Los Angeles is famously a town where people come to dermabraze away the mistakes (their own and others'), to forget the damage done and create

fresh starts. It's a nice sentiment, but one that produces a municipal worship of the New, the Now. This is a city that continually razes its past and erects Tom Ford! Andre Balazs! Jamba Juice! There is little appreciation for the rundown, the faded. Why listen to vinyl when you can have CD-quality sound?
I prefer vinyl. I like decay. So I feel at home in Boardner's: an imperfect Los Angeles bar with not only a storied past but also a maze-like, shadowy back area lit by the dimmest of red lights. Located in the heart of seedy old Hollywood, Boardner's was a popular spot for sport-drinking by Robert Mitchum, Jimmy Stewart and W.C. Fields. It has been in and out of vogue over the years, but it has always been divey and disheveled enough to stay off the radar of Los Angeles' shellacked elite.
And Boardner's reeks of sex. Not the studied, sleek, Gucci, soap-opera sex of the Standard or the Mondrian — it's a more dangerous, almost eerie stench. Aside from the obvious — several booths obscured from view, with broken light bulbs hanging overhead (perfect for the mid-conversation handjob) — it's really the disorder of the place, the unevenness that makes all its clients look reckless, like they're two drinks away from nasty. For the newcomer who makes his way, brimming martini in hand, to the fountain out back, to that odd iron staircase in the courtyard leading nowhere in particular, the space must seem endless; once the martini's been downed, navigating the way back through the sinister curves will be all the more daunting. Like a trip to some haunted house, the fun lies in not knowing precisely where you're headed. Boardner's endures because at the center of this city where people want so desperately to be found, it offers a sensual, dilapidated sanctuary where you can go to get lost.

Boardner's
1652 North Cherokee Avenue, Hollywood
(323) 462-9621
Recommended drink: Tequila Sunrise
(Photograph by Andrew Brucker)

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