In that year boutiques lined Yucca Street, which was described as "a trendy shopping spot hoping to rival Melrose Avenue" as a commercial center.

"[4] By 1993 the Corridor had been dominated for several years by the 18th Street Gang, according to Sharon Romero, leader of the Hollywood Beautification Team, which was formed to paint over graffiti, among other projects.

In 1995 the police were calling the area a "dope supermarket, ... where cocaine dealers ruled the streets and residents hid behind their doors from gunfire after dark.

These projects were spearheaded by neighborhood watch groups named after local streets, such as the Ivar Hawks, Cherokee Condors and Wilcox Werewolves.

Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, for example, said he was "troubled by having behavior monitored directly or indirectly by the government, absent probable cause," and others objected to the police attempting to identify suspected drug buyers through license-plate numbers.

A neighborhood group also claimed that clubs in the Yucca-Ivar Avenue area had been the sites of large fights, and it was noted that the Corridor still suffered 20 percent more reported crime than the city average.

[1] In 2007, a Los Angeles Times survey of the area found that "Homicides are down but the neighborhood still has a relatively high rate of robberies, burglaries, thefts and assaults.

The curbings at each automobile diverter were cut into paths wide enough for bikes and pedestrians, with the outline of a bicycle painted on the sidewalk as a sharrow, or shared-lane marking.