, Ooga Booga heads west to Fairfax Avenue, where proprietor Wendy Yao has opened a temporary mini-shop inside Keep Co.'s shoe store on Fairfax Avenue in time for holiday gifting, with most merchandise priced at less than $100.

Ethiopian coffee comes with a ritual. First, the unroasted beans must be brought to the table and presented to guests for their approval. The beans are then roasted and returned to allow guests to pass on their aroma. Only after these two tests have been met are the beans ground and brewed. A sprig of rute, a mint-like herb, is placed in the cup, and the coffee comes to the table accompanied by burning incense.

There has never been any shortage of drama at the Fairfax Theatre -- not even counting the cinematic conflict that for 80 years has flashed across its screens. Just months after the 1,800-seat Hollywood movie house opened in 1930, a pair of armed robbers burst into its ornate Art Deco lobby, used adhesive tape to bind and gag employees and made a wild escape with $437 -- a fortune in Depression-era receipts. A half-dozen years later, burglars were so common that the theater's owners took to leaving a fake safe in their office to fool intruders.

Ooga Booga is a retail apparel store that doubles as an affordable art gallery, carrying items including clothing and accessories by Opening Ceremony and Slow and Steady Wins the Race, as well as pieces from well-known artists such as Mike Kelley, Ed Templeton and Terence Koh. The shop, open for almost six years, has become a beloved Chinatown destination known for its quirky merchandise and ongoing roster of events. To reach out to those who don't cross the 110 Freeway too often, Ooga Booga heads west to Fairfax Avenue, where proprietor Wendy Yao has opened a temporary mini-shop inside Keep Co.'s shoe store on Fairfax Avenue in time for holiday gifting, with most merchandise priced at less than $100.

L.A.'s Fairfax Avenue has long been a meeting place for diverse cultures. It became an artery for the Jewish community in the 1950s, and the original Farmers Market has been a central gathering ground for Angelenos of every stripe since 1934. The most recent arrivals to claim a slice of Fairfax as home are Ethiopians, who in the 1990s began forming a critical mass of restaurants, markets and service shops between Olympic Boulevard and Whitworth Drive.

Thousands of beach-bound motorists seeking relief from near-record temperatures on Sunday instead baked on the 10 Freeway after a multi-vehicle accident closed the westbound lanes for more than an hour. The freeway was closed at Cloverfield Boulevard moments after a five-car crash, causing backups as well on nearby roads. Westbound traffic had backed up to Fairfax Avenue. The 405 Freeway interchange was also clogged. The freeway was reopened at 1 p.m. -- -- Julie Cart

Fairfax Village contains some of the oldest and best-known delis and bakeries in Los Angeles, but with a growing injection of youth culture, the neighborhood is throwing off its formerly placid exterior. Running north to south along Fairfax Avenue from about Melrose Avenue to 3rd Street, the Village is sandwiched between Beverly Hills to the west and the Grove shopping center to the east. For this reason, real estate agents often market the area as Beverly Grove. The increasing development to the north and east has drawn scores of young entertainment-industry workers and their families, as well as singles looking for their first homes.

Hemmed in on one side by glitz and on the other by glamour, Los Angeles' best-known Jewish business district is feeling the squeeze. Longtime merchants say investors are buying up modest Fairfax Avenue storefronts that for half a century have housed kosher bakeries, butcher shops and bookstores and are imposing rent increases that are forcing mom-and-pop ventures out of business.

Thomas Solomon, the man who brought Los Angeles the art gallery in a garage, has moved up if not out of his neighborhood. He's still showing the art of young, lesser-known artists in a garage, but now he's doing that in a refurbished mechanic's garage built in 1927 on Fairfax Avenue. It's just 1 1/2 blocks away from his old space that opened onto a back alley. Solomon began exhibiting art in a two-car garage in November, 1988.

Approximately 4,800 feet of storm drain will be installed along Fairfax Avenue from Melrose Avenue to Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman has announced. The $4.4-million project, scheduled to start in June, is needed to prevent flooding in the area, Edelman said. During the construction phase, Fairfax Avenue will have one northbound lane on the east side of the street for local access only.

On a stretch of South Fairfax Avenue dotted by Ethiopian restaurants and thrift stores stands a cake maker that has been catering to Hollywood's A-list for nearly 60 years. Hansen's Cakes has produced thousands of elaborate concoctions, from two-story wedding cakes dressed in butter cream and Grand Marnier frosting to specialty birthday cakes made for the likes of John Wayne, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson.

A Hollywood entertainment production company has leased 30,000 square feet at the Farmers Market, the first office lease in the 69-year history of the Los Angeles landmark, which has been home to such diverse enterprises as auto racing, professional baseball and a drive-in theater. Ant Farm, which makes movie trailers that screen in theaters, will take half the 60,000 square feet of office space in a 90,000-square-foot mixed-use building owned by A.F. Gilmore Co.