boulevard

This was back in 1995, when we lived on 58th Place, in the upstairs unit of an ash-white triplex in Ladera Heights, many miles south of the glamour and stock beauty of Hollywood Boulevard.

Tom Francis plays Joe Gillis, the down-on-his-luck screenwriter, who gets caught in the web of Norma Desmond’s spider lair on Sunset Boulevard.

Someone called 911 and threatened to ‘blow up’ the TransLatin@ Coalition on Wilshire Boulevard, with ‘gasoline or plane.’

And somehow, as the mess unfolded, even the legendary Patti LuPone got pulled into it, having infamously been canned by Andrew Lloyd Webber from her role as Norma Desmond in the 1993 London production of Sunset Boulevard, dissing the revival in a recent appearance on "The View" where she called it "lumbering."

Each walk spans the length of an iconic L.A. boulevard, trekking about 14 to 16 miles and stopping along the way to explore its sun-scorched sidewalks and faded public murals, its high-end furniture boutiques, cheap motels and historic churches, its food carts piled high with fresh fruit and its buzzing freeway overpasses — from below.