Anaheim
In the early 1950s, cartoonist Walt Disney conceived a theme park
where his already hugely popular characters Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck
and the rest could come to life, to enchant children and make their
Uncle Walt even richer. ANAHEIM was chosen as the location for
Disneyland on the basis that these acres of orange groves, thirty miles
southeast of downtown LA, would become Southern California's next major
focus of population growth which indeed they did. When Disney opened his
next theme park, in Florida, he made sure he owned all the land, hotels
and commercial properties, not making the same mistake he made here of
only buying a few square miles.
Around downtown
The LA sprawl begins as soon as you leave downtown, whose diverse
environs tend to be forgotten quarters, cut through by freeways and with
large distances separating their few points of interest. It makes little
sense to see them consecutively, as each is ten to thirty minutes by car
or bus from the next
Downtown LA
Downtown LA embraces LA's every social, economic and ethnic division.
It's not the highrise megalopolis you might expect; only a small clutch
of towering office blocks punctuate its skyline. During the postwar boom,
as businesses spread out across the basin, it seemed to be heading for
dilapidation and decay, but recent corporate revitalization and piles of
urban renewal dollars have given it a new life, at least economically.
The whole area can easily be seen in a day on foot, aided by the odd 25¢
ride on a DASH, or LADOT, bus (tel 213/808-2273, ). LA's original
settlement on the Northside is the obvious first stop, before crossing
into the brasher and more modern Westside , and continuing through the
chaos along Broadway .
Hollywood
If a single place-name encapsulates the LA dream of glamour, money
and overnight success, it's Hollywood . Millions of tourists arrive on
pilgrimages; millions more flock here in pursuit of riches and glory.
Hollywood blurs the edges of fact and fiction, simply because so much
seems possible - and yet, for most people, so little actually is. Those
who do strike it rich here get out as soon as they can, just as they
always have; the big film companies, too, long ago relocated well away,
leaving Hollywood a blend of prostitutes and petty crimi-nals with
visiting tourists and slumming hipsters - all under the shadow of grand
old movie palaces and dive hotels.
San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys
The northern limit of LA is defined by two long, wide valleys lying
over the hills from the central basin, starting close to one another a
few miles north of downtown and spanning outwards in opposite directions
- east to the deserts around Palm Springs, west to Ventura on the
central coast. You wouldn't miss an awful lot by not visiting the
valleys at all, but they do give a picture of life in LA's suburbs
Santa Monica, Venice and Malibu
Set along an unbroken twenty-mile stretch of white-sand beaches, the
small, self-contained communities that line Santa Monica Bay feature
some of the best LA has to offer, with none of the smog or searing heat
that can make the rest of the metropolis unbearable. The entire area is
well served by public transportation, near (but not too near) the
airport, and a wide choice of accommodation makes it a good base for
seeing the rest of the city.
South Bay
Heading south from LA along PCH, beyond the runways of LAX and the
oil refineries of El Segundo, begins the eight-mile coastal strip of the
quieter and less pretentious South Bay beach towns: Manhattan Beach,
Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach . Each has a beckoning strip of white
sand - much more open to the public than those around Malibu - and
Manhattan and Hermosa are especially well equipped for surfing and beach
sports. They're also well connected by the regular #439 bus to downtown
LA. To the south are Long Beach and Catalina Island .
West LA
LA's so-called "Westside" begins immediately beyond Hollywood in
West LA , bordered by the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains to the
north and the Santa Monica Freeway to the south. West LA is at the sharp
end of all that's new and happening in the city, though tucked away
behind the showcase streets, the usual long residential blocks are only
marginally less drab than is normal in LA.
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