Pacoima, Los Angeles, CA

Pacoima is known across Los Angeles for its Mural Mile, a stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard where wall after wall carries portraits, local history and pieces like a large Frida Kahlo mural made by local and visiting artists. Homes are mostly modest single-story houses from the 1940s and 1950s, when wartime aircraft plants and postwar tract building turned farmland into neighborhoods. New small-lot homes and apartment buildings are filling in along the main corridors. Parks are well used. Ritchie Valens Park on Laurel Canyon Boulevard has gyms, lighted ball fields, a pool and a skate plaza, and Hubert H. Humphrey Memorial Park keeps a heated outdoor pool open year-round. Hansen Dam's trails and lakes sit just north, and the Pacoima Wash cuts through the neighborhood. Food is the other draw. Birrieria Apatzingan on Laurel Canyon serves Michoacan-style goat birria in a tiny room, and Van Nuys Boulevard runs from tamale shops like The Original Tamale Co. For coffee, Inicio Coffee Company on Glenoaks Boulevard is a local cafe that ties its business to anti-trafficking work. Daily errands happen at Vallarta, Superior Grocers and Food 4 Less. The 5, the 118 and the 210 all touch the neighborhood, and Metro's Rapid 761 runs Van Nuys Boulevard. A new light rail line is under construction on that same corridor, with stations planned in Pacoima. The tradeoffs include freeway and airport noise, industrial blocks near the rail line and older infrastructure. Walk a few blocks of Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima, though, and the murals turn an ordinary errand into a gallery visit.