The Griddle Cafe is located on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. We drove from my house on Hilgard Avenue down Sunset Boulevard for about 5 miles, and I was once again reminded of the Geographies of Difference Professor Wilford talked about in the "Theorizing Socio-Cultural Difference" lecture. All of the houses on this stretch of Sunset Boulevard were monstrous, with huge front yards and large bushes lining the sidewalks. See the pictures below for some snapshots I took of the drive and the houses along the way.
As our drive continued, we entered into a business district, with businesses ranging from really famous restaurants like Pink Taco, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and The Counter. But, there were also lower-priced restaurants like Subway, CVS, and Peet's Coffee and Tea.
Along the way, I also spotted a sign that said "Silver Spoon", and it intrigued me because it had fancy cars in the window but didn't look like a car dealership. I looked it up online, and I found out it is a "Luxury Lifestyle Group" that provides entertainment services to wealthy people. To put it simply, it puts everything on a silver spoon for its clients. The company provides luxury rental cars, restaurant reservations, VIP access to events and clubs, private security and bodyguards, and vacation packages. This information alone tells us that this area of Los Angeles is definitely built for the upper class, and that the people that reside here and visit here have a lot of money.
http://www.silverspoon.net/services.php
When we arrived at the Griddle, we spotted a huge line outside the restaurant. My friend and I walked into the restaurant, and we spotted a list of names near the door. Hilary picked up the pen and began to write our name and party number when a person that looked like the owner came up and swiped the pen from us and said, "I'll take care of that!" He was a short bald man with pink nail polish, an apron, and a crooked smile. He pushed us outside and had us get in line along with the 50 other people waiting to be seating, telling us it would be a 35-minute wait. To us, this seemed feasible, but little did we know we would actually wait for a full hour. The customers were separated into three lines, parties of 2, 3-4, and then 5 people and up. It was a weird concept, standing in line waiting to be seated at a restaraunt. As we were waiting, the peculiar man came out every ten mintues or so to call roll and to make sure we were in the right order. It felt like we were waiting at the DMV or something!! I was particularly frustrated that the line was so long and that it took much longer than he said it would. The people in line were definitely all very different- some regulars and some tourists. Families lined up, along with young couples and college students. Looking at the way people were dressed, this restaurant seemed to be a tourist attraction, as no one seemed extremely high class or wealthy. There was also a range of races represented by the patrons- Mexicans, Whites, and Asians were there. I didn't spot any African Americans, which made me think of this week's reading by Massey and Denton.
According to Massey and Denton, the likelihood of black-white contact rarely exceeds 5% in US metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. Massey and Gross have come up with a formula that computes the degree of segregation necessary to keep neighborhood racial mixtures at less than 5% black. When the black percentage is already low, like it is in West Hollywood, little or no segregation is required to keep this contact tolerable for whites. Later, the authors discuss the fact that race is the dominating organizing principle of housing and residential patterns. By using a a variety of exclusionary tactics, realtors limit the likelihood of black entry into white neighborhoods. White prejudice is so drastic that when a black family enters the neighborhood the neighborhood becomes unattractive for the whites and the whites start to depart.
I looked up the demographics of the zip code 90046, which was where the Griddle Cafe was located. On movoto.com, I found that this area is 86% white, 4% Asian, 3% Hispanic, and 3% Black. The median listing price for a home in this area is around $600,000. This data was compiled from the US Census Bureau and the FBI Crime Database. In an area this dominated by whites, it is obvious that African Americans do not reside here. Like I read in Massey and Denton, blacks remain the most spatially isolated population in US History.
Driving down Sunset Boulevard and looking at those houses, I could tell that these were not neighborhoods where Blacks were welcomed.
Although the Griddle Cafe seemed to be frequented by a variety of races and classes, I still was well aware that I was in a different environment than normal at that restaurant. The price of the pancake I ordered was $9.95, which wasn't bad for a good-sized breakfast. However, the way the man treated the patrons, and the way that the patrons continued to wait in line no matter how long it got surprised me. It felt like the restaurant was well aware of how popular they were, and just kept the desperate customers in order just to get through the morning rush. I didn't feel like a valued customer, I felt like one of 500 visitors that would eat there that day. Not to say that the pancakes weren't amazing and something to be boasted about!
I truly enjoyed my trip down Sunset Boulevard this past weekend, and I had a great meal at the Griddle Cafe! I loved being able to see topics that we discuss in lecture and read about, like social difference and racial segregation, with my own eyes. Although these aren't necessarily positive aspects of society, they do exist and they are something to be discussed and further studied.
Hi Madison.
ReplyDeleteI replied to your post on my blog, I’ve posted the entire response on there! I thought your trip into West Hollywood sounded interesting. I had a different opinion on how to apply Massey and Denton’s theories to that neighborhood and Los Angeles as a whole.
Although West Hollywood is not a part of Los Angeles itself, it is surrounded by municipal Los Angeles. West Hollywood can be better understood if looked at as a neighborhood rather than an entirely separate city, as well as how the greater city and region influence it. The Los Angeles Metro African-American population share is approximately 7.1%, greater than the threshold Massey and Denton (5%) use to classify regions that need little or no segregation to keep black-white contact at a minimum. The Los Angeles population itself has an African-American percentage of 13% (Fact-Finder). According to Massey and Denton, segregation throughout the Los Angeles area has indeed shaped the distribution of African-Americans in of the region.
There is an interesting trend occurring in Mid-City (including Miracle Mile), one of the closest areas to West Hollywood, which has a significantly large African-American population. This area is fairly integrated, with an equal mix of white, black, Hispanic and Asian peoples. The African-American population is declining there, and the populations of other races are increasing. This may be a result of gentrification (there are many art galleries in the area) or possibly black suburbanization. The point is that the assertions Massey and Denton make are not exactly 1:1 in Los Angeles. Its true that LA is hardly a model of integration, but the evidence is harder to pin down than areas like Detroit.
http://patrickinthecity.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-social-difference-week-7.html