6th street + park view street, macarthur park

Another angle of reader Herbie Huff's location request from a few weeks ago, this time with a nice view of Macarthur Park. Currently Park View is an oddball little low-traffic space devoted solely to parking. Narrowed, it practically begs to have kiosk vendors running along that wide sidewalk on the right. See it narrowed!
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larchmont boulevard

Why does angled, head-in parking make any shopping strip suddenly feel like Main Street, USA? For some mysterious reason this simple design pattern has a cozy-ing effect, making you feel like you've stepped out of your car and into a small upscale village retreat. Larchmont's width, however, is still prodigious enough to elicit a single odd design choice: notice the little red dot in the photo's dead center? It's a stop sign, and it marks the only officially sanctioned spot to safely cross back + forth — a telltale clue that city planners deemed the street too fast for safe jaywalking. Weird to build a shopping village in such a way, no? If I were a store owner, I'd love to be located on a the street narrow enough to encourage more traversing by shoppers, all zigzagging back and forth along dozens of impulsive desire lines. See it narrowed!
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friday favorites: the narrowest street in the world

See that teeny gap between buildings in the center of the photo? That's Spreuerhof Street in Reutlingen, Germany, officially the narrowest street in the world, at only one foot wide! Photo above by Jadzia.

Even more pictures over at Damn Cool Pics, including this one:

abbot kinney boulevard, venice

To me, Abbot Kinney represents the apex of haute California culture: hipster entrepreneurs lazily skate by on longboards past boutique shops and cutting-edge architecture on a road dense enough with street-facing touch points to create a modern village bubbling with life, morning to evening. Walking this street is still a one-sided affair, however, with ever-circumspect pedestrians checking over their shoulders for cars, who tend to use this straightaway as a shortcut from Main to Venice Blvd. Didn't they ever hear that patience is a virtue? Stripping out a few lanes would keep those cars in check and let this Westside gem shine that much brighter. See it narrowed!
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reader request: huntington drive + san marino ave (I)

Thanks to Allison Achauer for the location request, who writes: "One street that has always struck me as ridiculously wide is Huntington Blvd. in San Marino. It's all very fancy, of course, with a gigantic grassy median, but the two sides feel like opposite shores of a vast lake!"

Idyllic, sleepy San Marino is bisected by Huntington Avenue, a street named after old-California royalty that features a cozy string of shops as well as an adorably teeny city hall building facing an ornate town clock across the street. But you'll need field binoculars to check the time on that clock, separated as it is by Huntington's eleven (11!) lanes — that's wider than the Arroyo Seco Parkway! Allison's not the only one who's confused by this crazy width. What did San Marino's residents have in mind for this street? A parade? Express transport for Saturn V rocket engines? Anyone?

Narrowing Huntington down to a properly-sized road brings that charming clock tower closer to whoever might be waiting at that bus stop, allowing them to admire its fine ornamentation — and finally be able to check the time, too. See it narrowed!
High quality prints available

red light stop, green light go, yellow light gun it: large street intersections + pleasure addiction

Image of San Vicente Blvd. & La Cienega Blvd. from Matt Logue's wonderful Empty LA series.

All of us at some point have experienced the Point of No Return: we’re driving along when we spot a green signal up ahead, and wonder: is this a fresh go, or a stale green on the brink of turning yellow? Let's say it does, leaving us to decide: Stop and face a three-minute wait, or just gun it. Now let’s say we choose to sail on through: yes! No long wait for us. We accelerate, our bodies compressed by mild Gs, our forward movement unabated...until we reach the next intersection up ahead.

6th street + lorraine boulevard, hancock park

When I have to take a trip from Mid-Wilshire to, say, Hodori restaurant in K-town (that's Koreatown, dontcha know), I always make sure to take my favorite crosstown drive: 6th Street. Heady + lush foliage spills over the vintage LA homes lining the road, which bends here and there to provide a welcome diversion from the city's usual gridded monotony. A narrowed 6th Street pulls roadside trees closer together to form a dense green tunnel (seen elsewhere in Hancock Park) and just slows everything down, to create a boldly impractical path that lets our lovely jaunt last as long as we wish. See it narrowed!
High quality prints available