Historic and Artistic Los Angeles Neighborhood: Echo Park

Posted on January 26, 2010 - Filed Under Travel

There are many artistic neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles, from Venice Beach to Silverlake to Echo Park. A friend of mine chose Echo Park and has been trying to convince to move theew for years. Over the years many musicians have called this neighborhood their home from Jackson Browne, to jazz legend Art Pepper and Mariyln Horn, the famous opera singer. Visual artists are a plenty such as Carlos Almaraz who captured incredible landscapes from a tiny window in his apartment. Famed director John Huston, and authors Leo Politi and Carey McWilliams have all found inspiration living in Echo Park.

During the end of the 1800′s, this area was dotted with farms and covered with wildflowers, which eventually gave way to homes of the Colonial Spanish style, and Victorian mansions. By the 1930′s, the land had been built up, and what remains today are the buildings of the past eras in a modern city, which has given the residents of Echo park a strong sense of community, character and identity. The open areas that are left are now parks which are located in the neighborhood and the accompanying neighborhoods of Elysian Park and Angelino Heights.

The center of the beauty lies in the Lady of the Lake and the surrounding pond which explodes with lotus blossoms each spring. The Lotus bed has been blooming for seventy years, and the mystery of the park is in just who planted that first lotus so many years ago. Elysian Park is one of the oldest parks in the city of Los Angeles, having been founded in 1886. This was also the first botanical garden in the entire region of Southern California.

For a variety of architectural styles, Angelino Heights is the place, with the Spanish and the Colonial architecture mixed in with the Streamline Moderne and the Mission Revival. With all this, my friend had finally convinced me to come for a visit. I booked a hotel online at www.bestlosangeleshotel.com and as I sit waiting for the plane to take off from the Phoenix Skyharbor Airport, I have a feeling that when I am next on my way to Echo Park, it may just be for good

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