Curbed Cup 1st round: (4) East Hollywood vs. (13) Westlake

The Curbed Cup, our annual award for the neighborhood of the year, is kicking off with 16 neighborhoods vying for the 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!

East Hollywood

This neighborhood, literally on the eastern edge of Hollywood, is slowly morphing into a food-lovers destination. Residents lucky enough to live here have long had easy access to khao soi, kanom krok, and pad-see-ew served up at the restaurants in Thai Town. Now restaurant additions are giving the neighborhood even more food credibility, including Kismet and Friends and Family, not to mention the addition of such neighborhood joints as Tabula Rasa. (Shoutout to The Knowhere Bar, which finally got a liquor license!)

Indeed, as one nominator pointed out: “That stretch of restaurants, coffee shops, wine bars, etc., that has recently proliferated along Hollywood Blvd. just west of Western is great to see.”

Hundreds of new units of housing are being built right now, mostly along Hollywood Boulevard, in close proximity to the Hollywood and Western stop on the subway’s Red Line.

The neighborhood’s other big advantage: green space! The northern portion of the community can easily saunter into Griffith Park and Barnsdall Park. There’s still no Target though ....

Westlake

Westlake is the second most densely populated area in LA, a largely immigrant neighborhood, a melting pot where “families from entire apartment complexes gather for services under pop-up tents at Christmas, and mariachi music emanates from central courtyards in the summer nights.”

Long resistant to the forces of gentrification that overtook Downtown Los Angeles, Westlake is on the cusp of big change, for better or worse. We recently mapped nearly two dozen high-profile projects headed to the neighborhood, including the sale of the Westlake Theater, plans for a 41-story apartment tower, a makeover for MacArthur Park, and renovations for an old theater that will reopen as a comedy venue.

Plus, as one of our readers notes, Westlake boasts “more great old architecture than you can ogle without a crimp in your neck.”