You know why LA is so full of paradoxes? Because it's so paradoxical! Seriously, look at this street. There are well-known, if few, signs of life: the moderately-famous Astro Burger, right across from the world-famous Paramount studios. We see a hip home furnishings store; we notice a cocktails sign. And yet, most of the sidewalk is "dead" space: no buildings interface with those walking; most pedestrians (man, that word bugs me) won't be able to see the globe atop Paramount, which is built at car-scale, like a roadside castle. With billboards. These buildings-that-are-not-really-buildings (i.e. where are the entrances?) are the kind of thing that gives LA its confusing quality, like that one Twilight Zone episode where a couple finds themselves marooned in a suburb entirely built out of fake props: real, but not; substantial, but empty; ostensibly built for humans, but almost devoid of them. I say it a lot, and I'll say it again: Ballardian. Curiously, narrowing this part of Melrose doesn't help its livability but does reveal what it actually is: a back alley. See it narrowed!
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