Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, and like Topanga Canyon very oriented to the central thoroughfare, Laurel Canyon Boulevard. There are many side roads that branch off the main canyon, but most of them are not through streets, reinforcing the neighborhood as self-contained. It was first settled in the 1920s, and became a part of Los Angeles in 1923.[1] Unlike other canyon neighborhoods, Laurel Canyon has houses lining one side of the main street most of the way up to Mulholland Drive. Some of the main side streets are Mount Olympus, Kirkwood, Wonderland, and Lookout Mountain Avenue. The zip code for at least part of the neighborhood is 90046.
It is an important transit corridor between West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City. The division between the two can roughly be defined by the intersection of Laurel Canyon & Mulholland Drive. As of the first few months of 2005, the first section of the road on the Hollywood side had been partially washed away in a rainstorm, and traffic was still being redirected to a normally quiet residential side street going along the main drive.
Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.'s top rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Love. Joni Mitchell, inhabiting the home in the Canyon immortalized in the song written by Graham Nash, "Our House," would use the area as title and inspiration for her third album. The bohemian spirit from that time period endures to this day, and every year residents gather for a group photograph at the country market.
Laurel Canyon has been mentioned in many films and novels of Los Angeles, including Laurel Canyon written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko in 2002, and is the subject of a book by Michael Walker, Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, published by Faber and Faber in May of 2006.
Among the famous places in Laurel Canyon are the Log Cabin house once-owned by silent film star Tom Mix that became home to the Zappa clan, and one that may or may not have been owned by Harry Houdini.
Lauren Canyon was also prominently featured in the 2003 film Wonderland, which chronicled the 1981 Wonderland Murders which occurred at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Canyon, and involved porn star John C. Holmes and reputed gangster Eddie Nash. The Wonderland Massacre has been described as one of the bloodiest mass murders in California history.
Between 1912 and 1918, a trackless electric trolley ran from Sunset Boulevard to the top of Lookout Mountain Road.
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