Afterlife

In a city full of recently embalmed architecture, few buildings look as un-dead as the corner shopping Plaza. Take the one at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and North Fuller Avenue in Hollywood, California. A squat rectangle of stucco and drywall, it offers everything we've come to expect in a corner 'convenience center': a pizza parlor, a doughnut shop, a cell phone store, a massage parlor, an immigration lawyer a check-cashing service and a coin Laundromat. There's the requisite oil-stained parking lot, the brick enclosed dumpster, some spindly palms and an imposing street sign with every business name in a different font, color and size. The corner Plaza has standard principles: L-shaped and usually situated at a busy intersection, driveway access from two streets, free parking but never enough, a variety of goods and services in separate concessions, but all in a single place. The anchor tenant now most commonly a Cannabis Dispensary. In this collection of 46 photographs, all shot in Hollywood in April of 2022, Glen Rubsamen documents his awe and appreciation for the "corner Plaza convenience center".