Good Job, L.A. Bohemians

Postwar Los Angeles Is Rightly Celebrated, But Prewar Los Angeles Set the Stage

Paris had its Montparnasse; New York City had its Greenwich Village. But what about Los Angeles? Actually, many artists, writers, and musicians decided the City of Angels was the most exciting place to be during the early years of the twentieth century, when a pervasive atmosphere of expectation and unrealized potential made the city quite unlike any other. Perhaps the seductive scent of California poppies coupled with the pungent odor of opportunity gave the zephyrs of Los Angeles an especially intoxicating quality.

In 1900, the population of Los Angeles was a …