Van Nuys is a neighborhood in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. Home to Van Nuys Airport and the Valley Municipal Building, it is the most populous neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.
The Los Angeles River, historically known as Paayme Paxaayt'West River' by the Tongva and the Río Porciúncula'Porciúncula River' by the Spanish, is a major river in Los Angeles County, California. Its headwaters are in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and it flows nearly 51 miles (82 km) from Canoga Park through the San Fernando Valley, Downtown Los Angeles, and the Gateway Cities to its mouth in Long Beach, where it flows into San Pedro Bay. While the river was once free-flowing and frequently flooding, forming alluvial flood plains along its banks, it is currently notable for flowing through a concrete channel on a fixed course, which was built after a series of devastating floods in the early 20th century.
Bel Air is a residential neighborhood on the Los Angeles Westside, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in the U.S. state of California.
Interstate 405 is a major north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway in Southern California. The entire route is known as the northern segment of the San Diego Freeway. I-405 is a bypass auxiliary route of I-5, running along the southern and western parts of the Greater Los Angeles urban area from Irvine in the south to Sylmar in the north.
The Los Angeles Westside is an urban region in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. It has no official definition, but sources like LA Weekly and the Mapping L.A. survey of the Los Angeles Times place the region on the western side of the Los Angeles Basin south of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Sepulveda Pass is a low mountain pass through the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles. It is named after the Sepúlveda family of California, a prominent Californio family that owned the land where the pass lies.
American Jewish University (AJU) is a private Jewish university in Los Angeles, California. It was formed in 2007 from the merger of the University of Judaism and Brandeis-Bardin Institute.
Beverly Hills Post Office (BHPO) is the name given to a section of Los Angeles, California, that lies within the 90210 ZIP code, assigned to the Beverly Hills Post Office. Los Angeles mailing addresses with the ZIP code 90210 may be written as "Beverly Hills, CA 90210", though the properties themselves lie outside of the Beverly Hills city limits.
Oak Park High School is the main high school in the Oak Park Unified School District, taking ninth through twelfth grade students. It is a National Blue Ribbon School and a 2019 California Distinguished School, and received an Exemplary Distinction Award from the California of Education for its Career and Technical Education program which includes career pathways in Engineering Design, Media Arts, Production Management, and construction technologies. The 2012 Academic Performance Index (API) was 929, which is among the highest in California. In 2015 the school was awarded the California Gold Ribbon School Award from the California Department of Education. The 2016 Newsweek Ranking of America's Top Schools ranked Oak Park High as #51 in the nation and #7 in CA.
The John Thomas Dye School, nicknamed JTD, is an independent private coeducational nonsectarian elementary day school located in the Bel-Air area of Los Angeles, California, serving students in kindergarten through sixth grade.
Milken Community School is a private Jewish high school and middle school. It is located on Mulholland Drive in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest Jewish day schools in the United States. Long affiliated with Stephen S. Wise Temple, a Reform congregation, the school is officially non-denominational, and became independent from the temple in July 2012. Despite the separation, Milken Community Schools continues to be the school in which many Stephen S. Wise students are enrolled.
Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica was a 33,000-acre (130 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given by governor Juan Alvarado in 1839 to Francisco Sepúlveda II, a soldier and citizen of Los Angeles. The rancho included what are now Santa Monica, Brentwood, Mandeville Canyon, and parts of Bel-Air and West Los Angeles.
Tekeyan Cultural Association Arshag Dickranian Armenian School was a private K-12 Armenian school in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church and School is a Catholic church and elementary school located in Encino, Los Angeles. Founded in 1949, St. Cyril's was voted the "Best Parish" for music in the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 2000.
Stephen Wise Temple is a large Reform Jewish congregation in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. Founded in 1964 by the late Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin, with 35 families, the congregation grew rapidly. At various times in its history it has been stated to be the largest, or one of the largest, Jewish congregations in the world, at one time having a membership of approximately 3,000 families, six rabbis, two cantors and two cantorial interns, and four schools on three campuses. As of 1994, it was the second-largest synagogue in the United States. The congregation was founded as the Stephen S. Wise Temple, in honour of Stephen Samuel Wise; and 2014 it was renamed as the Stephen Wise Temple.
West Valley Christian School (WVCS) is a private primary and lower secondary Christian school in West Hills, Los Angeles, California serving Preschool through 8th grade. it was established by the adjacent West Valley Christian Church in 1978. It previously had a high school division.
Los Angeles Leadership Academy is a free charter school system in Los Angeles, California. The school has been noted with a alumni that has nearly a 100 percent acceptance to college. Students that graduate from Los Angeles Leadership Academy have been admitted to and attended Harvard, Stanford, North Western, Brown, Cal Poly, Penn State, UC Berkeley, and Penn State just to name a few. The schools in the system includes Los Angeles Leadership Academy Primary School, Los Angeles Leadership Academy Middle School, and Los Angeles Leadership Academy High School. The school is located in Lincoln Heights.
The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden is a private Japanese garden located in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. Known as Shikyo-en when completed in 1961, it emphasizes water, stones, and evergreen plants. The naturalistic hillside site features streams, a waterfall, a tea house, and blooming magnolia and camellia trees. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the garden is among the largest and most significant private residential Japanese-style gardens built in the United States in the immediate Post-World War II period. The garden was donated to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965 and open to the public until 2011. Following a legal dispute with Hannah Carter's children, it was sold to a private citizen in 2016.
Valor Christian Academy is a private transitional kindergarten through middle grades Christian school in Redondo Beach, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was previously known as Coast Christian School but received its current name in September 2012. It was affiliated with the Assemblies of God.
The Skirball Fire was a wildfire that burned in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, and one of multiple wildfires that broke out across Southern California in December 2017. The fire burned 422 acres of land on the slopes of the Sepulveda Pass on its east or Bel Air side, causing the closure of Interstate 405, a major traffic artery in the city. The Skirball Cultural Center, Bel-Air Country Club, Getty Center, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, and various private schools were closed as a result of the fire. Classes were cancelled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Santa Monica College, while Mount Saint Mary's University evacuated from its Brentwood campus to its downtown Los Angeles location. The fire destroyed six structures and damaged 12. On December 10, at about 1 p.m. PST, all evacuation orders and road closures for the Skirball Fire were lifted, as containment of the wildfire increased to 85%. Late on December 15, it was reported that the Skirball Fire had been 100% contained, at 422 acres (171 ha).
