Los Angeles County is sprawling and expansive, stretching through the dust-worn hills of Santa Clarita, the gondola-crowded canals of Long Beach and deep into the wilds of Angeles National Forest. It’s hard enough for locals to agree on which neighborhoods fall on the east or west side, let alone pinpoint its center.

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Yet Fairfax and the larger Mid-Wilshire area are about as close as you’ll get to identifying the apex of L.A. It’s true not just in the geographical sense — plug it in as your starting point and it’ll take you about 20 minutes to get just about anywhere in the city, as long as you don’t run into traffic — but in a symbolic sense too. Fairfax isn’t the most dense, touristed or even diverse section of the city, but the district is so packed with landmarks, history, entertainment, art, retail and cuisine that it’s become a natural hub for Angelenos to flock to.

Tucked away from Fairfax Avenue on quaint side streets, you’ll find preserved architecture in styles that span Art Deco, Spanish Colonial revival, Chateauesque, Streamline Moderne and more. Just next to Rick Caruso’s outdoor mall the Grove, the Original Farmers Market operates much as it did when it opened in 1934, with a maze of merchants selling just about anything your heart could desire. Within its shaded halls, Patsy D’Amore’s is a family-owned pizzeria that’s been around since 1949 and claims to be the first to sell pizza in L.A., while Trejo’s Tacos is a casual Mexican cantina from actor and activist Danny Trejo. And with numerous synagogues, Jewish schools and businesses, in addition to the historic Canter’s deli and the Holocaust Museum, the Jewish community has long had roots in this area.

For Waverly Coleman, 36, who grew up off West 3rd and South Detroit streets and still lives nearby, she finds herself falling back on the same neighborhood routine her mother introduced during her childhood.

“Before the Grove was built, my mom would take me to the Original Farmers Market to get meat and seafood,” Coleman says. “Out of habit when I got older, I would just go back to all of the places I remembered from childhood. So now that’s where I run my errands with my kids.”

Crawl up Fairfax from Pico Boulevard to meet the northern edge of Melrose Avenue, then circle east to La Brea. The gridlocked section on Fairfax between Whitworth and Olympic Boulevard represents Little Ethiopia, with a cluster of Ethiopian restaurants sandwiched alongside thrift shops and a renowned cake shop. Keep heading north and you’ll cross into construction-laden Museum Row, with new entries like the Academy Museum and where expansions to the Metro, LACMA and the La Brea Tar Pits are underway. The block intensifies in hipness as you pass West 3rd with the Original Farmers Market, the Grove and CBS Television City — you’ll spy lines of glaring zennials and Hollywood assistants waiting on clothing drops from streetwear shops like Golf Wang, Ripndip and the Hundreds, with similarly hyped restaurants like Jon & Vinny’s, Badmaash and Trophie’s Burger Club ready to whet their appetite when they’re done.

But Fairfax isn’t all congestion, tourist attractions and parachute-pants hipsters. Right next to the Grove, Pan Pacific Park remains an essential green space, with an ideal mix of nature interspersed with people-watching fueled by the adjacent, high-priced Erewhon market where everyone seems on their way to or fresh from a specialized group workout class. Suzanne Isken, executive director of Craft Contemporary on Museum Row, escapes the neighborhood bustle at Yuko’s Kitchen, a plant-strewn cafe with rice cakes, sushi rolls, udon and salmon skin salad (Isken’s favorite), or at the La Brea Tar Pits across the street from the museum.

“You always run into a tourist who has a question for you, and that’s kind of fun,” Isken says of spending time in Fairfax. One of her favorite hidden gems in the area: an office building called Wilshire Courtyard. “In the back they have this little playground that my granddaughter used to love when she’d come and visit me at work,” she says. “But if you go across the other side, there’s a shady little pond filled with koi fish and turtles.”

Whether stopping by for an afternoon, a day or a long weekend, there’s plenty to keep you busy in this part of town. From local coffee shops to food trucks, ice cream shops, Irish pubs, poetry nights, vintage cinemas and more, this must be Fairfax. — Danielle Dorsey

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