Doris Samuels and Maureen Kennedy opened the Art of the Dance Academy in North Hollywood 16 years ago. It was one of the first dance studios in the area to offer “Mommy and Me” and boys-only dance classes in an effort to attract the family market. A few years ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority started building a subway station near the studio, making the area difficult to reach by car. Business plummeted. Jolie Gorchov spoke with Doris Samuels about the problem.

We started the dance studio 16 years ago, in one room with eight students. Now we have four studios and almost 300 students. We specialize in ballet, jazz, tap and Irish dancing. Of course, Irish dancing was hot this month because of St. Patrick’s Day. We’re mostly children-oriented, but three nights a week we have classes for adults. I’d say we have about 90 percent children and 10 percent adults.

I started the business with Maureen Kennedy, now she’s the sole owner and I’m retired. But I work part time as the business manager. Maureen is a choreographer in all types of dance. She also teaches classes and is a judge. We started the “Mommy and Me” classes, where kids as young as 18 months come for dance classes with their parents. It’s darling, now other places have followed us.

The problem is, we are in the middle of the MTA subway construction on Lankershim. We’re around the corner on Weddington, but it has really impacted our business. It’s made us inaccessible due to the roadwork they’re doing, The streets have been torn up and there have been roadblocks on Weddington off of Lankershim. You can have access through the other street on the other side, but you don’t know that until you come here. Since it’s hard to get here, the kids think, “Oh heck, we won’t come into class today, it’s too hard to get there.” It’s been going on for several years. Who knows how long it will go on for?

But 89 of the business owners in the area have gotten together, and the business association has funded us for a little extra advertising and extra outside signs, and that’s helped.

The North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is working hard for the merchants here and they’re representing us with the downtown L.A. City Council. We’re also under negotiations to have the MTA repay us dollars lost. I don’t know how much we’ll get, it has to go before the council.

So far we’ve recouped a bit this year through additional enrollment, and now they’re holding street closures down to minimum, so I think the worst is over as far as what they’re doing. But a lot of businesses on Lankershim have moved out because of this.