12 reasons why Sycamore Avenue is L.A.’s coolest new hangout

For Jerome Mage, owner of luxury eyewear brand Jacques Marie Mage, Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood between Santa Monica Boulevard and Willoughby Avenue evokes a certain nostalgia.

“I really fell in love with that street,” the French expat said. “It’s a little slice of heaven, almost like what old L.A. used to be, from the early 2000s.”

The designer, whose business is based in Hollywood, liked the street so much that in late 2022 he opened his second retail location on Sycamore Avenue (the first is in Venice), with his atelier and offices tucked in back.

Mage is hardly alone. Over the course of a few short years, a stretch of North Sycamore, one street east of La Brea Avenue and around the corner from a long-standing neighborhood fixture, a 99 Cents Only store, has become a cultural hotbed, attracting a mix of boldface names and energetic upstarts from the worlds of food, art and fashion. It is quickly becoming what Hollywood Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard of yore were in terms of retail, celebrity and buzz.

Today it’s not uncommon to see a slew of stylish Angelenos grabbing a coffee and pastry, checking out a gallery show or just browsing for some chic clothes in this roughly six blocks of mixed-used space, which includes homes, from Santa Monica Boulevard south to Melrose Avenue and La Brea Avenue east to Orange Drive. Who can say why or how, exactly, a city like Los Angeles rearranges itself, but there’s no doubt that this little pocket of Hollywood has coalesced and blossomed during the COVID-19 pandemic — in no small part because of savvy real estate developers — with Sycamore Avenue as its center. And it’s now beckoning the coolest kids in L.A.

Over the last few weeks, we spent time on the ground in the trendy, revived neighborhood to help give you the lay of the land. There’s lots happening there, so here’s a beginner’s guide to the bustling new commercial district, which has been dubbed the Sycamore District.