LA Dopers, I have a chance to swap my house near Boston for a house in Studio City for a month. Since I don’t know anything about LA, I thought I’d ask you about it.
The house I’d be getting is on Mound View Avenue in Studio City. Can you tell me about the neighborhood? Is it a safe, low crime area? What’s the parking like? Are the houses there generally nice and well-maintained, or is Studio City one of the slummy neighborhoods? What are the shops and restaurants like? Is there any public transportation?
Well if you consider a neighborhood of houses that start at 1.5 million a pop a slum, then it is a bad slum.
You are in the middle of a VERY wealthy neighborhood. Did I mention VERY wealthy?
Michael J Fox used to live just a block or so off Mount View.
Safe? Yes, probably one of the safer neighborhoods in LA.
Parking? Varies. On some streets it is difficult, others no problem. Most homes in this area have off street parking.
Shop and restrauants? Ventura Blvd is three blocks away. Plenty of shops and restaurants on Ventura.
Public transportation? On Ventura yes, there are buses. You might consider renting a car.
If you decide to come out, let us know, we can arrange a dopefest.
Studio City is in the San Fernando Valley, so you’ll have to go south over the hills to get to Los Angeles proper. Not a big deal. It’s a very nice area - you’ll pretty much be adjacent to Universal, which is a fun theme park on the movie studio lot. Universal Citywalk is right outside the park and is fun and free. Ventura Blvd is all restaurants and interesting shops to poke around in. The homes tend to be very nice, well maintained. When we lived in Sherman Oaks - just west of Studio City - I did feel a sense of community there. People are friendly.
With a month you really have a good chance to see neat stuff without feeling like you have to cram all of SoCal into one weekend - lucky you! You might enjoy Pasadena - the lovely Gamble house is there (gamblehouse.org) if you like arts & crafts architecture, and you can tour it. There’s also a cool big monthly flea market at the Rose Bowl stadium, if that’s your thing. The Museum of Jurassic Technology (mjt.org) is in Culver City. 3rd Street Promenade and the Pier in Santa Monica are fun to wander around, too. You’ll be not far at all from the Getty Center - I think they require reservations ahead of time, but it’s extraordinary, from all I’ve heard.
I’m not quite homesick for L.A. - but it’s definitely a great place to explore!
I used to live in Studio City. (off Barham Blvd, to be exact) I lived in an apartment which I could actually (sort of) afford, but I was right in the neighborhood with some really extravagant multi-million dollar artsy-fartsy homes.
Rick’s post is accurate. Although I wouldn’t want to put myself in a position of relying on public transportation. That goes for Studio City definitley, but also pretty much anywhere in L.A. county. It’s just a car town, plain and simple. Too spread out.
Also, Studio City is home to Universal Studios (as noted by toadbriar, you’ll definitley want to check out the CityWalk). Warner Brothers studios are also very close by. If you’re into movies at all, it’s an interesting place to be with all the entertainment professionals that live and work in the area.
If I had the chance you’re describing I would jump on it. In fact, if you do come out I wouldn’t mind at all driving back up there (I’ve moved but I’m only ~30 minutes away) for a little Dopefest/gathering.
Thanks for the information and the invites to meet, guys! I’d love to hook up for an LA Dopefest if this house swap thing happens.
What it’s about is, there’s a FOAF who lives in Studio City. He works in movie production and has been invited to give a course at a small university in Boston that prepares students for careers in show biz.
The FOAF wants to bring his wife and kids with him and they need a house, but it’s not easy to rent a furnished house for only a month. A mutual friend thought of my husband and me, since we’d mentioned we’d like to take a nice long vacation on the West Coast.
Before I committed, I wanted to find out from neutral third parties - you guys - what Studio City is like. Now, I don’t want to sound like Hyacinth Bucket, but I live in a meticulously-renovated 19th-century farmhouse in a nice, safe town. (If that sounds smug and bougie, I apologize.) I didn’t want to swap it for some shack in a rundown beighborhood where I’d have to take cover to avoid drive-by shootings.
From what you describe, I think this is going to work. Thanks!
The San Fernando Valley is considered by many people to be the “wrong” side of the hill. Mistakenly or not, some think tend to view the whole area as a collection of drab suburbs suffocating under extra helpings of heat and smog.
If there’s any factual basis to that stereotype, Studio City is one of the exceptions. It’s not at all a bad area. Nice houses, as has been noted, but also an interesting main drag (Ventura Blvd), with lots of restaurants, shops, cafes, and so on. It’s sort of like a San Fernando Valley Brentwood, with Ventura playing the role of San Vicente. And it’s within easy reach of most of the things you’d want to see in L.A.
If you tell us what you’re interested in doing or seeing (besides meeting Dopers, of course), we’ll have a better idea of what to suggest for your time here.
Truly a nice area, although in LA, that can sometimes vary from block to block.
As for transportation, you’ll probably be within bicycling distance of the LA Metro, which I’ve heard good things about (but never used in the 4.5 years I’ve been here :o ). That’ll get you to a lot of downtown destinations. Still, LA is a car city, just the nature of the beast.
The Getty is amazing - I like the architecture better than the collections, YMMV - and it’s free apart from the $5 parking.
Universal Studios is worth a visit - the CityWalk is fun, the theme park perhaps a little bit on the hokey side, but the tram ride through the backlot shows off true old-school Hollywood, highly recommended.
Check out the Grand Central Market downtown - cheapest produce you’ll find in LA, plus the most amazing multi-ethnic hustle and bustle, plus little stand-up lunch places serving the sort of Mexican food actually eaten by Mexicans. Cool.
You’ll be living right near Mulholland Drive, and that’s a drive worth taking a few times. One of the things that made working graveyard yard shift at Universal liveable-with was to sometimes go home along Mulholland, watching the sun rise over the greater LA basin. Worth getting up early for - greater LA is one of those cities that seem to look best at a distance and with controlled lighting. (Probably a Hollywood thing…)
The subway that runs from North Hollywood (next door to Studio City) to downtown L.A. can be useful if you’re interested in seeing Hollywood and some of the downtown L.A. stuff. To a Bostonian, what passes for history here, and the even more minuscule portion that hasn’t been destroyed by earthquakes or sheer callousness, will be laughable, it may be that the city is at a crossroads that would be interesting from the perspective of urban development. We may be in the same situation that NYC was a century ago. We have a nascent rapid transit system, and a good stock of architecture from early in the previous century. We’re developed to the gills, so there’s no place to build but up. How well we handle this growing density in the decades to come may translate to how willing we are to become a second New York.
Still, laughable or not, do check out La Golondrina Restaurant on Olvera Street. A couple of their margaritas will make you glad that you took the train in.
Speaking of trains, you can also easily do a day trip to the San Diego Zoo by train.
It’s been almost 10 years since I lived there, but some of my favorite places were Miceli’s restaurant (two locations, one in Hollywood on Cahuenga and one where Ventura becomes Cahuenga in Universal City), Weby’s Deli, Art’s Deli (“every sandwich is a work of Art”), Ventura Blvd in general, The Baked Potato (live Jazz), the Smokehouse in nearby Burbank, House of Pies on Laurel Canyon (great breakfasts!), Gelson’s Supermarket on Laurel Cyn, nearby Griffith Park, many restaurants on Ventura, many shops on Ventura, Laurel Cyn, bagel shops, book shops, did I mention Ventura Blvd?
I’ll tell you about a secret location, if you like to ride bicycles or just walk away from the city. It’s the Hollywood reservoir, a 3.3-mile nearly level circuit around the alpine-like lake, in the heart of the Hollywood Hills, very close to Studio City. No cars allowed for most of the route, very rural-feeling. Afterwards, go to Fuddrucker’s in Burbank for a Big Burger. That’s what we used to do every Sunday.
Jerry’s Deli – a famous, all-night deli/coffee shop on Ventura near Coldwater. As you can tell, I like delis, so if you do, too, don’t forget Canter’s on Fairfax in Hollywood and Pinnochio’s in Burbank.
