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Highland Park and Eagle Rock make up the area between Glendale and Pasadena in East Los Angeles. Although they are incorporated within the city of Los Angeles, the two neighborhoods have distinct boundaries and neighborhood identities.

Highland Park

Highland Park is a neighborhood north east of Los Angeles bordered by the 110 freeway, South Pasadena, and Eagle Rock. The neighborhood is relatively small, but within its borders there is a progression from a depressed neighborhood full of people just trying to get by, to an area of interesting architecture, beautiful houses and relative wealth.

Highland Park is one of the oldest settled suburbs of Los Angeles. During the 1960’s the area became predominantly Latino and in the last few decades a significant black and Asian population has moved in to the neighborhood.

Attractions in Highland Park include the Southwest Museum, which has a vast collection of Native American artifacts from surrounding tribes, and various local restaurants and bars.

Eagle Rock

A formerly somewhat depressed area similar to Highland Park, in the last few years Eagle Rock has been revitalized and rebounded from a few decades of decline. Termed “the new Silver Lake” when local residents realized that housing prices were somewhat less in Eagle Rock than surrounding areas, Eagle Rock has seen an influx of urban hipsters and residents with disposable income that has tipped the neighborhood on its head.

Eagle Rock’s small area has the self-contained feel of a college town. The neighborhood is home to Occidental College, a small liberal arts university with 2,000 students and a significant number of those students stay in Eagle Rock after graduation. The local student watering hole “The Chalet” is frequently ranked in the top ten bars in Los Angeles and local restaurants like Casa Bianca and The Bucket draw accolades from food critics across the city.

Restaurants

Casa Bianca and The Bucket are both neighborhood mainstays in Eagle Rock. They are landmarks that have been around forever. Two new restaurants have opened across the street from each other on Colorado Boulevard at the heart of Eagle Rock, Dave’s Chillin’ and Grillin’ and The Oinkster. “Dave’s” is a sandwich shop run by Massachusetts transplant Dave Evans which focuses on the quality of ingredients for the best sandwiches in the city, The Oinkster bills itself as “slow fast food” and has the name of fine dining chef Andre Guerrero to back it. While the Oinkster participates in such foolery as making their own ketchup every day from scratch, the dining experience at Dave’s makes you feel like you’re getting a custom sandwich. Just ask Dave about his ingredients and watch him go.

In Pasadena, two worlds that make up LA blend together. Pasadena doesn’t have the pomp of Bel Air or the prestige of Beverly Hills, but it does have a fair share of mansions and Mazerati dealerships and Bentleys in driveways. It’s also got a fair amount of poverty, but none of the widespread destitution that characterizes the poorest parts of Los Angeles.

Pasadena borders east LA and Glendale and extends south to South Pasadena, although
“South Pas” as it’s known, is its own city, separate from Pasadena in every way except geography and name.

Pasadena Roses

Pasadena’s most famous event each year is the Rose Parade, which takes place January 1st and runs down Colorado Boulevard as part of the Tournament of Roses which includes the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl. The Tournament of Roses takes over the city for the first week of the year and influences Pasadena all year round. Businesses are named “The Rose Bowl Hotel” or “Rose Bowl Flower Shop” and the city transforms its store windows and face to exude the spirit of the season.

Old-Town

Old-Town Pasadena is basically downtown Pasadena. This central shopping district is home to big retail chains and restaurants and finds itself packed with shoppers on weekends. Metered street parking is usually available on weekdays, on weekends or at night when the traffic picks up your best bet is to head to one of the city’s parking structures at Green St between Raymond and Fair Oaks, 45 S. Delacey Avenue between Colorado and Green St.

Old-Town embodies the mainstream commercial aspect of Pasadena and it is from this standard that the hipsters in surrounding areas of east Los Angeles rebel. Unlike Rodeo Drive or other expensive shopping areas, the feel of Old-Town is high class without being exclusive, accessible but not bohemian.

Tech/Culture

Pasadena is home to an increasing number of high tech businesses, none more so than the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The JPL develops rockets and satellites as well as staffing missions guiding the Mars Rover and sending probes into deep space. JPL craft have visited every planet in our solar system except Pluto.

Cal Tech also contributes to Pasadena’s image as a hotbed of technological innovation. One of the best engineering schools on the east coast, Cal Tech competes only with MIT in Boston for the country’s finest math minds. Albert Einstein used to lecture here and some of NASA’s top scientists are professors.