Curbed Cup 1st round: (1) San Pedro vs. (16) Westchester

The Curbed Cup, our annual award for the neighborhood of the year, is kicking off with 16 neighborhoods vying for a prestigious (fake) trophy. We’ll reveal each of the neighborhoods this week, and polls will be open for 24 hours so you can cast your vote as to which ones should advance. Let the eliminations commence!

San Pedro

After losing the Cup to Leimert Park last year, San Pedro residents are hungry for a win in 2017. The seaside town received more nominations than any other neighborhood, earning it the top seed in this year’s competition.

As nominators were quick to point out, San Pedro is overflowing with charm. There’s a an idyllic park on the bluffs from which you can take in panoramic views of Catalina Island. There’s a quaint downtown, a must-visit fish market, an historic theater, a photogenic bridge, a flourishing beer scene, and a year-round marketplace for locally-crafted goods.

This year, San Pedro’s lovely Hey Rookie swimming pool reopened after a makeover; the Growlers brought their two-day music festival to town; and Metro introduced bike-share to the Battleship IOWA, the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, Wilmington Waterfront Park, and the Ports O’ Call Village.

Though the town is slowly shedding its reputation as a blue-collar maritime town, many of the changes are happening right on the waterfront—namely a $100-million redevelopment of the kitschy Ports O’Call Village, set to get underway soon.

As one nominator wrote: “Imagine how big a hit San Pedro will be when visitors are at the waterfront enjoying their day and watching cargo ships sailing into the bay. San Pedro is a rising star in Los Angeles.”

Westchester

Can Westchester move beyond its image as merely the neighborhood one drives through to get to LAX? Now seems like a good time to find out.

Renovations at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center are set to wrap up in 2018, and two major projects nearby are set to bring hundreds of new apartments to the area. There’s even a plan in the works to make the sad strip of hotels and rental car facilities around the airport a bit more walkable.

Long home to classic Googie-style diners Pann’s and Dinah’s, the neighborhood’s dining scene is getting a bit more exciting with the arrival of new restaurants and a revamp of the venerable Proud Bird as a sleek, aviation-themed food hall.

Perhaps most exciting are plans in the works to repurpose approximately 340 acres of vacant land around the airport as a massive mixed use project with offices, retail businesses, and lots of green space. A three-mile pedestrian path would cross through the development, linking walkers to Playa del Rey and the beach.