THIS PLACE REALLY KEEPS FANS IN THEIR PLACE.

Byline: Kevin Modesti

There's a signpost at the northwest corner of the Staples Center pointing this way to the VIP Entry. There's a signpost at the southeast corner of Los Angeles' new sports arena pointing that way to the VIP Entry.

But don't bother looking for a door marked VIP Entry. There isn't one.

I guess if you really are a VIP, you don't have to ask.

That's life at the Staples Center, where nobody - VIP or NVIP, famous or anonymous, rich or poor or in between - has to ask where he or she belongs.

If you were one of the $18.50-a-game Kings fans in the top seating level more than 100 feet above the ice at Wednesday's home opener against the Boston Bruins, you were in no danger of accidentally wandering into one of the three luxury-suite levels below. If you were one of the $200,000- to $300,000-a-year luxury-suite holders, you weren't about to get mixed up with the rank and file.

There are elevators for you and me, serving the main concourse and the upper concourse and nothing in between. And there are elevators for the beautiful people, going from the main concourse to the carpeted suite levels A (the exclusive one), B and C without risking contact with the real world.

There are hot dog and beverage stands (``Franks and Bev's'') for you and me. And there's a baseline restaurant featuring linen napkins and $14 cappuccino ice cream for the suite folks.

There are the seats at the top for you and me. And there are extra-wide seats at rinkside for the guys with the fat wallets.

``It's like the Titanic,'' a photographer said to me after his first, self-guided tour of the building at 11th and Figueroa. ``Total class separation.''

Now, I can't tell you if that's the worst thing that's ever happened to sports in Los Angeles. It's the price a city pays for a place for $20 million-a-movie stars to watch $14 million-a-year athletes perform. Build it and they will spend.

But I can tell you it's new and unnerving if you happen to have grown accustomed to the Forum over the past three decades.

The Forum didn't even have passenger elevators. It didn't need them.

There were, essentially, only two levels at the Forum - three if you counted Jack Nicholson separately. For the most part, the big spenders sat among the just-plain-folk. You walked around the mezzanine between periods and you might have rubbed elbows - literally - with the latest Emmy winner or Playmate.

Even Nicholson had to walk through the same spilled beer and peanut shells as the rest of us to get to his limousine.

We were all in it together.

And wasn't that what going to a game was supposed to be about? Wasn't that why we wanted a pro football team - a common rooting interest for a splintered city? Wasn't that a selling point for the Staples Center - it would be a $400 million magnet pulling us together?

Instead, the Staples Center is built to keep us apart.

There's a nice, democratic touch on the main level, a bronze wall etched with the names of the 5,000 construction workers who put all this steel, concrete, drywall and wiring together over the past 18 months.

Otherwise, it's welcome to sports in the 21st century as Los Angeles keeps pace with Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and half a dozen other major cities that dumped perfectly serviceable basketball and hockey arenas and put up mints.

From the freeway, or from a helicopter, the Staples Center looks like a just-landed starship, a sight to behold.

From the sidewalk, up close, it looks like an especially large Circuit City.

Inside, it's a department store for the rich and high-tech. There are ads suggesting where to buy your telephone service, your satellite television, your photocopier, your airline tickets and your electricity. And, of course, your office supplies.

I didn't see any newspaper ads, but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

The one thing about the Staples Center that everybody can agree on is this: It's huge.

If you choose to avoid the elevators and walk the stairs, it's 95 steps from street level to the upper concourse. Go up from there and you're in the press box.

My favorite moment of opening night was when one of the purple ants belted one of the white ants right in front of one of the striped ants.

It will never be called cozy or charming. Twenty or 30 years from now, when obsolescence catches up with it, this will not be the sort of arena (Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, Montreal Forum) people shed tears for.

You've got to like the new place. You just don't have to love it.

That's the view from the top of the Staples Center, where if you ask how much a good seat costs, you can't afford it.