On a spring day in 1982, Ivan Simon walked the length of Sunset Boulevard.
This isn’t a Halloween horror story with a sinister ending but rather a story about a UCLA alumnus who did something most of us would consider, well, a horrible idea. I don’t know too many people who would walk south of Wilshire Boulevard, let alone nearly 22 miles in a city where pedestrians are about as common as a rainy day and who are often regarded the same as one ““ with confusion and bewilderment.
Then a third-year at UCLA, Simon was enrolled in an urban planning class and was encouraged by the professor to explore parts of Los Angeles and to observe firsthand the unique mishmash of architecture. Simon had grown up in East Hollywood in a family without a car, so he was used to getting around town, this bastion of car culture, by other means. He said that he “already had some familiarity with the pleasures of ambling around town.”
When he was in high school, Simon worked as a library assistant in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and would walk from his home (around the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont Avenue) to South Central. I guess this part is actually pretty scary; I shudder to think of interacting with Trojans on a regular basis.
On the day of the walk, Simon left from Union Station at sunrise and began his journey by walking through Chinatown, downtown, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Hollywood, West Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Santa Monica, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. It took him the entire day ““ reaching the beach, oh-so-fittingly, at sunset. Along the way, he said that he encountered hundreds of people, and, as you might expect, the social demographics were as vastly different as the styles of the buildings.
“Downtown was fairly quiet, but even then assorted homeless men and women wandered the streets,” Simon said. “Hollywood had not yet been revitalized. Drug addicts, transvestites and the poor seemed to dominate several blocks between Vermont and La Brea. By the time I reached Fairfax, Orthodox Jews were walking to and from synagogue and West L.A. had the stereotypical beautiful people.”
As a native Angeleno who was accustomed to taking public transit, Simon said that he was already familiar with the “diverse personalities,” as he politely put it, and instead focused on the urban landscape of Los Angeles. The architecture of the buildings, bridges and even styles of the streetlights in the different neighborhoods revealed something about the past that a person might not notice if they were to zoom by in a car.
Much of Los Angeles’ history lies in the very recent past, and it’s remarkable how much can change in such a brief amount of time. Simon noticed this on his walk.
“I found myself trying to picture what L.A. looked like in previous decades,” he said. “Parts of Echo Park, Silver Lake and Hollywood, which were by the time of my trek run-down and depressing, were once the most affluent and attractive neighborhoods in the city.”
That was 27 years ago, and now you can’t walk through Silver Lake (a highly walkable neighborhood, I might add) without seeing gourmet coffee and cheese shops, or upscale dog clothing boutiques. So L.A.
Having said that, it is another testament to the oft-changing landscape of this diverse and bizarre city.
“I don’t know if the walk changed my view of L.A.,” Simon said. “It did confirm my sense that L.A. is not really a unified city but more a string of eclectic communities.”
This is a common analysis of Los Angeles. Its massive size and autopian urban planning initially makes it seem impossible to walk anywhere here. There’s always lots of loud traffic on the busy streets, and not every block of the city is lined with picturesque palm trees and chic brunch spots like MTV would have you believe. To someone who doesn’t live in Los Angeles, or to those who don’t care to ever get from one place to another without their cars, walking in this city would not only be an unpleasant experience ““ it would be too crazy to even consider.
Simon, who was actually one of my favorite teachers from high school, is still “Mr. Simon” to me. If you knew Mr. Simon (and I imagine there are a few San Luis Obispo High School alumni at UCLA who do), this story of his L.A. odyssey wouldn’t surprise you.
But just because doing something like this is more expected from someone with certain eccentricities like Mr. Simon doesn’t mean you should be intimidated by trying something you normally wouldn’t do.
You can learn how to do lots of things around the city, and, as a city that can be difficult to get along with at times, these bits of knowledge can go a long way in improving your relationship with it. Walking in Los Angeles is a perfect example. I know plenty of people, UCLA students and others (myself included), who enjoy walking in the city, and it may at first seem “weird” or “dangerous,” but you might want to give it a try. And if a 22-mile walk doesn’t really sound like your thing, you could walk south of Wilshire Boulevard. I hear it’s great over there.
E-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.