West Los Angeles

The West Los Angeles Community Plan area recognized by the city of Los Angeles is generally bounded by Centinela Avenue on the west; Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard on the north; National Boulevard, Pico Boulevard, and Exposition Boulevard on the south; and Durango Avenue, Robertson Boulevard, and Canfield Avenue on the east. Among the neighborhoods included within it are Sawtelle, Rancho Park, Beverlywood, Cheviot Hills, Castle Heights, and Century City.[1][2] The Community Plan area itself is part of the larger West Los Angeles Area Plan Commission area (i.e., the Westside region).[3]

The Automobile Club of Southern California does not mark boundaries on its map, but centers the neighborhood of West Los Angeles proper as south of Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Interstate 405, north of Olympic Boulevard and east of Barrington Avenue.[4] The borders of the official West Los Angeles Neighborhood Council correspond closely to this definition. Specifically, its district stretches from the 405 freeway in the east to Centinela Avenue in the west and Wilshire Boulevard in the north and the 10 freeway in the south. This is roughly the same area labeled as "Sawtelle" in the Mapping L.A. website of the Los Angeles Times.

In 2003, a Los Angeles Times correspondent noted:

The meaning of the term West Los Angeles varies widely. Some use it to describe the entire Westside including Santa Monica, Venice and stretching east to Western Avenue. More precisely, though, it is the portion of incorporated Los Angeles between the Santa Monica city limits on the west, Wilshire Boulevard on the north, Century City to the east and extending just beyond National Boulevard on the south. Sections of West L.A. run the gamut from stylish Cheviot Hills to a cluster of generic homes east of Bundy Drive.[5]

That report on the meaning of West Los Angeles also included Rancho Park, located at Pico and Beverly Glen, and the Westdale Trousdale area near National Boulevard and Barrington Avenue.[5]

The 2004 City of Los Angeles & Communities map by the Los Angeles Almanac shows West Los Angeles as a neighborhood south of Santa Monica Boulevard and north of Culver City. West Los Angeles is book-ended with Mid-City, Mid-City West and Mid-Wilshire on the east and Sawtelle on the west. Century City, Rancho Park, and Cheviot Hills are shown (without boundaries) as sub-neighborhoods in West Los Angeles.[6]

Together, the areas east and west of Sepulveda Boulevard/I-405 comprise a large portion of the official West Los Angeles Community Plan area.[1]

The Frommer's Guide described West Los Angeles as "a label that generally applies to everything that isn't one of the other Westside neighborhoods." It lies "south of Santa Monica Boulevard, north of Venice Boulevard, east of Santa Monica and Venice, and west and south of Century City.[7]

In 2009, the Los Angeles Times Mapping L.A. project defined West Los Angeles as south of Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Beverly Glen Boulevard, north of Pico Boulevard and east of Sepulveda Boulevard.[8] Profiling the neighborhood in 2018, the Times described it as follows:

West Los Angeles as defined by the Los Angeles Times

Nowadays, West L.A. is a marooned rump of the once-mighty West Los Angeles of old, which stretched from Century City to the Santa Monica city limits, and which has atomized over the years into a handful of disparate neighborhoods. ... Many people assume West Los Angeles refers to all that lies between the sea and Robertson Boulevard (or wherever their own arbitrary border of central Los Angeles lies). But it is its own place, not just a toponym to be used interchangeably with "the Westside."[9]

In 2022, there were 412 homeless individuals in West Los Angeles.[11]

Los Angeles Police Department operates the West Los Angeles Community Police Station at 1663 Butler Avenue. Los Angeles Fire Department Station 59 at 11505 W. Olympic Boulevard serves the area.[13]

West Los Angeles is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District.[14] Neighborhood elementary schools are Brockton Avenue, Canfield Elementary School, Castle Heights Elementary School, Charnock Road Elementary School, Cheviot Hills Continuation School, Clover Avenue Elementary School, Crescent Heights Boulevard Elementary School, Nora Sterry Elementary School, Overland Elementary School, Shenandoah Street Elementary School and Warner Avenue. Middle schools are Emerson, Palms, and Webster. High schools are Hamilton High School, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, University High School and Indian Springs Continuation, both on the same site.

YULA High School, Yeshivat Ohr Chanoch Boys High School, Vista School, Temple Issiah Preschool and Kindergarten, Saint Sebastian School, St. Mary Magdalen Elementary School, Rabbi Jacob Pressman Academy, Lycee Francais de Los Angeles, Bais Chaya Mushka Chabad, West Los Angeles Baptist School and First Lutheran School of Venice are nearby private schools. Pacific States University in the Harvard Heights area is a graduate and undergraduate college.

The Los Angeles Public Library operates the West Los Angeles Regional Library.[15]