L.A.'s Eastside: Where do you draw the line?

“ I've thought a lot about it. I considered: Western Ave., the N/S streets defining the edge of the old Spanish grid with the newer directly cardinal grid, some point along Wilshire west of MacArthur Park where development patterns really "shifted gears" toward automobiles, and streets such as Main and Los Angeles down town. Each one of these is very subjective and is burdened with questions about the identity of different neighborhoods as East or West (like the Silverlake question). One thing I want to mention before giving my final definition of the "East/West" boundary is that I am a firm believer in the "Central City" place name. The Central City is neither the "Eastside" or the "Westside." The Central City boundaries could be its own forum. I'd say the western boundary of the Central City (the eastern boundary of the Westside) is something like La Cienega. I conceive of LA proper as having five distinct, large geographical areas: Central, East, West, South, and Valley. FINALLY, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO: I consider the boundary demarcating the East Side to be the Los Angeles River. East of the LA River you have all the classic bastions of east sider culture: Boyle Heights, East LA, Lincoln Heights, the iconic bridges, Sears and USC medical. By this definition you can also throw in NELA neighbs like Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Cypress Park, etc. which exemplify many of the same cultural characteristics. Does that mean that Downtown, Echo Park, SILVERLAKE and others are "Westside?" No. They are in the Central City. Atwater? Central City. Where the river bank definition gets problematic (like Burbank, technically on the same side of the river as Boyle Heights), the over-arching and obvious "Valley" place name is appropriate. So that's it for me. The LA River. ” — Alex Linz from Cypress Park , Feb. 26, 2014, 1:09 a.m.