Everywhere You Go Has Valet

They get you to the door. The rest is up to you.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock (5883440q)Stacey Dash, Alicia Silverstone, Clueless - 1995Director: Amy Heckerling Paramount USA Scene Still Jane Austen Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

I was driving around downtown Salem, Oregon, last weekend, looking for valet parking, and there was none. That’s when I realized I wasn’t in Los Angeles anymore. Although I found street parking a few blocks away, the trek at night had me feeling like Delta Force walking through hostile territory.

American feminist icon Cher Horowitz said it best in 1995 when asked why she didn’t know how to park, and she looked genuinely confused. “Everywhere you go has valet.”

Los Angeles produces egalitarian luxuries like no other place in the world, and a lot of that is due to our geography. The taco truck is parked outside a new tasting menu restaurant on Melrose. The weather is still free, for now, and so are our beaches.

In 1946, a man named Herb Citrin inherited the parking concession at Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills. He would become known as Mr. Valet. He looked at the problem of where to put the automobiles and decided the customer shouldn’t have to think about it. Citrin may not have invented valet parking, but he certainly democratized it. He would go on to run valet for the Playboy Mansion, the Academy Awards, and LAX.

Both Citrin and Lawry’s were tapping the same post-war vein. Rooms and services were no longer closed off to the rest of us. Maybe you couldn’t indulge every day, but in Los Angeles, everyone could pretend they were movie stars, for just a little while.

This is the promise of Los Angeles: that luxuries weren’t just for the wealthy, they were just another way to remove the frictions that plague life for the rest of us. The Porsche and the Camry get the same red vest, the same stub, the same walk to the door.

I have valet-parked my old Jeep Patriot at the Beverly Hills Hotel and felt like Axel Foley. They still took the keys without blinking.

I know what people say about valet parking. The tipping and the waiting, and the mild indignity of waiting at the curb with the Bentley driver who can’t understand why you’re not in a separate line.

I understand that tipping has become expected, and often feels like a Game of Thrones walk of atonement, but you don’t have to go to these places. There are places I go where valet parking feels ridiculous, so I’ll park for free 100 feet away and make the walk. Yes, I arrive exhausted, but I survived.

Of course, turning your vehicle over to an unknown stranger comes with its own set of risks. There are stories of joyrides and cars gone missing. Still, I’ll take my chances. The biggest problem I’ve had was driving a vintage Bronco and pulling up to a valet in Playa Del Rey. The young man jumped in the vehicle but did not move. He could not drive a manual transmission.

It is true that Los Angeles has serious problems. The cost of living, crime, and the fires all seem to conspire to drive us out. We’ve led the country in residents leaving lately.

But in trying to solve our problems, we may have forgotten who we are. This city was built on aspiration. The small town girl who walked into Schwab’s Drugstore and walked out a star. Or the UCLA student who became a rock god. These transformations happened in part because of the proximity Los Angeles provides, or at least used to provide. Because LA has always straddled the divide between radical acceptance and self-reliance.

That is what the valet understands. They get you to the door. The rest is up to you.

Cher Horowitz wasn’t talking about parking. She was talking about Los Angeles. This city will take you anywhere you want to go.

If we can just remember who we are.

xAP