Businesses on Melrose are still boarded up after election day. Here’s why we still have plywood…

Businesses in Los Angeles are still boarded up after the election. Especially here on Melrose Ave where plywood lines the streets as if we’re prepared for a hurricane.

We boarded up a lot of what makes LA unique: Fashion, great restaurants, pop up shops, music tastemakers, limited edition drops, creative agencies, influencer meet and greets, recording studios, boxing / dance studios, prop and design shops, free Friday the 13th tattoos, piercing shops and much more.

Since the looting on Melrose this past summer, people here are looking over their shoulders here to see what’s coming and how others are preparing.

Why? Because Melrose was hit hard during the looting. Many people suffered a great loss, and some couldn’t recover.

Our neighbors, MelroseMac, suffered looting and complete destruction of their interior walls and fixtures, and then to add insult to injury: looters then returned with cans of gasoline to set their building ablaze. Still after all of that, the resilient couple that owns MelroseMac are still in business a few doors down while they rebuild their store.

That is why people tagged MelroseMac #melrosestrong

The morning after the looting, we came to board up our shop that was looted and take count of what was stolen.

We saw volunteers come out to help sweep around the block and scrub spray paint off the window panes at places like Umeda. Others came to take pictures in front of the aftermath.

There is no play book for this.

We now prepare for the uncertain.