Los Angeles Times STILL Can't Get It's LA Neighborhoods Straight! UPDATE FROM LA TIMES! More Updates And Partial Correction!

How hard can it be for the Los Angeles Times to take a Thomas Guide, talk to some people who know something about this city - and then mark up that book with the correct names of our city's neighborhoods.

And, I am told by a veteran reporter, one such book once existed. So I would like to offer the LA Times the help of the neighborhood councils in drawing up a map of where our city's neighborhoods are.

Lately, the problem near Downtown has been that anything west of Downtown is automatically called - the Westlake District - no matter how far into Koreatown or Mid-Wilshire it is - or how close to Downtown it is - even when it's actually Pico-Union neighborhood - which is east of the Westlake District.

But now they've managed to screw this area up even worse.

The exact same street they used to say was in Westlake - Westmoreland Ave just east of Vermont - they are now saying is in the... Pico-Union neighborhood....even though the Westlake District is located between Pico-Union and Mid-Wilshire/Koreatown neighborhood that Westmoreland is actually located in. (Correction - Westmoreland this far south could be Koreatown - but NOT Mid-Wilshire. But all articles about Pico-Union clearly state Hoover is the furthest west the area goes so it is NOT Pico-Union).

So the Los Angeles Times has now decided there are not one, but two Pico-Union neighborhoods - one on each side of the Westlake District.

Apartment building partially collapses, injuring 4
Fire officials estimate 20 to 30 people were inside the Pico-Union building when the front portion collapsed. The injuries were not believed to be life-threatening
By Scott Gold

January 19, 2009

The front of a small apartment building in the Pico-Union neighborhood collapsed Sunday night, injuring at least four people.

A portion of the building in the 1600 block of South Westmoreland Avenue collapsed shortly before 9 p.m. Fire officials said between 20 and 30 people were inside at the time.

None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening. One woman was hospitalized with multiple lacerations. She was in stable condition, paramedics said.

UPDATE!

Just got an email from California editor David Lauter - and the Times is now working on putting together an on-line map of Los Angeles neighborhoods; they will then invite the public to comment upon it.

And since the LAT isn't the only one who has trouble telling one neighborhood from the other, and since there are so many different potential boundary lines - this is a chance to get at least a semi-official guide to what is what and where the hell it is.

MORE UPDATE!

First, I forgot to mention the LA Times new project will use census blocks as the matirx for their neighborhood maps. Second, as one person below mentions - some maps DO list this as being in the Pico-Union neighborhood while others list it as being in Koreatown. And there is a legitimate question as to how far south Westlake goes and what the area below that is called if it is not Westlake.

But it is clearly NOT mid-Wilshire as it might be if it were a little further north (an area which the LAT has been increasingly calling... Westlake) and while it might be Westlake adjacent - possibly Harvard Heights might be a better description as the below poster suggests - or it might be the Harvard Heights neighborhood in the Westlake, Pico-Union or Koreatown... District.

Which brings us to the question - are neighborhoods parts of larger districts - and, if so - what would you then call the various East and West Los Angeles's?

My head hurts and I need to lie down now.