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Between Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Hills, West
Hollywood was for many years notorious for after-hours vice clubs and
general debauchery. Since its 1984 incorporation as a city, however,
it’s become much more upmarket, home to Los Angeles’ prominent – and
affluent – gay community. Melrose Avenue, LA’s trendiest
shopping street, runs parallel to the main drag, Santa Monica Boulevard,
looking at times like something out of a low-budget 1950s sci-fi feature.
Neon and Art Deco abound among a fluorescent rash of designer and
secondhand boutiques, exotic antique shops, and avant-garde galleries.
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West Hollywood, on either side of La Cienega Boulevard, is the
two-mile-odd conglomeration of restaurants, plush hotels and nightclubs on
Sunset Boulevard known as the Sunset Strip, which remains one of
LA’s best areas for nightlife. These establishments first appeared in
the early Twenties, along what was then a dusty dirt road linking the
Hollywood movie studios with the West LA “homes of the stars.” With
the rise of TV the Strip declined, only reviving in the Sixties when a
scene developed around the landmark Whisky-a-Go-Go club, which
featured seminal psychedelic rock bands such as The Doors, Love and
Buffalo Springfield.
Greta Garbo was only one of many stars to
appreciate the quirky Norman castle that is the Chateau Marmont Hotel,
towering over the east end of the Sunset Strip at no. 8221. Howard Hughes
used to rent the entire penthouse so he could keep an eye on the bathing
beauties around the pool below, and comedian John Belushi died of a heroin
overdose here, in the hotel bungalow he used as his LA home. |