| West Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California |
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West Los Angeles is a district in western Los Angeles, California . " West Los Angeles " is also often used as shorthand for a large western portion of the city, generally all of the city's neighborhoods west of La Cienega Boulevard or La Brea Avenue (except Crenshaw , which is considered part of South Los Angeles). The neighborhood is also often confused with Sawtelle , the unincorporated area to the north. GEOGRAPHY AND TRANSPORTATION The district is bordered by Santa Monica on the southwest, Brentwood on the northwest, Sawtelle on the north, Westwood on the northeast, Rancho Park on the east and southeast, and Mar Vista on the south and southeast. Its major thoroughfares are Olympic , Santa Monica , Pico , Wilshire , and Sawtelle Boulevards, Barrington and Centinela Avenues, and Bundy Drive. Its generally accepted boundaries are the San Diego Freeway on the east, the Santa Monica Freeway on the south, the city limits of Santa Monica on the west, and Wilshire Boulevard on the north, though there is quite a bit of overlap past those boundaries which is still considered to be part of West Los Angeles (for example, Westwood Village is east of the San Diego Freeway and north of Wilshire). West Los Angeles could potentially be seen as going as far east as the city line of Beverly Hills, and as far north as Sunset Boulevard . This district contains an area of Japanese-American culture along Sawtelle Boulevard which sometimes called Sawtelle HISTORY After the area's conquest by the Spanish, most of what is now West Los Angeles became part of the ''Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica.'' With the arrival of Anglo settlers after the Mexican-American War , the original '' Californio '' grandees sold or were forced from their holdings, and by the turn of the 20th century the area was mostly bean and wheat fields. Since the region was in an unincorporated area (somewhat analogous to East Los Angeles ), many Japanese --barred from purchasing land within the boundaries of the City of Los Angeles--settled in the district, establishing many orchards and nurseries in the process. (Some of these nurseries are still in business today, along the stretch of Sawtelle Boulevard between Olympic and Santa Monica Boulevards.) In the 1920s, the area was annexed by the City of Los Angeles, but in keeping with custom, most street addresses within the district are listed by the United States Postal Service as being in the "city" of West Los Angeles. THE NEIGHBORHOOD TODAY As with most parts of the West Side, West Los Angeles is an affluent neighborhood. Its central location has made it a locus of commercial development, with several high-rise office buildings along Olympic, Santa Monica, and Wilshire Boulevards. It also contains a large number of Japanese-owned businesses (most notably the two Giant Robot stores on Sawtelle Boulevard). The Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a large Reform Jewish , actually stands on Olympic, some blocks south of Wilshire; the discrepancy is due to the fact that it is a satellite temple of the old, original Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown. Housing in West Los Angeles is a mixture of low-rise apartment buildings, mostly inhabited by young professionals, and single-story tract house developments built between 1930 and 1960. One of Los Angeles' tallest residential towers is at the neighborhood's northern edge, at the intersection of Wilshire and Barrington. Schools in the area, such as Wildwood School, are well-respected and of generally high quality. University High School , a Secondary School named for nearby UCLA , is in the district. "Uni" is one of very few older high schools in Los Angeles that have not had to be completely rebuilt following earthquakes over the years, and still has a traditional look to it featuring weathered brick walls and arched entries. As a result, it is a popular with film producers as a shooting location, when school is not in session. The campus also contains within its bounds an artesian well (claimed by the Tongva people as their ancestral home) which has never failed, even in the driest years. Junipero Serra's party is said to have camped there in the course of their journey up and down the state. EXTERNAL LINKS
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