The Sunset Strip exists because of a line on a map. A mile and a half of Sunset Boulevard, running west from around Havenhurst Drive to the Beverly Hills line, lay in unincorporated Los Angeles County, outside any city. The Los Angeles Police Department had no authority over it. Enforcement belonged to the county sheriff, who had a great deal of county to cover, and the difference was enough to shape what got built there. Gambling was illegal in California, in the county exactly as in the city, but a back room on the Strip was a long way down anybody's list, and the card games ran for years behind the restaurants while the movie industry supplied both the players and the glamour. By the late 1930s the Strip was where Hollywood went at night, a run of clubs, agents' offices and hotels belonging to no city at all, governed by the county Board of Supervisors and policed by the sheriff. That stayed true until 29 November 1984, when the Strip became part of the new city of West Hollywood. The boundary is worth knowing because almost every account gets it wrong. The Strip as a commercial district is usually said to begin at Crescent Heights, but the old city line ran three blocks further west, so the Chateau Marmont, the Garden of Allah and Schwab's drugstore all stood in the City of Los Angeles. The Trocadero, Ciro's and the Whisky did not.
Getting there
34.0950, -118.3714
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
