Hello everyone,
We had Chipotle for dinner one last time of the trip last night and then had an
early night.
This morning we had breakfast at the hostel and then grabbed a coffee at the
cafe from yesterday and went walking at Santa Monica Beach. It was a nice sunny
morning and we saw lots of cute squirrels!
Afterwards, we bought a TAP card and a daily pass, and headed into downtown
L.A. I’m lucky enough to have been to the states on four separate occasions now
and have passed through L.A. during all four stays, but the only experiences
I’ve had in downtown were changing buses and then passing through on a
Hollywood tour on our 2005 trip, and attending the NBA at the then Staples Centre
alone in 2017.
To put it nicely - downtown L.A. is gross, and a borderline scary in parts!
There are some great gems such as beautiful art deco buildings and museums, but
you have to put up with what honestly feels like a zombie apocalypse at times
of people screaming and being intimidating in the street, peeing in the street and
being so out of it I think they don’t even know where they are. As a result the
streets are pretty dirty. I think the abundance of homelessness and drug addled
people here speaks volumes of the difference between rich and poor though,
which is likely worse post pandemic. It’s hard to take knowing that celebrities
and rich people are living in the hills surrounding the city while so many
people are sleeping and living rough here.
We caught the train all the way in and alighted at Metro Center/7th. This line
from Santa Monica was opened in 2016, which is why back in ‘05 we caught buses
around. We then walked past Pershing Square and some murals including two of
Kobe Bryant, and some cops said hello to us. Rob replied “g’day!” and then they
had a chat with him about the job over here. There were police and security all
over the downtown area today. In a way this made us feel safer, but it also
made me think about why so many of them are needed around the place….!
We then went to Grand Central Market where we shared some donuts and enjoyed
the atmosphere, before heading over the road seeing the Angel’s Flight
funicular which opened in 1901 and features in the movie ‘La La Land’. We
passed Grand Park and admired the beautiful purple jacaranda trees in bloom and
then arrived at the el Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument and square (el
pueblo meaning ‘the village’). This is where in 1781 a group of 22 people from
Mexico were sent to be the first Spanish civilian settlement in Southern
California. They were sent to provide food for soldiers in the region and
secure Spain’s hold on the area. This square was lovely, with cute buildings
and flags and a vintage fire station that we had a quick look at.
Afterwards, Rob and I had a look at beautiful Union Station and he then caught
a ‘Dodgers Express’ bus to Dodger Stadium for the Dodgers vs Washington
Nationals baseball game. I had seen three other baseball games at this point so
gave it a miss and instead stayed to explore more of downtown. I caught the
metro back a couple of stops to where we started and questioned my decision for
a moment, as a dodgy looking man cat called me as I left the station, and
walking down the footpath in this area I was surrounded by people screaming and
speaking gibberish. More baseball sounded idyllic at this point, and no
exaggeration I later reflected that I think I felt more on edge here than I did
in Cairo in Egypt (which gets a bad reputation and I’m not really sure why!). I
think the other thing that contributed was having no tourists around as you do
in Santa Monica, Hollywood etc. I was the only tourist around.
I went to the Spring Street Arcade built around 100 years ago and had a gelato
from Uli’s. The shop itself was closed but they had a vending machine you could
buy ice cream from. Everyone around here seemed ok, so after sitting and eating
my ice cream I felt a bit more at ease again. From here I went to the Bradbury
Building which was built in 1893. It was beautiful, with wrought iron
staircases, open cage elevators and a lovely skylit ceiling. Apparently it
featured in the movie ‘Bladerunner’.
My next step was the Broad Museum, which was opened in 2015 to house the art
collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. It was opposite the giant
silver Walt Disney Concert Hall which I remember passing on our bus in 2005. I
was lucky enough to get a free timed pass to one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity
rooms here, which apparently at some points in the year books out a month in
advance. This one was titled ‘The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away’. There
are a number of these rooms around the world of differing themes, and the one I
saw today reminded me of a museum we were supposed to visit in Japan in 2020
that has since closed. I waited 20 minutes in the queue and got to enter by
myself. The attendant told me you only got to go inside for 60 seconds, but the
security guard got so caught up chatting to her outside that he let me stay in
for four minutes which was cool! I got to really stand there and take in the
lights and how far into the distance the mirrors in the room made them appear.
It was beautiful!
I went upstairs for a while, but the museum was mostly art that wasn’t really my
scene. I did enjoy Robert Therrien’s ‘Under the Table’ sculptures which made me
either feel like a family pet or a small child being underneath furniture. I also
enjoyed a giant balloon dog and some of the works by Andy Warhol and Roy
Lichtenstein, as well as another infinity room, this time inside a box and not
as impressive as the first. However, my eye floaters went insane up here as all
the walls were white, so I left and headed to my next stop, seeing the museum’s
storage room en route.
The Los Angeles Central Library was next. Though the idea was started in 1844
as a collection of donated works in a town of 1500 people, the present site
opened in 1925 and has withstood a couple of arson attacks and various stages
of disrepair. Ironically, the disrepair protected its beautiful murals from the
most recent arson attack in the 80s, as the grime covering it saved it. Today
the building is beautiful from the outside, and a labyrinth inside. The murals
in the rotunda depict various scenes in California’s history and were really interesting
to look at.
Finally, I walked past one final art deco building called the Orvatt Building
before seeing some really rundown old theatres that were probably once
beautiful. At this point I was tired from lots of walking and avoiding dodgy
people on the footpath, so I caught the train back to Union Station to meet
Rob. All the chairs at all food and drink venues here were gone so as to
discourage the homeless from loitering, but I somehow lucked out with an Amtrak
lounge attendant letting me straight through. I sat here in comfort for an hour
and then met up with Rob before catching the train back to Santa Monica
together again. We had a crazy guy screaming his head off and throwing things
on this one, and all of us in the carriage were very happy when he got off the
train, but only after he pulled the emergency alarm first! We saw a self driving car on the walk back from the station.
Tonight we are going out for dinner, and tomorrow is our last day so I will
write one more then. Today was interesting, and I can’t help but feel that
those who settled LA and created all these beautiful buildings would be pretty
shocked at how dirty and rundown it is these days.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
