Westside Chronicles:: Historic Stories of West Los Angeles

by Jan Loomis

Los Angeles sprawled westward toward the sand and sea of Santa Monica Bay throughout the twentieth century as land-grant ranchos gave way to capitalists and promoters. Developers subdivided the coastal land into neighborhoods and Santa Monica, Brentwood, Bel-Air, Westwood, Venice, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Marina del Rey. These became places known to the nation at large for movie stars, moguls and business tycoons;
for Will Rogers, Henry Huntington and UCLA; and for estate homes, amusement piers and surfing beaches. Join Jan Loomis, a former West L.A. magazine publisher and historian, as she tells the stories behind how it all came to be West Los Angeles.

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2012

Reviews

[Tascha Folsoi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more of an encyclopedia. It's a list of names with brief bios, which is nice to have. If I wanted to learn about the history of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles, I would definitely need this book to know where to begin. But it's meant to flatter the early developers of the region while meticulously avoiding any hint of violence, corruption, or wheeling and dealing that went into the original stealing of the land, which laid the way for speculators to buy it relatively cheaply in order to profit handily. It's presented in more heroic terms than could possibly be true in any country at any time in history.

[jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable monograph, with a title that is a little misleading. It is a history of Los Angeles, concentrating on an area roughly west of the 405 freeway. Well written, and I think deserving of expansion, perhaps combining the information with a walking guide.