Grace Moremen had lived in Los Angeles and environs her whole life, but she didn’t really get to know the city until past her 75th birthday.
A walking tour of downtown L.A. that began with a Metrolink ride from her home in Claremont opened Moremen’s eyes. That led to more train rides and more walking.
Moremen grew skilled at navigating the city’s patchy but growing subway and light rail network and at finding buses to more distant destinations.
Now, with the help of friend and fellow Pilgrim Place resident Jacqueline Chase, Moremen has published a guidebook, “Loving LA the Low Carbon Way: A Personal Guide to the City of Angels via Public Transportation,” that lays out 24 car-free adventures, step by step.
They’re my kinda gals.
Village merchant Barbara Cheatley, who stocks their book, which is otherwise sold only online, advised Chase and Moremen to contact me. They weren’t familiar with me or my own Metrolink exploits, but they were delighted to talk to a fellow traveler.
Rather than meet them over coffee in Claremont, I suggested we conduct an interview in a natural setting for the three of us: on the train.
We met on a recent Tuesday morning at the Claremont Metrolink platform, bought our tickets, boarded the 8:49 train and talked about their lives and motivations.
“Grace loves L.A. It’s her passion,” Chase confided.
Chase will turn 75 in June. Moremen will be 85 in August. But they’re in excellent shape, thanks in part to a competitive race-walking group, the Pilgrim Pacers.
Their attitudes aren’t calcified either. They love cities and the slices of life they’ve witnessed: a man with a fishing pole headed for the Santa Monica Pier, a beautician in training seated with a foam head and wig in her lap.
As the day proved, they have open minds and accepting attitudes. That afternoon, for instance, a young woman with neon-green hair passed by. Chase murmured, “I’ve never seen a girl with green hair before,” in a tone of delight, not disapproval.
And despite their age, Chase and Moremen have more adventure in their hearts than many of my younger readers, whose Metrolink trips are limited to walking from Union Station to Olvera Street and back before riding home. They may not even realize there’s a subway below their feet.
“You can just come to see Olvera Street, which is a rich experience,” Chase allowed, “but there’s so much more to the city.”
Making plans on the fly, we decided to hit some of their favorite sites downtown.
We rode a Dash bus from Alameda Street down Grand Avenue to the Central Library, where we admired the ancient Egyptian influences in its 1926 design, the interior murals and atrium, and the little-noticed World Peace Bell outside. Next up was the Biltmore Hotel and the old-world elegance of its Rendezvous Court.
We lunched on the patio of Maccheroni Republic, a well-regarded Italian restaurant, before visiting adjacent Biddy Mason Park — a plaza dedicated to the emancipated slave, a woman, who became an early property owner downtown — and the adjacent Bradbury Building, an 1893 office building (and “Blade Runner” film location) that is a must-see.
After a stop at the Last Bookstore, we rode the subway to Union Station and spent some time at Olvera Street contemplating the bronze statue of King Carlos (“he follows you with his eyes,” Moremen said) and the markers devoted to the colorful Los Pobladores, the city’s original settlers from 1781.
I’d never read the markers, spent more than a couple of minutes inside the Biltmore or eaten at Maccheroni Republic (which had been on my to-do list).
I suggested we look for the David Alfaro Siquieros mural “America Tropical,” which I’d meant to search out since it opened to the public in 2012, some eight decades after it had been whitewashed. Moremen and Chase knew right where it was, down an Olvera Street walkway.
After that visit, we took the Gold Line to the Southwest Museum stop, just so they could point out the station art, and then in the other direction past Little Tokyo to the Mariachi Plaza stop, again just for the ambience.
Whew!
On the Metrolink platform for our 4:20 train home, Moremen checked her pedometer. We’d walked 4.5 miles.
“That’s not very much,” Chase said in disappointment. “Usually we go farther.”
Your tired columnist was relieved they took it easy on him.
Their senior tickets for Metrolink were $9, round-trip from Claremont, and all transfers — to Dash, to the subway, to the Gold Line — were free. Such a deal.
Now let’s hear more about Moremen and Chase.
Chase is a native New Yorker who was always comfortable with public transportation, but she didn’t know much about L.A. after moving to Pilgrim Place in 1997 with her husband, Chris.
Moremen, by contrast, grew up in Westwood and remembers the old Red Car trolleys, but as a Westsider until recent years, with her husband, Bill, she didn’t know the city as well as she thought she should.
Her late-in-life epiphany eight years ago changed all that. That first tour was led by Robert Herman, a retired Pomona College professor and author of “Downtown Los Angeles: A Walking Guide,” who preaches the gospel of seeing the city on foot.
Moremen has been traveling frequently ever since, joined the past two years by Chase, who was eager to explore the city.
When friends pressed Moremen to turn her expertise into a book, she said she’d do it if Chase would help her. “It was the smartest thing I ever did,” Moremen said.
In 2014, the pair made research trips via Metrolink almost weekly, in which Moremen reconnected with childhood favorites, took tips from friends or sought out destinations one or the other wanted to see: Griffith Park, East L.A., Santa Monica and the Watts Towers, among others.
Some spots proved so exhausting to reach by public transit, like the Getty Center and Huntington Library, that they were dropped.
L.A. has its own drawbacks. “It’s a hard city to love in some ways, partly because it’s hard to understand,” Moremen mused. The freeways are an aid to getting around, but they are a hindrance to grasping the entirety of the city and appreciating the landscape from street level.
Getting around on foot and by transit offers opportunities to rub elbows with strangers and absorb the city at a more natural pace.
“Grace and I think it’s a human scale,” Chase said. “It lets us take the city in more.”
“It takes more time,” Moremen said. “You have to be more patient and slow down.”
At the pace they set that day, I can’t imagine what they’d be like when they weren’t taking their time.
David Allen’s pace is Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Contact david.allen@langnews.com or 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
