Westlake, also known as the Westlake District, is a residential and commercial neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. It was developed in the 1920s, but many of its elegant mansions have been turned into apartments, and many new multiple-occupancy buildings have been constructed. Westlake is a high-density area, with a young and heavily Latino population. It contains many primary and secondary schools. History Early development In 1887, Westlake was referred to as the "southwest quarter" of Los Angeles. The Westlake hills were already "dotted with fine residences, and it is plainly to be seen that the development of this quarter is in its infancy. The Bonnie Brae, Westlake Park and other tracts in the neighborhood have been almost wholly disposed of by the subdividers, and many of the lots have passed into second and third hands, at advancing prices. The Baptist College, now well under way, looms up to the northward." The neighborhood was named for Westlake Park, the land for which had been donated by Henricus Wallace Westlake, a Canadian physician who moved to Los Angeles around 1888. He built his house on Burlington Avenue in the district that later bore his name; the residence was the first to rise in the rolling hills west of the more settled and built-up part of the town. One of the first areas of Los Angeles west of Figueroa Street to see residential development, Westlake came to have a significant Jewish population. Wealthy businessmen commuted to downtown, Wilshire Center (now Koreatown), Hollywood, and the Miracle Mile from the district's Spanish Revival and Art Deco mansions. Around the 1940s the district's northwestern blocks fringed the home of Los Angeles' early working class Filipino population who were shifted from what is today Little Tokyo and Bunker Hill, some of which remain in parts of Westlake and nearby neighborhoods like Echo Park, Silver Lake, and East Hollywood. Oil exploitation In 1899, newly drilled oil wells in the area, with their unsightly derricks, were said to cause pollution and runoff in the streets "at every hard rain," and residents of the neighborhood were "indignant that nothing was done for their relief." The city had declared a 1,600-foot zone around Westlake Park where drilling was forbidden (later modified to 1,000 feet), but the legality of that ordinance was under attack by oilmen such as W.E. de Groot. Even City Attorney Walter F. Haas thought the law was