In the words of one of my most favorite authors, Bill Bryson on his return to his native USA: "I'm a Stranger here myself."
And for the longest time, I've felt that way when I venture out of my familiar Northern California territory.
I may have made my home in the Bay Area some 30 years ago this May, but Southern California, particularly LA has remained somewhat of an enigma to this British-born ex-pat, despite the fact the oldest of my three sons has made Los Angeles his home for the past seven years. Well, he's been busy, I've been busy and it was about time I made a long-overdue trip down to his adopted home town.
If I'm to be honest, I guess greater Los Angeles overwhelms me and even more-so than New York in many ways. San Francisco and wine country provided me a moss-cushioned, oak-tree-canopied, certainly more slow-paced entry into this American life. From the air, LA's sheer land mass of urban sprawl and astonishing amount of gridlocked concrete is way beyond my imagination still, given my childhood in rural England. Driving into and within LA is another story entirely and it's not a good thing for anyone, least of all me if I'm the one behind the wheel without a few days to acclimatize to the general hustle and bustle of the city's love-it or hate-it freeway system.
So let's start by saying that other than being ferried around by my darling first-born, whose half-Italian genes are proving ideally suited to negotiating the shortest routes through and around the City of Angels on wheels, Lyft is my friend when in LA.
This time, because he has a house filled with room mates, I treated myself to a tiny room at the historic Hotel Figueroa in Downtown Los Angeles, close by multipurpose sports and entertainment arena, The Staples Center, the Grammy Museum and The Original Pantry Cafe, LA's most famous, casual, cash-only 24-hour diner since 1924.
Famed for its stylish bars and pool area, Hotel Figueroa is an iconic little landmark in its own right, having withstood the changing fortunes of downtown and fairly recently been spruced up inside and out to meet a demand in boutique stays in one of the oldest neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
To quote its website: "The hotel was the largest commercial building funded by women for women when it opened in 1926 by the YWCA as a safe haven for solo female travelers, who were prohibited from checking into most hotels without a male chaperone. Hotel Figueroa gave women the freedom to live uninhibited lives among other like-minded women and this paradise of feminine energy attracted professional women from all over the world, turning the coffee shop and salons into diverse and intellectual women’s collectives that produced powerful art and activism alike. The hotel fully embraced its social conscience, holding press conferences and political rallies against sexism, racism, and other social issues. Within the walls of the Hotel Figueroa, progress was possible".
Click here for KCET's great article on the history of the Figueroa Hotel
Some of the Hotel Fig's first guests back in the 1920s.
As a history buff, I make a point to read up on the heritage of any place I am visiting and though I love to see what's new and notable in person, I come away with a deeper understanding and sense of place if I've had the time to peel back the layers.
I think its pretty fair to say there's a universal misconception outside of Los Angeles that there's not a lot of history and heritage outside of the movie industry. That couldn't be farther from the truth.
In fact, the Los Angeles Basin was first settled by the Chumash people circa 8,000 BC. By the 16th Century, the main village of the later in-coming Tongva Indians who arrived around 500 BC was situated close to present-day Los Angeles City Hall.
Though Portuguese and Spanish explorers checked out the California coastline quite thoroughly in the 1500s and 1600s, it wasn't until 1769 that Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola explored the area to open up a land route to the port of Monterey, establishing the first Spanish settlement in the area.
According to Discover Los Angeles' Historical Timeline, it was these first non-native settlers who named the local river Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula (River of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula).
In 1771 Father Junipero Serra established the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which was later moved to the present-day city of San Gabriel. And in 1781, a group of 11 families comprising 44 Mexicans settled by the river. Mission San Fernando, named for the king of Spain was established in 1797. It later became home to the largest adobe structure in California, hosting 30,000 grape vines and 21,000 head of livestock.
By 1841, according to the first census in the area, the population of Los Angeles had risen to all of 141 people. However, the following year's first discovery of gold in California at Placerita Canyon, near Mission San Fernando, prompted the city's first population boom. Los Angeles area rancheros were in the right place at the right time to supply beef to the swelling masses of Northern California during the Gold Rush that began in 1849.
Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality in 1850, and California became the 30th state in the union.
In 1913 Cecil B. de Mille shot the first Hollywood movie, Squaw Man.
The Hollywood Sign, world-famous icon of LA was created in 1923 as an advertisement for a local real estate development called "Hollywoodland,". And in 1923 a young cartoonist named Walt Disney arrived in Los Angeles from Hermosa, Chicago with $40 in his pocket.
By 1924, the population of Los Angeles topped one million. Today it is the most populous city in California, home to about four million people and second only in population in the nation, after New York City.
An explosion of commercial growth Downtown LA took place during the 1910s, '20s, and early '30s. Many of the historic buildings near Pershing Square are from this period. The city's strict height limit on buildings was lifted in 1957, triggering another era of boom. However, as skyscrapers altered the city's skyline, regional shopping malls, entertainment complexes and business parks were luring residents and consumers away from the city center and sending Downtown into a rapid decline.
A Renaissance of historic Downtown launched with the opening of Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Sparks and the passing of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance in 1999, with obsolete and vacant office buildings being upgraded and converted to other, mostly residential purposes.
Nowadays visitors are discovering or revisiting the architectural gems of historic LA by taking a hike in the city, either self-guided or with Conservancy Walking Tours.
Regular walking tours include Historic Downtown; Modern Skyline; Broadway Theatre and Commercial District; Art Deco; Downtown Renaissance; Union Station.
Top of my list for a few days hanging out with my son, Rocco, was a museum marathon. It's a good thing to note that many of the museums in Los Angeles are closed on Tuesdays. After we figured that out, an afternoon in the Last Bookstore was a great way to while away as many hours for as good an example of mother-and-son bookworms as any!
The Last Bookstore is California's largest new and used book and record emporium, as quirky and enthralling as any large-scale bookstore could be, with stores-within-a-store creating a sense of stumbling into a magical time warp where bibliophiles of all ages read to their hearts delight on comfy velvet couches after browsing floor-to-ceiling wobbly shelves of written and recorded wonder.
It does any reader/writer the world of good to experience a packed bookstore on a weekday afternoon. I particularly loved visiting the rare book room pictured above.
Wednesday came around and the museums reopened after their collective day-off. First stop was The Broad, which I had visited three summers ago, but was due another pit-stop. It's a world-renowned gorgeous space and now in its fifth year showcasing a collection of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present.
This dynamic collection features in-depth representations of influential contemporary artists, fostering appreciation of art of our time by advancing education and engagement through exhibitions and diverse public programming to enrich, provoke, inspire. The Broad is home to 2,000 works of art in the Eli and Edythe Broad collection, which is one of the world’s leading collections of postwar and contemporary art.
Thanks to a generous recent endowment, The Broad and other Los Angeles museums are now free to enter, though pre-booking is required.
By the time Thursday rolled around, there was a few of us Rivettis in town and I tasked Rocco with picking out a quintessential downtown LA dinner venue for us to gather.
My British/Italian sister-in-law from Philly and an old friend of hers from the UK were delighted by his choice of Papa Cristo's Big Fat Greek Night Family Night Dinner.
The same family has been feeding the Greek community from its popular market since 1948. It's as old-school as it gets!
Across the street from The Broad, I was happy to catch the seasonal special exhibition With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985 in the The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 is the first full-scale scholarly survey of this groundbreaking American art movement, encompassing works in painting, sculpture, collage, ceramics, installation art, and performance documentation. Covering the years 1972 to 1985 and featuring approximately fifty artists from across the United States, the exhibition examines the Pattern and Decoration movement’s defiant embrace of forms traditionally coded as feminine, domestic, ornamental, or craft-based and thought to be categorically inferior to fine art.
We took a ride on the world's shortest railway down to bustling foodie haven Grand Central Market, which has been feeding Angelenos since 1917. Angel's Flight, featured in more than one hundred movies and books and after gathering dust for four years, the legendary, century-old funicular has been rehabbed and restored to its early 1900s glory. Its famed orange and black cars run up and down Bunker Hill.
My husband, Timo had joined me for the latter part of my visit and was keen to walk through The Bradbury Building, not far from Grand Central Market. This is not only the oldest commercial building remaining in the central city and thus one of Los Angeles’ unique treasures, it has earned itself a pop-icon cult status for international fans of Ridley Scott's Scott’s vision of a dystopian 2019 in the 1982 movie Bladerunner. I couldn't help but feel sympathy for those who work in the building today as they navigate groups of gawking tourists taking selfies on the part of the vintage 1893 staircase they're permitted to walk up.
Behind its modest, mildly Romanesque exterior lies a beautiful light-filled Victorian court that rises almost fifty feet with open cage elevators, marble stairs, and ornate iron railings.
There's a lot more to see on the history trail of Downtown LA including cultural hub Union Station, the "Last of the Great Railway Stations" built in the United States. The structure combines Art Deco, Mission Revival, and Streamline Moderne style. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. I took a train into Union Station last time I was in LA and look forward to exploring even more of this part of the city next time I visit.
Click here for a free map that features a 4-mile trail of 17 cultural & historic sites in Downtown LA, starting at Grand Park and ending at the 7th Street Metro Station. Or, start at the trailhead of your choice for a 1- to 2-mile trail! The LA Conservancy, the largest membership-based local historic preservation organization in the country, is dedicated to preserving and revitalizing historic places throughout Los Angeles County.
Meanwhile, nearby Pasadena is home to the Norton Simon Museum and sculpture garden which Rocco and I visited after a short hike in the Altadena hills. Influential entrepreneur, industrialist, philanthropist and art collector Norton Simon said in 1972: "One of the most profound means of human communication is the visual arts. By establishing a meaningful dialogue between an artist's vision of the world and our own perceptions, art can help us to understand ourselves more fully. Moreover, art at its finest gives us a deep sense of history, tradition, and the true potentialities of man's creativity. In today's world where often scientific development is regarded as the highest goal and where the individual frequently feels alienated from himself and those around him, the role of art becomes increasingly important in keeping open the lines of communication."
Over a period of less than 30 years, Simon amassed what is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest private art collections. His interest in art began in the 1950s with the works of Degas, Renoir, Gauguin and Cézanne. In the 1960s he shaped a major art collection of Old Masters, Impressionists and Modern works which expanded in the 1970s to include Indian and Southeast Asian art.
The Getty Center was on my must-see list for a first-timer during this visit, though it called for a serious detour from downtown. The extraordinary campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust cost some $1.3 billion to build and opened to the public on December 1997. It is famed for its architecture, gardens, and views overlooking Los Angeles and deserves a post of its own. We barely touched on taking it all in and I'm going to have to make a full-day return visit to write about it in more depth.
That said, if you go and you're staying downtown, bear in mind, it's a 16-mile drive which may take you between 20 minutes and an hour or more depending on traffic. Direct public transportation is lacking so plan accordingly time-wise if driving and parking and taking the tram up to the center and gardens. The views alone are breathtaking. Make it a whole-day itinerary.
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