Westfield Culver City: Neighborhood Watering Hole

On any given Saturday or Sunday, the space is bustling with sounds of children running around, the clickety clack of some woman's heels, and vendors tempting passers-by with sea salt scrub, new cell phones, cell phone covers, helicopter toys, pillows and the like.  Women and men wait near the modern stalls where they can get their brows waxed and get a haircut, respectively.  Cotton candy, popcorn, a celebrity-endorsed milkshake, the Orange Julius/Dairy Queen-adjacent-to-Mrs. Fields situation, smoothies, and pretzels tempt many who are on their third diet that week.  Meanwhile, customers stop by Shiekh, JC Penney's, Macy's, and Bakers’, as they have for many years.  Though the need for toilet paper and desire for new electronics bring new people in for practical reasons, a new gym, a hamburger stand, and the restaurant/brewery make them stay.

If you are an Los Angeles native in the Culver City and neighboring communities of Ladera Heights, Baldwin Hills, Windsor Heights, View Park, Crenshaw, Westchester, Marina Del Rey—and basically any surrounding community within the five-mile radius—the mall off the I-90 Freeway on Sepulveda/Slauson, the revamped Westfield Culver City will always just be Fox Hills Mall to the locals.

Beyond shopping, the Fox Hills Mall continues to serve as a social scene and the central marketplace for the community.  When I asked a friend to go with me to Target at Fox Hills to pick up cleaning supplies, she quickly replied that she would need another 20 minutes because she would have to put on mascara as she was sure she would see someone she knew, which was often true.  

As we made our way to Target, we passed by deejays and their turntables in front of a couple of stores (including Macy's), saw our younger selves in the next-gen set shopping for clubbing clothes, and dodged kids racing to the event.  But beyond clubbing clothes, items for the home, cleaning supplies, and seasonal events, Fox Hills is also where people run into their high school friends and maybe even their third cousins, including non-biological cousins.  

As you make your way from Claire’s to Hallmark, you might learn who just got married and/or had a baby.  I am willing to bet that there are people who have left the state-or even just the neighborhood—and ran into friend or family during their Fox Hills visit.

Fox Hills Mall is Culver City's marketplace.  It is where the action is and where it always has been.  

It is a central gathering place for the community.