hey Los Angelenos/SoCalites, guess what??? (advice requested)

um people who are not in la can answer this too of course, if u know of the area..

how's the parking (also, I'm thinking about this seriously, but won't be able to think soberly til 'morrow...)

Parking, one of my biggst concerns, is included, as is water. Gas & electricity are not. Only to make things funnier, it includes a *gas fireplace* - ! If I ever get a chance to be "romantic" which I prolly ever will heh

parking is underneath the building

dude, I saw a homeless crack-addict giving a blowjob to another homeless person in the street last night at Highland and Fountain. yikes.

Here's some questions, how much can you spend? do you mind roommates? are you using westsiderentals.com?

there are so many great neighborhood options in L.A. I wouldn't limit yourself to the two you've mentioned.

that said, this still could be a good place. What's the cross-street?

as far as the center of everything goes, i'd say "not exactly".

you'd be able to walk to a world class newsstand, and amoeba, and aron's. you'd be able to hop on the subway and go downtown to central library.

"americas most famous street" is a big nothing. the knitting factory is there so that's good for maybe a show a month (they get a jazz bill every six months and half of them are worth walking across the street for). the appeal of "freaks and decadent gonzos" goes away quickly, at least it did for me. as far as being a vibrant part of town that stays open late, forget it. the main thing going on is runaways and their fans.

the secret to enjoying los angeles is enjoying the neighborhood that you live in, and working nearby. (and being able to drive to shows which are all over the place).

i'd say do it if you're young and you work nearby and it's a good deal. otherwise go east toward los feliz/silver lake (more interesting people, more good music, more of a sense of place, a decent bookstore) or west toward santa monica/venice (better air, better weather, close to the ocean, not far from anywhere by car at night).

as far as there being "no respite from hollywood/mass culture anywhere here", that's just not true.

Dan = A#1 OTM

also I have a great place for an FAP in the New Year. An off license decent Thai place on Beverly (near Fairfax) with no corkage fee called the Orchid or Wild Orchid.

Oh I dont have an appeal for freaks or gonzos, au contraire. I know LA has a lot of neighborhoods, but when I said H. is centrally located I was also thinking of being close to the studios, where I'd be interning. I chose mid-Wilshire since I knew it's close enough to downtown, the USC where I have a lot of friends - I either want to be close to them, or more close to the work/place i'd have to drive to everyday. It's too late for roommates, as I ony have a few days, but i'd prefer to live by mself anyway even though I know it's expensive. i'd still be excited to live off of hlly blvd for a while if i choose this apt (since orig. i'm from the east, far from CA, so let me harbor my tinsletown illusions-delusions happily for a while, but despite where i live you're all welcome to come visit me whenever!

ok im comin to crash on your couch

if it's just a one year lease, then go for it. it sounds like you like the place already. I'm jazzed for you. and chaki, sounds like we'll have to flip for the couch!

I *may* be buying a new sofa, so i'll have 2 - no need to flip! haha. i like the area but now it better from the lonely planet guide - ha! - and will refrain from posting the names of the places im interested in that i havent even been to yet since that will be breaking historic new grounds in lameness =)

btw, what do y'all think of the hollywood & highland mall ? nothing special and unworthy of the hype?

i saw prince play an after show there otherwise STAY AWAY

that Vert restaurant in there is supposed to be good, i heard. or at lest good if u like spago's in bev. hills, since its by the same people

not that i could ever ever ever afford either 4 me, taco bell is fine dinin', a cut above my typical del taco nightz

isnt it funny how people back east don't even HAVE del taco???/ por souls, what did i ever used to eat back there ?

Out here in the midwest we get Taco Johns, where, according to their advertisements, "there's a whole lotta Mexican goin' on."

how cheapie are they? at del taco, u can get a chicken soft taco for under a dollar!

and nachos w/ authentic fake cheese!

Authentic fake cheese! My ex-wife once bought a frozen pizza which included in its ingredients "mozzarella style cheese analogue". Yum!

You're going to have better tourists in Hollywood at least than in Santa Monica or Venice Beach.

I think Hollywood is a good location as long as you have your own parking. That way, you can get to the Valley, West Side, downtown, South Bay, Silverlake, wherever in about the same amount of time. Having a dishwasher is awesome, but it's really great to be in a walking neighborhood where you don't have to get in the car to get a quart of milk or a newspaper.

in addition to Westsiderentals.com, I also liked homehunters.com, but I found that in LA the best way to find a place is just to drive around the neighborhoods you want to live in and look for signs, although you need a place to crash for a while to have the luxury of doing that. In any event, it used to be pretty standard to sign a 1-year lease and go month-to-month after that. Then you can move again if you don't like where you are.

Do they still have that horrible anti-cruising/no turns off Sunset/checkpoint thing on the weekends? Watch out for that.

Anyway, Hollywood to downtown is great, only about 10 minutes and there's lots of cool stuff there. As I 323-er, I liked Santee Alley and the flower mart and of course you can get with all your hipster friends at Spaceland pretty easily too.

Good luck with the move and think of me when you drive through Jack in the Box (the deep fried tacos are my secret shame).

hey felicity, where are you living now, or did u move out of socal? yeah my best friend lives at the edge of chinatown/downtown so its cool that this place will be pretty close by, but to get there from h-wood do u usually take sunset all the way down through slverlake/echo park, or do u just take the 101 south? he lives right by the end of sunset where it merges into figueroa. i guess it depends on traffic. i think they occasionally still have those checkpoint things, and i jack in the box makes me sick :)

Jack is supposed to make you sick, that's its charm. May I also recommend Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles.

I live in NYC (this just in) but I miss SoCal early and often. I lived in two places there -- West Hollywood @ Norton and Sweetzer and then Navy Street in (vile) Venice, by Davey Jones' Liquor Locker.

From Cahuenga and Camrose, hop on the 101 to downtown and don't blink or you might miss your exit. But Sunset through Echo Park is nice -- my favorite paint store in the whole world is there -- "Par Paint." I prefer taking surface streets in general, I'd bet Arthur or Spencer would tell you the same.

Here, I'll give you the advice Bette Davis gave an aspiring young actor moving to LA in the 40s or 50s:

"Take Fountain."

lol hahahaha yeah fountain is less traffic, it's like a people don't know it, it's a secret same with hoover for north and south, but it only goes up to wilshire i like driving through echo park too but never remember the names of the rod spaceland - the new of the indie rock club, right? fountain was actually where the oter apt i was looking at was going to be, fountain and sierra bonita/gardner but it was teeny-tiny, and this one on whitley is so much bigger with a full kich for twenty five bicks more. i wish u still lived in weho, anyway you're welcome to visit anytime! (is venice really that 'vile' - i knewits been v "touristy" and ultra-yuppified/commdified since '96 or so, but vile?)

My issue was that I lived a block from the beach on a very noisy street. People going to and from the beach can be loud and obnoxious, shouting out their cell phone convos outside their cars right under my window at 4 in the morning. Wahey! We're at the beach! The bums I had no problem with, I like the tolerance of the City of Venice. The West Side has its merits, but the other problem for me was that there's too much concrete and bland suburban architecture on the West Side in general, whereas in Hollywood there are more trees, older Spanish villa-type duplexes and local flavor (our beloved Angelyne for example).

It wasn't really my choice to live in Venice -- I mean I like the beach fine, but my attitude is, we live in LA county already, I don't have to live ON the beach. Oh well. It was housing. But if I hadn't been planning to move back to NY, I would have moved east of La Cienega in a heartbeat.

Congrats to you! Hollywood will be fun.