Despite being a major metropolis, living in Los Angeles usually feels more like living in the suburbs. It’s not like New York where you know you are in the city all the time with giant buildings surrounding you, endless aisles of apartment complexes, street vendors selling food and sirens screaming below your window. Most of us live on tree lines streets with parks and little strip malls close by. Because of this Downtown Los Angeles is really exciting to some of us (like myself). It’s urban, there’s history and you feel like you are actually in a city. Things legitimately look old, kind of European and it’s all squished together, layer upon layer, piled on top of itself the way a real city is.

Downtown is the old Los Angeles, the original Los Angeles, the place where it all began. People came with an excitement to build a new city “out west.” It was beautiful and there were fortunes to be made. The first town square was established in 1866 which was eventually named Pershing Square, a square that sits at the heart of downtown today. Eventually trolley lines and street cars opened to offer public transportation to the growing population. Cathedrals, synagogues, hotels, restaurants and schools were built – USC was established in 1880. Downtown was the place to be. At this point the city wasn’t being built around the car yet but by the 1900’s automobiles were on the streets and the great expansion of the city began, eventually dissolving Downtown as the city’s center.

I like to go down there today and imagine what it was like. The night clubs, the theaters, people dressed up to go out to eat, riding the trolley cars or just walking around. From the pictures it looks like it was a beautiful place. There were lots of trees, fancy hotels, shopping districts, a few lakes to walk around and enjoy. I am not en expert on the history and don’t have all the facts for you. The city leads some historic walking tours of Downtown and once I go on one of those I will surely be inspired to report back. Today Downtown is going through a revival. For many years  it was (and still kind of is) run down, dirty and not a very safe place to be. That is changing as the artists and the hipsters are making it a more interesting place to be and a place where businesses can make money again. My hope is that what old buildings can be saved will be saved and it will retain much of its original charm. Here are a few of my pictures from my visit to Downtown this weekend. I have a thing for old bricks and windows so you’ll see a lot of that but I tried to capture the colors and sights that I find so different from what I see in other parts of the city. I will continue to post more in Downtown as I am fascinated with its history and all the changes that are being made. You can visit my first post on Downtown for some shots of the Financial District and Pershing Square.

The Jewelry District

Dressmakers dolls in the window

Walking on the 6th Street Bridge

“There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.” – Kathleen Norris 1931

You can find yourself in the city surrounded by millions, utterly alone. And yet, a moment later you can find yourself at one with all the world; connected to the thrilling pulse of life, connected to everything and everyone. The solitude and anonymity that the city offers can be both liberating and maddening.

Downtown Los Angeles one afternoon I was struck by the enormity of the buildings. Their glass facades gleaning and glistening in the sunlight. They seemed to undulate in the sky as I looked up at them. I imagined myself at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at the towering columns of kelp, illuminated by the bright blue ocean all around. These buildings make you feel small and yet they are oddly comforting; so large and silent, almost Zen like, watching and protecting like gods. There is something ancient about them as they silently and peacefully peer down at the madness below. Amidst the constantly changing street scene they are stable, solid and enduring. A calm washes over me as I gaze up. I try to imagine what they will look like two thousand years from now. Will travelers come from far and wide to speculate about what we did here? What were these giant monuments used for? Why were they built? Will they walk slowly around the crumbling frames, snapping photos, the way we walk around Stonehenge or the Colosseum? Or perhaps they will come with a small chisel as the Romantics did in the 18th century to break off a little piece of the crumbling shrine to take home with them. Will they know who we were and what these buildings were built for or will they imagine them to be a part of some ancient time telling system or grand burial site?

These are some of my photos from this Spring afternoon Downtown.