2017 is my tenth year of exploring and writing about Los Angeles communities. In 2007 I explored Granada Hills, Montebello, and Alhambra, and titled my series California Fool's Gold in homage to Huell Howser's California's Gold (1991-2012). In 2014 I spun off a related series, Urban Rambles, in which I undertake short, small, loosely structured walks of various corners of Southern California. … Continue reading Urban Rambles – Exploring Bronzeville with Maya and Michael
downtown los angeles
Swinging Doors — A Gold Line Beer Crawl
In Los Angeles, I regularly find myself so spoiled for choice that it sometimes leaves me distressed; but really, there are surely worse problems than being presented with too many great possibilities with how to spend one’s time. On Sunday there was a nine kilometer hike in the San Gabriel Mountains which culminated with a … Continue reading Swinging Doors — A Gold Line Beer Crawl
Office Park Life — Visiting Park DTLA
Although the earliest office parks first appeared in the 1950s, their golden age was the 1980s, when they sprang up like boxy, shiny, fairy rings in the liminal spaces between cities and suburbs; drawn beyond the edges of cities by baby boomers who'd discovered in fleeing to the suburbs, they'd created for themselves a fresh hell in … Continue reading Office Park Life — Visiting Park DTLA
Those Useless Trees — The Aoyama Tree
Although not native, many Moreton Bay Figs (Ficus macrophylla) dot the Southern California landscape. The oldest of these Australian immigrants might be those planted by agriculturalist Elijah Hook Workman on the Los Angeles Plaza in 1875. Around that same time, one was planted in Anaheim which later served as the model for the Disneyland's Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. One planted … Continue reading Those Useless Trees — The Aoyama Tree
California Fool’s Gold — Exploring Bunker Hill
BUNKER HILL The story of Bunker Hill is the story of at least three neighborhoods -- maybe more. There's the posh, Victorian neighborhood of the late 19th Century. There's also the diverse, working class neighborhood celebrated in noir fictions of the early 20th Century. Today, there's the contemporary neighborhood, a collection of corporate high-rises and high culture. As an … Continue reading California Fool’s Gold — Exploring Bunker Hill
High Rising — Visiting the Hotel Figueroa
Los Angeles is often characterized as an horizontal city, spread as it is across an area that could contain Boston, Cleveland, Manhattan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, and several interchangeable college towns. Dodger Stadium's parking lot alone is larger than some principalities. Less often acknowledged is the fact that no city on Earth is as vertical either, stretching as … Continue reading High Rising — Visiting the Hotel Figueroa
California Fool’s Gold’s Guide to Los Angeles’s Revival Cinemas
No city on Earth is more closely associated with motion pictures than Los Angeles. 10% of all movie theaters in the entire country are located in California and Los Angeles County is home to over 100 of them. Although most of Los Angeles's theaters, like those throughout the country, showcase only the latest Hollywood product, … Continue reading California Fool’s Gold’s Guide to Los Angeles’s Revival Cinemas
