麻豆约拍

Sunset Boulevard is one of those long, long American streets - 22 miles that tell the story of film and of Hollywood.

But Laura Barton thinks this street tells the story of America itself. She loves to stroll through Los Angeles, a city utterly devoted to driving. At foot level, you see things you'd never see in a car.

In the first of this two-part series, Laura walks the length of Sunset Boulevard in 24 hours.

Along the way, she uncovers the contemporary arts stories and the iconic artistic legacy of this street. She meets writers, artists and historians, as well as ordinary people who live and work along one of the most famous streets in the world.

From an inauspicious intersection in downtown LA, where Sunset Boulevard starts, Laura heads to the edge of the Sunset Strip - through Echo Park and Silverlake, through the Hospital District and past the studios that were home to early Hollywood's glamour.

She meets with poet Luis Rodriguez, photographer Autumn De Wilde, novelist Janet Fitch, and historian Jonathan Kuntz, revealing the famous and the hidden stories of Sunset's artistic life.

Sunset Boulevard's cultural landmarks tell LA's story - the drought threatening a city by the sea, the mixed up sub-cultures and ethnic and racial communities that come together to make the city - this is why Laura thinks Sunset is a microcosm of today's American story.

Laura discovers how Sunset Boulevard and its artistic legacy have become a shorthand for what LA represents in our collective imagination.

Producer: Nija Dalal-Small

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 in November 2016.

Show less