LA Uncovered :: A User’s Guide to Culver City
When I moved to L.A. in the early ’90s, I got my first job at a Fox subsidiary in Culver City’s south end. After a few short days, I thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life: I’d gone from midtown Manhattan to what felt like the ends of the earth. To make matters worse, I was attacked by a line-cutter in the food court of the Fox Hills Mall, quite possibly the most ghetto shopping center on Earth.
Now scared to death of the mall, I had two options for lunch: a fun little café on Overland called Suzette (now dearly departed), or the excellent Roll ’n’ Rye; hardly hip, but at least a fine Jewish deli.
Happily, I soon found a job in Beverly Hills. Even more fortuitous is this news: against all odds, Culver City is suddenly hot and hip.
Once a sleepy, working- to lower-middle-class community, Culver City was a mere dot on the map, completely overshadowed by her big sister, Los Angeles. Today, thanks to some nifty urban planning and a far-sighted Chamber of Commerce, Culver City has it all: studios, a warehouse district (home to many hip creative firms), and a thriving, very walkable downtown.
And - who’d have thunk it? - it’s even home to a sizable gay community. When my very happening hairdresser moved from Echo Park to Culver City - a geographic beeline that would once cause trendoids to laugh out loud - I knew CC had arrived.
Culver City: Then...
I’m a big fan of recent improvements in Culver City. As recently as ten years ago, the city had a nearly David Lynch-like ’50s small-town feel within a big metropolis. Although it had a sense of place - a rarity in LA - it certainly wasn’t hip.
Culver City’s downtown had fallen into disuse, brought back only slightly when Sony moved in. Somehow, through savvy urban planning, Culver City’s powers that be saw what they had: a potentially vital, certainly walkable downtown (whose nexus is Culver & Washington Blvds), a safe place to live (except the gang turf that abuts Inglewood) and an easy commute to Santa Monica and Fox. (While the housing stock was never luxe, it had never fallen into disrepair, and there have always been formidable mid-Century, Brady Bunch-style homes on the top of the hill.)
... & Now
It was the advent of the warehouse district around 2000 that really set the city on fire: they built it, and people came. Ad agencies and other creative entities fled the high commercial prices of Central LA. The Culver Hotel was restored.
Then the restos came- and how. Today, Culver City is a bona fide gastro-haven that boasts a wide range of choices, and (who knew?) home of the most happening spots in town.
Akasha Richmond - whose eponymous restaurant, AKASHA (pictured) is one of the grooviest spots not only in Culver City, but all of the Southland - was an early adapter. In fact, so keen was she on Culver City’s renaissance that she even moved here from Mid-Wilshire, where’s she’d been living for 13 years.
"Those of who live close to downtown are thrilled to be part of the community that has evolved here. Many of us walk to downtown to see a movie, have a meal, or rent a movie, and that’ s a rare pleasure in car-conscious L.A."
Akasha believes there’s a community spirit in Culver City; another rarity in Southern California.
"One of the great projects on which we partnered with Ben Ford is planting a garden at Farragut Elementary School. Culver City also have a great Farmer’s Market on Tuesdays, which includes one of my favorite farms: Finley from Santa Ynez."
Next :: Hotels and shopping
