City of West Hollywood Partners with StoryCorps for Exciting West Hollywood-Specific Storytelling Opportunity in Recognition of the City’s 40th Anniversary

The City of West Hollywood is proud to announce a landmark partnership with StoryCorps, the nationally renowned nonprofit organization dedicated to audio recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of everyday people.

For a limited time - from Friday, November 14, 2025 to Friday, November 21, 2025 - the iconic StoryCorps Airstream Mobile Recording Booth will come to West Hollywood. It will be staged at the City's Crescent Heights Lot, located at 8120 Santa Monica Boulevard, to provide residents and community members with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part in recording and preserving their stories as part of America's living history. Interviews will be arranged through an advance registration and review process; no walk-up interviews will be facilitated.

"This is an extraordinary moment for West Hollywood," said City of West Hollywood Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers. "Our City has always been defined by the power of personal stories of courage, activism, and love. For decades, West Hollywood has been a place where people from every walk of life have come together to build something extraordinary. The StoryCorps project gives us the chance to lift those stories and preserve the diverse voices that make our community so unique. Whether you've lived here since the City's founding or you're just beginning your journey as a West Hollywood community member, your voice is part of the fabric that makes West Hollywood what it is today: bold, diverse, and beautifully human."

West Hollywood community members are invited to apply for an in-person recording session with a conversation partner of their choice. In a StoryCorps recording, participants share a meaningful, one-on-one conversation about their experience in West Hollywood. More information and a link to the application form is available at https://www.weho.org/storycorps. Applications to participate must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, November 2, 2025.

This historic collaboration commemorates the City's 40^th Anniversary and invites people from every facet of the West Hollywood community - founders, seniors, LGBTQ+ trailblazers, Russian-speaking residents, Native American community members, people with disabilities, artists, business owners, elected and appointed officials, City staff, and others - to share their voices and experiences in their own words. Each 40-minute conversation, guided by a trained StoryCorps facilitator, will be recorded and archived at the Library of Congress, ensuring that West Hollywood will be heard for generations to come. More than 12 million weekly listeners tune into StoryCorps' broadcast and podcast on National Public Radio (NPR), and millions of people view StoryCorps animations on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and online.

Community members are also invited to stop by during KCRW's Community Radio Day on Thursday, November 13, 2025 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. to check out the Airstream Mobile Recording booth, meet KCRW 89.9 FM and StoryCorps staff members, and participate in StoryCorps giveaways.

In 2026, StoryCorps and the City of West Hollywood will host a community listening event featuring collected stories and the debut of a fully animated West Hollywood story curated and illustrated by StoryCorps. Details about this event will be finalized and publicized in 2026. Community members who don't have an opportunity to conduct in-person Airstream Mobile Recording Booth sessions may self-submit stories on the City's official StoryCorps website portal featuring the StoryCorps Virtual Recording Booth at https://storycorps.org/cityofwesthollywood. All interviews will be archived in this dedicated Special Collection on the StoryCorps Online Archive, accessible to the public. This is a rare and historic opportunity to add your voice to the living legacy of West Hollywood.

For additional information about the City of West Hollywood's StoryCorps project, please visit https://www.weho.org/storycorps. About StoryCorps: Founded in 2003, StoryCorps is a national nonprofit dedicated to helping us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and possibility in us all, one story at a time. More than 700,000 people, in all 50 states, have recorded interviews about their lives through StoryCorps. The award-winning organization preserves the recordings in its archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered, and shares select stories with the public through StoryCorps' podcast, radio broadcasts, animated shorts, digital platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful human stories reflect the vast range of American experiences, engender empathy and connection, and remind us how much more we have in common than what divides us. StoryCorps is especially committed to capturing and amplifying the voices of everyday people least heard in the media. Now in its 20th year, the StoryCorps MobileBooth-an Airstream trailer that has been transformed into a traveling recording booth-crosses the country year-round gathering the stories of people nationwide.

For more information, please contact Sheri A. Lunn, City of West Hollywood Public Information Officer, at (323) 848-6391 or at [email protected]. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing dial 711 or 1-800-735-2929 (TTY) or 1-800-735-2922 (voice) for California Relay Service (CRS) assistance.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at https://www.weho.org/email, and visit the City's calendar of meetings and events at https://www.weho.org/calendar. West Hollywood City Hall is open for walk-in services at public counters or by appointment by visiting https://www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at https://www.weho.org. Receive text updates by texting "WeHo" to (323) 848-5000.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood's Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or [email protected].