Downtown Los Angeles
Do you want to know a secret?
Downtown Los Angeles is both pleasant and interesting to explore on foot. And you can do that by skipping the freeway and riding the light rail trains to four underground stations in the city's central core.
Admittedly, Los Angeles downtown lacks a sense of place. Other than the palm trees and warm weather, you could be in just about any big city, except for the other big Pacific Coast cities that all hammer you in the eyes with where you are, including Portland.
L.A. got lots of attention a decade ago when the architecturally compelling Walt Disney Concert Hall opened, with a design as unique as the Sydney Opera House. But the Disney hall is on a block in downtown L.A., not perched at the edge of Sydney Harbor in Australia.
With that shortcoming in mind, downtown L.A. still has plenty to explore. Begin at Union Station, near the site where the city was founded by the Spanish in 1781. The area looked like the 1930s when I stepped out of the station, with dozens of men wearing fedoras, women in long skirts and a line of vintage cars parked outside. Someone asked me if I knew which movie was being filmed.
A train stop away in either direction on the Gold line lie Chinatown and Little Tokyo, both as authentic as you can get on this side of the Pacific.
The iconic Los Angeles City Hall welcomes visitors to a panorama of the central city from the free observation deck on the 27th floor. Gaze down on Grand Park, a green pedestrian space that connects City Hall to the cultural district, or outward to the city's highest towers in the Financial District, including one that has been tallest on the Pacific Coast for a quarter century (the 1,018-foot U.S. Bank Tower), but will be eclipsed by another in construction in the city by 2017.
California Plaza beneath the towers and venerable Pershing Square at the edge of the Jewelry District are other inviting public squares.
While central L.A. is easy to explore of foot, lacking sidewalk crowds but not attractions, much of the impetus has shifted in the past decades to the south edge of downtown where the $2.5 billion L.A. Live entertainment complex was built to serve the heavy visitor traffic at the adjacent Staples Center and nearby Los Angeles Convention Center.
L.A. Live is the city's attempt to out-Vegas Las Vegas. Lacking legal gambling that won't happen, but Los Angeles has attractions Vegas will never have, including two major basketball teams (Lakers and Clippers) and an NHL team (the Kings) to play at Staples, plus the center of the music and American pop culture universe on display in the Grammy Museum and performing at the Nokia Theatre.
L.A. Live also has more than 20 restaurants, a hotel that carries the Ritz-Carlton brand and a seasonal ice rink for citizens who wouldn't otherwise know what ice is.
L.A. Live is served by the Blue and Expo light rail lines at Pico station, though not served very closely. The development has acres of underground parking to show that Los Angelenos of means aren't giving up cars easily in favor of getting around by train.
More info at discoverlosangeles.com, downtownla.com and lalive.com.
(Part of a series of reports on visiting Los Angeles.)
-- Terry Richard