One of the first areas of Los Angeles west of Figueroa Street to see residential development, by the 1920s, Westlake resembled the Upper East Side of Manhattan (complete with a large Jewish population). Wealthy businessmen commuted to downtown, Wilshire Center (now Koreatown), Hollywood, and the Miracle Mile from the district's Spanish Revival and Art Deco mansions. The district's less affluent northeastern blocks also became the home of Los Angeles' Filipino population, much of which remains in Westlake and nearby neighborhoods to this day.
Westlake suffered greatly from the closure of the Pacific Electric streetcar line and the construction of Los Angeles' network of freeways in the 1950s. By the 1960s, virtually all of its white population had decamped to the West Side or the suburbs, replaced with transients who had been pushed out of Bunker Hill by "urban renewal" in the 1950s. Most of Westlake's elegant mansions were subdivided into apartments at this time, and many of its Beaux-Arts apartment buildings became residential hotels.
In addition to MacArthur Park, Westlake plays host to a number of Los Angeles landmarks. In the 1980s, a former Pacific Electric tunnel near 1st Street became a famous canvas for graffiti artists, drawing visitors from around the world. Numerous Los Angeles culinary landmarks also lie within the neighborhood. One of the few reminders of the area's Jewish history is Langer's Deli at Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street, a delicatessen whose hot pastrami sandwiches have been declared the finest in the United States by The New Yorker (a publication not especially known for its love of Los Angeles). The first American location of Mexican restaurant chain El Pollo Loco opened on Alvarado St. Finally, the first Tommy's hamburger stand still operates at the corner of Beverly and Rampart Boulevards