Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe The plywood boards nailed to the storefront were covered in CBD ads. Graffiti was scrawled across the awning. A sign reading "FOR LEASE" tried to entice anyone bold enough to rent an empty store in the middle of a pandemic. "Another COVID-19 casualty," I thought to myself as I stood in front of The former Surplus Value Center, a military surplus store in Silver Lake, is boarded up. (Courtesy of Richard Hayden) This was the place where Michael Douglas's character had killed the Nazi store owner in Falling Down. For 68 years, it was an island of military paraphernalia, becoming ever more anomalous as the neighborhood transformed from a working class Latino enclave into a hub of bougie hipness. To me, the store felt like a gear locker on a Navy frigate.