Monday, February 15, 2010

larchmont boulevard


Why does angled, head-in parking make any shopping strip suddenly feel like Main Street, USA? For some mysterious reason this simple design pattern has a cozy-ing effect, making you feel like you've stepped out of your car and into a small upscale village retreat. Larchmont's width, however, is still prodigious enough to elicit a single odd design choice: notice the little red dot in the photo's dead center? It's a stop sign, and it marks the only officially sanctioned spot to safely cross back + forth — a telltale clue that city planners deemed the street too fast for safe jaywalking. Weird to build a shopping village in such a way, no? If I were a store owner, I'd love to be located on a the street narrow enough to encourage more traversing by shoppers, all zigzagging back and forth along dozens of impulsive desire lines. See it narrowed!
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About the Photographer

Los Angeles, CA, United States
Writer, designer, and urban planning geek.

Got a location idea or photo submission? Send it to hello@davidyoon.com. I'll post it to the blog or even run out to shoot it myself.

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