Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles

Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles
Neighborhood of Los Angeles
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles Location within Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley
Coordinates: 34°07′02″N 118°22′31″W / 34.117275°N 118.375281°W / 34.117275; -118.375281
Country	United States of America
State	California
County	Los Angeles
City	Los Angeles
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)

Laurel Canyon is a neighborhood located in the Hollywood Hills region of Los Angeles, California.

Location

Laurel Canyon is focused on its central thoroughfare, Laurel Canyon Boulevard. However, unlike other nearby canyon neighborhoods, Laurel Canyon has houses lining one side of the main street most of the way up to Mulholland Drive. There are many side roads that branch off the main canyon, but most are not through streets, reinforcing the self-contained nature of the neighborhood. Some of the main side streets are Mount Olympus, Kirkwood, Wonderland Avenue, Willow Glen, and Lookout Mountain Avenue. The zip code for a portion of the neighborhood is 90046.

Laurel Canyon Boulevard is an important North-South route between West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City. The division between the two can roughly be defined by the intersection of Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive. In early 2005, the first section of the road on the Hollywood side was partially washed away in a heavy rainstorm, and traffic was redirected to a normally quiet residential side street.

History

The Laurel Canyon area was inhabited by the local Tongva tribe of Native Californians before the arrival of the Spanish. A spring-fed stream that flowed year-round provided water. It was that water that attracted Mexican ranchers who established sheep grazing on the hillsides in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After the Mexican government was ejected, the area caught the attention of Anglo settlers interested in water rights. Around the turn of the 20th century, the area was subdivided and marketed as mountain vacation properties.

Between 1912 and 1918, a trackless electric trolley bus ran up the canyon from Sunset Boulevard to the base of Lookout Mountain Road where a road house served visitors. Travel to the newly subdivided lots and cabins further up the canyon was at first made on foot or by mule. As the roads were improved access was possible by automobile.

Around 1920, a local developer built the Lookout Mountain Inn at the summit of Lookout Mountain and Sunset Plaza roads, which burned just a few years after opening.

Among the famous places in Laurel Canyon are the log cabin house once owned by silent film star Tom Mix that later became home to the Zappa clan,^[1] and another (directly across the street) that magician Harry Houdini may have lived in.

Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.'s rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa; Jim Morrison of The Doors; The Byrds; Buffalo Springfield; and Love. Joni Mitchell, living in the home in the Canyon that was immortalized in the song, "Our House", written by her then-lover Graham Nash, would use the area and its denizens as inspiration for her third album, Ladies of the Canyon. Crosby, Stills, and Nash first met each other in her living room.^[2]

John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas took inspiration from their home in Laurel Canyon in the song Twelve Thirty a.k.a. Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon), released in 1967.

In 1968, John Mayall recorded and released Blues from Laurel Canyon based on his experiences on a vacation earlier that year. There are references to Frank Zappa, Canned Heat and famous groupie, Catherine James.

See also

• Wonderland Murders
• The Mansion (recording studio)

References

Further reading

• Michael Walker, Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock ’n’ Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood, Farrar Straus and Giroux (16 May 2006), hardcover, 277 pages, ISBN 0-571-21149-6 trade paperback (May 1, 2007); ISBN 0-86547-966-6.
• Barney Hoskyns, Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons, 1967–1976, Harper Perennial (2006), Paperback, 316 pages, ISBN 0-00-717705-4
• Harvey Kubernik, Scott Calamar, Diltz, Henry, Lou Adler, Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon (Sterling Publishing, 2009), 384 pages, ISBN 978-1-4027-6589-6. Excerpts available at Google Books.

External links

• www.laurelcanyon.org—website for the Laurel Canyon Association, which contains an extensive history edited by Rick Seireeni
• "Music and Mayhem in 'Laurel Canyon'", from NPR.org broadcast September 6, 2006

	Studio City	Studio City	Studio City
	Coldwater Canyon in Hollywood Hills	Laurel Canyon	Runyon Canyon Park & Cahuenga Pass in Hollywood Hills
	West Hollywood	West Hollywood	Hollywood

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Coordinates: 34°7′2.19″N 118°22′31.01″W / 34.1172750°N 118.3752806°W / 34.1172750; -118.3752806