 Sunset Boulevard nearVine Street inHollywood | |
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| Location | Los Angeles County |
|---|---|
| Nearest metro station |   Vermont/Sunset |
| West end |  SR 1 inPacific Palisades |
| Major junctions |  I-405 inBrentwood US 101 inHollywood SR 2 inEcho Park |
| East end | Figueroa Street inDowntown |
Sunset Boulevard is aboulevard in the central and western part ofLos Angeles, California, United States, that stretches from thePacific Coast Highway inPacific Palisades east toFigueroa Street indowntown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in the cities ofBeverly Hills andWest Hollywood (including a portion known as theSunset Strip), as well as several districts in Los Angeles.
Approximately 23.6 miles (38 km) in length,[1] theboulevard roughly traces the arc of mountains that form part of the northern boundary of theLos Angeles Basin, following the path of a 1780s cattle trail from thePueblo de Los Ángeles to the ocean.[2]
From Downtown Los Angeles, the boulevard heads northwest, toHollywood, through which it travels due west for several miles before it bends southwest towards the ocean. It passes through or nearEcho Park,Silver Lake,Los Feliz, Hollywood,West Hollywood,Beverly Hills, andHolmby Hills. InBel Air, Sunset Boulevard runs along the northern boundary ofUCLA's Westwood campus. The boulevard continues throughBrentwood toPacific Palisades, where it terminates at the Pacific Coast Highway intersection.
The boulevard has curvaceous winding stretches, and can be treacherous for unalert drivers in some sections. Sunset Boulevard is at least four lanes wide along its entire route. Sunset is frequentlycongested with traffic loads beyond its design capacity.
Sunset Boulevard historically extended farther east than it does now, starting at Alameda Street nearUnion Station and besideOlvera Street in the historic section of Downtown. The portion of Sunset Boulevard east of Figueroa Street was renamedCesar Chavez Avenue[1] in 1994, along with Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue, in honor of the lateMexican-Americanunion leader and civil rights activist.
In 1877,Harvey Henderson Wilcox, one of the earlier real estate owners from "back East", decided to subdivide more than 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land (mostly orchards and vineyards) along Sunset Boulevard, including what is todayHollywood and Vine.[3]
In 1890, Belgian diplomatVictor Ponet bought 240 acres (97 ha) of the formerRancho La Brea land grant.[4] His son-in-law,Francis S. Montgomery, inherited this property and createdSunset Plaza.[5][irrelevant citation]
Originally, Sunset Boulevard only extended from Hollywood in the west to Marion Avenue in theEcho Park district in the east.[6] The Board of Public Works proposed to extend Sunset east to Main Street in the Plaza by routing the road over the existing section of Bellevue Avenue,[7] but the plan was delayed until approximately 1904,[8][9] due to active opposition by affected land owners.[10] According to the 1910[11] Baist Real Estate Survey Atlas, Sunset Boulevard reached the Plaza by that time, but it did so by two short and narrow segments which were not aligned with each other and thus did not provide a proper thoroughfare to it. In late 1912, several properties along the route were condemned so that the boulevard could be changed in both its width and its alignment.[12][13] With these changes completed, Sunset Boulevard now reached North Main Street and continued as Marchessault along the northern end of the Plaza.
In 1921, a westward expansion of Sunset began, extending the road from the then-current terminus atSullivan Canyon toward the coast. This land, a portion of the original 1838 holdings of Francisco Marquez, stretched across a mesa and became known as the "Riviera section".Will Rogers, who had bought much of this land as an investment, later donated it to the State of California creatingWill Rogers State Historic Park.[14]
c. 1931, Sunset was a paved road from Horn Avenue to Havenhurst Avenue.[15]
The section variously marked and signed as Marchessault Street or East Sunset Boulevard, remained open to traffic until the late 1960s or early 1970s.[citation needed] At that time, Sunset was realigned one block north and Marchessault was closed to motor traffic.
The westernmost stretch of Sunset Boulevard inPacific Palisades runs through an area devastated by theJanuary 2025 Southern California wildfires.[16] Many homes, businesses, and landmarks along the boulevard, such as thePacific Palisades Business Block, were burned down.
TheSunset Strip portion of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood has been famous for its active nightlife since at least the 1950s.[17]
In contrast to other American cities where it referred to a concentration of radio retailers, in Los Angeles,Radio Row was understood in the 1940s–1950s as the area around the intersection of Sunset Boulevard andVine Street inHollywood, where the broadcasting facilities of all four major radio networks were located.[18]
In the 1970s, the area between Gardner Street andWestern Avenue was a center forstreet prostitution.[19] Shortly after amuch publicized incident in late June 1995, police raids drove out the majority of prostitutes on the Boulevard.
Part of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood is also sometimes called "Guitar Row" due to the large number of guitar stores and music industry-related businesses,[20] including the recording studiosSunset Sound Studios andUnited Western Recorders.
The portion of Sunset Boulevard that passes through Beverly Hills was once named Beverly Boulevard.
The boulevard is commemorated inBilly Wilder's filmSunset Boulevard (1950), theAndrew Lloyd Webbermusical of the same name, and the 1950s television series77 Sunset Strip.Jan and Dean's 1960s hit song "Dead Man's Curve" refers to a section of the road near Bel Air estates just north ofUCLA'sDrake Stadium where Jan Berry almost died in an automobile accident in 1966.[21] TheBuffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth" was written about a riot atPandora's Box, a Sunset Strip club, in 1966.[22] In 1973, following the model of hisEvery Building on the Sunset Strip,Ed Ruscha photographed the entire length ofHollywood Boulevard with a motorized camera to produce a book in the form of aleporello.[23]
Metro Local lines 2, 4 and 602 operate on Sunset Boulevard, with Line 2 running through most of Sunset Boulevard between Echo Park and UCLA, Line 4 between Sunset Junction and Downtown LA, and Line 602 from UCLA west. TheMetro B Line operatesa subway station atVermont Avenue.
At 4334 W. Sunset Boulevard lies the wall featured on the cover of the late singer-songwriterElliott Smith's 2000 albumFigure 8. Since Smith's death in 2003, the wall has become a memorial for the artist; fans have left many personal messages there over the years.
Sunset boulevard at present extends from Hollywood, in the beautiful Cahuenga valley, to Marion avenue. It is now proposed to make Bellevue avenue an extension of the system from Marion avenue to Main street. In order to make the driveway a uniform width It will be necessary to widen Bellevue avenue from seventeen to twenty feet in many places between Marion avenue and the plaza.
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