los angeles plays itself

No place delights in retelling its own tale quite like the City of Angels. Now, a wave of chefs, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs is remixing the classics to usher in a new Golden Age

- Jason Sheeler

The energy is shifting. Can you feel it?" It is a cloudy Sunday afternoon in Highland Park. A perfect day to hear about ghosts.

This neighborhood in Northeast LA is known for its early - 1900s Arts and Crafts homes and varieties of cashew-milk lattes. Highland Park fell into disrepair and gang violence by the '90s, but over the last 20 years it has been rediscovered and revitalized by the city's creative class. People like Danielle Thomsen, who's telling me about the ghosts in the store.

A shoebox diorama of a shop, Pattyes Closet II is filled with vintage Levi's, draggy caftans, old photos, terrifying dolls, and costume jewelry. The store is around the corner from Rosie Bunny Bean (a pet supply shop that sells whole frozen duck necks for your dog), a vegan soft-serve joint, the wonderful Taiwanese restaurant Joy, at least four coffee shops, and a delightfully bizarre marionette theater. A Corvette vrooms past, blaring a Bruce Hornsby song.

I spot a series of paintings of young women from the early days of Los Angeles, not long after 44 settlers founded the city in 1781. The women are in witchy Stevie Nicks lace. "Sometimes I come in and their eyes are closed," she says. The eyes on the canvas? "Oh, everything in here is haunted," she says flatly. "It's Los Angeles. There are spirits everywhere. That's why you have to believe in something. Otherwise, you're untethered, and they take you away." She pauses, "Did you just show up here, or were you invited?"