Jonathan Gold: A Neighborhood Just West of Downtown

I read this article at least once a year. It was first published in 1992 in LA Weekly. I first encountered it in the newsroom of the Daily Bruin (which I don’t believe Jonathan Gold ever wrote for while at UCLA). Someone pinned it up on the wall, a goal to aspire to.

Jonathan Gold loved Los Angeles in everything he wrote and his legacy certainly has shaped an entire generation of Angelenos. But this article really cuts into the soul of a city so often misunderstood and brushed aside. It makes me want to love LA more every time I read it. The prose is simple, genuine, empathetic, gentle in its reflection on the aftermath of conflict, beautiful.