Aerial Los Angeles, Santa Monica and the Bay

photo credit: ExperiencingLA.com

Aerial Los Angeles: flying out to LAX a few months back, I grabbed a couple photos out the window via my phone.

Lower left is Pacific Palisades. Following the coast south, where it starts to become urban, is Santa Monica. The buildings along Wilshire Blvd can be seen as they snake their way up through Brentwood, Westwood Village, around Century City, through Beverly Hills, Hancock Park, Koreatown, and into downtown Los Angeles.

photo credit: ExperiencingLA.com

From this angle, Hollywood is directly north of Pacific Palisades, about two thirds up the photo. The little white dot in the hills is the Hollywood Sign. Malibu begins at the very lower left. In the distance are the San Gabriel Mountains. As an aside, 40 years ago smog would have made this photograph virtually impossible. Today, of greater concern is traffic congestion.

Malibu, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and downtown Los Angeles. Thanks to the entertainment industry, the influence that this swath of land has on the rest of the planet is incredible.

I like this quote from urban planning expert Dan Rosenfeld from this weekend's Los Angeles Times:

"We live in the greatest concentration of human talent in the history of the world. We spawn popular culture — film, fashion, food, even finance — for the entire planet. Further, we are the urban laboratory for the future world. Solutions to megacity challenges such as water scarcity, recycling, mobility, diversity and income inequality — those solutions will be invented and tested here. L.A. can be messy, crowded and hard to manage, but it's a good place to be relevant."

© 2015 www.experiencingla.com



-

Experiencing L.A. in Century City & Beverly Hills (Part III)

This is Part III on a three part series on a walk my wife and I took through Century City and Beverly Hills earlier last year (click here for links to Part I and Part II). 

Pictured above: the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. One of the areas top hotels. Four stars - with prices to match. Off-season rates start at $550 a night (meaning my family and I won't be staying there anytime soon). It's the location of numerous films, including Pretty Woman and Beverly Hills Cop. 

Crossing Wilshire Blvd. and looking east. Beverly Hills is an independent city, separate from the City of Los Angeles, located midway between Downtown Los Angeles and the beach at Santa Monica. Here's a link to a previous post on walking along Wilshire along this section of Beverly Hills. 

Lobby inside the Beverly Wilshire. 

Checked out the menu at the on-site restaurant. Prices match the room rates. 

"Bagel Bites" = $22. Must be really good bites. 

The backside of the Beverly Wilshire, with a smaller commercial building in the foreground. Another block south, Rodeo Drive becomes residential district. 

This small complex on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Charleville Drive seems so very typical of apartment buildings in Beverly Hills. Growing up in Los Angeles, I had cousins who lived in something very similar. 

As an aside, I remember my cousin saying how she "had to get out of L.A." 

I've heard similar statements, but for my cousin, it wasn't because life in L.A. was too fast - it was too slow. 

Where did she end up moving to? 

Manhattan. 

Rodeo Drive south of Wilshire Blvd is in a quiet, residential neighborhood. This is in between Charleville Drive and Olympic Blvd. 

Attractive, yet in many ways modest, homes - at least by "Beverly Hills" standards. This looks like what you'd find in a suburban neighborhood on the East Coast, or in Midwest. 

If you're looking for the big fat-daddy mansions that Beverly Hills is famous for, they start north of Santa Monica Blvd, with even larger estates north of Sunset Blvd. 

My wife and I jokingly refer to those massive homes as "bigger barns" - a reference to Jesus' words in Luke 12:18. (As an aside, we've wondered if our current 1700 tract house is actually a "bigger barn.")

 I've purposely tried to steer clear of posting pics of those huge things on this blog. I'll leave that to someone else. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I feel like some of them are so over the top that putting up pictures of them would be like posting real estate porn.

Another home on the same street. The beautiful palm trees and ferns certainly say "Southern California." 

Olympic Blvd (named during the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympics) is near the southern edge of Beverly Hills. Along the street are numerous two story apartment buildings. 

Looking west along Olympic Blvd with the towers of Century City a mile away. Kind of looks like a google maps image, non?

Not everything in Beverly Hills is gold platted. The buildings along Olympic look like they were built in the 1920's or 1930's. While most were in good shape, a few were in need of some love (or at least some paint). I have friends who are graduate students at UCLA, living in Beverly Hills in a building similar to this.

Up ahead, Century City to the left, and Beverly Hills High School to the right. 

That funky tower is actually an oil derrick. It's actually drilling under the school. Who knew? How come this never shows up in 90210?

Another view. There is actually a small oil field around the southern edge of Beverly Hills, and the Pico/Robertson neighborhood (within the city of Los Angeles). 

Below is a map of the "Beverly Hills Oil Field," which roughly parallels Olympic and Pico Blvds. Think Jed Clampette (anyone remember him?) would have been proud. Click on the image for a larger view. 

image credit: en.wikipedia.org

Coming up on the Century Plaza Towers. Small by, say, New York or Chicago standards, but looming large over the westside of Los Angeles. 

As stated previously, Century City is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles. Here's a link to a previous post on what is - and what's not - within the Los Angeles city limits. 

Final view of of "The Century" condo tower. As noted in Part I, the top unit going for $35 million dollars. Wow: pretty big (and pretty expensive) barn. 


View Century City-Beverly Hills in a larger map

A final map of the loop of our little walk. 

© 2012 www.experiencingla.com 






-

Experiencing L.A. in Century City & Beverly HIlls (Part II)

This is Part II or a three part series on Century City and Beverly Hills. Click here for last week's post. 

My wife and I were back in Los Angeles earlier last year. After breakfast at Nosh Deli, we continued walking along South Santa Monica Blvd. This is a fairly typical street scene between Bedford and Camden Drive. 

Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church.

Elsewhere in metro Los Angeles, in addition to English you'll find church services in Spanish, Korean, Chinese. Thanks to the large Iranian community in Beverly Hills, you'll find services in English and Persian (Farsi). 

Here's a link to a previous post on "Terhangeles" - the nickname given to the Persian-American community in metro Los Angeles.


In the distance through the sea of traffic is the Beverly Hills City Hall. Beautiful building. Just a few blocks is the famous William Pereira "Googie" style gas station (with a link to a previous blog post).

Ah, Rodeo Drive. For better or for worse, the three blocks of Rodeo Drive between Santa Monica Blvd and Wilshire Blvd is one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles, perhaps the world. By the way, it's pronounced "roh-DAY-oh".

It was still early and most (if not all) the shops were still closed. Zero foot traffic. 

During the day, you'll see rich people shopping - and tourists gawking. 

According to the official website, Rodeo Drive is "the epicenter of luxury fashion" featuring "more than 100 world-reowned boutiques and hotels."

Most everything here was neither my style, taste, or within my price range. 

Llardo features porcelain figures. The kind of thing my grandmother liked. Prices range from $500 (what you see here) to $25,000 for their really high end stuff. 

Looking southwest down Brighton Way. Rodeo Drive runs parrell to about a dozen other streets that make up the Beverly Hills commercial district.

Roberto Cavalli. No, I had never heard of it before. According to a couple of yelp reviewers, dresses start at $2000; a pair of briefs will set you back $180. 

Huh.

Gucci. Yes, heard of this before. I suppose there's nothing wrong with paying extra for something made well (i.e. quality) but "designer" seesm like just adding another zero the price. Maybe that's the point ...

Rodeo Drive's version of a mini-mall. Only here you're not going to find a 7/11 or dounut shop.

At the end of the street, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, featured in numerous films including Pretty Woman. Rooms (off season) start at $550 a night. Nice looking place, but not even close to what I'm used to paying for a hotel room.

The corner of Wilshire Blvd & Rodeo Drive is a small, but very high-end, outdoor shopping center known as "2 Rodeo". 

I like what one Yelp reviewer said: "I can't write about Rodeo Drive without mentioning Bijon, known as one of the most expensive stores in the world. By appointment only (and the appointments cost a lot of money). Inside, suits for men start at $50,000. Several wealthy and powerful men own Bijan suits including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Michael Jordan."

2 Rodeo really looked like a movie set. A very expensive movie set. 

Their version of the "Spanish Steps," with the Beverly Wilshire across the street. 

I took my wife here on a date here twenty years earlier when she first moved to Los Angeles (and I was living in Orange County). Nice spot to grab a picture - and then move along. 

After three blocks of Rodeo Drive, we cross the street and walked through the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire. More on that in Part III next week. 

View Beverly Hills II (Rodeo Drive) in a larger map

© 2012 www.experiencingla.com



-

Experiencing L.A. in Century City & Beverly Hills (Part I)

photo credit: cartoonist2006

Century City is a district within the city of Los Angeles, located immediately adjacent to the Beverly Hills. The above aerial photograph shows Century City on the left, Beverly Hills to the right. 

My wife and I were in Los Angeles earlier last year, and had some time to walk through the areas pictured above. 

We started at the intersection of Olympic Blvd and Avenue of the Stars. Above is the now completed "The Century" condominium tower. The upper units are going for $5-$6 million dollars. 

The top unit was recently purchased by Candy Spelling (widow of TV producer Aaron Spelling) for a mind boggling $35 million dollars. That's not $35 million for the building, that's $35 million for one unit. 

Walking north, the "2000 Avenue of the Stars" office building - often referred to as the "Death Star".

Built on the site of the former ABC Entertainment Center, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, along with the twin triangle Century Plaza Towers," form the "Century Park" development. Sorry, not a fan. 

Office buildings along the northern edge of Century City. Century City was built on the old 20th Century Fox's back lot, beginning in the early 1960's and was designed to be a "city within a city." Here's a link to a previous post with some more historic background and photos.

The building on the left was originally known as Century Park East, located on the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Blvd. My dad worked across the street in the similarly designed Century Park West building, and I spent a couple summers working at his office. As a teenager in the 1970's I loved the vibe and feel of Century City. At the time, everything still felt so new and modern. I loved the office towers, the outdoor shopping center, and huge set backs from the street.

Guess my perspective has changed as an adult. 35 years later, I see this same layout of Century City as a negative. The large setbacks and lack of any sort of retails or commercial space at ground level removes all pedestrian life from the streets.

The result is what can feel like a ghost town, even in the middle of the day. Above, looking up Avenue of the Stars. 

Granted, no cars on either side of the street at rush hour during a weekday makes this a very unique shot. Reminds me of a previous post on Matt Logue's "Empty L.A." project. 

But even at the busiest times, you'll rarely see people on the sidewalks. Most people drive into Century City, for work - or perhaps shopping at the outdoor mall - then leave.

As an aside, f you are looking for a place to park, I would suggest Century City's Westfield Shopping Center, which offers three hours free parking. By way of contrast, I had a lunch appointment in a Century City office tower a few years back. Two hours parking was $32. 

In what can be described as an "experiencing L.A." moment, the cost of parking was more expensive than the cost of our lunch. Fortunately, the guy I was meeting with picked up both lunch AND validated my parking.

While Century City is a district within the city of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills is it's own, separate city. Beverly Hills and it's interesting neighbor, the city of West Hollywood, are completely surrounded on four sides by the city Los Angeles. 

Walking along Santa Monica Blvd, looking northeast towards West Hollywood. 

This is what most people think of when they Shoe boutique (translation: high end shoe store). Not our taste, or price.

Not everything in Beverly Hills is over the top expensive. Across the street was a pizza delivery shop. The building in the background is the Beverly Hilton Hotel. My High School Prom was held here back in the day. Long story, but no - I didn't go.

Medi Beauty - a plastic surgeon - located on the corner South Santa Monica and Charleville Blvds. A "google map" search turned up over two hundred plastic surgeons in Beverly Hills. 

Nosh of Beverly Hills, corner of South Santa Monica and North Roxbury Drive, where my wife and I stopped for breakfast.

Nosh is a yiddish word meaning snack or little meal. Nice place. 

Lox by the pound. Delicious on bagels. I can't imagine buying $35 worth, though. 

Another "experiencing L.A." moment - Nosh's version of the gift shop at the end of the ride. You can buy shirts or hats at the register. 

In contrast to Century City, Beverly Hills has a ten story high limit in it's business district. A couple of small tables were set up outside along the street. This was our view while we ate breakfast.

Contrasting the two areas, I definitely prefer the much more traditional urban layout and design of Beverly Hills to the 1960's era design of Century City. More energy on the street, more - well -  life. 

View Century City - Beverly Hills (Part I) in a larger map

More next week in Part II of a Walk Through Beverly Hills

© 2012 www.experiencingla.com

-

-