Толука-Лейк: История и современность района Лос-Анджелеса.

Neighborhood in the county of Los Angeles, California
the community in Los Angeles
The Toluca Lake Chamber of Commerce website states that the district is not only a neighborhood in Los Angeles but that it "spills over into Burbank" and "Political entities and others, such as the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council each draw their own boundaries to suit specific needs. For example, the Toluca Lake Chamber of Commerce serves the entire community in Burbank and Los Angeles, while the City of Los Angeles considers its neighborhood called Toluca Lake to be entirely within its city boundaries"

The geologic Toluca Lake is a body of water located near the district's southeastern boundaries. The historic natural lake was fed by springs of upwelling groundwater from the Los Angeles River and San Fernando Valley subterranean aquifers. Late 19th and 20th century L. A. DWP well extraction and 1930s concrete river channelization lowered the water table, and currently community wells at the lake's edges maintain the water level.

The Toluca Lake neighborhood had a population of 7,782 in the 2000 census and an estimated population of 8,563 in 2008. At 6,393 people per square mile, its density was among the lowest in the city of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, its percentage of white people, 71.9%, was high for the county; with black and Asian residents accounting for only 5.3% and 5% of the population, respectively. Principal ethnicities were Latino (14%), German (9.2%) and Irish (8.7%). Only 17.7% of its residents were foreign born, a low figure compared to the city as a whole; of those, Mexico at 14.7% and the Philippines at 6.9% were the most common foreign places of birth. The median household income level of its residents was $73,111 in 2008, and 48.4% of its residents 25 and older had a four year degree, both of which were high for the city. The average household size was 1.9 people, low for both the city and the county. Of its housing units 62.2% were occupied by renters and 37.8% by owners. The Tongvan settlement Cahuenga used the springs and marsh in the Toluca Lake locale for water, fishing, hunting, harvesting, and building supplies (tule plants). After the Spanish conquest in the 1790s of Las Californias, the San Fernando Valley, including the "Toluca Lake locale", became the extended property of the Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After the 1823 Independence of Mexico, the secularization of missions in Alta California included the issuing of a Mexican land grant for Rancho Ex Mission San Fernando. The extreme eastern end of the lake was within the 1843 Rancho Providencia grant to Vincente de la Osa. In 1862, Pío Pico sold his share of the Ex San Fernando Mission land, the entire southern half of the Valley below Roscoe Boulevard, to Isaac Lankershim (operating as the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association) in 1869. In 1873, Isaac Lankershim's son, James Boon Lankershim, and future son in law, Isaac Newton Van Nuys, took over management of the property, including the lake at Toluca. During the 1880s, the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association was succeeded by the Los Angeles Farm & Milling Company. In 1893, a petition was filed with the U. S. Postal Service for the area's first post office, to be named "Toluca Post Office". General Charles Forman, a wealthy local landowner and one of the proponents of the petition, later stated that he had chosen the name "Toluca" from a Paiute word meaning "fertile" or "beautiful" valley. Though part of a larger area traditionally called "Lankershim" after a colonel of the same name—and with a Southern Pacific Railroad train station named "Lankershim" that also opened in 1893 across from the post office—Forman called his own ranch and the surrounding land "Toluca". One of the wealthiest men in Nevada, Forman had made his fortune starting from nothing, first in mining, then cattle ranching, and then lumber. Falling in love with and marrying Los Angeles native Mary Agnes Gray, he soon moved to the area in the late 1880s and started the Kern River Company, a power company which delivered electricity from generators at the Kern River to Los Angeles. He also bought a large parcel of rich farm land, which included much of modern day Toluca Lake and at least the western portion of the "ancient and historical" marshy pond now called Toluca Lake.

In 1923, investors bought and developed the land as Toluca Lake Park. This initial venture failed, but a new group soon took over, renaming the firm as the Toluca Lake Company. With a "vision of creating a first 'bedroom community' for Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley", the company formally changed the name of the community to simply Toluca Lake and adopted as their logo the "swan on rippled water" image associated with the community today. By 1927, the lure of Hollywood inspired local merchants to launch a campaign to change the community's name to North Hollywood. The original town site of Toluca is now part of Toluca Lake. The Lakeside golf course was designed in 1924 by Max Behr. This attracted actor Richard Arlen, who became one of Toluca Lake's first residents, and eventually its honorary mayor. Entertainer Bob Hope moved to Toluca Lake in the late 1930s, and lived there until his death in 2003 at the age of 100. In the 1938 Little Rascals film Three Men in a Tub, the kids hold a regatta on the lake, which was largely surrounded by open country at that time. Actors Bette Davis, W. C. Fields, Dorothy Lamour, Billie Dove, Dick Powell, and Bing Crosby also moved into the community. Notable residents have included Steve Carell, Miley Cyrus, Kirsten Dunst, Melissa McCarthy, and Octavia Spencer. In 2021, Kelly Clarkson purchased an original 1936 colonial style mansion on a Toluca Lake property.

Toluca Lake is represented by the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council led by Neighborhood Council President Colby Jensen, as well as Councilman Paul Krekorian in the Los Angeles City Council and Adrin Nazarian in the California State Assembly. NBC 4 weatherman Fritz Coleman is the honorary mayor of Toluca Lake. In 2006, Toluca Lake homeowner groups mobilized against a proposed development in North Hollywood by NBCUniversal and Thomas Properties Group. The Metro Studio Project involves upwards of of space and would house employees leaving NBC's Burbank facility. The project also proposes Times Square style supergraphics and digital illuminated billboards. It would be built partly on land for which NBCUniversal has a lease agreement from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has yet to act on the proposal, and Environmental Impact Reports are not finalized.

Toluca Lake is the setting of "The Bonnie Situation" chapter in Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction" (1994). Toluca Lake is a lake featured in the Silent Hill series. It first appeared in the 1999 video game of the same name. In the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' song "Higgs Boson Blues" (2013), Miley Cyrus is described as floating in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake.