Living in Highland Park, Los Angeles

Highland Park's craftsman homes and hillside streets give Northeast LA some of its oldest residential character, and York Boulevard has filled in over the years with galleries, coffee shops, and restaurants that give the neighborhood a walkable commercial spine, front porches and low fences visible on most of the residential side streets. The A Line runs through, connecting Highland Park to downtown and Pasadena without a car needed for that particular trip, and the Arroyo Seco cuts along the neighborhood's edge with its own path for walkers and cyclists heading toward the river.

Rent here still runs a notch below the Westside and much of Central LA, though the neighborhood has changed enough in recent years that some longtime fixtures now share the block with newer businesses — an ongoing shift rather than a settled state, and one that residents on York Boulevard notice year to year.

What stands out on York Boulevard is that contrast in real time: a decades-old hardware store next to a new coffee bar, both busy, both part of the same walk down the block on any given afternoon, craftsman porches visible just around the corner.