just some typical travel section articles, so there's nothing in them that's not been published before. However, it does show publicity about the hood is reaching beyond the borders of LA.
I find the contrasts between the first report & the second one, written in 1st person singular, & both from papers owned by the same publisher, interesting. Travel writers also tend to be mostly positive, & so the 2nd article ends with a noticeably downer slant.
I still think the biggest killer of the hood around Disney hall----& which makes it seem even more like a "dry gulch"----is that most of it still is parking lots.
Could L.A. Be the Next Great Downtown?
By Michael Martinez
Mercury News
05/20/2007
Strip away the traffic and the smog, the endless stretches of freeway, the concrete sprawl and the tiresome Hollywood glitterati, and maybe ... just maybe ... Los Angeles isn't such a bad place to visit.
If you can get past all the things Northern Californians love to hate about it, L.A. - 4 million people, 467 square miles - has undiscovered appeal for those who venture downtown: old movie houses, art deco buildings, thriving fashion and jewelry districts, open-air markets, and performing arts centers.
OK, so it might not be as popular as Malibu or the Magic Kingdom. But big cities across the United States are becoming popular destinations as their downtowns are reimagined, cleaned up and redeveloped. Now Los Angeles' downtown is on the verge of a renaissance.
"Waterfront revitalization in Boston, Baltimore and even New York have attracted significant visitor arrivals to those downtowns," said travel expert Don George, formerly with Lonely Planet Publications, now editing a Web site called Don's Place. "Philadelphia has spiffed up its downtown in the past five years and become a tourist magnet again.
"In terms of L.A., I've been amazed at how its downtown has evolved. The whole area is like night and day."
What's there to do?
You can take a walking tour of architectural wonders. Or attend a symphony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Eat at Grand Central Market, a bazaar of ethnic foods from Asian seafood to Salvadoran pupusas. Or prowl the busy jewelry and fashion districts.
And stay into the evening. Although downtown has always had two faces - alive and busy during the day, quiet and empty by sunset as workers head for the suburbs - it's slowly becoming a round-the-clock destination. Hundreds of vintage buildings, shuttered and ignored for decades, are being brought back to life as office and living space, enough to make developers and historians thankful they weren't razed. Many commercial buildings are now condos and loft-style apartments; more than 7,000 new units have opened since 1999, with at least that many under construction.
An increase in population has helped spawn more restaurants and clubs, allowing visitors to enjoy a nightlife that didn't exist in the past. And the city's homeless population, which once would have discouraged a nighttime visit, has decreased as a result of police intervention. All of which is making the downtown area more inviting for out-of-towners.
City that never sleeps
"Residential development is creating an area that's open 24 hours a day," said Hal Bastian, who heads the city's downtown economic development.
A key component is likely to be LA Live, a 27-acre, $2.5 billion complex across the street from Staples Center (home of the basketball Lakers and Clippers) that tourism officials are touting as a 24-hour experience.
When finished, the complex will be the centerpiece of a rejuvenated downtown. The Nokia Theatre, a 7,100-seat concert venue, is scheduled to open this fall, to be followed by a 54-story hotel tower that will house both the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, a Grammy Awards museum, a 14-screen movie complex, restaurants and clubs. The rollout should be complete by 2010.
What to do until then? If you visit, you'll have plenty of choices. Shoppers can stroll the jewelry district, where dealers sell watches, necklaces, stones and precious gems at wholesale prices. St. Vincent Jewelry Center, at one time a Bullock's department store on Hill Street, has more than 450 merchants under one roof. While there, have lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway, an old-school eatery that has been at that location since 1935.
Then make your way south to Santee Alley - where the bargain shopping goes on for two blocks. Located in an alley (really) between Santee Street and Maple Avenue, it's an open-air free-for-all: More than 200 stalls sell jeans, sneakers, dresses and jackets at bargain-basement prices. You'll even see designer knockoffs like Dooney & Bourke bags and Prada sunglasses. The police occasionally swoop down on merchants peddling illegal stuff in the open, but few seem deterred.
Surrounding streets are filled with small shops selling fabric (some as cheap as 10 cents a yard), apparel and costume jewelry. Nearby, the flower district is housed in two buildings where visitors can buy anything from carnations to orchids to potted plants - after retailers have made their purchases for the day. But arrive early or you're likely to miss the best buds.
L.A. Fashion District is a must-see for fashionistas. Although primarily wholesale shops, many are open to the public at discounts up to 70 percent. For women who wear sizes 0 to 4, the high-end contemporary designer showrooms offer sample sales, usually on the last Friday of each month, where end-of-season clothing can be had at bargain prices.
For architecture enthusiasts, the Los Angeles Conservancy has several walking tours that highlight some of the city's varied styles, including classical revival, art deco, renaissance revival and moderne.
Broadway's historic theater district runs from Olympic to Third Street and includes 12 former movie palaces that have been preserved for future improvements. Only the Orpheum, built in 1926 and host to performers such as Judy Garland, Jack Benny and Duke Ellington, has been fully renovated. The others are clearly in need of some tender loving care.
"Our intent is to preserve them so we can find somebody to do something with them," said Linda Dishman, executive director of L.A. Conservancy. "We want to make sure that these treasures are preserved and brought back to life."
An old office building
One splendid sight is the Bradbury Building, 304 S. Broadway, the oldest commercial building in central city and still in use as an office building. Walk into the lobby and behold a Victorian court with a broad skylight roof almost 50 feet high, cage elevators, marble stairs and ornate iron railings.
El Pueblo Historical Monument - more popularly known as Olvera Street - remains a favorite tourist attraction, as much for its souvenir and crafts stands as its authentic Mexican food. It's considered the birthplace of Los Angeles, and visitors can tour Avila Adobe, the oldest house in L.A.
No matter where you walk, you'll feel a strong Latino influence throughout much of downtown - Mexican music emanates from stores that sell Spanish-language movies and music, plus electronics, toys, and dresses and accessories for weddings and quinceañeras. It's part of what gives L.A. its character - lots of diversity, lots of things to see and do.
And while homelessness is visible in some parts, it has been reduced significantly in others. According to police figures, the homeless population downtown has fallen from almost 1,400 in November 2006 to 735 in April; crime also was trimmed by 35 percent in a recent six-month period. The reduction came as a result of a crackdown on crime in skid row and attempts to move the homeless out of the city center as the residential population has increased.
"There's an enormous increase in residential and community development, and it's pressing against those areas which at one time were part of skid row," said Michael Collins, executive vice president of the city's convention and visitors bureau. "Five years ago, Fourth and Main was almost like a homeless encampment. Now, there's a very trendy restaurant on the corner and across the street."
A Wealth of Art, Culture
By Anne Chalfant
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
05/20/2007
STRAPPY HIGH HEELS were the wrong shoes. So said my feet as I climbed the stairway to a cocktail party at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. The party was just the beginning of my foray into Los Angeles culture by night. Next stop: a performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall. After that, rooftop dancing at a nightclub.
Though I hated the idea of mingling with L.A.'s beautiful people in a pair of flats, I decided that if I could quickly grab a taxi for a hasty shoe switch back in my hotel room, I'd forfeit glamour.
The notion that I could get anywhere quickly in Los Angeles does defy what we know about its traffic. But downtown on a Saturday night, the vehicles that plague this city with exhaust-choking crawl on weekdays have all gone home. The only cars coming down the four-lane street in front of the pavilion were a couple of lonely cabs. I grabbed one, made the shoe switch and was sipping cocktails at the Chandler pavilion in less than 20 minutes.
Urban paradox
The absence of downtown buzz is odd. Los Angeles can claim title to being the West's richest art and culture treasure chest. The city boasts the most art- and artifact-laden museums west of Chicago, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- despite its lackluster name -- being one of the nation's best-stocked museums. These days LACMA, in uber-expansion mode, is in the process of growing to a five-building complex in Hancock Park.
Goddesses and views
Another recent cultural coup was the reopening of the Getty Villa in 2006 in Malibu. The $275 million remodeled villa houses 45,000 artifacts of Greek, Roman and Etruscan culture, a hugely important collection made possible by the richest man of the 20th century. Its sister museum, the Getty Center, is regally located on a hilltop north of downtown, boasting a collection of Western art and a sweeping view of L.A. that bestirs sane people to declare, "How gorgeous!"
Back downtown, there's the Museum of Contemporary Art. Nearby, the architecturally significant Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels has drawn visitors since 2002 to its soaring, nontraditional space with no right angles. All this cultural largess plus redevelopment projects that include splashing fountains, lovely landscaping and people-friendly seating were designed to pull the city back to its center.
A glow in the dark
But in fact the weekend tourist will find these empty streets more like high noon at Dry Gulch. Make that Dry Gulch with a stunning piece of bling -- the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Glowing like a newly landed meteor, the many-sided architectural masterpiece is so remarkable, it can serve as someone's sole reason to visit L.A.
To call it bling is somewhat irreverent. Frank Gehry's architectural eye-catcher is alive with roving lines, swells and undulations. By daytime, its stainless-steel exterior blazes with reflected sunshine. And the medium is the message: Acoustical brightness and crispness is what you hear inside. The hall is home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which -- in the "Tristan Project" performance I attended -- sounded like my own personal symphony in these pin-drop sensitive acoustics.
A visit to the Disney Hall should allow enough time to walk around and admire the unusual structure, craning your neck to catch new angles. Tours of the building are as popular as concerts. There's a garden on one side where, at sunset in April, the bloom of cherry trees cast softness on the flashy stainless steel. Sunset is a good time to gaze at the building; by daylight it's so bright, neighbors in nearby condos complained they couldn't sit on their decks with their eyes open. Some of the stainless-steel panels had to be sanded to a dull finish.
'A rose for Lilly'
While in the garden, be sure to look at the flower sculpture made of Delft pottery shards by Gehry for Lillian Disney, who with husband Walt had collected the blue-and-white Dutch pottery. Look closely among the shards and find names including "Terry," "Katrina" and "Alexy," names of people who worked to construct the concert hall. Plus the inscription, "A rose for Lilly, Frank Gehry."
Following the performance at the Disney hall, our group headed to the rooftop bar of the Standard hotel -- and yes, somehow I did pass by the velvet rope even without stylish high heels. The rooftop setting gives a 360-degree view of the twinkly lights of Los Angeles, an intriguing spot for a drink and some dancing in the soft Los Angeles night air. But the crowd was very young -- hardly the haute couture set of the far trendier rooftop bar at the Standard in West Hollywood.
As I walked back to the hotel, the streets were empty -- but for a few lost souls and the walking companion whose company provided an essential measure of safety.
Anne Chalfant is the Times travel editor.
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when (& I don't wanna say "if") both Block 8 & the Medallion proj a few blocks west are under construction at the same time.
I forgot the dancing bananas-
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