Westwood, Los Angeles, California

Westwood is a district in western Los Angeles, California. Developed by the Janss family in the 1920s, it is best known as the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the epicenter of a large Persian population. The eastern portions of the district are often thought of as a distinctly different neighborhood, Holmby Hills.

Attractions

A center of movie-going on the Westside and the site of many movie premieres, Westwood is home to several vintage movie theaters, including the Pacific Crest, the Fox Village and the Bruin. These classic Art Deco "picture palaces" anchor the Westwood Village retail district, a picturesque, pedestrian-oriented shopping area (q.v.).

Related Topics:
Movie - Movie theater - Art Deco

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Westwood is also home to the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, the last resting place of many of Hollywood's biggest stars. A museum named for and endowed by activist and philanthropist Armand Hammer, longtime head of Occidental Petroleum (which maintains its headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard), has become one of Los Angeles' trendiest cultural attractions since UCLA assumed its management in the 1990s. The Hammer, as it is commonly known, is particularly notable for its collection of Impressionist art and cutting-edge modern art exhibitions.

Related Topics:
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery - Hollywood's - Stars - Museum - Armand Hammer - Occidental Petroleum - Impressionist - Modern art

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Westwood Village

Built by the Janss family and wildly successful from its earliest stages, the Westwood Village shopping district successfully retained its cozy village atmosphere even as the San Diego Freeway came through the area in the 1950s and high-rise office towers went up around it in the following decades. However, much of this construction was planned around the never-built Beverly Hills Freeway; in combination with a severe parking shortage at UCLA, high-density development in Westwood has created some of the worst traffic congestion in Los Angeles. Even with the opening of numerous municipal parking structures in the 1990s and 2000s, finding a parking spot in Westwood Village is still a notoriously difficult task, and parking and traffic issues dominate local planning debates.

Related Topics:
Shopping - Beverly Hills Freeway - Parking - Traffic congestion

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Recent History

Many local observers contend that Westwood Village's heyday was between the 1960s and the mid-1980s, when some of the streets were so crowded with pedestrians that they were closed to vehicular traffic{{ref|jacobs}}. The murder of innocent bystander Karen Toshima, during a gun battle between rival gangs on January 30, 1988, gained nationwide notoriety{{ref|carlson}} and led to the widespread impression that even affluent Westwood was not immune to the crime wave then ravaging Los Angeles. It would take more than a decade for this perception to fade{{ref|glionna}}. Some residents hold to a conspiracy theory that Westwood's '90s doldrums were a consequence of local developers intentionally depressing local businesses in hopes forcing them to sell out so that they could overtake whole blocks and implement plans for large mixed use complexes. Today, while Westwood is again regarded as one of the safest neighborhoods in the city, its retail sector has been slow to recover in the face of increased competition from Century City, the newly revitalized Culver City, and mid-city attractions like Park La Brea's The Grove.

Related Topics:
Gang - January 30 - 1988 - Mixed use - Park La Brea - The Grove

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~