When I moved to Los Angeles from Manhattan in 1998, exactly twenty years ago, my interest in the city had only recently been piqued. Growing up in the Bay Area as I did, hatred of Los Angeles was our birthright—though we characterized it as a rivalry (little did we know, it was totally one-sided). But New York certainly looked down on L.A. too, and I found I had to do lots of explaining about my decision to move here.
Loving Los Angeles Overcoming My Anti-L.A. Bias
This picture is clearly an “After”—as in, after I learned to love Los Angeles. It was taken as part of a photoshoot for our book "Lick" by Ty Foster. A subsequent post will explore my “Before,” both my Bay Area bias as well as the unidimensional Los Angeles of my actual childhood experience (here’s a teaser: malls, Disneyland, freeways, Sam’s Club, trailer parks).
