Sunset Strip

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The Strip is famous for its wall-to-wall advertising

The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile and a half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's east border with Hollywood at Marmont Lane to its west border with Beverly Hills at Phyllis street. The Strip is probably the best known portion of Sunset, embracing a premier collection of boutiques, restaurants, rock clubs, and nightclubs that are on the cutting edge of the entertainment business. It is also known for its trademark array of huge, colorful billboards.

[edit] History

As the Strip lies outside of the Los Angeles city limits and was an unincorporated area under the jurisdiction of the County of Los Angeles, the area was under the less vigilant jurisdiction of the Sheriff's Department rather than the heavy hand of the LAPD. It was illegal to gamble in the city but legal in the county. This fostered the building of a rather wilder center of nightlife than Los Angeles would tolerate and in the 1920s a lot of nightclubs and casinos went in along the Strip, which attracted movie people to this less restricted area, with alcohol served in back rooms during Prohibition.

Glamour and glitz defined the Strip in the 1930s and the 1940s, with its renowned restaurants and clubs, which became a playground for the rich and famous. There were movie legends and power brokers, and everyone who was anyone danced into stardom at such legendary clubs as Ciro's, the Mocambo and the Trocadero. And some of its expensive nightclubs and restaurants were said to be owned by gangsters like Mickey Cohen. Other spots on the strip associated with Hollywood include the Garden of Allah apartments and Schwab's Drugstore.

By the early 1960s, the Strip lost favor with the majority of movie people. But its restaurants, bars and clubs, continued to be an attraction for locals and out-of-town tourists. In the mid-1960s and the 1970s, it became a major gathering-place for the counterculture -- and the scene of the notorious police riot against crowds of hippies in the summer of 1966 which inspired the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth". Go-Go dancers did their thing at such spots as the famous Whisky a Go Go. Bands like The Doors, The Byrds, Love, The Seeds, Frank Zappa, Martha and the Vandellas, Metallica, Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, Poison and many others played at clubs like the Roxy, Pandora's Box and the London Fog. As the Strip became a haven for musical artists in the 1960s and 1970s, the Hyatt West Hollywood, as it is known today, became a hotel of legend. Many musicians lived here and stayed here for the easy access to the live music venues on Sunset Boulevard. This is how the hotel became known by names such as the "Riot Hyatt" and the "Riot House".

The Strip continued to be a major focus for punk rock and New Wave during the late 1970s, and it became the center of the colorful glam metal scene throughout the 1980s. The 1979 Donna Summer song 'Sunset People' from the album Bad Girls, was about the nightlife on Sunset Boulevard. With the increase in rents in the area during the 1980s, however, and the decline of the glam metal scene in the early 1990s, the Sunset Strip ceased to be a major area for up and coming rock bands without industry sponsorship. The adoption of "pay to play" tactics, in which bands were charged a fee to play at clubs like the Roxy, the Whisky and Gazzari's (now the Key Club) also diminished the appeal to rock bands other than as an industry showcase. The music industry dominates clubs on the Strip such as those mentioned above, and only major acts perform at the House of Blues. Thus, during the 1990s, the center of more alternative music activity in Los Angeles shifted further east to areas like Silverlake, Los Feliz and Echo Park. The "Riot Hyatt", still continues to be a favourite with bands today, such as Justin Timberlake, Breaking Point, and Timbaland, for it's continual easy access to live music venues, including The Whisky, Roxy, and House of Blues

In November 1984, voters in West Hollywood passed a proposal on the ballot to incorporate and the area became an independent city. Increasingly, the western end of the Strip is occupied by office buildings, mostly catering to the entertainment industry, and expensive hotels. This area seems to have become an adjunct of Beverly Hills only with more nightlife activity, much of it upscale.

In the evening, the Strip is a vibrant slash of neon, a virtual traffic jam of young cruisers on weekends and a mecca for people-watchers and celebrity wannabes.

However, in the 21st Century the rate of new club openings on the Strip has declined due to traffic congestion while Hollywood Boulevard with less parking restrictions and easy access to the Hollywood Freeway has seen an increase in new openings.

Argyle Hotel on the Sunset Strip

[edit] Celebrities

Many celebrities can still be seen on the Strip, especially on its western end, and quite a few live in the area, particularly the nearby Hollywood Hills and Laurel Canyon.

In October of 1993 actor River Phoenix overdosed on a lethal combination of heroin, alcohol, cocaine, and GHB at Johnny Depp's Viper Room on the corner of Sunset and Larrabee. Depp is no longer an owner of the Viper Room.

Today the Strip contains some of the most exclusive condominium complexes on the West Coast with "name" buildings such as Shorham Towers, Sierra Towers, and on the exclusive cul de sac Alta Loma Road, the popular buildings known as The Empire West and The Park Wellington. These four buildings are ofter referred to in the media as the "Sunset Strip Condos" that are the security guarded homes of the Hollywood elite.

Alta Loma Road is also home to the low-key hotel celebrity haunt "The Sunset Marquis" with its famous 45-person Whisky Bar and a recording studio that has been the home to many hits including songs by U2. Alta Loma Road was one of the main locations for the film Perfect but it was also the home a tragedy. In the 1970s, it was the street on which Sal Mineo lived and died.

Also, it is a little-known fact that the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, was named "the Strip" after the Sunset Strip.

77 Sunset Strip, a successful 1958-1964 TV series, was set on the Strip between La Cienega Boulevard and Alta Loma Road.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a behind-the-scenes television drama of a late-night comedy sketch show performed at a fictional theater on the Strip.