Here’s a map reminiscent of the Bruceville map – another piece of musical cartography treated earlier on this blog (entry #134). This one charts the haunts of Tom Petty, an “undercelebrated rock and roll icon”, in the words of LA Weekly, which recently featured this map.
Petty’s been around in LA for over 3 decades, ever since he drove cross-country from Gainesville (FL) to get a record deal for his first band Mudcrutch. Petty’s musical entourage eventually morphed into the Heartbreakers, with whom he achieved success from 1976 onwards – a career that culminated, recently, in a 4,5 hour long Peter Bogdanovich rockumentary on the band, a coffee table book (both entitled Runnin’ Down A Dream)… and, more importantly for this blog, a musical map of Los Angeles.
The map not only shows some of the places relevant to Tom Petty’s life and career, but its tilted presentation and exaggeration of some geographical features paradoxically helps to get a better visual understanding of this sprawling city with the size and population of a not-even-so-small country.
I’m just listing the places on the map to give you an idea what’s where. For the full stories behind each number, go to the article in LA Weekly.
1. Sunset Boulevard; 2. Ben Frank’s Diner (now Mel’s Diner); 3. The Sunset Strip; 4. Shelter Records Office; 5. Hollywood Premiere Motel; 6. Canoga Park; 7. Travelodge Hotel; 8. The Winona; 9. The Alley; 10. Village Recorder; 11. London, U.K.; 12. Whisky A Go Go; 13. Sound City; 14. MCA Records; 15. Century City; 16. “FM radio” and “The freeway”; 17. Cello Studios; 18. The Smog; 19. The 101 Freeway; 20. Mulholland Drive; 21. Reseda; 22. Vampires on Ventura Boulevard; 23. Rose Bowl; 24. East L.A; 25. Viper Room; 26. LAX; 27. Dave Stewart’s house in Encino; 28. Sunset Sound; 29. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; 30. Universal Amphitheater (now the Gibson); 31. Petty’s home in Encino; 32. Charo’s house in Beverly Hills; 33. Le Seur; 34. Beverly Hills mansion designed by Wallace Neff; 35. Pacific Palisades “Chicken Shack”; 36. House of Blues; 37. McCabe’s Guitar Shop; 38. Malibu.
Click on map to magnify. Many thanks to Kyle Hunsberger, who alerted me to this map.
An interesting and attractive map, but I find that it actually gives a rather poor visual understanding of LA. For starters, the map looks in a more north-westerly or even west-north-westerly direction than you might think. Several of the places in LA proper (the part south of the central line of hills are actually a lot closer together than you might think based on this map, but they would be so bunched up they would be impossible to make out.
The location of the Rose Bowl (23) is flat out wrong. It’s given location is west of both Dodger Stadium and Griffith Park. It ought to be farther to the right, either right on the edge or just past it.
The FM radio mast (16) is also badly placed. Placed in the western Santa Monica mountains, it would have very little range to reach most of the greater LA area. The highest powered FM masts are located on Mt. Wilson, which is either just to the right of the airplane or under the “wind” in the upper right corner.
I’m also a little dubious of the placement of Ventura Boulevard (22).
But it’s cool and I really like TP.
Comment by DemetriosX — January 28, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
This map looks awesome, and I love Tom Petty, BUT the map won’t zoom in or whatever it’s supposed to do so I can’t see it up close! I hope this is fixable…
Comment by Ben — January 28, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
What I really like about this map is that you clearly can see the phenomenon termed the country breeze. As the name implies, this circulation pattern is characterized by a light wind blowing into Los Angeles from the surrounding San Gabriel Mountains range. Heating in the city creates upward air motion, which, in turn, initiates the country-to-city flow. This effect contributes to the reduction of air pollutants. The blanket of particulates in Los Angeles significantly reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. This weakening of solar radiation is variable. During air pollution episodes the decrease will be much greater than for periods when ventilation is good.
Comment by Frederik — January 28, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Helo.
My name is Smallville. I live in Brazil.
Great Blog.
Visit the mine. This in Portuguese.
Link in engrish.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsupimpaum.blogspot.com&langpair=pt%7Cen&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF8
Comment by Smallville — January 28, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
One of the best blogs I’ve ever read :-)
Comment by Knut — January 28, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
Demitrios-
If you want to be literal about it, I don’t think the radio tower will have trouble transmitting… if the mast is tens of thousand feet tall, it could be placed anywhere!
Comment by andrew — January 28, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
[...] Runnin’ Down A Dream: Tom Petty’s Map of LA [...]
Pingback by Good to Go Pile . . . « Trading for the Masses — January 29, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
But Tom Petty is just a boy! Has he been going that long? *Crawls back under 40something rock
Comment by lordhutton — January 29, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
I grew up in LA, practically on Ventura Blvd, near Canoga Park and Reseda. As I recall, No. 18, the Smog, is ALL wrong. It should be covering everything!
Well, maybe it’s improved since I lived there…
Comment by lichanos — January 29, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Great Map, this one, makes me wish for the Beatles’ Liverpool, or Ray Davies’ London.
As a Brit, what really gave me a shocking idea of the scale was the drive from San Francisco to LA (around 8 hours) damn! they looked so close on my world atlas!
Comment by kevmoore — January 30, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
I can see other alt weekly newspapers doing the same thing in the next few months. I wonder if they’ll create LA weekly.
Comment by cyclepromo — January 31, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
For an American, 100 years is a long time; for a Brit, 100 miles is a long drive.
Comment by lichanos — January 31, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
it’s an interesting place ..
nice articles
Comment by nyari duit di internet — February 1, 2008 @ 12:46 am
I love these types of maps. I’ve been trying to get my Larry David map going, watching DVD’s and plotting the set locations. It’s fun too..
http://www.arcdigita.com/cyemap.htm
Comment by Ken — March 24, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
how pathetic
Comment by Rui Brito — April 22, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
it’s an interesting place ..
nice articles
Comment by Shoes Reviews — June 9, 2008 @ 10:30 am
thank you
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 3:30 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
..
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 8:47 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 5:02 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:28 am