Westlake, Los Angeles

Westlake
—  Neighborhood of Los Angeles  —
Alvarado Street, looking north from just southwest of the Wilshire Boulevard intersection. The eastern edge of MacArthur Park is at center.
Westlake Location within Los Angeles
Coordinates: 34°03′35″N 118°16′29″W
Country	United States
State	California
County	County of Los Angeles
City	City of Los Angeles
Government
• City Council	Ed Reyes, Eric Garcetti, Tom LaBonge, Herb Wesson
• State Assembly	Mike Davis (D)
• State Senate	Gil Cedillo (D), Curren Price (D)
• U.S. House	Lucille Roybal-Allard (D
Area
• Total	2.7 sq mi (7 km2)
Population (2008)
• Total	117,756
• Density	38,212/sq mi (14,753.7/km2)
	Population changes significantly depending on areas included and recent growth.
ZIP Code	90057
Area code(s)	213

Westlake is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. It should not be confused with Westlake Village, an independent municipality in Los Angeles County near Thousand Oaks and close to the Ventura County line.

Westlake derives its name from the lake in what is now MacArthur Park.

Geography and transportation

Westlake, which includes Pico-Union, is bordered by Downtown Los Angeles on the southeast, Santa Monica Freeway on the south, Koreatown on the west, Virgil Village on the north, and Echo Park on the northeast. One major subdistrict includes Lafayette Square.

Principal thoroughfares include Beverly, Wilshire, Olympic and Rampart Boulevards and Alvarado, Hoover, and Third Streets. The district is served by the Hollywood and Harbor Freeways. Metro Red Line and Purple Line subway trains run through the district on their way to Hollywood and Koreatown, respectively. Both lines include a stop at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.

History

One of the first areas of Los Angeles west of Figueroa Street to see residential development, by the 1920s Westlake resembled the Upper East Side of Manhattan (complete with a large Jewish population). Wealthy businessmen commuted to downtown, Wilshire Center (now Koreatown), Hollywood, and the Miracle Mile from the district's Spanish Revival and Art Deco mansions. Around the 40s the district's northwestern blocks fringed the home of Los Angeles' early working class Filipino population who were shifted from what is today Little Tokyo and Bunker Hill, some of who remain in parts of Westlake and nearby neighborhoods like Echo Park, Silver Lake and East Hollywood.

Westlake suffered greatly from the abandonment of the numerous streetcar lines serving the district and the construction of Los Angeles' network of freeways in the 1950s. By the 1960s, virtually all of its white population had decamped to the West Side or the suburbs, replaced with transients who had been pushed out of Bunker Hill by "urban renewal" in the 1950s, and Mexican-Americans in the 50s and 60s, who themselves moved out for suburbs by the middle 1970s. Most of Westlake's elegant mansions were subdivided into apartments at this time, and many of its Beaux-Arts apartment buildings became residential hotels. Meanwhile, MacArthur Park became notorious for its narcotics dealers, heroin addicts, and prostitutes.

In the 1980s Westlake became the home of Los Angeles' vibrant but severely impoverished Salvadoran and Guatemalan community, exiles from the civil wars in Central America at the time, and which was drawn to the area's cheap housing and proximity to Salvadoran and Guatemalan consulates. The concurrent development of adjacent Bunker Hill as a major commercial district provided many of the newcomers with employment in the garment industry and service industries.

Modern Westlake

Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, with a population density of 38,212 persons/mile². Crime has decreased significantly since the 1980s, though it is still a destination for illegal immigrants, and the occasional sale of phony driver's licenses, work permits, and Social Security cards. Westlake is one of the least diverse areas in the city with 73.4% of the population being Latino. The next largest group being Asian at 16.5% of the population. El Salvador (17.2%) and Mexico (36.8%) are the most common foreign places of birth for residents. Westlake gained greater notoriety in the late 1990s from the Rampart scandal that rocked the Los Angeles Police Department.

The California real estate boom that began in the early 2000s has brought some gentrification to Westlake and continues steadily. Korean immigrants, priced out of increasingly expensive Koreatown, have begun to establish themselves in the district, as have more affluent inhabitants who've been priced out of neighboring Silverlake, Echo Park, and Los Feliz. Several major residential developments, most notably The Medici(an apartment complex notably popular among students at the University of Southern California), have been built in the district, and a large office tower at 1100 Wilshire has undergone conversion into a high-end condominium in late 2006. Korean Air's United States Passenger Operations headquarters are located in the Westlake community. The transit-oriented MacArthur Park Apartment Project is currently under construction The Westlake Theatre is also currently going under rehabilitation. The district's economic revitalization is steadily improving.

Emergency services

The New Rampart Police Station

Fire service

Los Angeles Fire Department Station 11 is in the area. The fire station currently houses 1- EMT Rescue Ambulance (2-Firefighters trained as Emergency Medical Technicians), 1- Paramedic Rescue Ambulance (2-Firefighters trained as Paramedics), and a "Task Force" which is composed of: one five-man Truck Company (hook and ladder), one four-member Engine Company, and one 200 Series Engine (a fire engine staffed solely by an Engineer).

Given the district's significantly high population density, higher crime, and abundance of multi-story apartment buildings, high rises, older Victorian era houses, LAFD Firefighters regard Fire Station 11 as one of the more, if not the most, challenging work assignments. Firefighters that have worked there maintain that you gain a higher confidence level in firefighter knowledge and skill set than many other fire stations throughout the LAFD. It consistently remains one of the top ten busiest fire stations in the LAFD.

Police service

Los Angeles Police Department operates the Rampart Community Police Station, which was located at 2710 West Temple Street, 90026, serving the neighborhood. It has since moved east into a newly constructed facility at 1401 West 6th Street, the site of the former emergency receiving hospital.

Education

Esperanza Elementary School

Westlake is served by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Belmont High School and Miguel Contreras Learning Complex serve Westlake. Esperanza Elementary School and the newly opened John H. Liechty Middle School are located in the neighborhood.

Much of its school-age population must be bussed to schools in the San Fernando Valley and Glendale, owing to delays in the construction of the Belmont Learning Center (west of the Harbor Freeway at 1st and Beaudry) and overcrowding at the area's other schools.

Other education

The Centro Latino for Literacy whose goal is to teach Latino immigrants to read and write is located at 1709 W. 8th Street, Suite A.

Economy

Korean Air has its North America passenger operations headquarters in Westlake.

Attractions

The first Original Tommy's hamburgers on the corner of Beverly & Rampart

In addition to MacArthur Park, Westlake plays host to a number of Los Angeles landmarks. In the 1980s, a former Pacific Electric tunnel near 1st Street, the Belmont Tunnel / Toluca Substation and Yard, became a famous canvas for graffiti artists, drawing visitors from around the world. The tunnel entrance and the yard around it have been demolished and a large apartment/condo complex called Belmont Station Apartments has been built at the site. Just north of this site on the other side of the 2nd Street/Beverly Viaduct it shares the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Founded in 1963 by Bob Baker and Alton Wood, it is the longest-running puppet theatre in the country as well as the oldest children's theatre company in Los Angeles.

Numerous Los Angeles culinary landmarks also lie within the neighborhood. One of the few reminders of the area's Jewish history is Langer's Deli at 7th and Alvarado Streets, a delicatessen whose hot pastrami sandwiches have been declared the finest in the United States by The New Yorker (a publication not especially known for its love of Los Angeles). The first American location of Mexican restaurant chain El Pollo Loco opened on Alvarado in 1980, just north of 6th Street. Finally, the first Original Tommy's hamburger stand still operates at the corner of Beverly and Rampart Boulevards at the cusp of Echo Park.

Westlake School for Girls (later Harvard-Westlake) was founded in the Westlake neighborhood in 1904. The school moved from the Westlake location to Holmby Hills in 1927 but retained its original name taken from the neighborhood.