Ventura Boulevard

Ventura Boulevard at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Avenue and Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.

The Ventura Boulevard is about 23 km long road in the south of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles . The road from Woodland Hills in the west to Studio City in the east is considered to be one of the valley's arteries.

course

Ventura Boulevard begins in the west in Woodland Hills near the border with Calabasas and branches off from Valley Circle Boulevard here. The boulevard runs at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains in an easterly direction through the districts of Woodland Hills, Tarzana , Encino , Sherman Oaks and finally Studio City . From the confluence of Lankershim Boulevard near Universal Studios , the street is called Cahuenga Boulevard and leads over the Cahuenga Pass to Hollywood .

history

The stretch of today's Ventura Boulevard was originally a section of El Camino Real in the colonial days of California . It was then the main road to the Pacific coast in what is now Ventura County and to the Misson San Buenaventura (now Ventura ).

Commerce and restaurants

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Ventura Boulevard as the "longest row of shops in the world". The boulevard is considered an economic center of the San Fernando Valley. Some of the shops are rather smaller and very specialized and unique.

Hundreds of different restaurants invite you to linger along the street. The section in Studio City in particular is considered a location for excellent restaurants.

Along the boulevard, some find architecturally interesting commercial buildings, especially from the period of the 20th century that the modern attributable sind.In Woodland Hills is the 1967 built business building of Woodland Casual Patio and rattan with its futuristic-organic octagonal windows remarkable . Further east in Tarzana is the facade of the Fleetwood Center storefront, designed as a radiator for a Cadillac . The building, constructed in 1987, never housed a store related to this brand of car. Encino is home to one of the last googie- style car washes in Los Angeles. Also in Encino is the Chase Manhattan branch established by Millard Sheets for Home Savings and Loan in 1959 . In Sherman Oaks is Mel's Diner, built by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis in 1953 in the early Googie style . A little down the street to the east, the Casa de Cadillac has been standing since 1949 . A car dealership building in the classic modern style. Studio City is home to one of the few business ensembles that RM Schindler planned. The Lingenbrink Shops , built in 1942 and expanded by Schindler in 1946, anticipated the principle of more modern "strip malls".

Ventura Boulevard in Popular Culture

In his 1949 novel The Little Sister ( German : The Little Sister , 1953), Raymond Chandler described the already busy Ventura Boulevard.

In 1973 the Everly Brothers released a song called Ventura Boulevard . The song Free Falin' of Tom Petty mentions not only the boulevard, Petty wrote the song with that in mind, what he saw on the way to the studio on the Ventura Boulevard daily. Because of the lines

"All the vampires, walkin 'through the valley Move west down Ventura Boulevard"

After his death, fans of the singer marched on the street west to the Galleria at the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Sepulveda Boulevard. Even Frank Zappa song Valley Girl from his album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch mentions the Ventura Boulevard.

The music video for Tom Petty's Free Fallin´ shows the intersection of Beverly Glenn and Ventura Boulevard. Music videos by the band Haim also show the street where the band members grew up.