Hollywood is more than just a location. In fact, for over 100 years it has been a state of mind. As much a dreamscape as a place, Hollywood has been both geography and mythology, carved as much by the power of imagination as by a surveyor's line. But behind the shimmering illusions of stardom is a real neighborhood, a place with real boundaries shaped by history, development and the steady urban creep of Los Angeles. It has never been a separately incorporated city, but generations of planners, historians, preservationists and civic leaders have agreed, almost unanimously, on what they define as the true heart of the Hollywood district.
By Allan R. Ellenberger for The Hollywoodland Revue
Understanding where Hollywood genuinely begins and ends is not simply a matter of cartography; it is a way of tracing the origins of a cultural empire. The streets that shape Hollywood’s borders tell a story of orchards giving way to boulevards, of homesteads becoming film lots, and of a rural valley transformed into the symbolic center of global entertainment.
The northern boundary of Hollywood ascends along the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, where the city's streets become less flat and the land swells upward toward the broken contours of Griffith Park and the Hollywood Hills. In many areas Franklin Avenue forms this dividing line, with Hollywood Boulevard running parallel to the north. The border is recognizable not only on a map but by a feeling that the city changes character here, as neighborhoods of the flatland give way to winding roads on the hillside, hidden stairways and the first home sites of actors and studio artisans. For many, this is where the magic of Hollywood begins, ascending upward toward the sign that was originally built to advertise a real estate subdivision and soon became the world's most famous landmark.
To the south, the city uses Melrose Avenue as Hollywood's southern border. While some maps use Beverly Boulevard as Hollywood's border, Melrose Avenue has been used as a border between the original Hollywood neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods of Hancock Park and Fairfax. It is the most common border used. Melrose Avenue is where Hollywood's commercial nature transitions into a residential area and where the density of soundstages, record stores, bars, and theaters start to decline.
La Brea Avenue, on the west, forms Hollywood’s most recognizable dividing line. Beyond it lie Fairfax, West Hollywood, and the neighborhoods that grew from early agricultural plots and the streetcar suburbs that once defined the city’s western edges. Some contemporary maps stretch Hollywood’s reach to Fairfax Avenue, especially when discussing cultural influence or postal boundaries. Yet La Brea remains the border that historians and civic organizations uphold—a line that separates old Hollywood’s studio terrain from the vibrant commercial districts that emerged beside it.
On the east, Western Avenue forms Hollywood’s final frame. Its name, intriguingly, comes from its position as the westernmost edge of the city of Los Angeles in the late nineteenth century. Though the city eventually grew far beyond it, Western remains the boundary most commonly cited for Hollywood. Certain historical documents push the line slightly to Normandie or Vermont, especially when referencing early streetcar routes or real estate development. Yet Western endures as the eastern gate: the point where Hollywood gives way to the diverse neighborhoods of East Hollywood, Los Feliz South, and Thai Town.
Put them together and you have the rectangle that most closely resembles Hollywood's historic center: Hollywood Hills on the north, Melrose Avenue on the south, La Brea to the west and Western to the east. This is the Hollywood footprint that is recognized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, the area's neighborhood council, scholars of Los Angeles history, and the preservationists who are working to protect its architectural and film history. This is the Hollywood of the early film colonies, the Hollywood of Cecil B. DeMille's barns and Chaplin's studios, the Hollywood in which the shops on the boulevard were targeting tourists as early as the 1920s, and the Hollywood whose streets are still shaped by the industry that formed around them.
The fame of Hollywood is so great and its mythology so ingrained, that many adjacent neighborhoods are frequently (and erroneously) considered part of it. East Hollywood, which runs from Vermont Street to Hoover Street, has a separate history and immigrant culture. Hollywood Hills West and the canyon neighborhoods have long been synonymous with Hollywood and celebrity living but historically fall outside the district's boundaries. Hollywood Heights, above Highland Avenue, has historically been considered its own hillside enclave, despite being frequently claimed as central Hollywood. Thai Town and Little Armenia, with their cultural enclaves, make up the easternmost portions of the larger region, but are not in central Hollywood. Franklin Village, home to bookstores, cafés, and cute residences, is more north than central.
They are the neighborhoods that revolve around Hollywood like a cluster of satellites: related, yet at arm's length, part of it, but also distinct, including civic, administrative, and historic differences. They have even been confused in the minds of many with Hollywood because of the gargantuan cultural shadow that the name "Hollywood" casts. Hollywood is a black hole.
Definitions still matter, though. Without them, it’s hard to wrap your head around what Hollywood looked like in the past. How about the days of early farms and streetcar lines? The first studios? Golden-era movie palaces? Architectural touchstones? The perimeters of these neighborhoods are in many ways what helped define and shape Hollywood. The streets that now frame the area didn’t just spring up overnight. There are decades of development and annexation, and transportation planning and community identity baked into each one. After all, they mark the evolution of a sleepy rural valley into a city of ambition and reinvention and possibility.
In tracing Hollywood’s true borders, we discover not limitations, but origins—an understanding of how a modest townsite became the global shorthand for dreams, stardom, and storytelling. Hollywood may not have walls, but it has edges, and those edges tell a story as old and fascinating as the industry that sprang to life within them.
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