Westwood is a commercial and residential neighborhood in the northern central portion of the Westside region of the city of Los Angeles, California. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Bordering the campus on the south is Westwood Village, a major regional district for shopping, dining, movie theaters, and other entertainment.
Wilshire Boulevard through Westwood is a major corridor of condominium towers, on the eastern end and of Class A office towers, on the western end. Westwood also has residential areas of multifamily and single family housing, including exclusive Holmby Hills. The neighborhood was developed starting in 1919, and UCLA opened in 1929, while Westwood Village was built up starting in 1929 through the 1930s.
Geography According to the Westwood Neighborhood Council, the Westwood Homeowners Association, and the Los Angeles Times Mapping L.A. project, Westwood is bounded by:The Thomas Guide: Los Angeles County, 2004, pages 631 and 632Westwood Community Plan map DirectionBoundaryAdjacent neighborhood(s)NorthSunset BoulevardBel Air EastBeverly Hills city limits incl. L.A. Country ClubCity of Beverly HillsSouthSanta Monica BoulevardWest Los Angeles; Century CityWestSepulveda Boulevard or I-405*Sawtelle Veterans Home; Brentwood*VA grounds east of Sepulveda/I-405 are not included
Sub-neighborhoods
Westwood Village is immediately south of the UCLA campus, bounded by LeConte, Gayley, Thornton (between Lindbrook and Wilshire: Glendon) and Wilshire Boulevard. Westwood Village north of Wilshire is an on-street shopping, dining and entertainment district that was planned in the 1920s - the second such district ever to be built in the nation's history. It was planned by Janss and businesses started to open in 1929. It was the Westside's busiest such district through the 1980s.
A portion of Holmby Hills, home to the Playboy Mansion, south of Sunset Blvd., east of both Beverly Glen Bl. and Comstock Av., and west of the L.A. Country Club, is within Westwood. The northern section of Holmby Hills is part of Bel Air. Together, Holmby Hills, Bel Air and Beverly Hills form the "Platinum Triangle" of Los Angeles.H. May Spitz, A grander scale of life left intact, The Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2004
North Westwood Village (or North Village) consists mainly of multifamily residential units where many UCLA students live, west of Gayley, north of Weyburn, and east of Veteran aves.North Westwood Village: Specific Plan, Ordinance No. 163,202, effective March 5, 1988
Tehrangeles, also known as "Little Persia", refers to the large number of Persian restaurants, grocery stores, bookstores, art galleries, travel agencies, and rug stores along Westwood Boulevard that has served as a cultural hub for the Persian community in Los Angeles since the 1960s.
Climate Westwood has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb) with dry summers, relatively wet winters, and mild temperatures year-round. Like the rest of coastal Los Angeles County, Westwood experiences an Indian summer, where its warmest highs, in the upper 70s, are towards the end of summer and early fall. After mid-October temperatures dip down quicker as the cold season approaches, then they rise from late spring to summer. Ocean temperatures tend to moderate the climate more than inland locations.
The average precipitation in Westwood is 17.43 inches which tends to be higher than most populated places in LA County. This is due to its proximity to the ocean andhillside location resulting in heavier and abundant rainfall. The most rainfall in a wet season was 43.55 from September 1997 to June 1998.
History The area was originally founded to care for soldiers of the Civil War and the Indian Wars. Development Westwood was developed on the lands of the historic Wolfskill Ranch, a parcel that Arthur Letts, the successful founder of the Broadway and Bullock's department stores, purchased in 1919. Upon Arthur Letts' death, his son-in-law, Harold Janss, vice president of Janss Investment Company, inherited the land. He began to develop the area and started to advertise for new homes in 1922.
The Los Angeles Times on October 29, 1922 reported the news: "Westwood, the subdivision of the Wolfskill Ranch, of scenic territory between the city and Santa Monica, is to be opened to homeseekers and investors today by the Janss Investment Company. The tract comprises approximately 1000 residential and business lots, situated west of the Los Angeles Country Club on Santa Monica Boulevard and the Rancho Country Club on Pico Boulevard.""Westwood Is Placed on the Market." Los Angeles Times. October 29, 1922. p. V9
University of California, Los Angeles
Meanwhile, the Southern Branch of the University of California had been established on Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, where enrollment expanded so rapidly that by 1925 the institution had outgrown the site. The selection of a new campus in the Westwood hills was announced on March 21, 1925. The owners of the estate, the Janss brothers, agreed to sell the property for approximately $1 million ($ million in dollars), less than one-third the land's value. Municipal bond measures passed by Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Venice provided for that amount. Proposition 10, a state bond measure passed that year, provided $3 million for construction. Thus the University of California at Los Angeles was established in Westwood; ground was broken on September 12, 1927, and the campus opened for regular classes on September 20, 1929.
Westwood Village Westwood Village, a planned, immediately south of the UCLA campus, was only the second such district on this scale ever to be built worldwide, preceded only by Country Club Plaza (1922–23) in Kansas City. It with was created by the Janss Investment Company, run by Harold and Edwin Janss and their father, Peter, in the late 1920s as a shopping district and headquarters of the Janss Company. Its boom was complemented by the boom of UCLA which opened in 1929 and served not only faculty, staff and students but also affluent shoppers from the surrounding upscale single-family-home neighborhoods.
Opening in 1929, the design was considered one of the nation's best-planned and beautifully laid out commercial areas. Harold Janss had hired major architects and instructed them to follow a Mediterranean theme, with clay tile roofs, decorative Spanish tile, paseos, patios and courtyards. Buildings at strategic points, including theaters, used towers to serve as beacons for drivers on Wilshire Boulevard. Janss picked the first slate of businesses and determined their location in the neighborhood; the area opened with 34 businesses, and, despite the Great Depression, had 452 businesses in 1939,Martha Groves, Seeking shoppers in Westwood Village, Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2008, Accessed May 6, 2008. including Bullock's (Parkinson & Parkinson), Desmond's (Percy Parke Lewis) and Sears department stores, and a Ralphs grocery (Stiles Clements).
1970s–1980s The architectural style met a turning point in 1970, when a 24-story office building now known as the Oppenheimer Tower was built in the neighborhood and the design of new buildings soon became a blend of styles. The Oppenheimer Tower was used for the primary location in the 1978 episode of Emergency!, "The Steel Inferno". Wilshire Boulevard through Westwood would become a major corridor of condominium towers, from Westwood Boulevard east towards the Beverly Hills city line, and of Class A office towers, at Westwood Boulevard and westward. The 1980s saw Iranian immigration to the area after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and the beginnings of the Tehrangeles business corridor along Westwood Boulevard south of Wilshire Boulevard. Westwood Village's popularity as a shopping, dining, and nighttime entertainment district continued to rise, with commercial rents peaking in 1988.
1984 and 2028 Summer Olympics
When Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Summer Olympics, the UCLA dorms in Westwood served as the Olympic village. It will serve as the Olympic and Paralympic village when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics.UCLA GETS READY TO WELCOME THE WORLDGolden summer: Remembering the ’84 Olympics at UCLA
During the 1984 Summer Olympics, Pauley Pavilion hosted the artistic gymnastics competition, while the Los Angeles Tennis Center hosted the tennis competition.Six nights in 1984 at Pauley Pavilion where US gymnasts won crowds of fans and Olympic gloryThe Los Angeles Tennis Center - Home Of Bruin Tennis - UCLA Athletics - UCLA Official Athletic Site
The Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games was headquarter in Westwood at 10900 Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood from its formation up until 2025 when they moved to the USC Tower in Downtown Los Angeles.LOS ANGELES 2028: Organizing committee leases 160,000 sq. ft. of offices in famed downtown L.A. skyscraper
Decline of Westwood Village The Village suffered a major setback in the late 1980s, when gangs began to frequent the neighborhood and crime increased. The problems culminated in January 1988 when a gang shootout resulted in the death of a 27-year-old bystander.Donatelli, Joe- The Locations of L.A.'s 100 Most Memorable Crimes by Neighborhood. Los Angeles Magazine, February 6, 2017 On January 30, 1988, gang violence brought nationwide attention to Westwood Village when Karen Toshima, a 27-year-old graphics artist, was killed as she crossed a Village street in a shootout between gang members. Her killer, Durrell DeWitt Collins, 23, was sentenced to two concurrent terms of 27 years to life in prison. In 2016, he was again denied parole until at least 2021. This episode led to the widespread impression that even affluent Westwood was not immune to the crime wave then ravaging Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles establishment reacted with horror. Newspapers and television headlined the story for days. Police patrols in Westwood tripled, and the L.A.P.D. assigned a 30-member antigang unit to capture Toshima's killer. — "The Price of Life in Los Angeles: Is one killing in Westwood worse than hundreds in the ghetto?", Margaret Carlson, Time magazine, February 22, 1988 There was a conviction in December 1988 for a September 1985 abduction and double-murder that started as an auto theft in Westwood.Ramos, George - an Convicted in Abduction, Slaying of 2 College Students - Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1988 The neighborhood's well-known bookstores and some movie cinemas began closing with the advent of large chain stores, Amazon.com and multiplex theaters.
Current challenges A 2014 report for the Westwood Village Improvement Association reported that Westwood Village, although still a busy place, was no longer the Westside's dominant retail and entertainment destinations as it had been for decades. The Village suffered from deteriorating public spaces and a high number of vacancies. Multiple revitalization efforts over decades were unsuccessful and the Village's image and reputation suffered. Even a quarter century later, Los Angeles Magazine referred to the 1988 gang‐related murder of an innocent bystander as a cause of Westwood Village's diminished activity. Limited and expensive parking remained a problem. Macy's (originally Bullock's) closed in 1999, leaving the district without a department store anchor. In that quarter-century, multiple nearby districts lured customers away from the Village, such as Westfield Century City, The Grove, the now-closed Westside Pavilion, and Downtown Santa Monica with its open-air and enclosed shopping malls.
Architecture
Westwood Village was master-planned in the late 1920s and Janss carefully selected not only the architects, but also the style of the buildings and their juxtaposition. Towers were built as landmarks and businesses on corner lots were carefully selected for their attractiveness and as landmarks.
Table of architecturally significant buildings in Westwood Village