West Hollywood, California

Los Angeles County

06-84410

West Hollywood ( Abbr: WeHo ) is a city in Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California with 34,399 inhabitants.

Geographical location

West Hollywood is located on the northwestern edge of the Los Angeles Basin, near the Santa Monica Mountains. The city is part of the group consisting of more than 12 million inhabitants metropolitan Los Angeles. The geographic coordinates are 34.05 ° North, 118.22 ° West; the size of the urban area is just 4.9 km ². The east-west extent is 4.7 km, the north-south extent of about 2 kilometers. Here, West Hollywood is located about 13 kilometers northwest from the city of Los Angeles; the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica is about 15 km to the southwest. Although West Hollywood is a separate town, but is surrounded on three sides by Los Angeles; only in the west borders West Hollywood to the city of Beverly Hills. Since West Hollywood originally came from areas that did not belong to the year 1900 to Los Angeles, the boundary with the surrounding towns very irregular; this is also reflected in the official logo of the city. The entire city of West Hollywood is built on, and closes gaps in the surrounding communities. There are, as often in North American metropolitan areas, no obvious separation between the city and neighboring places.

History

West Hollywood was originally developed during the last decade of the 19th century in the course of the construction of a railway line from Los Angeles to Santa Monica, which followed the course of today's Santa Monica Boulevard. Between these two cities, in the then sparsely populated, Cahuenga Valley above area, there was the depot of the railway line. ( Named after the nearby Sherman Oaks ) The owner of the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway, Moses H. Sherman and Eli P. Clark, founded in 1896 the town Sherman, where soon afterwards settled railroad workers and their families. Until the 1920s Sherman developed independently of the eastern varieties Hollywood and Los Angeles; as Sherman and the associated time already to Los Angeles Hollywood in 1922 but grew more and more into each other, an amalgamation was discussed. While the city of Los Angeles annexed some of the surrounding, relatively pristine areas, Sherman remained independent. However, there were wishes to rename the town to supplement the call and establish a connection to the affluent neighbors Beverly Hills and Hollywood. It names such as Beverly Park, East Beverly and West Hollywood have been proposed; ultimately it was decided in 1925 for West Hollywood. Thus, while the city was not independent but was still under the Los Angeles County.

The railway line was now part of the Pacific Electric Railway and was in use until 1941 for the transport of people, after which they remained until some freight trains mostly unused. Finally, in 1999 the track on the Santa Monica Boulevard, which was responsible for the foundation of the town, away. Until the 1980s, there have been repeated attempts of annexation by Los Angeles, West Hollywood but resisted this. In November 1984 was accepted by the people in a vote, the proposal for church planting, and the area was the City of West Hollywood.

Since the area for a long time was directly subordinate to the Los Angeles County, there was a much clearer legal situation than in the surrounding city of Los Angeles. So gambling was legal here, which led in the Twenties to the establishment of numerous nightclubs and casinos along the Sunset Strip. Even film people were attracted by the free county area, and so some architecturally interesting houses and apartment hotels arisen. The film stars also followed the fans. Local on Sunset Strip as Ciro's, the Mocambo, the Trocadero, the apartments in the Garden of Allah and the Chateau Marmont were frequented by movie stars and were the subject of the tabloids. In the sixties, the scene lost interest in the field, but the bars and clubs remained attractive for tourists and locals. In the hippy era clubs were like the Whisky A Go-Go and the Troubadour famous across the United States.

In the early seventies, a strong influx of homosexuals and of Russian Jews from the surrounding Los Angeles began. Due to the large gay population and the large number of gay bars and shops West Hollywood was a prominent gay village. West Hollywood was the first city in the United States, in which a majority of the City Council was gay or lesbian; In 1985 she also became the first city that allowed official registration of homosexual partnerships, and these partnerships for municipal employees recognized labor law.

Population

According to the census of 2010 living in the city of 28 979 ( 84.2 % ) White, 1,115 ( 3.2 %) African American, 103 (0.3%) Native American, 1,874 ( 5.4 % ) Asian Americans, 34 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 1,049 ( 3.0 % ) members of other ethnic groups and 1,245 ( 3.6 %) members of two or more ethnicities. 10.5 % of the population are Hispanic or Latino.

The average age is 39 years. 55.24 % of the population are male.

Attractions

• Chateau Marmont
• Comedy Store
• Pacific Design Center
• Tower Records
• Samuel Goldwyn Studios
• Sunset Strip
• Viper Room
• Whisky a Go Go