Friday was to be a walking day - exploring Downtown on foot. Mike and Lynn had to work so we were on our own. We started at our hotel and walked up (up!) Grand Avenue, climbing a very steep Bunker Hill, past dramatic glass and steel skyscrapers that line the street, creating an ultra-modern, corporate dominated village. It's a sharp contradiction to the surrounding city that has decayed and been allowed to deteriorate from its once elegant past.
Looking up GrandAvenue, lined with dramatic skyscrapers.
When we reached the top of Bunker Hill we came upon the highly praised MOCA - the Museum Of Contemporary Art. We weren't planning to enter but strolled the outside spaces and perused the gift shop.
MOCA - the Museum Of Contemporary Art on top of Bunker Hill.
Our first destination was the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This is a spectacular complex of buildings designed by the famous California architecht, Frank Gehry . The buildings, in typical Gehry fashion, flow in free form shape and are clad in brushed stainless steel. Breathtaking!
The Walt Disney concert Hall - breathtaking!
Does this look real?
Credit to Disney is understated: The name was drilled into the stainless steel.
I wanted to take a look at City Hall, a well-known old building that has been featured in many movies and television shows: L.A. Confidential, Dragnet, Superman, are just a few of them. So we turned off Grand Avenue and walked east up Temple Street.
One thing I noticed as we walked that Los Angeles is no friend of bicyclists. Everyone knows about the infamous Freeways, and that perception is certainly true. This New Yorker, accustomed to congested traffic, was more than a little awed by the massive amount of cars that seem to constantly congest the highways that intersect the downtown area. Someone noted that there are more cars per capita in Los Angeles County than anywhere else in the country - and I'm a believer.
But even on the local streets, and acknowledging that this is a big city, not a small town, cars predominate. I saw not one on-street bike path, separating cyclists from the perpetual traffic, just signs saying "bike route". But who would want to share the road with cars zipping closely by at high speeds? Not many as I could observe. And many of the few I did see, were, unhappily so for both cyclists and pedestrians, on the sidewalk. One thing, though, which is long past due in New York and which is being embraced by more and more cities, is the presence of bike racks on the front of every bus. This allows one to bring his or her bike from long distances away to the downtown area for shopping or other business; use it locally where it's very efficient and practical and then head back home by bus once again.
Every bus - a bike carrier.
A cow's head tops this unique lock up.But no path to negotiate the tough L.A. streets.
After a long walk past various courts and other civic center buildings we arrived at City Hall. It's a building that's familiar to everyone. And it's visible from many vantage points throughout the city.
Los Angeles' famous City Hall.
L.A. City Hall.
Talking about City Hall, Los Angeles is in the middle of a mayoral race, the outcome of which will be decided this Tuesday. But watching TV ad the past few days we could only wonder why nobody was discussing the issues that we saw all around us: poverty, homelessness, a mass transit system, underfunded and overused, recurring police brutality that's always in the news. All we heard, repeated over and over again in television commecials, were appeals for more cops and less taxes. As a casual observer to this city, the commercials made me ponder the bankruptcy of politics and the political system in our sad country today and the need for candidates who will represent the increasingly dire needs of people instead of tying themselves to the corporate money-lords who dominate the two old parties today.
Our next stop was Union Station, which is no longer the great railroad station that it once was. Only a few commuter trains stop here now. But once upon a time, it was the nexus that helped build the city from a sleepy little town of into the megalopolis that it is today. Countless movies were filmed there and in the glory days of American train travel , stars such as Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin, not to mention countless numbers of GI's during WWII, would set off or arrive at this former transportation hub built by the WPA in 1939.
Union Station - a beautiful old railroad station in the old style.
Union Station stands out with its simple, mission style design.
Beamed ceiling in the beautiful, old waiting room - no longer used.
From Union Station we headed south once again, making a very large circle, to head back to our hotel. It was getting late, we hadn't eaten a morsel all day and I, very spoiled, couldn't find just the "right" place to eat. The problem was that we were to meet my cousin, Jay and his wife, Beverly and their family for dinner tonight and I didn't want to eat too late. We had stopped at a famous, large, indoor market, the Grand Central Market, with fabulous produce, pepper and mole stalls, and lots and lots of greasy, fried food vendors. The prices were great but despite that, fried was not for me, although it was a very colorful place.
Grand Central Market on Broadway - a fabulous, indoor collection of produce, meat, cheese, chile pepper stalls and lots of fried food.
Hundreds of vendors selling all kinds of food.
Pinto beans anyone?
We continued back to our hotel and I couldn't resist one last shot of the skyscraper city that the world knows to be Los Angeles. I'm beginning to see that this is a phony facade that hides the miles and miles of city streets that spread out below the steel and glass towers. These are the tough streets of a city that has been left behind in Bush's vision of America, where poverty, homelessness, lack of decent jobs and health care are the order of the day.
From Pershing Square - a view of old and new Downtown.
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