Montana Avenue

Gentrification does not come in on little cat feet but on Aprica strollers wheeled by Calvin Kleins. Yet even as lime-green golf pants and brake repair shops bite the dust, one thing remains the same. Encountering the avant-garde is fine for a night on the town, but Old Guard and yuppie want something haimish (unpretentious and cozy) when they frequent a neighborhood restaurant. That's the readout from Santa Monica's Montana Avenue.

ART These days it seems every neighborhood has an inalienable right to its own art walk (to go with its own farmers market and indie coffee shop). The latest is the inaugural Montana Avenue Artwalk , which will transform 10 blocks into a horizontal gallery featuring work by more than 50 artists, plus live music, refreshments and dining specials. Montana Avenue between 7th and 17th streets, Santa Monica. 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Thu. Free. http://www.montanaave.com

There is a four-alarm fashion-trend alert on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. The street that entered the '80s as a sleepy little neighborhood address--filled with hardware stores, gas stations and corner grocers--will go into the '90s as an oh-so-chic shopping district. Not that you'd notice, at first. Montana Avenue still looks a lot like it has for years, with one- and two-story buildings shaded by leafy trees.

Bicyclist Anthony Gianatasio has had many a memorable scrape with motorized vehicles over the years, as the scars on his arms, legs and face attest. Drivers have thrown things, gestured impolitely and shouted at him to move to the & %@! sidewalk. As a result, Gianatasio welcomes the new "sharrows," or "shared lane arrows," that the city of Santa Monica has applied to a freshly paved section of 14th Street between Washington and Montana avenues. "It's a big relief," Gianatasio, 39, said of the symbols, which feature a pictogram of a bicycle beneath two chevrons.

Having experienced the ongoing destruction of Montana Avenue and other city thoroughfares in Santa Monica over the past few years, I was pleasantly surprised to see your article reporting the protest arising over the latest abomination, namely the restriping of the commercial district. The last thing this neighborhood needs is to become a "pedestrian-friendly" circus, as has happened on Third Street. Those of us who live here are perfectly capable of walking to and on Montana to do our shopping without help from the city planners.

It was once as orderly and as ordinary as a strand of plastic rosary beads: chiropractor, shoe repair, beauty shop, dry cleaner, market--block after block of mom-and-pop services for the mom-and-pop neighborhoods flanking Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. In the last half dozen years or so, in the finite press of Westside real estate, something has happened along Montana Avenue.

Talk about midlife changes. Over the last 15 years, Montana Avenue in Santa Monica has metamorphosed from a humble neighborhood shopping area into a "glam-chic" boutique zone rivaling some of the commercial streets in Beverly Hills. Montana Avenue's shops between 7th and 17th streets have been featured in Women's Wear Daily. It's not uncommon to spot such Hollywood luminaries as Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kate Capshaw and Rita Wilson traipsing toward one of its boutiques or cafes.

Life is usually not too tough on Montana Avenue near the ocean, but when the power is out for almost two days and counting, residents were left to wonder where their next hot shower was coming from. Not to mention worrying when they could crank up the cappuccino maker, clean their contact lenses or get back that blow-dried look. What's an electricity-dependent yuppie to do? Flee to a hotel, the shower room at the health club or the in-laws.

The new traffic lanes on Montana Avenue were just hours old when residents went before the Santa Monica Planning Commission to speak out against the re-striping. Opponents warned that narrowing the flow of traffic on Montana Avenue from two lanes to one in each direction would cause congestion. Supporters of the idea said it was the best way to discourage speeding.

About 250 opponents of a proposed mini-mall at 7th Street and Montana Avenue were in a festive mood Monday night after the Santa Monica Planning Commission turned down the proposal for the second time. The building permit was denied by a 5-0 vote even though developer Murray Weber submitted scaled-down plans for the two-story project with underground parking.

A group of children manned a lemonade stand on a Santa Monica street corner Saturday morning, waving posters urging passersby to buy a beverage and a cookie and help "Save Our Teachers." A woman pulled up in an SUV, ordered five cookies and handed over a $100 bill. She told the youngsters to give her only $50 in change. The gesture, met with cheers and applause, gave a generous boost to Project Lemon-Aid — a fundraising initiative inspired by students and aimed at helping offset budget cuts to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

Indoor-outdoor decor emporium Inner Gardens already has showrooms in Culver City and West Hollywood, so why open a third location -- especially in this tough retail climate? "Our client base is in Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Malibu and Brentwood," President Stephen Block says. When a storefront became available on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, he moved fast. Doors opened Jan. 4, and the grand opening celebration is scheduled for Thursday. When asked whether the product mix of the new store will be influenced by the economy, Block responds: "We're perceived as expensive, but I don't mind.

A rare chance to catch Thom Andersen's exceptional documentary, a 2-hour-and-49-minute essay/meditation and labor of love on how this city has been depicted on the screen. Smart, insightful, unapologetically idiosyncratic and bristling with provocative ideas, "Los Angeles" serves up segments from more than 200 films, from 1913's "A Muddy Romance" to "Chinatown" and beyond. Brilliantly discursive and filled with intriguing detours, it concurs with the narrator in Jacques Demy's "Model Shop," who says, "It's a fabulous city.

From their perches on the walls surrounding John Nichols during his workday, some 10,000 clocks count out every second. It's a beautiful racket, to his ears at least, because he makes his living repairing the timepieces that few others can, or will. "When I first opened back in 1971, all my neighbors were TV and typewriter repair shops, mom-and-pop hardware and general fix-it stores," recalls the Greek native, who moved to the U.S. in 1968 and changed his name from Yannis Nikolopoulos.

Talk about midlife changes. Over the last 15 years, Montana Avenue in Santa Monica has metamorphosed from a humble neighborhood shopping area into a "glam-chic" boutique zone rivaling some of the commercial streets in Beverly Hills. Montana Avenue's shops between 7th and 17th streets have been featured in Women's Wear Daily. It's not uncommon to spot such Hollywood luminaries as Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kate Capshaw and Rita Wilson traipsing toward one of its boutiques or cafes.

"The lines are just right for you, but I think we need to take it in here and here," says the woman as she lifts the shimmering silken folds of the floor-length dress, pinching the fabric behind her daughter's chest and midriff. "Just to give her a bit of a waist." The sales clerk demurely agrees. A perfectly reasonable request. Except that the girl in the scene I'm watching unfold is about 2 1/2 years old, and I, for one, have a few questions.

The Planning Commission on Monday turned down plans for a two-story, 44,476-square-foot commercial center at 625 Montana Ave. The commission found that the building, one-fourth of which would have encroached on land zoned for residential use, was out of scale with the neighborhood. Seventeen area residents spoke against the project, saying that the community did not need 20 new stores and that the center would have generated too much traffic.

A plan under study by the City of Santa Monica to alter traffic flow and create diagonal parking in the trendy Montana Avenue business district has met with opposition from residents. Homeowner Mackenzie Waggaman this week initiated a petition drive against a plan being studied by the city's Parking and Traffic Engineering Department that would narrow Montana Avenue from two lanes to one each way between Lincoln Boulevard and 20th Street.

Having experienced the ongoing destruction of Montana Avenue and other city thoroughfares in Santa Monica over the past few years, I was pleasantly surprised to see your article reporting the protest arising over the latest abomination, namely the restriping of the commercial district. The last thing this neighborhood needs is to become a "pedestrian-friendly" circus, as has happened on Third Street. Those of us who live here are perfectly capable of walking to and on Montana to do our shopping without help from the city planners.

After having witnessed the disaster on Montana Avenue, I thought I might be the only one opposed to this so-called improvement. I was relieved, then, to discover there are many, many more ("Residents, Merchants Protest Montana Ave. Lane Restriping," March 19). "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" should apply to the oxymoronic Santa Monica Planning Commission in this case. Montana was a nice, accessible, though no longer quiet, street. Two lanes on each side meant you could pass up the rubbernecker looking for Robert Redford's offices or the 33 1/3-r.