Iconic LA: Platform for Freedom

LOS ANGELES is the freeway: crisscrossing structures of concrete and steel, twisting into the transitory bliss of a momentary open road. The winding roads lead in and out of the many segregated parts of the city, connecting each through a rushing river of automobiles. Pavement cracks under the friction of mankind’s spinning wheel.                 

I could find no single part of the city that could encompass my conceptualization of Los Angeles. I racked my mind: Venice, with its murals painted across stone, Downtown’s historic core filled with fainted memories, Beverly Hills and all its glamour, Hollywood, with a star-studded walkway of the more or less famous, and East Los Angeles, a collage of tiny shops and, of course, the beloved taco stands. Undoubtedly, there is yet more for me to discover in the endless, sprawling city. In this way, the many distinct parts of Los Angeles combine to create one identity. To pick one place to represent the entire city would be impossible, for each is all too separate to describe another.

Yet despite the segregation of these areas, the layers of the city connect through the highways that run through them. From the overarching highway, my eyes capture the sight of the city’s sprawl encircled by distant mountaintops. To me, in all ways, Los Angeles is the road that is continually paved and repaved. It crumbles, and is renewed. It can be either a path to a dream fulfilled, or a road with a dead end. The life it sustains rushes and slows, whether it holds its citizens captive, or serves as their liberator.

People migrate to Los Angeles to escape and chase their dreams, seeking the opportunities unavailable anywhere else, simply because, well, it’s the City of the Stars. An open road awaits—most often at night—for the dreamers. Others, though, break against the pristine surface, victims to the daily grind, which is a continual beat upon pavement that shatters a glass-like illusion of perfection. They are stuck in a no man’s land, the road jammed between the forces of other citizens that together all say move forward.  

The highway brings the people of Los Angeles together in one circuit of flowing motion. The road may not always provide the mobility as originally imagined, much like the city’s sparkling, glamorous, but false illusion perpetuated by popular culture. The highway, much like the city itself, can be a platform for freedom, or for disappointment. There is no other place that I can imagine that might represent Los Angeles better than the roads that intertwine among such a diverse city. The city can be a morning sitting in traffic, trapped and frustrated, or it can be a night driving an exhilarating 70 MPH on an empty 405-freeway. Continually a conflict of capture and release, this is Los Angeles.

-- Jennifer Pellarito 

photos:  bossco via flickr creative commons (top), jennifer pellarito (bottom)

Iconic LA: Flower District

THIS is place that is both overwhelming and enchanting; captivating of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles yet also stands still in time because of its non-renovated facade and its old-school charm. It opens at 3:00 in the morning, is closed for the day by mid-afternoon, and is visited by top executives, event planners, teenagers gearing up for their first date, business men remembering their anniversary at the last minute, and homeless people hoping for the daily turnover that they can sell on the streets. It is the embodiment of chaos with a purpose.


You can tell when you enter the flower district in downtown Los Angeles that you are entering into something distinctly urban; distinctly L.A. In the early 1900s, flower farmers came into the city by horse-drawn wagon to sell their flowers to the produce market downtown. There is something about the area that has not lost that agricultural magnetism – maybe it’s the idea that the simplicity of flowers are still salient enough to our senses that business is booming even in an economy like ours.


Upon approach, the Flower District is not an alluring area. Get off at San Pedro, keep left at the fork and merge onto East 16th, turn back onto San Pedro, turn left on East 8th, and take the 2nd right onto Wall St. First of all, how typical L.A. are those directions? It is almost impossible not to get turned around, especially because many of the streets downtown are one-ways with yielded turns. Once you get off the freeway, the store fronts are shabby and unkempt, and the further into the neighborhood you get, the less English signs you will see, and it can likely be guaranteed that you will not recognize a store in sight. But by the time you turn onto 8th street, your nose is filled with the aroma of fresh flowers. Everywhere.


The shops range from small mom and pop vendors to corporate sized warehouses with thousands of employees. There are splashes of graffiti on the outer walls, and workers out front bargaining with hopeful young sweethearts in search of the perfect bouquet. Banners that promise “The cheapest roses in town” and “The widest selection of sunflowers in Southern California,” all the while homeless men and women are wandering the sidewalks begging for change. Employees run after impatient event planners to place crates upon crates of the latest flower craze into the trunks their glossy Jettas. Free spirits who need a pick me up in the middle of their day saunter out of a shop with a single daisy or a decorative orchid.


I entered the flower district for my first time last week. A young blonde girl
with a long list of specifics about flowers to buy for an event – you would think if I was
noticed at all amidst the commotion it would have been in attempt to rip me off, but
instead I was greeted with remarkable help and friendliness from each individual vendor.
If they knew I could get a flower from someone else for a cheaper price, they would send
me in that direction. And if they knew I could not, they bet me with a smile on their face
that I wasn’t going to find a better offer.


No matter how high tech our country - and our beloved city - gets, there are certain attractions that have not lost their appeal and remain transfixed in time even in the depths of economic crisis. Endless traffic may have replaced horse-drawn wagons, and e-cards may have become a semi-acceptable substitute to the endearing anniversary bouquet, but it is satisfying to know that there is still an area of Los Angeles where people, literally, take their time to stop and smell the roses.
-- Jordan Younger

photo credit: Jordan Younger

Iconic L.A: Seeing Double-Double

LAST WEEK  I found myself dining double-double.

Our student government brought In-N-Out to campus to encourage students to vote for Homecoming court, and as our President I was sure to get my hands on some free In-N-Out. However, I also found myself driving back to In-N-out for dinner. As I arrived at the In-N-Out on Sepulveda Boulevard, adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), I sympathized with anyone who might be unfamiliar with its parking. If you pull in to any of the two entrances you’ll soon learn that it’s your only option. This particular In-N-Out forces you to either get your food through their drive-thru or dine in depending on which entrance you enter. It screams, “Duh” to anyone who angrily is unaware of the parking lot’s diva division.

In addition to parking confusion this In-N-Out attracts an eclectic audience. It attracts the perennial travelers who fly into LA with In-N-Out in mind. These travelers will rent cars, and even walk through frigid fifty degree weather, to taste In-N-Out’s fresh version of fast-food. There are also the travelers from out of state that come into In-N-Out ready to test its tastes against their hometown burger joints. With the wait at In-N-Out it is always a pleasure to listen while you wait to eat. I commonly listen to the patrons around me as they discuss where they came from and where they are going. In addition, I listen to the LMU drama that unfolds within the booths as if they are somehow private spaces. I myself am guilty of this. I have ended casual relationships, consulted friends during hardship, and much more at this very In-N-Out. While the food is great, In-N-Out provides many with a casual place to celebrate and confide in others, because odds are that those around you are just one flight away from taking any secrets you have with them.

Speaking of secrets, we are all familiar with the traditional Double-Double, fries, and a milkshake combination defining In-N-Out’s success. It offers us the option of eating fast-food without fasting afterward. It’s “protein style” option allows us to substitute the bun for a large amount of lettuce to wrap your burger within. While this should really be called a “low carb style,” we never seem to question its healthiness. However, beneath their traditional menu lies a Secret Menu. A menu that allows you to order 4x4s, animal styles fries, a “Flying Dutchman”, well-done fries, cheese fries, and more. These secret items reveal that even In-N-Out is not as healthy as it has made itself out to be. However, In-N-Out now acknowledges their secret menu to a certain extend without physically advertising it. Whether it be L.A.’s obsession with simplicity or secrecy, it is evident that even In-N-Out has something to hide.

Last semester during finals week my roommate and I dashed to In-N-Out just before 1AM hoping to grab a midnight feast. Unfortunately, as we arrived at the door the clock struck 1AM and the location’s perennial security guard locked us out. Many times before this I made it right on time to be greeted by their overtly friendly and over-worked employees, but not tonight. As I stood outside I realized just how lonely the airport was without a Double-Double, fries, and a milkshake.

-- Art Flores

(photo credit: Dave77459 via flickr creative commons)

Native vs. Migrant: The Darker Magic

FROM MY hometown of Bend, Oregon, Los Angeles seemed worlds away. It was the busy and glamorous place my aunt lived, and where I sometimes got to visit over the summer. It was a giant airport, with a sterile, echoing, flickering hallway to baggage claim. Los Angeles was more cars on the freeway than people in my town.


It was a magical place where it was always warm, perfect weather, even though there were armies of girls wearing Uggs. I felt like the perfect LA weather would never get old. And the traffic? I didn’t understand how that could be an issue. I always liked being in the car, and I was frequently in the car for around two hours to get to my grandma’s house 120 miles away.


There is a magic about this town, but its a darker magic than I thought before. Excess is mixed with the bare minimum. I have found LA to be like those sparkly Uggs - you know, the ones with the sequins? Once you put on a pair, you understand why everyone talks about them and you never want to take them off. Yet there is something not quite right - the ugliness of the shoe is drenched in glitz and it makes you forget sometimes why you didn’t like them in the first place. And they are shamelessly over-the-top.


I have learned since moving here that, while the weather is usually nice, on occasion (more frequently than I thought) it rains! Or falls below 65 degrees. But not often - or consistent - enough. The bad days are peppered throughout the year. One day it is relatively cold, the next nearly 80 degrees. How is one supposed to dress? I always get it wrong. And the usually warm weather does get old.

Despite my thinking people exaggerate traffic here, I never thought that I would drive here. It was too scary. I did believe people were impatient and rude - that proved to be true. But I didn’t expect there to be also so many nice people.


I loved this city before because it was glamorous and new, but now my feelings have changed. I love it and I hate it. I love the nooks and crannies; all the intrigue and possibilities it has to offer. But I dislike a lot of things as well - like the stupid weather that makes me long for the snowy days of Oregon. I can only visit my once-home now, I couldn’t live there anymore. This city sucks you in.

The only thing I know for certain is that I am now the proud owner of my very own pair of Uggs, to keep my feet warm when the temperature plummets to 60 degrees.


And yes, they are sparkly.



-- Allie Flinn

Photo: LAX Terminal 
Credit: mezzoblue via flickr creative commons

Andy Grammer: the Los Angeles musician

IT USED to be that when I saw musicians singing on sidewalks lining busy L.A. streets, I wouldn’t give them much thought. I’d make a sad attempt at polite with a “No, thank you” to the demo CD they offer me, or I’d walk by their penny-filled guitar case without even considering reaching into my wallet for a monetary acknowledgement of their (and their music’s) existence. Now I give these busking musicians a second thought, and for every occasional dollar bill I drop in a fedora or violin case, these musicians have Andy Grammer to thank for it.

Los Angeles – home to movie studios and record labels – is a city full of musicians, actors and filmmakers trying to “make it.” Many don’t find success. Some do. It’s hard to know just which of those lining the streets will make the transition to venues like the House of Blues and big stadiums. It’s hard to know what I would have thought of Andy Grammer’s music had I first heard it on a Santa Monica street instead of at a small show on LMU’s campus. But I do know that he is part of a lucky minority of singer/songwriters who have “made it,” and he’s a musician who strikes me as having a very L.A. story.

Grammer – born in L.A., raised in New York before moving back to L.A. at age 20 – got into the business with a combination of the quintessential ways to “make it”: have a family member in music, and play your heart out busking on the streets and performing small shows. His father is a singer-songwriter of children’s songs. But Grammer also performed for years on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, selling demo CDs to pay the rent before moving on to performing small shows at colleges around California then around the country.

Now he is headlining his own tour, and those college crowds have turned into a devoted following. And the other artists and performers who lined the Santa Monica street in his busking days? Grammer stays close to them and even invites them out on stage during his shows.

Most of his songs are ones you’d expect to come from spending so much time performing in sunny Santa Monica and to energetic, free-spirited college students: His music is uplifting and optimistic, calling for his listeners to “keep your head up” in his single of the same name.

When I interviewed him for The Hollywood Reporter last summer, I asked him if he sets out to be uplifting with his music. He responded, “My ultimate goal is to try to be real. It just so happens that I’m usually more happy than sad when I’m writing.”

His songs always do seem to succeed in tapping into those real experiences you have but may never admit to – in “Numbers” he puts into lyrics that thing we all have done at some point in our lives: assign numbers rating the hotness level of people we see out and about. He admits to feeling like “a 5 on a good day” and that “just one time I wish I could have a 9” while sending an anti-superficiality message, singing, “The value of personality seems to be dead. / We’re all walking around numbered with halos on our heads.”

But not everything that is real and authentic is all sunshine and rainbows in Grammer’s music. Perhaps no song of his has resonated more with me – truly struck at real emotion, the heart of what I’m feeling and what frame of mind I’m often in these days as a college senior going through ups and downs and freaking out about whether I’m going to have a job come graduation time – no song any more than “The Heavy and the Slow.” He sings, “If there’s anything to learn on Earth, / I’m certain it’s the heavy and the slow” and “Bruise me life. / Confuse me life. / Bring on the rain.” It’s a song about embracing the hardships and the sorrows that actually brought tears to my eyes when I saw him sing it at one of his shows, closing his eyes, swaying with the strumming of his guitar, getting more into the music than I ever had seen him be.

That performance of “The Heavy and the Slow” also was a tear-jerker for me because of how he introduced it, giving a shout-out to his mom, who died a few years back, leaving that Earth Andy sings about before he got his success and found his way in the music industry.

Just as Andy’s life is a mix of the joyful – like getting a record deal and starting his first headlining tour – and the “heavy and the slow” – like losing his mom too soon – L.A. is a blend of the two. It’s not all sunny Arcadia as it’s represented to be, just as New York most certainly isn’t all black clothing and gloomy weather as it’s often depicted. L.A. has the sunny weather and the smog, and even some rain. It’s a city where so much is fake and contrived – reality shows, anyone? – but right next to the phony there’s plenty that’s authentic and real, and that’s where artists like Andy Grammer come in.

Photo: Andy Grammer performing at the Anaheim House of Blues on Jan. 14, 2012. Credit: Emily Rome, courtesy of my oh-so-high-tech camera phone  

An L.A. Iconic Beach Town and the Sunsets

LOS ANGELES is an iconic city from the Hollywood sign to the pillar of lights at the Los Angeles International Airport. Wilshire boulevard and the Sunset Strip also make Los Angeles an iconic city. However these treasures do not tell me that I am in Los Angeles.

Hermosa Beach is my Los Angeles. It is fifteen minutes south of LAX and is only one mile wide and one mile long. The town has never received the same attention as the towns and beaches of Santa Monica, Venice or Malibu and remains a hidden gem. However as Hermosa Beach evolved over the years it has attracted more and more tourists, typically from surrounding Los Angeles areas.

I grew up in Hermosa and may be a little prejudiced, but the area where Pier Avenue meets the Strand is the center of an iconic beach town. The pier and the strand separate the town from the beach. Walkers, runners, bikers, surfers, skaters, and dogs, can be seen on either the pier, the strand, or the beach, and they are all as friendly as the California Tourist Board says they are. Hermosa embodies the ideal beach lifestyle. The atmosphere of Hermosa Beach is more relaxed and humbled compared to the glitz and glam our associated with the city of Los Angeles. The locals all know each other, including the homeless living under the pier, and people are dressed in Vans, bathing suits, and shirts made by locals.

Like Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach has evolved and morphed over the years. When I was growing up the people of Hermosa Beach took a lot of pride in being local. However, as more outsiders began visiting Hermosa and as my generation of locals grew up, the local pride began to decline, although it can still be seen. Although Hermosa Beach has always been a beach town that loves to party, it has evolved from a more relaxed beach town to a town dedicated to catering to entertainment needs. Local restaurants have closed down as more nightclubs cropped up. Pier Avenue was built for fun and entertainment. There is something going on in Hermosa almost every night, whether it’s going to a bar or a nightclub on the pier or catching a local band or a comedy show at the Comedy and Magic Club on Hermosa Avenue, adjacent to the pier.

For me Hermosa Beach is an escape from the stresses that are interlocked with Los Angeles. It is a much slower lifestyle with the tranquility of the crashing of the waves and the sea air. However, if I were to say that Hermosa is an escape from the notorious L.A. traffic, my neighbor would point out that the limited parking and the city’s propensity for issuing parking tickets any chance they get is a very good substitute. Parking in Hermosa can drive you as crazy as any 405 commute.

L.A. sunsets are iconic and they are breathtaking to watch from the beach with the sound and smell of the ocean. I love walking west on Pier Avenue and onto the beach when the sun is low in the sky and getting ready to fall behind the ocean. The low L.A. sun shines a beautiful orange light on everything and time and problems seem to fade away.


At this time I begin to appreciate the Los Angeles smog as it contributes to make the colors change in the sky. The sunset’s soft pinks are streaked across the clouds, vibrant reds and oranges paint the clear blue sky, and then finally the sky is dark with a handful of stars and airplanes that are mistaken for stars coming in and out of LAX. The sunsets in Los Angeles, especially when by the beach, makes me more appreciative of the natural beauty that can be found, but often goes unnoticed in the large city of Los Angeles. Nothing smooths my day more like my hometown Hermosa Beach and the beautiful sunsets I see everyday there.

-Nastassja Habers

Photo: Hermosa Beach 

Credit: Nastassja Habers

"Iconic L.A.": 5700 Wilshire

 "You will always be my friend no matter what. And if you go to Cali dreams of going to college in L.A. and writing for a magazine, I will come visit you and be a nanny there and we can live together."

 THOSE words have stayed with me ever since they were written in bubbly letters on a neon pink going away card from my friend Michelle before I left for school at LMU in 2008, terrified yet thrilled. Maybe that’s why, when I walked up to the corner of Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California, I stopped in the middle of the twin office buildings and did a complete turn all the way around, taking in every sight. After painstaking college essays, SAT re-takes, ACT study sessions, and the gut-wrenching anxiety that I would not get into LMU, or any college for that matter, (fueled in part by my mother, who told me condescendingly yet with caring undertones to “not get my hopes up”) I was here, in downtown Los Angeles. When I stood there in the courtyard, shaking and sweating before my interview at Us Weekly, an interview which I thought at the time would make or break my future, would change my life completely, for better or for worse, would propel me into my editorial dreams or send me plummeting regretfully down a new path, I thought, “This is the L.A. I envisioned. This is what I wanted to be apart of."

I should explain that when I first landed at LAX and headed down Lincoln Boulevard, I felt a wave of disappointment and fear because this loud, traffic-infested street was the complete antithesis of the glamorous Los Angeles I envisioned. Where were the palm trees lining the sides of the road, and where were the teenagers driving around in their jeeps listening to music with the top down? Where was this gorgeous school with a bluff overlooking Los Angeles and white letters proudly boasting “LMU” on the side? Luckily, when I arrived at LMU, this fear diminished because I realized that our school is in its own separate world, in the quiet neighborhood of Westchester, separated from the busy streets and loud noises of Los Angeles. However, every time I left LMU to frequent other areas of Los Angeles, I always felt a twinge of disappointment, that this was not the “real” Los Angeles that I had seen in movies, television shows, and magazines. I always felt as though there was something missing or something that I was not seeing.

5700 Wilshire Boulevard feels like that kind of "real" Los Angeles to me. If you were to view it from above, you would see huge office buildings enclosing a little cluster of restaurants that almost seem as though they shouldn’t be there, as if maybe they were there before the big corporate buildings were and refuse to move. Office buildings surround these eateries, including the one that contains Wenner Media, where I work for Us Weekly. To the right and high above all else is a building called Museum Square, which proudly boasts “Screen Actors Guild Awards” towards it’s sky-high top. There is a fountain to the left of Museum Square that would put the LMU fountain, as it almost doubles it in size and in the magnitude of water it constantly produces. These buildings stand overlooking a cluster of restaurants, including Marie Callender’s, The Counter Burger, Baja Fresh, Mix’t Greens, and of course, Starbucks. Almost every day of the week, I could have a different choice of food, from home-cooked, to hamburgers, to Mexican, to vegetarian. However, in between all of these varying places, the Starbucks remains, a daily reminder of the need for Angelenos to get their coffee fix. Starbucks is the consistent factor within this little hub of eateries. Busy corporate CEOS, producers, writers, and interns hoping to climb the ladder, like myself, start their day the same, with an often thirty minute wait for Starbucks, but choose which cuisine to lunch on when the time comes for them to break away from their offices.

The people on this corner are always busy. There are no leisurely lunch breaks, no cigarette bonding sessions outside, and no walking slowly across the street. I find myself hurriedly walking alongside the businessmen and women attached to their cell phones with their big bags and laptop cases because I feel as though walking slow means I am not worthy to be in such a busy world. These people are walking fast because they do not have a second in their day to stop or slow down. The fact that I might be taking my time crossing the street, sipping my coffee slowly, or sloshing my “mix’t greens” around in a vat of fat free dressing with a lazy smile seems almost inappropriate. Don’t I have anywhere else to be? The corner of 5700 Wilshire holds special meaning for me personally because of the memories I associate with it, as well as that epiphanic first experience, but I think that anyone else could appreciate it for the variety of venues it possesses, from small restaurants to huge office buildings, and hurried, posh, “I have somewhere else to be right this second” lifestyle that feels intrinsically L.A.




-- Caroline Queen 

photo: 5700 Wilshire

credit: Caroline Queen