Day: December 10, 2012

A lot of people have a lot of views about LA. Don’t go downtown, don’t spend more than an hour in Hollywood, don’t go on the public transport system, don’t go out into the suburbs, just drive through it…they say.  If all taken together it doesn’t leave much to do there except Disneyland and to head for Las Vegas. However, it seems that if you dispense with the traditional ‘advice’ about LA and do the exact opposite, you’ll enjoy one of the best cities America has to offer.

Parts of Downtown LA have undergone significant regeneration, mostly centred around the Walt Disney Concert Hall – an absolutely stunning Frank Gehry building at the heart of a cluster of new cultural and arts venues on Bunker Hill. The Concert Hall is one of the most exciting public buildings anywhere in the world and has helped to transform an otherwise neglected and rundown part of the city. A number of new cultural related buildings have sprung up around it, including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the LA Opera, with a new world class art gallery due to open next door to it next year.

LA is very spread out and is heavily dominated by the car. The public transport system though is excellent and provides a cheap and fast way to navigate the conurbation, avoiding the city’s famous traffic jams. It seems fairly safe, although like any American city care needs to be taken at night.

The city’s extensive bus networks are all really good and easy, whereas the Metro system now covers the majority of places you’ll want to go. An all day TAPP pass for the Metro or bus is just $5 and takes you anywhere you like in the greater LA area or each individual journey is $1.50. What the Metro doesn’t do is connect up with Venice or Santa Monica Beaches, although these are a short hop from the up and coming Culver City.

Beverley Hills is also isolated from the fixed public transport links. This high end neighbourhood offers the ultimate in boutique shopping and star spotting experience.  As well as the world famous Rodeo Drive, it also boasts a new Westfield shopping mall at Century City. Beverley Hills is probably best enjoyed in the streets and shops around Rodeo Drive, with their more relaxed west coast feel.  The list of other places easily reachable from Beverley Hills is long and a good base for driving from.

Hollywood does what it says on the tin. It is less run down now than in previous years and offers a good base to explore the city from. It is perhaps a bit limited for an extended stay and you’ll encounter a steady flow of people dressed up as Superman or Charlie Chaplain trying to sell their tour bus rides. For the ultimate historic Hollywood experience try staying at the Roosevelt Hotel. Marilyn Monroe still haunts the public areas they say. From Hollywood you can easily access the gay area and nightlife of West Hollywood; the historic Downtown or destinations such as the Farmer’s Market. All worth spending time in, if Hollywood Boulevard itself wears thin.

Central LA offers one of the best art galleries in the US and perhaps the world. The LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) is a cluster of buildings holding more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present. Among the museum’s special strengths are its holdings of Asian art, housed in part in the Bruce Goff-designed Pavilion for Japanese Art; Latin American art, ranging from pre-Columbian masterpieces to works by leading modern and contemporary artists including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco; and Islamic art, of which LACMA hosts one of the most significant collections in the world. It is a must see.

Another must see in central LA is the space shuttle, which docked there in October to spend its retirement. It is already a huge tourist attraction in its own right.

Everyone seems to end up at the beach in LA. It is what the locals do. Santa Monica and Venice Beach sit next to each other, offering different experiences. Santa Monica gives good mainstream shopping, hotels and nightlife whereas Venice Beach has an entirely different vibe dropping the chain stores and coffee shops and attracting a more cosmopolitan crowd. Experienced together, you can cherry pick the best of both worlds.

LA has done what Brighton and Hove should have started to do years ago.  It has used development opportunities to regenerate its run down areas. Whatever the debate about the Frank Gehry plans for the King Alfred a few years back, the city council should have stepped in and stopped an architect of this quality being lost to the city altogether – recession or not. If you take one look at the beauty of the Walt Disney Concert Hall you’ll think that Brighton and Hove made an indescribable error of judgement in not developing an acceptable set of designs and affordable funding package for the King Alfred and so letting an architect of this calibre slip through its fingers. Gehry isn’t just world class, he is beyond that and the impact of a Gehry-designed King Alfred would have been felt for generations on the city – as it has on LA.

A good example of how this would have happened locally is the rapid transport networks which were planned for the seafront to link up the King Alfred and Marina sites with the station. LA utilises rapid transport so effectively, and Brighton and Hove missed this opportunity to provide fast and efficient public transport along the seafront, taking the pressure off the crowded city centre routes, such as Western Road and St James’s Street. Brighton and Hove has paid a heavy price for missing out on Gehry.

LA is getting it right. So give it a go, don’t just drive through it or change planes there. Stop off and enjoy the complete west coast experience.