Walking L.A. #8, Downtown Culver City: Holding Onto Its Place in Movie-Making History, 5 miles. 

By sheer chance, Barbara and I chose a hike through Culver City, "The Heart of Screenland," on the morning of the Golden Globes. I doubt that founder Harry Culver intended the area to be a film center when he first established the city in 1913, but in a chance meeting with producer/director/mogul Thomas Ince on the set of a western in Ballona Creek, Culver convinced the filmmaker to move his, DW Griffith's and Max Sennett's Triangle Motion Picture Company to Washington Blvd. in 1915. Ince broke from his partners and moved up the street to form the Thomas Ince Studios in 1918—now Culver Studios, and the first stop on our hike.



The lot's main structure is the Mansion House, a landmark modeled after Washington's Mt. Vernon estate. Classics filmed or edited on this lot include Gone With The Wind and The Andy Griffith Show. Up the block, another National Historic Landmark, the 6-story Culver Hotel built by Culver in 1924 as the Hotel Hunt.


A walk through the lobby and upstairs bar took us back to the days when Clark Gable, Garbo, Garland, Fairbanks, Sinatra, the cast of GWTW, and the Wizard of Oz munchkins stayed and played there.



Over the years the hotel passed hands from Culver to Charlie Chaplin, who lost it in a poker game to John Wayne, who donated it to the YMCA, and now it's a 4-star boutique hotel.


After a pause for me to ham it up with a statue of Harry Culver and his family, we hiked along Washington's restaurant row to City Hall, and then to the Sony lot, punctuated by a 94-ft. rainbow, a public art installation commemorating the Wizard of Oz.


This lot, originally Ince's Triangle location, became MGM in 1924, and boasts a film history from Ben Hur to the Wizard of Oz to Singing in the Rain, and all the way up to today's Shark Tank and The Goldbergs.



A turn south took Barbara and me into and through Carlson Park then down Overland to the Ballona Creek walk and bike path (where Culver met Ince) for a pleasant mile-long stroll leading us to Duquesne Ave and the entrance to Culver City Park. Moving from film history to an Interpretive Nature Trail, we climbed the zigzagging wooden walkway to the top and a killer view of West L.A. and the ocean.



If you're looking for a West Side hike that covers everything from silver screen history to great restaurants and hiking paths, this is the one!