After slicing west through the bright lights of Hollywood and wending its way over the hills of the Westside, Sunset dies like its namesake with a spectacular finish by the ocean at Pacific Coast Highway. Sunset officially begins at Figueroa Street, although it originally extended farther east to Olvera Street before that section was renamed Cesar Chavez Avenue in 1994. In addition to the sharp, descending curve near UCLA that inspired the Jan & Dean song “Dead Man’s Curve,” there are several perilously sloping sections in Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades. But driving on Sunset is also a palpably physical, exhilarating sensation when you’re flung through its long, round curves in a fast car as if out of a slingshot. Ali TrachtaĪt a length of 22 miles, Sunset Boulevard cuts across much of L.A.’s history and geography and winds through disparate cultures and neighborhoods from Echo Park to Pacific Palisades, including the Star Mapped constellations of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Can you think of reason not to? We never can. If you’re so inclined, you can end your drive with a French dip from Cole’s - found downtown on the very road you’re driving. Just when you’re feeling ultra-metropolitan, you slip into Westlake with MacArthur Park on your right, which bestows a momentary glimpse of greenery. Along the way you ogle the stately mansions in Hancock Park to your left and right, and before you know it, the tree lines fall away and you’re quietly spying on Koreatown’s urban bustle. Sixth Street is one of the essential east-west shortcuts in the city, taking you from San Vicente, just west of LACMA, all the way downtown far faster than Wilshire or even the 10 can do (at least during rush hour). Randy Newman calls out Sixth Street (albeit ironically) in his famous pseu-ode, “I Love L.A.,” but driving down that thruway makes us feel it - sincerely. Think Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer, and you'll go all soft for Wells Drive. Sunset hills dead rising 3 map drivers#One evening the cars backed up and drivers gawked as a rarely seen mother mallard waddled across the road with four ducklings in tow, evidence not of a secret fresh-running brook in arid Los Angeles but of a flyover ecosystem tied together by ornate bubbling fountains and low-chem swimming pools. Wells Drive is one of the San Fernando Valley's prettiest ragtop-down neighborhood touring routes, winding through woodsy and well-groomed South of the Boulevard communities dotted with new mansions and midcentury homesteads (or, in the vernacular, tear-downs). Weekly came up our favorites - the streets that just make driving in L.A. Many complain about driving in L.A., but when certain streets show up on your Google Maps directions, you can't help but get a pang of excitement. These are streets that you deep down really want to take for any number of reasons, be it their beauty, their curves, their lack of traffic or their fascinating streetscape.
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