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A NEIGHBORHOOD GUIDE TO THE VALLEY THE VALLEY Like the rest of the city of Los Angeles, the nearly 145,000-acre San Fernando Valley has been chronically misunderstood and underappreciated. It’s been compared to the Garden of Eden and called the armpit of California. Belittled and insulted, it looms in the cultural OUR PARTNERS imagination as the epitome of suburban sprawl, famous for its shopping malls, high-rising interrogative speech (aka ValSpeak), and association with the porn industry. Like, right. One trip “over the hill” and the tired stereo- City of types fall apart: the Valley is a unique place, a center of Los Angeles production (agricultural, entertainment, and aerospace industries, to name just a few) with a vibrant history and OUR SUPPORTERS OUR SPONSORS a diverse amalgamation of neighborhoods. Nearly two Annenberg Foundation Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Ralph M. Parsons Foundation City of Los Angeles, Department of million people live here, and were the Valley to be its own Rosenthal Family Foundation Cultural Affairs city, it would be the fifth largest in America by population. David Bohnett Foundation Whole Foods Market, Sherman Oaks East Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti Whole Foods Market, Sherman Oaks West Surrounded by mountains, this huge plain of mostly flat Councilmember Paul Krekorian, CD 2 REI land was named for its geography and for the mission Councilmember Tom LaBonge, CD 4 Tern Bicycles The Laemmle Charitable Foundation established in 1797. OUR MEDIA PARTNERS Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition The Los Angeles Times Indie Printing Ever since Los Angeles first annexed large parts of the Laemmle Theatres Harvard-Westlake School NoHoArtsDistrict.com Valley in 1915, there’s been tension between the two, Radio Centro 93.9FM THANKS TO which writer Kevin Roderick likens to “step-siblings who 88.5FM KCSN CBS Studio Center Century West BMW have grown closer over time, but who should never be Midway Car Rental mistaken for blood family.” He points out that Valley locals MINI of Universal City Toyota North Hollywood never say they live in Los Angeles; instead, they claim residence in one of the Valley’s 34 neighborhoods. The decision to become part of Los Angeles was made largely Written by Andrea Richards because the area needed water (annexation was two Designed by Colleen Corcoran and Tiffanie Tran years after the opening of the LA Aqueduct), and over the years numerous secessionist movements have Printed by Pace Marketing Communications occurred. Still, the center holds and the Valley remains © CICLAVIA 2015 an essential part of the city of Los Angeles—politically, historically, financially, culturally, and creatively. The CicLAvia has commissioned two visionary interplay between the two is an ongoing dialogue that Dutch artists, Rob van Rijswijk and Jeroen shapes our civic discourse—for that reason, in this guide we highlight the geographic passages between the two Strijbos, to develop an interactive musical places. Not only do the passageways play roles in the composition that will enhance and intensify history of the area, these canyons and once-dangerous your experience of CicLAvia—The Valley. passes unite our city, much like the freeways that some- times snake over and through them. It’s fitting that CicLAvia’s first spin into the Valley starts here along two of the area’s oldest thoroughfares: Ventura Blvd. and Lankershim Blvd. Ventura Blvd., the main east-west CICLAVIA — THE VALLEY WALKSCAPE route through the Valley, was likely a footpath for Native Americans before becoming part of El Camino Real and served as U.S. Route 101 prior to the construction of the By using their Walk With Me app on your iPhone or iPad, 101 freeway that runs parallel to it. The first traffic signal in you can create a customized walkscape that fuses natural, the Valley was placed at the intersection of these two great musical, and vocal sounds with live “noise” from your boulevards. From this starting point, one can move either surroundings. Deploying GPS for artistic purposes, Walk west or north into the deeper reaches of “America’s suburb.” With Me reveals a new layer of the city by offering a blend of sounds tailored for each user and allows for engagement The snippet of the southeastern Valley along today’s route with the landscape and its history in an entirely new way. serves as a fine introduction to the area. Originally inhabited by the Tongva Indians who had villages along the banks CicLAvia—The Valley Walkscape is FREE to download of the Los Angeles River, it was commercially developed and is a permanent installation of sound that users in the 20th century, marked by two big real-estate booms can experience at anytime along this route. (the 1920s, post World War II). Subdivisions, restaurants, supermarkets, auto dealerships, bars, even liquor stores were all built with the automobile in mind. (Return at night to see all the amazing neon that remains.) Once a white- flight destination, today’s 818 is more diverse than ever before: one-third of its residents today are foreign-born, and the Valley has the largest percentage of mixed-race CicLAvia—The Valley Walkscape is made possible in part households in Los Angeles. Yesterday’s homogenized by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of suburb is today’s multiethnic hot spot for new urbanism. Cultural Affairs and funds from the Netherlands Cultural Services (New York), in partnership with DutchCulture. NORTH HOLLYWOOD ............6 PASSAGE: LOS ANGELES RIVER .........20 TOLUCA LAKE ........................ 22 PASSAGE: CAHUENGA PASS ...............30 UNIVERSAL CITY ................ 34 PASSAGE: LAUREL CANYON ...............42 STUDIO CITY ............................ 44 PASSAGE: COLDWATER CANYON ......59 NEIGHBORHOOD EXTRAS—LEGEND CicLAvia transforms LA’s streets into a safe, fun, CULINARY LA INSTAGRAM SPOTS car-free space for walking, bicycling, skating, SEEN IT: FILM LOCATIONS LITERARY LA jogging, and seeing the city in a whole new way. SING IT Lankershim Blvd., 1999 Photo courtesy of Los Angeles NORTH HOLLYWOOD Public Library Photo Collection Over the course of its history, North Hollywood has had several names—sometimes, confusingly, at the same time. After Isaac Lankershim, one of California’s leading grain exporters, purchased nearly 60,000 acres of the Valley from Pio Pico in 1899 with his business partners in the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association (his friend Isaac Van Nuys was a key member), the two men decided to transform the ranch land into wheat farms. When Isaac Lankershim died, his son James purchased part of his father’s land and subdivided it into small farms of 10 to 80 acres. A town called Toluca was established there, and James renamed the street that ran through it, known then as San Fernando Road, in honor of his father: Lankershim Boulevard. According to company maps of his land hold- ings, he renamed the town as well, calling it Lankershim. So for a while the town had two names—Lankershim on the Southern Pacific train station and Toluca on the post office, even though they were across the street from each other. By 1906, the Lankershim name stuck, and the moniker Toluca went on to be used elsewhere (see Toluca Lake). At this point, Lankershim was a farming and fruit-orchard community, but the arrival of Pacific Electric’s Red Car in 1911 changed everything. The trip over the hill to Hollywood, “Except for some kind of quilting bee or the selling of which had taken the better part of a day, now could be peaches there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment. made in a mere 45 minutes (and for only 25 cents). By People here had no firsthand experience of what was 1922, 25 streetcars and 17,000 automobiles crossed happening culturally in the nation. El Portal was the first the Cahuenga Pass every day. From the 1920s until well time North Hollywood could participate in the cultural- after World War II, the area that would become North life of America.” Hollywood was the fastest-growing community in the — Tom Link, author of Universal City-North Hollywood: A Centennial Celebration, to Valley as farmland and orchards were transformed into Paul Zollo, Sept. 28, 2011, on patch.com, “El Portal Theatre to Celebrate 85 Years” businesses and homes. 7 The area’s rapid growth—and a severe drought—made NORTH HOLLYWOOD water a concern. In 1923, Lankershim’s residents voted to ARTS DISTRICT HUB 1 join the city of Los Angeles through annexation, mainly CHANDLER to obtain a steady source of water. A few years later, 2 influenced by the development of Studio City, the town North Hollywood changed its name to North Hollywood to gain a bit of 3 Hollywood’s allure and also, residents hoped, a film studio WEDDINGTON L of its own. 4 B AKESLEE Ironically, given its name, North Hollywood is one of 6 the few areas in the Valley that doesn’t house a major 5 7 film studio—though there are plenty of prop shops and production houses around. Instead of film, NoHo, as it’s MAGNOLIA called, is the Valley’s center of performing and visual arts, as well as being somewhat designed with pedestrians L ANKER L VINE TUJUNGA KLUMP in mind—and none of this was an accident. Starting BAKMAN 9 in the late 1970s, the City of Los Angeles Community 8 10 Redevelopment Agency (CRA) initiated a number of AND S OTSEGO revitalization projects, including creating the NoHo Arts HIM District in the 1990s. Today, more than 20 theaters are located here, as well as many art galleries and dance studios. There are more music-recording venues in North 11 Hollywood than anywhere else west of the Mississippi (the famed Palomino Club was also on Lankershim Blvd.).

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