In the midst of roaring buses, crisscrossing skaters and streetwear devotees lies a portal on Fairfax Avenue.
Between a thrift store and a synagogue, the gateway to a past decade when time moved more slowly beckons. A bedazzled sign pasted to the wall reads, “Magazines?!” Serendipitously, a passerby says, “Wow, they still have these?”
Once, a newsstand was a working Angeleno’s morning tradition: their daily copy of, say, the L.A. Times, as essential as an espresso. Today, newsstands are rare gems we stumble upon, reminders of the connection we feel when we flip through a magazine, or meet a stranger. The feeling they stir is comparable to that of a record store, where the weight of vinyl remains a comfort even as streaming services provide instant music. Newsstands are no longer our main source of information, yet they’ve evolved into a place of fascination.
This particular stand on Fairfax is one of L.A.’s oldest, Kosher News. First opened in 1950, its current owner Erez Da Costa lived around the corner for years and considered the newsstand a landmark in his neighborhood. When it closed in 2004, he says he interrupted the old owners’ quarrel with the landlord to buy the stand and bring it back to life.
After a postwar boom, newsstands became an in-demand and seemingly eternal facet of L.A. street corners, with dozens of locations and distributors slowly consolidating from the ‘70s through the ‘90s. The early 2000s were a curious time to be a newsstand owner, Da Costa explains, as American news evolved from paper to the internet seemingly overnight, and L.A. neighborhoods changed with the digital age. Fairfax, for instance, was transitioning from a collection of sleepy Jewish-owned businesses to a streetwear mecca — Kosher witnessed it all. Every decade came with its challenges, which caused newsstand numbers to dwindle. On top of the internet, the 2010s had a city ordinance that prevented newsstands from selling food and drinks, which Da Costa notes was an important source of side income for many. Then, there was COVID-19. Not much more needs to be said on that. Through it all, newsstands in L.A. persisted.
Kosher News employee Tito Estrada.
Regular customer, Matt, looks at magazines.
The Kosher News. Keegan, left, and Montana look at magazines.
“There’s no other place where I could be outside and meet so many different people who teach me something.”
Kosher News manager Tito Estrada has remained a consistent warm presence at the newsstand for 20 years. Estrada, framed at the register by detergents and a stack of the New York Times as dog-walkers and scene kids browse in the dusky afternoon, is an anthropologist of sorts. He learns about people at the newsstand through their passing conversations and complaints as they stop for a paper or a snack. “I love being here,” Estrada says. “There’s no other place where I could be outside and meet so many different people who teach me something. I learn so much every day.”
At the counter of L.A.’s newsstands, regulars and strangers congregate for Sunday headlines or their favorite musician’s Rolling Stone feature. “Newsstands were always meeting places,” says Marck Sarfati, former owner of Brentwood Newsstand. “Some customers would just get what they needed and go, but others lingered … they talked to me, ran into their friends or looked up and saw Tommy Chong standing next to them.”
There’s a moment of stillness that comes when you’re under a newsstand awning, often sun-bleached from the Southern California brilliance. The sound of rushing cars fades into the gentle fluttering of pages in the wind. Chemically buzzing fluorescent lights illuminate the crinkled plastic over fashion magazines. A scent of fresh paper melts into that of aged wooden shelves. Places in L.A. that allow us to tap into our senses are scarce. In a town of new builds and shuttering mom and pops, so few places feel well-loved, well-used and filled with history. Angelenos are never not moving. But here in front of a newsstand, instead of rushing against traffic or dancing tirelessly to their friends’ DJ set, they take a pause.
Customers look at magazines with owner Nathan Shields, right.
Malibu Newsstand. A customer reads the headlines of The New York Times.
Malibu Newsstand. A customer looks at magazines.
“It really is a luxury now, to have a moment to stand here and look over the pages.”
Malibu Newsstand. California Towels and T Shirts are sold next to magazines.
Portrait of Malibu Newsstand owner Nathan Shields.
“You have to stop to read,” Nathan Shields, owner of Malibu Newsstand, says. “It really is a luxury now, to have a moment to stand here and look over the pages.”
While each L.A. newsstand owner may have started differently, they hold a common thread: They believe in the power of the printed word. The stories we flip through in their magazines, newspapers and zines are grounding in a city where everyone is on the grind. Our scopes narrow, and for a moment, we’re across from Teyana Taylor talking Oscars , or backstage at this season’s most celebrated fashion show. Holding a magazine, we are transported to places we otherwise couldn’t access, where we are always VIP and the doors are always open. This total immersion is impossible in the digital world, where glimpses to other lives are too fleeting to be deeply experienced.
Shields calls physical media a slow indulgence, while on our phones: “It’s a serotonin hit — bang, bang, bang.”
Physical books and magazines litter the shelves of my 20-something friends more than ever while shops like Climax, with locations in New York and London, have built an entire community around archival books and ephemera. Is it nostalgia, or are we finally tired of the faces and stories overloading our phones and reaching for something that, once familiar, is now almost foreign?
Evan Mader, owner of Mader News and Beverly Hills Newsstand, is seeing a revival too. “I’ve enjoyed seeing a renaissance in new publications coming out. We were sort of stagnant there, a few years back, and now we’re seeing a lot more energy and growth,” Mader says. “People also go to newsstands for ideas in their work, I’ve noticed more lately. Fashion designers, architects and others come for inspiration.”
Beverly Hills Newsstand. Portraits of Eduardo “Eddie” Becerril, left, and Glenn “Maxwell” Martin.
Customers Sonam Tsering (L) and Trinley Tsering (R) browsing magazines at Beverly Hills Newsstand.
The cash register at the Beverly Hills Newsstand.
Is it nostalgia, or are we finally tired of the faces and stories overloading our phones and reaching for something that, once familiar, is now almost foreign?
As Shields and I chat in the palm-tree-framed structure of Malibu Newsstand, an ocean breeze from nearby sifting the magazines, I get a taste of his daily cast of characters. A group of bikers talk out front when I arrive, and as they rumble off into the street, their spot is replaced by a smiling older man. “Today’s paper, please,” he says, handing over crisp dollar bills. He introduces himself as Sam Mann, and when I ask him what about this newsstand keeps him coming back, he replies, “Well, frankly, it’s the only one around.”
Shields and Mann laugh together.
“Really, when these guys are in trouble, we all chip in,” Mann says. “They’re community.”
Malibu Newsstand closed for some time after last year’s Palisades fire, which ravaged much of the small population and caused longtime customers to move away. When the fires shut down the Pacific Coast Highway, the delivery route into Malibu, Shields himself drove into the Valley for months to retrieve shipments. At one point, he could see the flames on the mountain from his register. The newsstand he’s had for 30 years probably wouldn’t have made it through, he says, if not for the neighbors who pitched in to keep his business afloat.
When Sarfati’s Brentwood Newsstand lost its lease with a neighboring Whole Foods, 6,000 customers signed his petition to renew. His last newsstand after owning many through L.A. since ‘83, Sarfati felt a particular soul-tie to the business. There was the tradition of organizing magazine stacks and greeting his regulars, but also the memorable days, like hosting Playboy signings with the cover Bunny and watching a line of UCLA boys form around the corner.
Above the Fold, a longtime Larchmont fixture, also lost a lease last summer, which struck the community like a gut punch. Among hundreds of goodbyes on social media, one regular eulogized it this way: “It’s like my church burned down.”
Despite Brentwood Newsstand eventually closing, it was a place Angelenos came to see history happen. “By far the busiest day I can remember was after 9/11,” Sarfati says. “I remember we went down at 3 in the morning, cut the bales of magazines and people were just grabbing from the stacks. We literally couldn’t even get them on the stands.”
Even now, Sarfati keeps a 9/11 Time magazine, among other historical issues, on his coffee table, as an archive to share with his kids. “In times we don’t want to forget,” Sarfati says. “We document it.”
Newsstands are reminders of our past, tucked into the city’s pursuit of modernity.
Portrait of Jack Alghannam, cashier at Sheltams.
Newsstands are reminders of our past, tucked into the city’s pursuit of modernity — no place better reminds us of this like the 50-year-old newsstand alongside the Grove. With a two-story Brandy Melville, pricey athleisure, and influencer pop-ups, the Grove is synonymous with L.A. Instagram culture. I stand in front of it with Paul Sobel, the owner of Sheltams newsstand, who gestures out to the sprawling mall and says, “I remember when this was all just a parking lot.”
We meet for coffee in the Original Farmers Market, which first opened in 1934; he calls it his “gathering place.”
Sheltams is deeply personal. It’s where the now 70-year-old Sobel met his wife, where his kids came after school and where they learned to drive in the parking lot. The community and printed word that newsstands stand for, he says, is “indelible,” an ink that won’t fade, because it’s part of L.A. tradition.
Sobel, and his newsstand, are indelible too.
“Me and this newsstand grew up together,” he says. “I’m just going to kind of hang out until I’m not hanging out anymore.”
These days, newsstands can be many things: Quiet places that remind us of the universal act of documenting and sharing. Somewhere we bear witness to the beauty of fleeting moments. Points of bright-eyed inspiration. And for a place (and a town) so dedicated to sharing photographs, it also serves as the ultimate mirror. The longer we look, the more that our shared essence stares right back.
“Me and this newsstand grew up together. I’m just going to kind of hang out until I’m not hanging out anymore.”
