Andrew Selna

This tickles me, because so many people chastise The Eastsider LA for covering areas like Echo Park under the “eastside” guise. Well, Curbed LA editors have apparently had enough themselves, citing a recent post where commenters argued whether or not the areas included in the video post, titled The East Side of Los Angeles on a Sunny Day, are indeed the “eastside.”

So Curbed L.A. has decided to rename everything east of Western and west of the Los Angeles River, leaving the name suggestions to a public vote:

…because it’s just too cumbersome to get all those neighborhood names out every time you want to say something condescending about hipsters, we’re giving the area a new collective handle too, with the help of the Curbed army. Leave your suggestions in the comments or send them into the tipline, and the best will be put to a vote. The winning name will designate the area from then on out and no one will ever refer to East Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, or Echo Park as the eastside ever again for the rest of time.

So far, suggestions include North Central L.A., East Westside, Uptown, and more. View the Curbed LA article and maybe even post your suggestions here.

Granted, LA neighborhood boundaries are consistently… inconsistent. The neighborhood of Echo Park itself more often than not includes Angeleno Heights, Elysian Heights, and even sometimes Historic Filipinotown. But the eastside debate is another entity entirely, with those like the LA Eastside blog passionately arguing for the true eastside being “east of LA River,” others, like in this LA Times article, argue it’s not just a geographical issue but also a cultural identity tied to the Chicano movement, adding, “The newly gentrified area started to collectively call itself the Eastside – as in east of the riches of the Westside.” Other arguments outline a few different historical viewpoints, an arena we will be covering in a later post.

For us at Echo Park Now, there’s hopefully no question about the areas of Echo Park we cover. But one thing’s for sure – even if Curbed LA renames this area, the eastside debate will never end.

Related articles you should check out:

• “A title bout between two Eastsides.” May 31, 2009, LA Times
• “The Big Move.” April 1, 2010, LA Eastside
• “‘Eastsider’, My Ass!” January 9, 2009, LA Eastside
• “Mapping LA Neighborhoods.” LA Times
• “An Eastsider by any other name.” September 26, 2008, The Eastsider LA