LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 3.0

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by LAofAnaheim

The only thing "dead" was that many office towers were not at full capacity with employees due to the holiday week. In all my years here (4 years), I have never seen sooooo many tourists roaming the streets during the Holiday break, especiallly New Years weekend. I knew it was going to be a busy few days leading up to New Years Day as you heard that Disneyland SOLD OUT for 2 consecutive days. How often you hear that story? So, there was a general spike in interest for tourism for all of southern California. Also, as I do spend quite a bit of time volunteering at Union Station, I met tons and tons of Cheeseheads and Horned Frogs just interested in seeing the city and most were looking forward to downtown above hollywood. I pointed them all to Olvera street, Cathedral of our Lady of Angels, Walt Disney Hall, Angels Flight (totally bragged about how it's the shortest railway in the world and the 1 cent fare on Friday), Grand Central Market and the Bradbury building. I gave this advice to at least 150 people on Friday morning, which, on a good day is usually 50 during my 4 hour shifts.

Also, generally more people from the universities who come for the Rose Bowl tend to stay in downtown over Pasadena as there is more capacity in this area. Pasadena doesn't have the amount of hotels to compete with downtown LA. Additionaly, both the Cheeseheads and Horned Frogs had rallys at LA Live! on Friday evening which made downtown LA more convenient. Nearly everybody was interested and looking forward to taking the Gold Line to the game. A lot of people were staying in hotels in Little Tokyo and I directed them to their Little Tokyo/Arts District station. I think downtown LA really shined these last few days and I'm sure made new fans from our visitors from Wisconsin and Texas. I was very proud to see how the city has grown over the last four years. It was a joy seeing tons of red and purple (significantly more red I might add) these last few days.

Good to hear...Hollywood has been crazy too, it generally is for the Rose Bowl but this year even more so... I guess it helps when USC isn't playing.