I have often driven down La Brea before.

But haven't noticed the mural.

Next time I'm over there, I'll check it out.  It's near the tire store where Richard Pryor's character worked in Lost Highway. It is not, however, on the way to Watts.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I love our local dog park too!  A couple of shots from a beautiful spring day -- yesterday.

Bodhi, the Bergamasco pooch with dreadlocks!  She's supposed to look like that. 

Getting to know you... Lola, the black lab with two new sniffing buddies. 

This sign at the park warns us that we share it with Mountain Lions and Rattlesnakes. 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I liked LA when I was there....on business.... mostly. We stayed at the ( at the time anyway ) downtown building, it was a Best Westin ?? hotel. It is constructed like about 5 high stacks of poker chips together, with the elevator(s) on the outside of the building? Do you know of what I refer to Susan? Nice high restaurant and stuff.

But rattlesnakes huh?  Hey mountain lions no problem.

Aren't rattlesnakes poisonous and don't they like bite people? Although , after what I learned about you recently, you could probably talk the snake out of biting you .

That would be the Bonaventure Hotel downtown, Raymond. It's been used frequently in films, including In the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood.  Some bad guy -- and I'm thinking Gary Busey though it might just be wishful thinking -- dies after a dramatic fall within the lobby. Check it out here.

It's one of the only decent hotels downtown though the Otani is nice with a great Japanese restaurant and, of course, the grand old Biltmore, where the Black Dahlia spent some of her final hours.

I sometimes wonder if tourists think downtown is the center of Los Angeles as it is in most big cities. In LA, it's mostly a place where people go to work and leave at day's end. The city has tried to change that with construction of new condos and lofts to encourage people to work and LIVE downtown and recently are having some luck. A couple of art museums and the music center are there as well.  It's a fun area to discover on foot though with some splendid old and new architecture.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Yes Susan , that is the place ! It was a pretty cool hotel- the outside elevators, the high up restaurant. I loved LA. Maybe if I lived in a poor location with a small apartment and 6 AM garbage trucks glanging and all, I might feel differently. But for a visit. My eyes were wide open.

I picture Randy Newman's song " I Love LA " in my mind . I loved the video of that song. When I would be on familiar names like La Cienaca, or Hollywood and Vine , I was enjoying being there. City of the angels. Where dreams are made -well that's Hollywood.

The air was clear when I was there too !

I've been trying all day to answer this but am having terrible Internet problems. The cable guy was here for 2 hours and is due back. Soon. It's 6:30 pm now but he promised he'd return. I'm having doubts. 

Okay. Let's see if I can retrieve my answer.

+++++++++ 

Within the city, it's pretty true. Lotta concrete. The Beverly Center he refers to, is a large indoor shopping mall with three levels of shopping and four levels of parking. The famous and first Hard Rock Cafe is situated on one corner at street level. Across the street to the west is the main hospital of Los Angeles -- Cedar's Sinai. If you are in a car accident or shot, this is likely where you'll be transported from most spots throughout LA.

Those two facilities take up significant space in that area. But no parks there.

But it doesn't take a lot of effort to find patches of green.  About a mile south of the Beverly Center you have La Cienga park with baseball diamonds and jogging paths. Just east of that is the expansive LA County Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History and the La Brea Tar Pits with lots of grounds.  Very cool sculpture Gardens where tar oozes on hot days, plus a lake with models of sinking mastadons and a saber tooth tiger.

If you travel a few miles east down Wilshire, you'd come to MacArthur Park. That's the one melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing falling down. But nowadays it's where you go to buy or sell narcotics or falsified documents. It's green with a blue lake in the center. Across the street is the decrepit hotel where the opening scene of Wild at Heart was filmed.  Every so often the lake is dredged yielding hypodermics, knives and guns. Not a park for kiddies but it used to be lovely way back when Wilshire Blvd was a glamorous corridor from the beach to downtown. Back then you could rent little rowboats.  I don't think they're still available.  This park was on the news all day yesterday because of the May Day "Immigrants Rights" rally where the LAPD went a little bean-bag gun crazed when the crowd wouldn't disperse. Mayor and Police Chief have promised a full investigation.

Further East near downtown is Echo Park, another old park. It's an eclectic and photogenic neighborhood. Young hipsters, college students, Hispanic and Asian immigrants, along with a group of architecture lovers who rejuvenate the beautiful old Victorian homes of Angelino Heights. Echo Park has a little lake with a fountain in the middle. There are many feral cats who are fed by the locals. Along with the cats, have come the coyotes, doing their part in this food chain. The wildlife officers say this is one of the most coyote-populated parts of town. Kinda pretty area in a decaying way. But it is undergoing a big oomph of gentrification and will probably soon be priced accordingly.

Don't forget Griffith Park adjacent to Universal City and Burbank and Los Feliz. Its famous landmark is the "Rebel Without a Cause" art deco hilltop observatory. Within the winding streets of Griffith Park are a train museum, miniature train rides, pony rides and a carousel, the Gene Autry Museum, a public golf course, horseback-riding stables and paths, and the Los Angeles Zoo. There are hiking trails and picnic areas galore. It's right alongside the well-known cemetery, Forest Lawn (as featured in The Loved One) with its adjacent Jewish cemetery, Mt. Sinai. Lotsa green there.

If you go east toward Pasadena and the older parts of town, you'll find they are designed with more of an east coast mentality. Pasadena, Altadena, Monrovia or Mt. Washington, for example, were built up during the late 1800s often by east coast transplants who had come to Los Angeles for alleviation of their asthma conditions! Many of the older bungalows had "sleeping porches" as the night air was considered a remedy for breathing difficulties. The streets and communities were planned and didn't just evolve. They often have a tree-lined center divide between lanes of traffic. There are parks and fountains. The shopping areas have those diagonal street parking spaces you almost never see anywhere else.

We also have miles of public beaches (ALL California beaches are public even when access can be difficult, such as near the Geffen estate) and miles of public mountain ranges where nothing can be built. Throughout those mountains -- like the Santa Monica mountain range -- are miles and miles of hiking trails, rock climbing areas, picnic locations, movie sets, forever vistas and lots of places to get away right in the city. Okay, you probably have to DRIVE to get to most of these places but there is no shortage of wide open spaces.

On any given weekend you'll find every park in this city active with soccer players, roller skaters and bikers, picnickers and sunbathers. Many of them are foreign born. They barbeque and play and it always looks like fun to me. Go through the affluent areas with big green yards and sidewalks and it is rare to see a child playing. They may be inside on computers, in backyards, taking classes for something or other, or off to camp. But they do not freely play on the streets of their neighborhoods these days. Weird.

LA grew up fast and rather haphazardly. It's so spread out that each community developed its own standards. Or did without standards. And it continues to GROW. The east-west corridors of Sunset Blvd, Wilshire, Santa Monica Blvd., Third Street, Beverly Blvd, Melrose, and Olympic handle the bulk of cross town traffic since there is not cross-town freeway. Yes, Los Angeles grew up around the freeway system, but no one wanted a freeway through the posh residential areas of Brentwood, Westwood, Holmby Hills or Beverly Hills. So they ended up with clogged surface streets. There are plans underway to build a subway system from Hollywood to the beach to compensate for that non-existent freeway but I don't think it will ever happen.

LA is also emphemeral. Come here one year and return five years later expecting to see the same building, you could be disapponted. Things change quickly and can be unrecognizable including celebrity homes, hotels, restaurants and hot spots. In other cities this is not so true.

The population of the city of Los Angeles has just reached 4,000,000. That's just the city. The county of Los Angeles is more like 10,000,000. But at 4,000,000, that makes the city of LA larger than entire countries like New Zealand or Ireland. And they need roads. The other news this week was that 1 of 8 Americans lives in the state of California. That's about 36,000,000! Who knows how many cars?

Just thinking about each of those areas makes me love LA all over again! 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well, it is.  The Brown Derby = gone.  The Gardens of Allah = gone.  The original downtown cathedral = gone.  The Biltmore Hotel = gone. 

There's not a lot of respect for historic buildings.  

But then again, life is pretty much like that.  Here today; gone tomorrow.  It's why I love the California missions.  They persevere.  They're the oldest buildings in youthful California.  

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I'll go take a look today, Booth.  Maybe I can have a stranger take a snapshot of me in front of the mural documenting the moment.  I watched the video and wonder how the finished product ended up different from the one we watched him paint???  Checked his website and saw some lively Paul Klee-ish looking work.  Nice.  I've always loved Klee.  And Kandinsky.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

That was fun!  Here's a few shots of N. La Brea right around Melrose, Pinks (of Mulholland Drive fame and LA lore), the Paprika Theater and the mural.  That is not me walking past the mural, by the way.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Right you are, Booth.  (and not nitpicky)  So that's the Regent Theater, huh?  Always wondered where it was.

As I walked around that theater I took several photos.  Looking up from the either side you can see a great big "PAPRIKA" with "Showcase" overtop.  What didn't show up in any of my photos was the body of a man (either sleeping or dead) lying in the corner behind the ticket booth.  Ewww, gross!  I thought about rousing him to take my photo next to the mural, but thought again. Some of this neighborhood is extremely ill-kempt while closeby are classy joints.  Such as...

Pinks is really popular.  An institution in LA.  You do recall the scene in Mulholland Drive with Rena Riffel and Scott Coffey outside of Pinks?  A few blocks from here is Artie's Gas Station-Tire store from Lost Highway.  In the opposite direction heading toward the hills at Hollywood Blvd and La Brea is the church where David Lynch sat with his cow promoting Laura Dern for her "perf" in the (non) boffo INLAND EMPIRE.  There are also several fine antique-vintage furniture store and great looking garden decor shops. 

I love La Brea! Spanish for "the tar pit" or "the tar" if you continue north on La Brea, turning westward on Wilshire Blvd, you will arrive at the Tar Pits themselves.

This message has been brought to you by the Sunny Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

Susan  

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Not yet.  It just doesn't seem like something I'd do alone. Next time you're in town from Seward's Folly, let me know and we'll do a photo safari together. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

The ryne in Spyne...

Those handmade signs are all over the city and I've always been tempted to call.  One of them is at the offramp of I-405 at Mulholland Drive right, where a perpetual arrangement with a makeshift cross, ribbons and plastic flowers stands on the location where Bill Cosby's son was murdered several years ago.  He had a flat tire and pulled off the freeway.  A crazy Russian shot him.  For his Mercedes?  I can't recall.  The car was still there when the police arrived. Must have been money.  Whatever, it was really bad timing for the two of them to cross paths that night.  I wonder if he had an accent...

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin