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One day a month, a guy by the name of Robert Christenson takes a walk in L.A.’s Westwood Village. His mission in life, he says, is to learn more about the city surrounding him and to observe its characters: “[People] that are living a different life than the average — not the way most people are.”
“I live on a block in Westwood that’s sort of like an after-hours club, and I always try to walk through there. I’m always amazed how many people live in the middle of the city,” he says.
“Westwood Village has a lot of characters. It’s very close to Koreatown, and a lot of the people are really different. I like to see how they live. You see a lot of really interesting people.”
A few days later, he has what he calls a “mixed bag” of observations, and he decides to write them down in an article titled, “Westwood Walk.” He posts it on his blog, “Westwood Walk,” and it’s picked up by a variety of people around Los Angeles.
That article — now archived on the internet — started a conversation that has continued for nearly two years.
For two years, the writer has been writing about the Westwood Walk and about how he’s been surprised by the characters he’s met. What he’s seen, he says, have been a few things: “I’ve seen a lot of people in the Westwood neighborhood who just don’t have the money to live in L.A., for example,” he says.
“I’ve met people who are more white than Asian. I’ve met a lot of people who are homeless. I’ve met a lot of people who have a lot less money than I do. I’ve met a lot of people without a family.”
What he’s seen in that “mixed bag” of observations