LA’s Walkable Streets

Growing up in Los Angeles, I don’t think I ever considered it unusual to drive everyplace I needed to go. It just seemed a natural part of life to get in your car, start the engine, and throw it in gear to go just a couple of blocks. That is the LA way. Movies about LA have occasionally poked fun at this tendency. For example, there’s that giggle-worthy scene in LA Story where Steve Martin drives down his driveway just to get the mail. (This, and the equally funny scene where Martin tells someone as they’re driving that some of the houses (here his voice takes on a note of awe) “are over 50 years old”). And I have to confess that after reading this delightful post at Los Angeles Nerd blog about the best places to walk in LA, that many of the places he mentions, I have NEVER personally walked myself. I’m not a lazy person. I suppose I’m just sad and pathetic. ;-)

The writer mentions such places as Sherman Way between Owensmouth and Canoga (Canoga Park). He calls this “an easy place to walk” where the “store fronts are inviting and the overhang of the shops over the sidewalk make this area a throw-back to the way “Downtown Owensmouth” must have looked”. Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

Other noteworthy walks are Olvera Street in Downtown LA (which I actually have walked), as well as Larchmont Boulevard between Beverly and First Street (Windor Square/Hancock Park) Glendale Boulevard between the Railroad Tracks and the LA River.

The list goes (embarrassingly) on, and I have actually printed this baby out so on my next trip the the city of angels, I can feel less sheepish about how poorly I know my home city.