As is so often the case, we focus on what’s novel or interesting to us, often ignoring wonderful things right in front of our noses that might be novel or interesting to others. Thus, while I’ve traveled to (and posted pictures from) places like the Grand Canyon, Shanghai, Vermont, Southampton, Texas, Kyoto, Virginia, Seoul, and more (with many more to come), I’ve only shown a couple of sets of pictures from here in Los Angeles (here and here) which is a place I assume to be novel and interesting to people who don’t live here.
Today I had occasion to be downtown for a meeting (which I think went well and with luck will lead to another) and had a few minutes to kill beforehand. I walked across the street to Pershing Square, at the corner of 6th and Olive Street, right in the heart of downtown LA. Of course, I couldn’t just stand there or sit in the shade — I took a few pictures.
Pershing Square has some gigantic art, several stories tall. I’m not sure if it actually has any other function, such as camouflage for the exhaust vents for the underground garage. Maybe I’ll find out if I get to visit there again regularly.
A couple of the more noticeable and iconic skyscrapers on the LA skyline. The white building is known as the “Library Tower” since it’s across the street from the main Los Angeles Public Library and I believe the library owned the land or had some hand in the deal that got the tower built. If memory serves, it’s the tallest building on the West Coast. The slightly off-white, shorter building just in front of it is the library itself.
One of the things I love about Los Angeles, particularly downtown, is the way you get modern skyscrapers set right next to mid-rise skyscrapers that might have been state of the art when they were built a hundred years or so ago. On the Park Central Building, I thought the pattern of fire escapes and the statues on the 2nd and 3rd floor exteriors were wonderful. Apparently this particular building was also the tallest building in Los Angeles from 1916 to 1927.
They don’t build them like that any more.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 
I first came to L.A. nearly ten years ago – Thanksgiving 2004 – and we took a trip downtown. I still think of Independence Day whenever I see the US Bank building LOL
Having said that, even though I’ve lived here for 8 months now, I still haven’t been back LOL (I’ve seen it plenty of times from the car and the bus to Dodgers Stadium though LOL)
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We get down there for hockey games at Staples and Dodger games, plus plays and concerts at Disney and the Ahmanson, and I’ve run through it all a couple of times in the LA Marathon, but to just go down and LOOK and take pictures like a tourist? Nope.
I’ve been here for 40 years and I’ve finally started a list of all the places my kids have seen (usually on school field trips) that I’ve never been to. La Brea Tar Pits, Catalina, whale watching, Watts Towers, USS Iowa — the list goes on and on.
There’s always tomorrow and they’re always there, so they always get put off one more day, and one more day, and…
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LOL Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir here my friend. My gf Joy couldn’t believe I haven’t been back down there… we’d talked about it but haven’t gotten around to it yet… we live in Studio City so my excuse is that it would just take *forever* to get down to Union from Universal. It’s bad enough going to a Dodgers game (especially when they’re working on the line in the evening and you have to wait twenty freakin’ minutes for a train LOL)
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