Westwood’s last newsstand, a community fixture, to close

Don’t ask Karl Johansson about his favorite magazine or newspaper. Though he has been working at the Village Center Newsstand for more than two decades, he rarely reads the products he sells.

For him, the job is more about forming connections with the community.

“If you stand in people’s path every day for 20 years, you hear a lot of stories,” Johansson said, leaning against the worn counter of his stand. “I get to be an important part of people’s lives, whether it is just a friendly face or a deeper support. That is the most rewarding.”

His newsstand on the corner of Kinross Avenue and Westwood Boulevard is wrapped around a decades-old tree and sandwiched between two empty storefronts.

Over the past few years, the stand’s regular client base has steadily declined. More recently, a dramatic drop in profits coupled with rising rent has made it difficult for Johanssonto keep the stand afloat.

Johansson will close the newsstand – the last in the Village – by the end of the month.

Emptying storefronts in Westwood and a media shift to focus on more online content contributed to the newsstand’s rapid decline of sales, Johansson said. He added that he thinks students had fewer reasons to venture into the Village as UCLA expanded and offered more services on campus.

Johansson started working at the newsstand in 1993 after emigrating from Sweden. He attended the Musicians Institute in Hollywood with hopes of becoming a guitarist, but after meeting his future wife, he decided to find a local job to stay with her. With limited opportunities in the music industry, he took the job at the newsstand.

“When you play an instrument you have to use improvisation, just like when you meet a new person,” he said. “You only have one chance to say a word or play a note.”

A customer, one of the regulars, browsed the racks, but this time she only stopped by to look, not buy. After recognizing her, Johansson greeted her in Spanish.

His musical ear makes it easier for him to recognize accents and pick up phrases in different languages, his wife, Beatriz Johansson, said. It allows him to connect with people.

Maria de la Cruz has been stopping at the stand for 15 years, ever since she started working at a now-closed coffee shop across the street.

“I used to come to the stand because it was on my way to work. It’s a great place for people to relax,” said de la Cruz, before she suggested new business strategies for Johansson. “You could open a coffee stand here. Just don’t close.”

Mitch Moche started working at the stand in junior high school when his father, the stand’s original owner, opened it in the early 1990s.

Moche grew up working in Westwood, and the stand became a second home, he said.

Now a furniture designer, Moche continues to work at the stand on nights and weekends between his travels abroad.

Like Johansson, Moche said he keeps returning to the stand because of the community he has built there.

People often treat the stand as an information center for the area, he said while giving a woman directions to a relocated store.

Moche said it doesn’t take long for people to start opening up and confiding in him. Just last week a woman stayed for more than an hour, just talking, he said.

After standing in one place long enough, the workers at the stand start to notice patterns – people becoming homeless, families growing, hopeful businesses opening and then going out of business.

After the stand closes, Johansson and Moche both said they will look for other employment. Neither is too worried; it will work out fine, they said.

“I think sometimes, ‘Gosh, the only thing I have done is sell newspapers,’” Johansson said. “But all of those experiences, those people – they are priceless. I wouldn’t give up those 20 years for anything.”

Johansson looked out at the cars rushing down Westwood Boulevard, where he has been one of the few consistencies for the last two decades.

“It has always been Westwood’s newsstand – it has never been my newsstand,” Johansson said. “I am here to take care of it for the Village. I promised to take care of it until it was time to go.”