A guide to Echo Park, Los Angeles: What to do, see and eat
For as long as downtown L.A. has been a bustling center for American business and trade, Echo Park has been its nearest escape. A slow walk down the neighborhood’s winding boulevards and up its remarkably steep hillside streets — if you dare — is the best way to take in one of Southern California’s first suburbs. Get to know Los Angeles through the places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to discover now. The stately Victorian homes to which 19th century business leaders would retire after long days at their downtown offices are still intact, perched on the high ground above Sunset Boulevard along Carroll Avenue, with a few holdouts along its parallel streets. So is Keystone Studios, the world’s first enclosed film stage and studio and the birthplace of slapstick comedy, though it has since been repurposed as a public storage facility (not the worst case of historic preservation in Los Angeles). Even some of the first efforts to make Los Angeles a viable Anglo-American settlement …
