LA crowd: what's up w/ Laurel Canyon?
 

Is that a "good" area? What's it known for? Good real estate? Packed w/ hippies? What's the lowdown on that part of the city?

One of my favorite parts of my favorite city. It is beautiful, rugged, has the coolest old houses and yards, and some of the most interesting people. I think that "hippies" would be a little outdated of a cliche', but it certainly had/has some famous 60s figures living in it.

The residents lean more towards the music biz than film, (but plenty of both), it is typically young as is LA in general, it would be impossible to catalogue all of the giants of music in that canyon, there are too many. It should have a musical note at the entrance. A short list: Carol King, Joni Mitchell, Rick Rubin, Jim Morrison's former house on LC & Kirkwood, and too many young band's to count.

Not sure what a hippie is anymore, but they definitely could not afford to live in LC. :cool:

Great area! Ex-hippie haven, now home to lots of six and seven figure industry people. The hippies who did stay grew older, collected phallic artwork, paid off their houses thirty years ago, and are now multi-millionaires in property value alone.

Laurel Canyon Blvd is a biatch to drive in rush hour traffic - more so since the rain storms washed portions of the hillside onto the street. When it's fixed, I'll be storming it again at about 80 mph at night, ever so watchful to not hit a wandering deer or coyote.

By the way, wild life is abundant there. Several times a deer almost hit me. ;) both while driving and cycling up and down it.

The houses I know there don't have much yard space, so the kids won't have a big place to play. Also, you want to avoid letting puppies or kittens outside: favorite delicacies of owls and coyotes. Wait until they're larger and can (somewhat) fend for themselves.

I believe Wonderland Avenue is off Laurel Canyon. And if I recall correctly, it has its own interesting history - i.e. Manson Murders as well as the street of demise for the late great John Holmes.:)

DD U forgot to mention that besides hitting deer on the way up or down..that U avoid hitting that aging Hippy that is still so stoned outa his mind that he thinks the Haight is still the scene....

Oh Yeah Wonderland drive the home of the Scum Bag Drug Dealers that HOlmes ratted out to Eddie Nash....and gave them the lead pipe treatment...And then ole Terry Melchers home...Doris Days sonny....who rented to Sharon Tate and Roman....Charlie used to hang around Melcher wnating to get a record deal....that place doesn't exist anymore it's all bin tore down and a Mc Mansion is there now...

Yep Laurel Canyon sure does have a colourfull history...

My Aunt lives on Laurie Dr. in Studio City which is surrounded by the Ventura blvd/Laurel Canyon blvd/Mullolhand dr. arteries of the city. That neighborhood is AWESOME. No yard space though, but the view off the mountain is incredible! The roads are pretty narrow and steep in some areas, but the homes are pretty nice. They are mostly one story homes and the neighborhood is pretty nice overall. There is an incredible house there that an actor lives in who made it look like a ship. I forget his name, but a few years ago, his wife drowned in the swimming pool. He only lives a few houses up from my aunt. I always used to walk the dog around the neighborhood whenever on our yearly visit down there.

edit: never knew about any of the history though.

cool, sounds like it's just the way i like it

thanks for the input

I heard somewhere that it's William Shatner's house.

Are you coming out here to live?

not just yet... more of an exploratory question, as in: *if* I were to move to that area, where would I go?

Oh yeah, }{arlequin, my aunt also works for Polam Federal Credit Union. :D

:D

..that's right. I get $100 (in ones) freshly printed and in sequential order at least twice a year. Best to make friends with her }{arlequin...

You guys are getting your canyons mixed-up; Manson murders, (Sharon Tate, etc.), was on Cielo Dr. in Benedict Canyon, not Laurel. Other Manson murders took place in Los Feliz, (can't remember the victims' names- older married couple), you guys are correct about the Wonderland murders being in Laurel Canyon, though. Wonderland Dr. is accessed from Lookout Mountain Dr., veer left at the grade school. That one was just about as brutal as the Manson murders. http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...s/pukeface.gif

It's pretty quiet up there usually, apart from the occasional mass-murder. ;)

The La Bincas were Mansons other victims...Yep Speeder your right as usual...Bendict Canyon it was....

Funny about Charlie was he had been around both places the murders were committed...there wasn't much randomness about them.from that perspective...ole Charlie is one guy that they shoulda dropped the pellet on...

La Bianca.

But Laurel is a disaster 4 hours of every weekday.

When I first moved to L.A., I bought a house in Nichols Canyon (just east of Laurel) which had all the pluses and none of the minuses. There are many less well publicized parts of L.A. that are much more tolerable than Laurel.

Still, if you like (ex-) hippe shacks next to multimillion dollar houses without yards on tiny streets with no sidewalks, Laurel may be the place for you!

What Tech said, lots of traffic. Where would you be working is the bigger question. Commute in and out of Laurel Canyon is tough. Let us know where you'd be commuting to and we might give you better ideas of where to look. For the price of housing in Laurel, I can think of a lot better places that I'd live. Not much land, mostly old one car garages and no extra space to work on cars.

cool. not sure when that would be happening, i just know i have some options/choices coming up.

I though you meant the porn star.

LOL

John Holmes? Yes.

Funny, I moved out of SoCal 16 years ago and I'm glad to be gone. From what I understand, all of the things I disliked about the area have only gotten worse.

Edit: I think this sounds harsh and it was not intended to be. I enjoyed SoCal, but it's too crowded and smoggy for me. (Smog gave me migraines.) Heck, I moved away from Chicago because it was too crowded, and it's got nothing on SoCal. I'd like to visit again some day, but I don't think I could ever live there again.

:eek:

I agree. About half the people in the state need to move out for it to become liveable again.

Laurel Canyon is OK, but there are many other nice(r) places to live depending on what you're looking for.

We could always use a good earthquake or a riot or two to scare some people out of here and make houses affordable again, but I still find it extremely livable where I am. Parts of SoCal *have* gotten unlivable due to crowdedness/overpopulation, but thank God not in my area yet. I can't think of any desirable place to live on the planet that has gotten better in the last 30 years, though.

It's that ugly thing called "growth" that Republicans love so much, usually at the expense of just about anything else. More shopping malls, more mega-stores, ever rising RE prices, more people to buy schit, more-more-more.....

Sorry, I'm drifting OT here. I've been meaning to start another thread about "growth", I vow to do that today. I feel like the world is tilting towards an age of scarcity, w/ a constantly increasing gap between haves and have nots, reflected in RE prices and overpopulation which anyone can see by the ruination of a lot of beautiful places on earth. It will also be reflected in oil prices, which has already started. California is ground-zero for our consumer culture, for better or worse it is the most Western place in the universe. That's why I love it, but it's also why 1/2 the people on earth want to live here.

As for Laurel Canyon, the descriptions of shacks/small garages/no yards are partially true, but the primo places have great yards w/ lots of usable land. You guys just don't know the canyon. And of course the good spots are more precious than ever, with the new RE religion in the U.S. :rolleyes:

Laurel Canyon......cool movie with Frances McDormand (I think). If it was actually filmed there it looks like a cool place but then I'm an ex-hippie.

That was the worst movie that I've ever seen half of in my life. Vomitous.