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A Walk Up & Down The Famed Steep Baxter Street, Echo Park, Los Angeles

1,946 views · Published 11 April 2018 · 16:30 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: Michael Jiroch · 2018 · Travel & Events

As you take the right turn onto Baxter Street, a lovely but beaten-up stretch of road between Allessandro and Alvarado Streets in Echo Park, adjacent to the urban hikers of the neighborhood stairs, you almost can’t believe it. Baxter Street is not the steepest street in Los Angeles — that distinction goes to the less active thoroughfare Eldred Street in Highland Park — but as you ascend its peak, it becomes clear why this street has such a reputation among Angelenos.

It’s not just steep going up, it’s the exact same steepness going down. The street slopes at a 32 percent grade. At the apex, there is no stop sign. There is no moment to collect yourself for the crest of the hill. Hill is too small a word here. It’s a mountain.

Angelenos know it and respect Baxter; it’s the site of constant vehicle breakdowns and accidents. Newcomers gawk at it. Baxter Street could even be our ramshackle answer to San Francisco's steep and winding Lombard Street.

Baxter Street is infamous in Los Angeles and has earned many stories since its first official designation by the city in 1872. In the early 1900s, it was used as a pedestrian path for much-loved, but doomed, Pacific Electric streetcar lines that once connected the city like a grid. Baxter Street is close to the line that ran through Echo Park, back when the area was called Edendale. In a less advanced age, maybe the street made sense. In 1887, you could buy a nice plot of land on a hill in Victor Heights region near Echo Park for $700.

Written by Daniel Ralston JANUARY 13, 2017

A Walk Up & Down The Famed Steep Baxter Street, Echo Park, Los Angeles

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