West Adams, Los Angeles, CA

West Adams in Los Angeles has more surviving Victorian and early 1900s houses than almost any district in the western United States, and its eastern blocks around Washington Boulevard and Arlington Avenue are where much of that turn-of-the-century architecture sits. Homes date mainly from the 1880s through the mid-1920s. Victorian and Queen Anne houses, Craftsman bungalows, Mission Revival and a few Beaux-Arts mansions share the same streets, and pockets such as Arlington Heights and Kinney Heights have their own long histories. The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library on Cimarron Street is the neighborhood's quiet landmark, a formal research library set in landscaped grounds. Outdoor space elsewhere is modest. Potter Memorial Park on 2nd Avenue is a small neighborhood park, and bigger green space means Exposition Park to the southeast or the Baldwin Hills to the west. on Washington near Normandie is the neighborhood coffee stop, Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant serves Ethiopian plates a few blocks west, and the panaderias along Washington, such as El Porvenir Bakery, cover morning pan dulce. The Velaslavasay Panorama on 24th Street is a small arts venue built around a painted panorama, one of the more unusual cultural spots in town. Errands are mostly by car. Food 4 Less on Western handles the big grocery run, with small markets like Cimarron Market on side streets for the basics. The 10 Freeway runs along the northern edge, and the E Line has stations at Expo and Western and Expo and Vermont a short trip south. The tradeoff is inconsistency. A restored Queen Anne can sit beside a stucco-covered fourplex and a vacant lot, and commercial streets are patchy. For people who like old houses, though, West Adams rewards a slow walk, since almost every block turns up a turret, a carved porch or a sleeping porch someone has brought back.