North Hollywood Movers

Getting to Know North Hollywood

How North Hollywood Sits

North Hollywood is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles, in the east San Fernando Valley. Because it is part of the city, a move here follows city rules through the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. No separate city hall or county office is involved. The neighborhood covers about 5.87 square miles and holds well over 80,000 residents. That puts its density among the higher figures in the county.

The heart of the neighborhood is the North Hollywood Metro station on Lankershim Boulevard. It is the northern terminus of the B Line subway and the western terminus of the G Line busway. The subway opened in 2000 after six years of construction. The station has anchored the area ever since. Lankershim, Magnolia, Chandler, and Vineland are the main surface streets. The 170, the 134, and the 101 freeways are all close at hand. North Hollywood borders Sun Valley to the north and Burbank to the northeast and east. Toluca Lake lies to the south, Studio City to the southwest, and Valley Village and Valley Glen to the west.

The housing splits sharply. Near the station, the NoHo Arts District holds loft buildings, mid-rise apartments, and condo towers up to fifteen stories. Much of it has gone up since 2000. Away from the core, the streets fill with one-story bungalows from the 1930s and 1940s, small apartment complexes, and single-family homes. The population is large and diverse, with significant Latino and other communities. The neighborhood draws many people who work in the entertainment and creative industries.

From Toluca’s Wheat Fields to NoHo

The land was home to the Tongva people, and during the Spanish and Mexican eras it sat within the vast holdings that covered much of the San Fernando Valley. In the late nineteenth century, Isaac Lankershim ran sheep and grew wheat across large stretches of the Valley. In 1887, the Lankershim Ranch Land and Water Company laid out a townsite on part of that land.

The new town went through three names. It was first called Toluca, then renamed Lankershim in 1896, after the ranching family. The two names competed for years, even after the renaming. Local ranchers used to joke that you should ship the merchandise to Lankershim but bill it to Toluca, since the post office across the way still carried the Toluca name. Finally, in 1927, the town was renamed North Hollywood, to share in the glamour and the pull of Hollywood just over the hills. The early community grew on orchards and farmland. The aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart lived in the area for a time.

The neighborhood stayed a quiet, lower-middle-class Valley suburb for decades. The change came with the subway. When the Metro Red Line, now the B Line, was extended to North Hollywood in 2000, nearly half a million people rode it free during the opening weekend. The station set off a wave of development. The city created the 743-acre North Hollywood Development District. The NoHo Commons transit village rose near the station, with loft apartments, condo towers, theaters, and offices. The NoHo Arts District grew into a cultural center with more than thirty theaters. The historic 1920s train depot at Lankershim and Chandler was restored in 2014. The towers and the bungalows have stood side by side ever since.

What a North Hollywood Move Really Involves

North Hollywood is part of the City of Los Angeles, so a move here works under LADOT rather than a separate city or the county. When a move is large enough to need it, LADOT issues a temporary no-parking permit to hold curb space at the address. Our office submits the application and puts up the signs ahead of time. The permit matters most in the Arts District, where parking is tight near the station and the theaters, and on the bungalow streets, where the older blocks were not built with moving trucks in mind.

The building access is the next factor, and it is the part that sets North Hollywood apart. A large share of the moves here are in and out of the loft buildings and condo towers near the station. That means reserving the freight elevator, filing a certificate of insurance with building management, and booking a move-in window. Often only one elevator is available, and the moving hours are limited. We confirm all of it with the building ahead of the day, so the crew is not left standing around for a manager or an elevator key. The loading zones can sit a fair distance from the unit, across a lobby and up an elevator. We plan the carry path for that.

Away from the towers, the work changes. The 1930s and 1940s bungalows have narrow original doorways, tight rooms, and short driveways. The small apartment complexes often mean a stair carry. We put down door, railing, and floor protection as a matter of course, size the truck to the street, and plan the parking on the tighter blocks. We settle the permit, the elevator or building coordination, and the truck size before move day, so nothing slows the job once the crew arrives.