Rodeo Drive: Back From the Ashes

It’s been a tough year for us all, but Rodeo Drive was one of the areas in Los Angeles that was particularly hard hit by misfortune.  Nothing was a more welcome sight than to see the world famous shopping district open for business and thriving again today!

See photos of Rodeo Drive through its different phases this year at the bottom of this post.

The year started off normally enough.  Rodeo Drive was jammed with shoppers and tourists walking the street, browsing the shops and stopping in for a bite to eat at one of the fine restaurants.

Come March and the COVID-19 quarantine hit.  It was suppose to last only two weeks, just long enough for our healthcare system to prepare for possible high caseloads.  Two weeks became over two months.  Honestly, I’m not sure why.  As time moved on we learned that the initial projections were greatly inflated and that the virus was no where near as dangerous as we first believed.

As we neared the end of May, the stores were starting to reopen after extensive and expensive “retrofitting” to make them “safe” from spreading coronavirus.  I don’t think they had been open even a week when the Black Lives Matter protest occurred in Beverly Hills.

Literally every store on Rodeo Drive was vandalized and looted.  The National Guard was posted on the street for some time.  The street was barricaded and all of the stores were boarded up.  Seeing the extent of the damage, I thought it would take much longer to get Rodeo Drive back on track.

Today as I was passing the area I decided to drive down Rodeo and see what progress had been made. I was thrilled to see that aside from the stickers all over the sidewalk reminding us to wear face masks and to socially distance (and long lines of socially distanced people waiting to get in the stores) Rodeo Drive is back in business and has no shortage of customers ready to resume shopping.

It’s quite a testimony to the determination of the American people.

See photos of Rodeo Drive under quarantine, boarded up after the BLM protests and operating in the “new normal” after the break…