It Takes A Village

The Westwood Business Improvement District is a vibrant, unique commercial district, centrally located in Los Angeles. Our district is easily accessible, serving a population of over 200,000 people living within a three-mile radius. Historic Westwood Village resides within the WBID and shares a boundary with the University of California, Los Angeles.

So who are we? The WVIA is the non-profit managing entity for the Westwood Business Improvement District. The Westwood Business Improvement District, or BID as we are commonly called, is the geographic area with the properties within that area paying an assessment to fund special benefits.

So what does our particular BID do, and what are some of our accomplishments of the past year? To answer these questions, we’ve put together a short video that we hope you will enjoy.

AMMO at the Hammer celebrates Oktoberfest with Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada hosting weekly Thursday night Tap Takeover at Ammo at the Hammer, all month long!  They'll be serving up a wide range of specialty drafts in celebration of Oktoberfest every Thursday in the month of October! Sample their seasonal menu including bratwurst, schnitzel sliders and other seasonal specials.

Lunch
Tuesday – Sunday, 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.

$4 Happy Hour & Weekend Brunch
Tuesday – Friday, 4 – 7:30 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, 11:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Tap Takeovers
Thursdays, October 6, 13, 20 & 27

Currently on view at the Hammer Museum
In Real Life: 100 Days of Film and Performance Hammer Projects: Simone Leigh
Hammer Projects: Marwa Arsanios
Hammer Projects: Nicolas Party

Museum hours
Tuesday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday – Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed Monday and national holidays

Admission to all exhibitions and programs at the Hammer Museum is free.

Where to watch the FIFA World Cup in Westwood?

The 2014 World Cup is almost upon us. Do you know where you’re going to watch the matches with your friends with good food and beer in hand? There's a growing list of bars and restaurants that plan to air all or most of the World Cup games, which kick off on Thursday, June 12 at 1pm with Brazil vs. Croatia. The United States will face Ghana at 3 p.m. Monday! 

While there are plenty of bars and restaurants that will have their TVs on and airing the Wold Cup, a few Westwood Village-area places have specials to add some cheer. Here are some great suggestions:

Barney's Beanery

This famous Los Angeles restaurant/bar boasts an amazing 60 HGTV's for your viewing pleasure. Along with the funky, fun, sporty vibe they have daily drink and food specials perfect for sitting back to enjoy the World Cup games. They'll be opening early for all the games for your viewing pleasure.

BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse

"Catch the match" at BJ's Restaurant in Westwood Village. BJ's has created some World Cup themed cocktails that are sure to please, along with a heavy beer and wine list, there is something for everyone. 

FRIDA Mexican Cuisine

FRIDA's Westwood has already started the month long World Cup game with daily drink and food specials, you can't go wrong. Get your lungs ready to shout GOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL!!

Hammer Museum 

The Hammer will screen eight live games of the FIFA 2014 World Cup matches in the Hammer courtyard and Annex. For dates and times visit: hammer.ucla.edu

O'Hara's Bar and Grill

O'Hara's is a UCLA neighborhood sports bar that hosts daily drink specials, including Monday Movie Night, Tuesday $2 pint night, Wednesday trivia night and Sunday Funday beer Pong tournaments. This month, they are serving up daily drink and food specials! O'Hara's also serves pub-style food, such as burgers and fries priced between $8-14, and appetizers and bar snacks that cost between $4-$8. 

Tanzy Westwood

Tanzy is iPic Theatre's new signature restaurant. Tanzy is a great place to sit back and enjoy the World Cup games. Watch the game at the bar, with drink specials like Pint Punt Pint, which includes rum, mango, ginger, fresh jalapeno and cerveza, "Man Up" your drink with double the jalapenos! Other specials include a a special "Beertail" created by award-winning mixologist and master sommelier Adam Seger.  

Skylight Garden

Skylight Garden will be serving up extra cold Guinness for $5 and all day happy specials at the bar for the World Cup, sound on all day long. 

Know of a bar or restaurant not on this list? Let us know via email, Twitter 

or in the comments and we'll update the list.

Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!

The Hammer Museum received a $100,000 grant from LA2050 to fund ReSTORE LA, a program to bring unique artists and artisans to fill vacant storefronts in Westwood Village in November 2013. The program featured 24 pop-up stores selling world class handmade art and was very successful. Two of the pop-up stores extended their stays in the Village, and one of these stores is Fallen Fruit: Fruiteque! 

Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!, is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. They began their collaboration by mapping public fruit trees growing around Los Angeles. Their work sparked many other ventures, including the public art that brought them to ReSTORE LA by using fruit as the material, subject or medium. The Fruitique is a mix between an art gallery and a workshop that brings people of all ages together to create art. 

Fallen Fruit sees fruit as a common denominator to change the way you see the world. Their projects are group-oriented and are often inspired by a guest artist or a passerby who sets the tone and direction of the project, which guarantees that no two works of art are the same. Each person, not only creates art but also creates a neighborhood that coexists together. "A lot about what we do and what we want was to get people out of their cars. LA is very car-centric. When creating the fruit maps, we wanted to have people get out of their cars and interacting with nature. Being in Southern California we are fortunate enough to have fruit growing trees year round, many of which are on public property,” said Austin Young. Public Fruit Jams invites a broad public audience to transform homegrown or public fruit and then join in communal jam-making as experimentation in personal narrative and sublime collaboration.

What's next? Fallen Fruit’s Fruitique!: GARDEN OF EDEN, will be opening their 2nd program installation at the Kinross location, launching on Wednesday, April 16th, 2014. This store will be loosely themed with animals and fruit and there will be a reception for the artists on Sunday, April 27th from noon to 4pm.

For the newest project, Fallen Fruit is working with local communities to transform the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Los Angeles into a walk-able network of Urban Fruit Trails with over 150 fruit trees planted in the MacArthur Park neighborhood. Stay tuned for information on this project.

How can you get involved? Check out their website: www.fallenfruit.org, and join their newsletter to get updates on upcoming Public Fruit Jams, or visit in person. Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!, open every weekend.

Free For All: Hammer Museum Goes Free For Good

Art aficionados rejoice! The Westwood art institution, Hammer Museum, has eliminated the admission fee and now is entirely FREE to the public! Through large, generous donations from longtime benefactors Erika Glazer and Brenda Potter, will fund free admission to the museum for four years, by which time the Hammer board hopes to have a plan for permanent free admission. 

The Hammer joins the Getty Museum and the Fowler Museum at UCLA in offering free admission to visitors at all times.

For all the Hammer happenings, including its amazing free-for-good roster of public programs, check out their site.

FREE FOR LA. FREE FOR YOU. FREE FOR GOOD.