, constructed in the 1920s Prior to the 1984 incorporation of the city of
West Hollywood, the Sunset Strip lay in an
unincorporated area of
Los Angeles County. Because of this, the Sunset Strip and all of West Hollywood gained a reputation for being a loosely regulated area, in large part because it was not under the jurisdiction of the
Los Angeles Police Department.
1920s Gambling was illegal in the city of Los Angeles, but legal in unincorporated Los Angeles County, which fostered the development of rather wilder nightlife in West Hollywood than was found within the city limits. In the 1920s a number of nightclubs and
casinos moved in along Sunset Strip, which attracted movie people;
alcohol was served in back rooms during
Prohibition.
1930s and 1940s In the 1930s and the 1940s, restaurants and nightclubs on Sunset Strip, like Sherry's,
Ciro's, the
Mocambo and the
Trocadero, were patronized by people working in the movie industry. Some of its expensive nightclubs and restaurants were said to be owned by gangsters like
Mickey Cohen and
Bugsy Siegel, earning Sunset Strip a place in
Raymond Chandler's 1949
Philip Marlowe novel,
The Little Sister. Also on Sunset Strip are the
Garden of Allah apartments—Hollywood quarters for transplanted writers like
Robert Benchley,
Dorothy Parker, and
F. Scott Fitzgerald—and
Schwab's Drug Store.
1960s By the early 1960s, Sunset Strip had lost favor with the majority of movie people, but its restaurants, bars and clubs continued to serve as an attraction for locals and tourists. In the mid-1960s it became a major gathering place for the
counterculture and was the scene of the
Sunset Strip curfew riots in November 1966, involving police and crowds of young club-goers. Those riots inspired the
Buffalo Springfield song "
For What It's Worth". Sunset Strip became popular with rock musicians and their fans. Bands such as
Led Zeppelin,
the Doors,
the Byrds,
Love,
the Seeds,
Frank Zappa, and others played at clubs like
Gazzarri's, the
Whisky a Go Go, the
Roxy,
Pandora's Box and the
London Fog. In July 1965
Go-Go dancers also began performing. The
Hyatt West Hollywood (now known as the Andaz West Hollywood) became a popular hotel.
1970s Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, influenced by Britain's
glam rock movement, opened in 1972. It became a hangout for musicians, including
the Stooges and the
New York Dolls. Clubs on the Sunset Strip at that time, Rodney Bingenheimer's in particular, were notorious for allowing teenage patrons.
Quiet Riot founder Kelly Garni, who was a teenager when the band began playing in the area, recalled: "Nobody carried or cared about ID's. Thirteen-year-old girls could walk in dressed like sexy 25-year-olds, and kids could sidle up to the bar and order a cocktail, so it wasn't a big stretch for us to get up and play there." The 1979
Donna Summer song "
Sunset People", from the album
Bad Girls, was about the nightlife on Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Strip continued to be a major focus for
punk rock and
new wave music during the late 1970s.
1980s During the latter part of the 1970s and well into the 1980s, the Sunset Strip would become synonymous with the Los Angeles
heavy metal movement, commonly referred to as the West Coast Metal Explosion. The clubs on the Sunset Strip such as the Whisky a Go Go and The Roxy, became home to numerous LA-based heavy metal bands such as
Van Halen,
Quiet Riot,
Mötley Crüe, Razor Fury,
Ratt and
Guns N' Roses. The scene became synonymous with
glam metal, with many fans mimicking the hair and clothing worn by the bands. The many heavy metal fans who would congregate outside the clubs along the strip became a defining feature. The adoption of "pay to play" policies, in which bands were charged a fee to play at clubs, diminished its appeal to groups, other than as an industry showcase. As of the 2010s, the music industry establishment continues to dominate the clubs on Sunset Strip. In November 1984, voters in West Hollywood passed a proposal on the ballot to incorporate, and the area became an independent city. Increasingly, the western end of Sunset Strip was occupied by office buildings, mostly catering to the entertainment industry, as well as hotels.
1990s During the 1990s, the center of the alternative music activity in Los Angeles shifted further east to areas like
Echo Park,
Silver Lake and
Los Feliz. ==Landmarks==