WALK #1

       DOWNTOWN L.A. HISTORY WALK

      DISTANCE: 2.75 miles

      DIFFICULTY: 2

      DURATION: 1 hour 30 minutes

      DETAILS: Free and metered street parking. Dogs on leash allowed. Metro buses #4, #10, #40, and #442.

      This is a walk through history, starting with Los Angeles’s roots and concluding with its newest city park and biggest downtown cathedral.

      Begin this journey at Union Station on Alameda Street, near the heart of L. A.’s historic center. Before starting the walk, take some time to enjoy the station. Once a dominant feature of the city skyline, its exterior was often the cinematic establishing shot that told audiences they were in L. A. The interior has a lot to see. Admire the beamed, hand-painted ceilings, marble floors, cork walls, brass fittings, and leather seats. There are places to eat and drink here, too, from the high-end Traxx restaurant and bar located at the front of the station to the lower-end snacks further inside.

      Across the breezeway, check out the once-bustling restaurant space that used to be a Harvey House, one of the many restaurants operated by businessman Fred Harvey in the early railroad days in stations across the West. The space is now home to the Imperial Western Brewing Company.

      Also, don’t miss the main ticket counter area, which is no longer in use. If it looks familiar, that’s because it is frequently used in movies and TV shows.

      Leave the station through its original main entrance, heading west. Follow the sidewalk to Alameda Street and turn right. Walk to the corner at Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, and turn left to cross Alameda. Once on the other side, turn left again, into Olvera Street.

      This is Los Angeles’s tribute to its Mexican roots—a block of “authentic” Mexican shops and restaurants that isn’t really authentic at all. Although the block contains what is said to be the city’s oldest house—the Avila Adobe, built in 1818—the street itself, and all its shops and “Mexican” flavor, were the invention of local doyenne Christine Sterling, who sought to restore the street to its imaginary Mexican origins. (It does, in fact, have old Mexican roots. Agustin Olvera was an early Los Angeles judge, and Francisco Avila was an early city mayor.) Using prison labor and donations from citizens like Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, Sterling oversaw the 1928 construction of Olvera Street, which has remained more or less intact ever since.

      Enjoy the ficus and pepper tree shade as you walk up the lone block, filled with the scents of tanned leather, fresh tortillas, and toys and trinkets made from Chinese plastic. At the top of the street, you’ll find Los Angeles Plaza Park. Under a massive shade tree is a fine bandstand that often hosts musical events. Circle around the back of the bandstand, then bend right, aiming for the stretch of North Main Street that runs between Pico House on your left and the Garnier and Brunswig buildings on your right.

      This is more old city history. Pico House was a luxury hotel, built in 1869 by Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of the territory of Southern California, who used the architect that designed the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana. The Garnier and Brunswig buildings, both from the 1880s, were also important early structures for the growing metropolis.

      Continue south on Main, past Pico House, and past the big black-and-white historic pictures inside the Plaza de Cultura y Artes building. Cross Arcadia Street, cross over the Santa Ana Freeway (U.S. 101), and then cross Aliso Street. As you go, admire the lovely City Hall building rising before you. Even more than Union Station, it was the identifying feature of the Los Angeles landscape, and should be familiar to anyone who has ever watched movies shot from the 1930s to the 1960s. Continue half a block, then turn in to the small park on your left.

      The large, three-legged beast in the plaza is what’s left of the Triforium. Built in 1975, this sixty-foot-tall whimsy was meant to sense the presence of pedestrians below and perform for them, using music played on a carillion of seventy-nine glass bells and a light show displayed on stained glass panels. This public artwork had a short life, and has not functioned for many years.

      Over to the left, look for a pedestrian bridge, elegantly curved like something from a Japanese garden. Use this to cross Temple Street. On the other side, walk under some feeble trees and return to Main Street, turning left at the sidewalk. (Down below you, incidentally, is the Los Angeles Mall, a subterranean street of shops and restaurants that, though open during the week, go dark during most of the weekend.)

      At First Street, turn right and cross Main Street, then bear right into City Hall Park, the grounds surrounding the seat of the Los Angeles government. City Hall is iconic, and it’s phallic, and it’s still a fine building. At the time of its construction in 1928, it rose to 452 feet—the first high rise in Southern California and, until 1964, the tallest building in the city. (The Union Bank Plaza on Figueroa, which stands 516 feet tall, stole that crown when it was completed.)

      Enjoy the grounds and the views from the park to the stark new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters across First Street and the stately old Los Angeles Times building—although the newspaper no longer occupies the building—across Spring Street. When you get to Spring, bear right, walking slightly uphill. At the pedestrian crossing, cross Spring and enter Grand Park.

      This is Los Angeles’s newest big urban green space. It stretches from the front of City Hall, across the equivalent of four long city blocks, and up to the plaza that is home to the Music Center, Ahmanson Theatre, and Mark Taper Forum. Enjoy its wide lawns, secluded shady areas, hot pink seats and benches—all of them free-roaming and untethered, so you can arrange them as you like—and water features. (There’s also a Starbucks, located near the top of the park.)

      You’ll cross Broadway and Hill Street as you go (and Olive Street, or what used to be Olive Street, marked now only by a line of olive trees). Finally you will climb several sets of stairs (there are ramps for those who can’t climb stairs) to Grand Avenue. Cross this, and go up a final flight of stairs into the arts plaza.

      To the right are the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum. In the middle of the plaza you’ll find a fountain and, usually, some food and beverage carts.

      After you’ve enjoyed all of this, turn toward the Ahmanson and walk all the way to the northern end of the arts plaza. Find a staircase dropping down to the corner of Grand and Temple, kitty-corner from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Cross both streets to get to the cathedral.

      One of Los Angeles’s first churches was the cathedral known as Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles. The one standing in front you now is the newer