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 






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Experiencing L.A. in Koreatown (Part I)

Los Angeles is home to the world's largest Korean population outside of Korea.

There are over 325,000 Korean-Americans in metro Los Angeles. And the center of the Korean-American community is Koreatown, a three mile square neighborhood located in the mid-Wilshire district.

In November 2010 I was back in Los Angeles for a couple of days and had some time to walk through and explore Koreatown. I parked at the Koreatown Galleria, which is located at the epi-center of Koreatown . . .

. . . the intersection of Western Ave & Olympic Blvd.

The Koreatown Gallery is a large, three story mall catering to the Korean and Korean-American community. It was pretty quiet when I was there (about 3pm on a weekday).

They've got an awesome food court upstairs on the third floor. I've eaten there numerous times and highly recommend it.

There are pictures of almost everything, which helps if you're like me and not familiar with Korean food.

$3.99 lunch special - excellent deal! Great service, great prices, and great food. There's also an outdoor patio with a nice view to the south.

Korean book store and a cafe.

A kiosk in the center of the mall selling study skill materials - all in English, of course. Aside from Rosetta Stone, I've never seen seen a display for study materials in any other mall I've been to. Different values and priorities. I think this is something the larger dominate American culture can learn from.

Downstairs on the first floor is a large, full-service super market. Fortunately for me, everything was bi-lingual.

Huge selection of Kim Chi - spicey pickled cabbage! You haven't lived until you've tried it.

Back out on the street, on the corner of Western and San Marino, signs for dozens of Korean-American owned businesses.

Another block up Western was the "Koreantown Plaza".

I just stuck my head inside to get a picture. It looked larger and perhaps even more high-end than the Koreatown Galleria.

Back out on the street were even more businesses. This is on Western just south of 8th Street. I honestly didn't see a single vacant store front anywhere in the area. Koreatown has given new life and vibrancy to this area of Los Angeles.

View Koreatown Los Angeles (1) in a larger map

More on Koreatown - including a walk along Wilshire Blvd - in Part II, next week.

.© 2012 www.experiencingla.com

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Alternate Universe

There are times when living in Los Angeles seems like an alternate universe from the rest of the country.

Take, for example, Bed Bath and Beyond on Olympic Blvd in West L.A.


Olympic Blvd changed their zoning about 25 years ago - allowing for mid-rise commercial and office buildings. It's definitely changed the nature and feel of this part of the westside.


OK, I've never seen a multi-story Bed Bath and Beyond. No parking lot here: there's a multi-story garage.

Of course, much of Los Angeles still has a very suburban, or low density urban, feel, especially in comparison to cities like New York, Chicago or San Francisco.

There are open parking lots everywhere - even downtown. But living here, I never expect "free parking" - I always expect to pay. Free parking is a bonus.

And that, especially compared to the rest of the country, seems like an alternate universe.

© 2010 www.experiencingla.com

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This Is West L.A.

Corner of Bundy & Olympic in West Los Angeles (taken from my car while waiting for a light). The power lines remind me a lot of Lincoln Blvd in Venice.


Banner reads: "This Is West LA"

iro·ny: ˈī-rə-nē (noun)
"the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning; an usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form."