Word: hollywoodizing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...West Hollywood measures only 1.9 sq. mi. but bustles with a wildly diverse citizenry of 37,000 elderly pensioners, Hasidic Jews, yuppie straights, punk rockers, and Russian and Israeli emigres, as well as homosexuals. The mingling of these groups is best savored on a warm Friday evening along West Hollywood's main artery, Santa Monica Boulevard. There, a black-clad Lubavitcher family straight out of 19th century Lithuania strolls past a bus bench shared by a sneering heavy-metal-music freak with a slime green Mohawk and a drag queen done up as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Across...
Families with children, the mainstay of most communities, are a distinct minority in West Hollywood, constituting only 5% of the populace. The local International House of Pancakes does far more business during Halloween and the Gay Pride Parade in June than on Mother's Day. "In West Hollywood we don't have children's specialty shops or McDonald's with a playground," says Ruth Abrams, 36, whose daughter...
...apartment dwellers with children, play space is at a premium. A dozen mothers, members of the West Hollywood Munchkins Play Group, convene three days a week in cramped West Hollywood Park. They unlock a wooden shed, pass out toys and warily eye the winos by the shuffleboard court and the gay men seeking casual sex around the shrubs and public toilet. "We complain to the police, and they arrest these perverts in the toilet," Abrams says. "Look, I don't care what they do, but I don't want it in front of my kid. We want a separate children...
...most part, though, Abrams and other parents enjoy the village atmosphere and diversity of West Hollywood, which offers something for every taste. One of President Reagan's favorite restaurants, Chasen's, is a local landmark to snobbery. An inordinate number of other acclaimed eateries --Spago, Trumps, Morton's, Scandia, the Ivy--also flourish. So do a fistful of opulent hotels, including Le Bel Age (a classy favorite of businessmen), the Sunset Marquis (occasional host to Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper) and Le Mondrian (boasting a $1 million rainbow paint job, nightly jazz and some of the best panoramic views...
When the going gets tough around the hotel pool or restaurant, the tough go shopping, and West Hollywood's boutiques offer everything from formal gowns to studded leather bikini shorts for men. There's a baker who specializes in anatomically explicit cakes, and the Pleasure Chest serves as a hardware store for the sexually adventurous. For those with more homely tastes, West Hollywood functions as the West Coast capital of the interior-design and home-furnishing trades, which are headquartered in the 530-ft.-long, six-story Pacific Design Center, sculpted of neon blue glass and known locally...