Santa Monica Boulevard is a major west–east thoroughfare in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

. It runs from

Ocean Avenue Ocean Avenue may refer to: Roads in the United States * Ocean Avenue (San Francisco), California, see Ocean Avenue/CCSF Pedestrian Bridge station * Ocean Avenue (Santa Monica), California * Ocean Avenue (Palm Beach), Florida; see * Ocean Avenue ( ...

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to i ...

near the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in ...

Sunset Junction Sunset Junction is an informal name for a portion of the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, California. It was home to the Sunset Junction Street Fair from 1980 through 2010. It is in the southwestern part of the district along Sunset Boulevard. ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. It passes through

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

and

West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most prominent gay villages ...

. A portion of it is designated as

California State Route 2 State Route 2 (SR 2) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It connects the Los Angeles Basin with the San Gabriel Mountains and the Victor Valley in the Mojave Desert. The highway's southwestern end is at the intersection of C ...

Route description

The western terminus of Santa Monica Boulevard is at Ocean Avenue near the Pacific Ocean. From there until the

San Diego Freeway The San Diego Freeway is one of the named principal Southern California freeways. It consists of the following two segments: * Interstate 5, from California State Route 94 in San Diego to Interstate 405 (El Toro Y) in Irvine * Interstate 405, in ...

( Interstate 405), Santa Monica Boulevard is a densely urban commercial street. It assumes the designation

between Centinela Avenue at the Santa Monica–Los Angeles border, and the

Hollywood Freeway The Hollywood Freeway is one of the principal freeways of Los Angeles, California (the boundaries of which it does not leave) and one of the busiest in the United States. It is the principal route through the Cahuenga Pass, the primary shortcu ...

(

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...

). The portion between Centinela Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica was also originally part of California State Route 2. From Centinela Avenue, Santa Monica Boulevard heads northeast through the wealthy areas of

West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped differently by di ...

, Westwood,

Century City Century City is a 176-acre (71.2 ha) neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles, California. Located on the Westside to the south of Santa Monica Boulevard around 10 miles (16 km) west of Downtown Los Angeles, Century City is one of ...

, and

before entering the decidedly urban

. Santa Monica Boulevard, being a major street, is for most of its length at least four lanes wide. Most of the Westside car dealerships are located on Santa Monica Boulevard. After Sepulveda Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard passes by Century City and its shopping center, and intersects with

Wilshire Boulevard Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...

in Beverly Hills. After intersecting with Wilshire in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica Boulevard continues northeast towards West Hollywood, spanning

Beverly Boulevard Beverly Boulevard is one of the main east–west thoroughfares in Los Angeles, in the U.S. state of California. It begins off Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills and ends on the Lucas Avenue overpass near downtown Los Angeles to become 1 ...

and

Melrose Avenue Melrose Avenue is a shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts at Santa Monica Boulevard, at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It ends at Lucile Avenue in Silver Lake. Melrose runs north of ...

. At Holloway Drive, in the middle of West Hollywood, Santa Monica, now north of

turns to run east. In West Hollywood, between Doheny Drive and

Fairfax Avenue Fairfax Avenue is a street in the north central area of the city of Los Angeles, California. It runs from La Cienega Boulevard in Culver City at its southern end to Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on its northern end. From La Cienega Boulevard (be ...

along Santa Monica Boulevard, bronze name plaques are embedded in the sidewalks as part of the West Hollywood Memorial Walk. The original southern end of California State Route 170 was at the intersection with Highland Avenue. Santa Monica Boulevard merges on its eastern end with

in the Sunset Junction neighborhood of Silver Lake. The south roadway of Santa Monica Boulevard, often called Little Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills, runs parallel to the state highway (north) roadway of Santa Monica Boulevard from the city's west limit to Rexford Drive. After Rexford Drive, Little Santa Monica turns east, becoming Burton Way. Burton Way merges into San Vicente Boulevard at its intersection with

La Cienega Boulevard La Cienega Boulevard is a major north–south arterial road that runs between El Segundo Boulevard in Hawthorne, California on the south and the Sunset Strip/ Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood to the north. It was named for Rancho Las Cienega ...

. It is noted that the south roadway of Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills is a city street while the north roadway of Santa Monica Boulevard is a California state highway, each roadway handling bi-directional traffic.

2020 protests

On May 31, 2020, local protests following the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

turned into riots which saw numerous buildings vandalized, looted and burned along Santa Monica Boulevard, with the most visible destruction being at the site of the popular Japanese-themed restaurant Sake House. Wexler's Deli co-owner Mike Kassar stated to ''

Eater Eater may refer to: * Eater (band) Eater are an early British punk rock band from North London who took their name from a Marc Bolan lyric. In October 2001, the band's second single, "Thinking of the USA" (originally released in June 1977), ...

'' that "Basically every food and beverage establishment for ten blocks got trashed".

Transportation

Metro Local Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit bus service in Los Angeles County, California operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . , there a ...

line 4 and

Santa Monica Transit Big Blue Bus (stylized, big blue bus) is a municipal bus service serving the city of Santa Monica and the greater Westside region of Los Angeles County. The service, operated by the city of Santa Monica, was founded on April 14, 1928 and thro ...

Line 1 serve Santa Monica Boulevard, with the latter serving the boulevard in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. A portion of West Hollywood-operated

The PickUp ''The Pickup'' is a 2001 novel by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It tells the story of a couple: Julie Summers, a white woman from a financially secure family, and Abdu, an illegal Arab immigrant in South Africa. After Abdu's visa is re ...

operates on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. The Metro B Line serves an underground station on Santa Monica Boulevard at its intersection with

Vermont Avenue Vermont Avenue is one of the longest running north–south streets in City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, California. With a length of , is the third longest of the north–south thoroughfares in the region. For most of its length betw ...

External links

References

{{coord, 34.0907, N, 118.3702, W, source:wikidata, display=title Streets in Los Angeles Streets in Santa Monica, California Boulevards in the United States Streets in Beverly Hills, California Century City, Los Angeles Streets in Hollywood, Los Angeles West Los Angeles Streets in West Hollywood, California Westwood, Los Angeles Westside (Los Angeles County)