Naturally, in our sort of atypical life, where we work long 12 hour days with long commutes, and only have one magic Tuesday per week together, and every other Wednesday together, we were short on time. And, as always, short on money. Discussion came up over whether we should go to Disneyland or not. My kids have been to Disneyland only once in their lives when they were six and eight years old, respectively. It was a banner trip complete with several nights at the Paradise Pier Hotel and its secret entrance to California Adventure, lunch at the Blue Bayou at the Pirates of the Caribbean, dinner with all the princesses, parades, fireworks, lines, and lots of cash forked over by Mommy and Daddy. After that great trip, I feel done with Disneyland. I have nothing in particular against the place, having spent plenty of time there myself as a kid growing up in Southern California, it's just that it takes more time and money away from other places on my Bucket List.
From this discussion, I came to realize how many people use Los Angeles as an amusement park destination and know little about its history and culture. Growing up in a beach town north of San Diego, I, too, viewed Los Angeles as a place with smog, traffic, and crime, and I knew nothing more of it. It wasn't until my early adult years, late 80's to early 90's, when my sister operated a Bed & Breakfast in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, that I began to see something more with the city. It was during this time, that I first went to Olvera Street, Griffith Observatory, and shopping at the LA Farmers Market and Melrose Avenue. We also made late night runs to Gorky's 24-hr Russian Cafe & Brewery because you never know when you might want a cabbage roll at 2AM! These were great times! I saw Chinatown with Jack Nicholson for the first time, and it only made me more interested in how Los Angeles came to be, and it remains one of my favorite movies today. Around this time was also when I read my first Robert Crais novel, and I love the way he depicts the real, modern-day Los Angeles. And I listened to lots of Red Hot Chili Peppers! This is my LA.
So I created this one-night get-away, 27 hours in total, to get a taste of the other side of Los Angeles and Hollywood and see some things that I have never seen either. A particular focus was on history and architecture since we are studying these subjects at home right now and reading Living With Art by Rita Gilbert. I guess I'll go ahead and mention now that this whole trip was done on less than $150 per person, and it included a LOT. Here's how . . .
Tuesday, June 14th - Left Phoenix by car at 6:30AM by way of I-10 to US-101 and exited at Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles, at about 1:00PM. From here we parked in the Grand Central Market Parking Garage at 308 S. Hill St., and don't forget to buy something here to get your parking validated. We ate sandwiches in the car on the way into town so we weren't quite ready for a snack. So after taking a quick first photo of the market, we then exited to the right in this photo out onto Hill Street.
Once on Hill Street, if you look across the street and to the left, you can already see the Angels Flight Railway, a funicular built in 1901 that leads up Bunker Hill and is known as, "The Shortest Railway in the World."
Along with history, we also really like trains so this was way cool for us! Unfortunately, the 25¢ rides ended just 4 days prior to our visit with a third closure of the railway in its long history which included a fatality in 2001. So . . . we climbed it, and I can attest to the fact that a funicular is needed here! As a side note, now every hill or staircase has been met with, "I could sure use a funicular," since our visit. Here's the entrance (I think it would be awesome to see it lit up at night):
At the top, there's a grassy area with some nice views of the city. This spot is called Angels Knoll Park, and if you've seen the movie (500) Days of Summer, this is the spot where they filmed the bench scene. Up here, you can get a little closer to where they have the restored cars parked on the track. I love this shot below with the jacaranda tree framing it. I'm really hitting it this year with the timing of these trees blooming!
Continue up the staircase (yes, more stairs), and you will wind through California Plaza and up to Grand Avenue. If you look down the street to the right, you can see Walt Disney Concert Hall with its distinctive aluminum foil-skateboard park appearance. However, turn left and walk down the hill that is Grand Avenue, and then turn left on 5th Street and head to Pershing Square. Here's another place that has a very rough reputation. Certainly, there are homeless people lying about everywhere and a distinctive urine smell, but at the same time, the Los Angeles Biltmore, in all its Art Deco grandeur, looks down upon this square. Pershing Square, despite having had eight different names since its inception in the late 1800's, is the real Central Park of Los Angeles. As I looked around at the variety of architecture, old and new, and the variety of people, I was reminded of how so many people come to LA to reinvent themselves, just as this park has been reinvented so many times in its long history. I took this photo of Pershing Square, which includes the Title Guarantee & Trust Company Building from 1930, some high-rise buildings from the present, and some pink space pods (?) presumably from the future. I think it depicts the Los Angeles vibe that I'm trying to convey.
If you exit Pershing Square on this south side perimeter, turn left and then walk north along Hill Street. It's pretty much Art Deco madness as you walk along here. I took many more photos than I'm displaying here, but I want to mention the Subway Terminal Building at 417 S. Hill Street. During the 1920's-40's, this subway took people about a mile away towards the then-growing area of Hollywood. It was finally closed in 1955 after everyone started driving "automobiles" and living in "suburbs." There is a new Los Angeles County Metro Rail System that has a new station and tunnel nearby, and this Subway Terminal Building is now being used for fancy loft apartments. However, it has some awesome architectural features, including this entryway:
From here, we turned right on 4th Street, and then left on Broadway. On the left side of Broadway, you will pass another entrance to Grand Central Market. We still weren't ready to go shopping yet, saving that for last, but it's interesting how closely the entrance looks today to the entrance of Grand Central Market long ago. Here's how it looks now:
Next to the market is the Million Dollar Theater. Built in 1918, it was Sid Grauman's first movie theater before shifting his focus over to Hollywood and building the Egyptian Theatre and then the Chinese Theatre. Across the street is the Bradbury Building at 304 S. Broadway at 3rd Street. I didn't know exactly what to expect with the Bradbury Building because it has been featured in so many movies, especially science-fiction movies like Blade Runner (there is even a commemorative display in the building about Blade Runner.) I also knew that it was hella expensive to build this place, costing approximately $11 million if you were to price it today with what it costs then. I had also heard that it looks totally different depending on what time of day you are there since the ceiling is one gigantic skylight casting natural light down to the lobby. Somehow, I also had it in my mind that it would be a bustling place full of people. Wrong on so many accounts. When I walked in the door I was hit with the smell of baking bread from the Subway Sandwiches at the front of the building -- this is one swanky Subway! Here's the entrance (just to my right is the Subway Sandwiches):
I didn't see but one soul, the security guard, the whole time I was in this building at 2:00PM on a weekday. It was the weirdest thing. What was going through my head was . . . I've been to Jim Morrison's grave in Paris, where crowds of people are hanging out for no apparent reason, but this awesome building is empty! I don't understand why more people don't visit this place. The cage elevator, the woodwork, the ironwork . . . it's all impressive. Trust me, just go!
After the Bradbury, we finally went to the market where we downed lemonades right at a stand at the entrance and watched someone have their eyebrows "threaded." Even after watching it, I still know not what this is. One thing I really like about this market is the wood shavings on the floor, giving it that, "You see that chicken hanging at the butcher stand . . . it just walked through here," kind of feel. We bought a lemon-sugar crepe from a French guy and watched him run across the aisle to buy a lemon at the next stand to squeeze on my crepe. Not sure if this was "part of the presentation," but there was no denying its freshness. We also needed to buy stuff to cook for dinner. Remember, Mom is el cheapo so no one gets a meal out. The good news is that we stayed at the Magic Castle Hotel where the rooms come with a kitchen, a private bedroom, lots of space, free snacks, breakfast, and is within walking distance of Hollywood Blvd. After getting totally frustrated at the high prices of hotels around Hollywood, I felt that this $180 rate was a great value for the four of us with all the extras and the money-saving kitchen. The hotel totally has that Melrose Place feel with all the rooms around the swimming pool. This is the view from our room:
And here's our dinner with stuff we bought from the market: carne asada, fresh tortillas, Mexican rolls, salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and avocado (you know, the good kind, like the ones that grew in my avocado grove as a kid, not the ones in Arizona):
And while I'm at it, here's our balcony where I ate my breakfast and read the LA Times, including an article about a cool new bookstore, The Last Bookstore, back in the downtown area (so I'm going to have to go back soon to check it out.)
So after dinner, we all got showers and drove to the Largo (less than 10 minutes away) and the amazing concert by The Civil Wars and the talented James Vincent McMorrow.
New day, and my plan was to do a walking tour of Hollywood Boulevard so that my kids would know the history behind why Hollywood exists. The Red Line Tours seemed like the best bet, but at $25 per adult ticket, it just made more sense to buy a $59 Hollywood CityPass and get the $39 Movie Stars' Homes Tour plus the $20 Madame Tussauds ticket included in the price. Normally, a Kodak Theatre tour is included in the CityPass, but it was closed due to rehearsals for the new Cirque du Soleil "Iris" show. We could've done the Hollywood Museum instead, normally $15 but included in the CityPass, but we just ran out of time, and we felt we had all the Hollywood history we could handle in one day. Another perk to the CityPass, my daughter still slid by with the child price of $39 so an even more smoking deal.
We started our morning by parking in the garage on Orange Drive just north of Hollywood Blvd. It was $10 for the entire day, and we also used this location as a spot to have a picnic lunch (tailgate style) between tours from a packed cooler we left in the car. We walked down to Grauman's Egyptian Theatre at 6708 Hollywood Blvd to the start of the Red Line Tours "Hollywood-Behind-the-Scenes" walking tour in time for the 10:00AM tour. I think all four of us agreed that this was our favorite of the different tours. Our guide Andrew was from South Africa, and he was very knowledgeable about Hollywood history. Grauman's Egyptian Theatre was something I didn't even know existed, and through Red Line Tours, you are also allowed inside the building. Here is the front courtyard. It is tucked away from Hollywood Blvd so much so that I don't even think most people know that it is there. It was the first place to have the grand "red carpet."
In contrast, here is Grauman's Chinese Theatre, down the street, where ALL the people are:
Sid Grauman made these exotic theaters with red carpets and shows in the courtyards in an attempt to get people to spend more money when they went to the movies. He pretty much created the fanfare surrounding the modern "movie star." The idea of putting your hands in the wet concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre started with Sid, and was extended to every actor having a premiere there, only creating more movie star sensationalism.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame was a later invention, with the first star being awarded in 1960. Nowadays, just about anyone can have a star if he/she/it is willing to fork over the $30,000 needed to pay for the star. I became enchanted with the large number of potholes along the Walk of Fame (no, it's not just the California freeways that are falling apart.)
A big shock to me was to learn that the Academy Awards and whole red-carpet show occurs in a shopping mall. During our "Hollywood-Behind-the-Scenes" tour, our guide showed us the track in the ceiling where the big red curtains are pulled in front of the storefronts. You would never realize this fact when watching the show at home on TV. Now, a new personal goal of mine is to attend the Oscars and secretly pull back the curtain during an interview only to reveal Hello Kitty back there. The steps on the staircase are also very wide and very short to prevent falling in heels. It was designed to look like an Oscar silhouette. Here's a photo:
There was a LOT more history along our walk; more than I will rehash here. There came a point in the tour, with my suspicious nature, that I started wondering if our guide was making stuff up. I really liked this guy, but some of it seemed unbelievable. Like the story that Walt Disney was the "first Starbucks" when he wanted a good cup of coffee so he built the Snow White Cafe. That one seemed like a whopper. I did a little investigation since I've been home, and the only connection I can find with Walt Disney and the Snow White Cafe was that his friend was designing the restaurant at the time when his premiere of the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out so he sent some of his artists there to paint Snow White character murals in the cafe in preparation for an after-party on the night of the movie premiere. The Snow White Cafe does seem like a pretty cool place -- half cafe/half dive bar, but I'm not sure we can credit Disney himself with it.
After our walking tour, we hustled back down to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, to find the Starline Tours kiosk for our next Hollywood CityPass tour. Don't be fooled, you will pass atleast 20 people offering "Movie Stars' Homes Tours," with atleast 6 of them being Starline Tours themselves. These are not the people you want. You don't even want the Starline Tours kiosks, which you will also pass. No, the ACTUAL kiosk is hidden back in the Chinese Theatre courtyard. We made it onto the 11:40 tour which was supposed to be "by air-conditioned bus," but turned out to be by open-topped van without working seatbelts. We quickly smothered ourselves in sunscreen, but we unfortunately did not have hats and burnt our little heads. The tour seemed really long. It was 2 hours of driving around town. I think it was a good introduction to the layout of the Hollywood Hills, Laurel Canyon, Beverly Hills, the Sunset Strip, and Route 66, but none of us were very interested in the well-gated homes. I did enjoy hearing the names of movie stars connected with some of their most famous movies. It was like a who's who of the movies, and I made a mental note of films to add to my Netflix queue. I became more interested in the people "behind" the movie stars -- the worker bees. So here's my photo montage of the Movie Stars' Homes Tour . . .
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| Justin Timberlake's security guard and pool guy |
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| Simon Cowell's gardeners |
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| Larry King's mailman |
I took just one photo of an actual "home." It was Peter Falk's home. I am a huge Columbo fan, and I also like the way his home, in contrast to many other homes I saw, looked like you could just walk right up and sell Girl Scout cookies there. I was really sad to learn that Peter Falk died yesterday from Alzheimer's Disease. It did appear like he or someone was home when I took this photo:
After getting stuck in traffic along Wilshire Blvd, and then along Hollywood Blvd due to the Green Lantern premiere later that evening, we finally made it back to our origin, and we went for our parking garage lunch. After eating, my daughter, who is a big Pirates of the Caribbean fan, wanted to find Johnny Depp's star on the Walk of Fame. We heard that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has maps of all the stars so we went to where we believed the Chamber to be located, in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. It turns out that the Chamber of Commerce is actually just west of the Roosevelt Hotel, next door, and Johnny Depp's star is right in front of the Chamber! However, we spent a lot of time looking around in the lobby of the hotel and using the facilities, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite places I visited on this trip, and I only happened upon it by accident. The lobby is amazing! I really want to explore this place more in the future. The Roosevelt Hotel was also the site of the first Academy Awards presentation in 1929. Here are some photos I took while hanging out there, including the cool ceiling:
Last stop was Madame Tussauds across the street. This stop was just silly fun at this point; I think we were all just running on adrenaline reserves. The Madame Tussauds in London was much better, but we had a good time. My kids were pretty fascinated in the bottom level, at the end, where there is an explanation of how the wax figures are made and a chronology of Tussaud's life. Madame did a fine job showing just how high Conan's hair stands up:
By 4:00PM on Wednesday, June 15th, we were back in the car for our drive back to Phoenix. Twenty-seven hours in total there and a lot of fun. It was a great weekend, and an easy get-away from the Arizona desert in the summer.
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