Pacific-Edison, Glendale

The name of this neighborhood comes from the Pacific-Edison Electric Railway, one of the most historic companies in Glendale and one of the major reasons for Glendale becoming the major metropolitan center it is today. The railway was the reason why the population of Glendale grew rapidly in the early part of the twentieth century and helped it to piggy back on the growth of Los Angeles.

Along San Fernando Road there are lots of repair shops and businesses catering to mechanical equipment. To the extent there are eateries in this area they mostly cater to the workers drawn to the area on business—making the lunch hour the busy portion of the day. At the opposite end of the neighborhood along S. Brand Avenue a number of high end car dealerships make their homes—Infiniti, BMW, Acura. Along this avenue there are also a smattering of nicer eateries, such as Mamita’s Peruvian—which is tasty and very reasonably priced. There is also Eat Well a little farther south on S. Brand—it is everything you would expect from the shabby diner, both good and bad. If you like shabby diner experiences, you’ll like this place; if not, then stay away.

This is yet another sea of boxy apartment buildings packed one next to the other, jowl to jowl. There is a bit of crime and a gang problem—not huge as far as I know, but, you are bordering the more dangerous South Glendale neighborhoods where some murders have occurred in the last few years so this starts to become a concern in this area. On the other hand, the Glendale overall murder rate is still fairly low, given the near 200,000 person population, there have only been a dozen murders. Pretty low in relative terms.