VISITING THE ECHO PARK AREA OF LOS ANGELES - The Hippest And Trendiest Area Of L.A.

This video is a look into the area of Echo Park located close to Downtown Los Angeles.

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Echo Park Area of Los Angeles:

Echo Park is a neighborhood in the east-central region of Los Angeles, California. Located to the northwest of Downtown, it is bordered by Silver Lake to the west and Chinatown to the east. The culturally diverse neighborhood has become known for its trendy local businesses, as well as its popularity with artists, musicians and creative. Echo Park has many rolling hills and valleys with a few flat areas like Echo Park Lake. Its main commercial corridors are Sunset and Glendale boulevards. Historically this area was infamous as being a hot spot for gang activity. This was true in the 1980s and 1990s, but in the early 2010s as the neighborhood began gentrifying, rents started to skyrocket, and a controversial gang injunction forced gang members to move outside this area. Nowadays Echo Park is considered as a trendy area, known as one of "the city's hippest neighborhoods", with its many bars, night clubs, and restaurants.

Echo Park:
Echo Park and its Lake was earliest used by the city was as a reservoir in 1868. The company obtained the water by digging a ditch that sent water flowing from the Los Angeles River in the area now known as Los Feliz along a zigzag path that emptied into the reservoir. By 2006 Echo Park Lake was identified as an impaired body of water, and the city allocated $64.7 million to fund its cleanup and revitalization. The lake was closed off and drained in the summer of 2011 when renovation work began. The rehabilitation project tackled Echo Park Lake not only as a recreational body of water, but also as an important part of the Los Angeles ecosystem. Although Echo Park Lake is man-made, it is part of the local watershed. The lake reopened on June 5, 2013, after a $45 million renovation.

Vintage Stores Echo Park:
Echo Park has some of the best thrift stores in L.A. which means that going from store to store can easily take up a good chunk of the afternoon. A lot of these places are family owned and each owner seems to take great pride in having the most original and vintage clothes on the market. Intertwined between these stores are numerous trendy cafes, and eateries. Even though not too noticeable during the day, there is a big nightlife in this area with many Bars and night clubs with even some of them known for having live bands playing on a daily basis. What is fun about this area is that really all the stores, bars, restaurants are mostly located on the Sunset Strip of Echo park so finding all the interesting places to visit is actually pretty easy.

Art Murals in Echo Park – Eyes (Ruben Soto):
Before Echo Park’s gentrification many walls throughout this area had murals because they represented the struggles and the stories of the people living in this neighborhood that weren’t taught in the history books. In the past 50 years with the modernization of the area many of these older murals have been erased. This was not only due to the change in the neighborhood but also because of tagging, damage due to weather and overall lack of maintenance.

Elysian Park + Angel Point:
Elysian Park was founded in 1886 making it the city’s oldest park. The park was created by city ordinance and was sponsored by engineer George Hansen. The land was considered "worthless" at the time and because of that the land sat unimproved for decades, but eventually roads, trails, and landscaping was added. One of the coolest areas to visit in the park is Angels Point which is a small overlooking Dodger Stadium and the Downtown Los Angeles Skyline.

Baxter Street Stairs + Views with Hollywood Sign:
Even though the Baxter street stairs may seem pretty unimpressive from the bottom of them, they are actually a really intricate spiral of stairs that just keep on going up and up into the hillside. Since they aren’t going straight upwards, each corner seems to lead to more stairs which makes it fun to discover but also a little bit difficult from a psychological point of view simply because of the fact that the top of the stairs cannot really be seen from the bottom. One thing though that does keep the motivation going is the fact that the views of the surrounding area keep getting nicer and nicer as you go up.

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