A trip to Los Angeles!

California and the Disney Concert Hall

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You may or not may know that I lived in California for about 2 years right after college, so while (at least at the time) I was happy to move back East, I still hold a soft spot for it. I try to visit every couple of years as time allows, and this time I decided to really get to do things I had always wanted to but never got around to.

I’d been to the Walt Disney Concert Hall before, but didn’t have a great camera. It’s always fascinated me and I think Frank Gehry’s work is simply amazing (one day i’ll get to The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain!) So I made teh trip downtown and shot this series of somewhat abstract sections of the building.

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To be honest though, the trip BEGAN with a hike up to behind the Hollywood Sign. Pro Tip – when you’re as out of shape by me, do NOT begin a vacation with a 6 mile round trip hike up a mountain!!! Lets just say, while it was fun and the view AMAZING (it was incredibly clear this day – I could see all the way to the ocean) I was more sore than I though possible by the end of the hike. I feel like the remainder of the trip was spent nursing my sore hips and feet!

That’s the Mulholland Dam to the far right in the bottom color photo. (any bad 1970’s disaster film fans will recognize it from the perfectly, wonderfully horrible movie ‘Earthquake’

Here’s a clip when the shit hits the fan, LOL

 

Here are a few panoramas from the hike up to the sign.

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Meanwhile back downtown – did YOU know that Los Angeles has a funicular??! Who knew?!

Here is a quick snap of Angels Flight – still $1.00 a ride!

 

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I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge chuck of the Berlin wall right there on Wilshire Boulevard from the Wende Museum! Here is some info from the Museum website:

The largest stretch of the original Berlin Wall in the world outside of Berlin resides in the permanent collection of the Wende Museum. Ten of these segments, currently displayed at 5900 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, were installed as part of the Wende’s Wall Project which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009. As part of the project, the Museum commissioned four artists to paint on five of these wall segments, including French-born, Berlin-based artist Thierry Noir, who was one of the first to paint the Berlin Wall in 1984, L.A.-based muralist Kent Twitchell and Farrah Karapetian and Marie Astrid González, two emerging Los Angeles Artists.

Another original Berlin Wall segment, painted by Thierry Noir, currently stands in the front the Museum’s entrance. These segments further supplement the large collection of Berlin Wall fragments and ephemera related to the wall that The Wende holds.

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While I didn’t get the time to go INTO the Peterson Automotive Museum, I did fine the time for a little visit to the outside with it’s GREAT exterior!

 

check out the title plane right over the top peak of the building!

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Johnie’s Coffee Shop – a Miracle Mile staple – has been used frequently in movies and commercials, and most recently served at a Bernie Sanders ‘command Center’!

 

Just beyond that in what was the May Co store for many years, is now morphing into the Museum of The Academy Awards – I can’t wait to see that completed! I’m happy to see they’re keeping that beautiful gold leaf corner exterior.

A strange little moment at the LACMA

 

And an even stranger room with nothing but this small cowpoke.

 

A few downtown buildings in B&W

 

a side view of The Broad museum

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