West Hollywood
West Hollywood—home of the Sunset Strip, LA’s Pride Festival and Parade, and epic Halloween Carnaval—boasts the most rambunctious nightlife scene in all of Los Angeles. It’s also morphing into a sustainably-minded community.
Just this year, it added buffered bike lanes to Fairfax Avenue, rolled out its bike-share program, and started running a free shuttle to the Red Line station at Hollywood and Highland. City leaders are also pushing hard for an extension of the Crenshaw Line light rail, possibly from San Vicente down Santa Monica Boulevard. And, thanks in large part to the nonprofit West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, affordable housing is popping up across the city.
Next month, work will get underway to build an AIDS monument on expanded green spaces along San Vicente, next to its lovely library. It’s part of a plan to build-out the park with a four-story aquatic center, dog parks, picnic areas, and playgrounds.
Chinatown
It’s been an exciting year for Chinatown.
Sleek apartment complex Blossom Plaza opened its doors to new tenants, while developers filed plans for several transformative new residential projects—including one that will bring more than 920 units to a bizarrely narrow strip of land by the Gold Line tracks.
True, the much-delayed Los Angeles State Historic Park (a.k.a. Cornfield Park) once again failed to reopen, but a much-reviled neighborhood Walmart closed its doors after just over two years in business.
And though the community is changing, it still retains much of its unique historic character. Much of the area was built up in the 1930s, after much of the city’s original Chinese neighborhood was razed to make way for Union Station. As a result, many of the area’s Chinese-style structures were designed with a neon-infused, Art Deco flair that still makes the area popular with architecture enthusiasts and Hollywood location scouts.
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