BEVERLY HILLS, CA — For three years, the city could not get its housing plan approved by the state. That gap handed developers a key to the front door. Under a state…
A Small Force on a Famous Beat: How the Beverly Hills Police Department Grew Up With the City
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The city incorporated in 1914. The police came almost immediately after, and for the first few years the department was one man. The first city marshal was Augustus…
The Beverly Hills Art Show: Fifty Years of Chalk, Canvas, and Crowds
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills Art Show returns to Beverly Gardens Park twice a year, filling four garden blocks with work by roughly 250 artists. The free event takes place…
Rodeo Drive: How Three Blocks Became a Global Address
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Rodeo Drive’s three-block core grew from $1,100 lots platted in 1906 into a district generating a quarter of the city’s sales tax revenue. The street runs two miles,…
Five Schools, One District: Beverly Hills Unified and Its Long Fight Over Money
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills Unified School District operates five schools for roughly 3,074 students, and its longest-running local argument has been about how to pay for them. This is…
From Lima Beans to Landmark: How Beverly Hills Became a City
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Beverly Hills incorporated as an independent city on January 28, 1914, after investors who came hunting for oil instead found water and a townsite. Long before the boutiques,…
Before Rodeo: The Restaurants That Fed Beverly Hills
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The restaurant that helped put this city on the map opened in 1931 at 9537 Wilshire Boulevard. It was the Beverly Hills branch of the Brown Derby, opened…
Who Decides What in Beverly Hills: The Five-Member City Council and the City Manager
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Beverly Hills runs on a council-manager system. Residents elect five councilmembers, and those five hire a professional administrator to oversee daily operations. The arrangement shapes nearly every local…
Beverly Hills Spent 40 Years Keeping the Subway Out. In 2027, It Arrives Anyway.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The city that helped keep the subway off the Westside for a generation is about to get a station of its own. Metro’s D Line extension is scheduled…
Beverly Hills Gets Covered Everywhere. Almost None of It Is About the City.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA. This city shows up in more stories than almost any town its size. Very few of them are about the city. National coverage arrives with the theme already attached….