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Where is Palms? A hundred years ago an Angelino might have responded: “Halfway to Santa Monica on the Air Line!” or “Halfway to the beach on the Venice Short Line!”
Today, the answer might be, “Well, I used to live there! It’s south of Beverly Hills and north of Culver City.”
The truth is: There are no defined boundaries. Palms has always been under somebody else’s thumb: First the County of Los Angeles and then, after 1915, the City of Los Angeles.
In fall 1939, the Auto Club of Southern California put up “PALMS” markers on Venice, Robertson, and Palms boulevards, “and other highways leading into the community,” president H.J. Ryan of the Palms Chamber of Commerce announced. There wasn’t much else around. Palms was an important place. Palms was where everyone in the area shopped and went to the doctor, to church, and to the movies.
As the years passed, newer, outlying districts began to grow, where attractive, modern homes sprang up. Pico Boulevard was extended westward from L.A. and grew as a shopping strip. New schools and churches were established. Large swaths of old-time Palms were rezoned to apartments. Upmarket Westside Village, on the other hand, managed to hang on to its single-family, sidewalkless, almost rural charm.
Where is Palms? This book defines “Historic Palms” in the context of its time: It is that area which at one time was considered to be Palms. Modern Palms is more a state of mind: “I know it when I see it.” The maps in this chapter might help explain why some Angelinos are still asking, “Where is Palms?”
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