http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/travel/los-angeles-as-a-pedestrian.html 2014-12-19 20:57:17 Los Angeles, as a Pedestrian Seeing the city from the sidewalk, not the freeway, opens a visitor to quiet wonders that would be lost at 60 miles per hour. === Had I been driving I would not have stopped here. But I was lured from the sidewalk by an open gate and the mysterious buildings beyond. There was a Moorish structure with a minaret, another was Italian with a loggia, a third had a fleur-de-lis on a chimney. It was as if a snow globe village had been dropped onto Sunset Boulevard. At the back of the hushed lot, a stone statue, naked to her hips, stood sentry. I would later learn that this is where a Jazz Age gangster named Charlie Crawford was murdered. In 1936 these fanciful buildings, commissioned by his widow, became Visit Los Angeles as a solo traveler and you’ll find few better ways to unmask the city’s hidden-in-plain-sight history, meet other people and imbibe responsibly than to be car-free. (And consider the money you’ll save on gas and valets.) This is not to scorn the car, which offers its own pleasures. It’s a symbol of freedom and, at its most inspired, art. The poet Gary Snyder has written of “the calligraphy of lights on the night freeways of Los Angeles.” And, as Reyner Banham put it in “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies,” the city’s freeway system is “one of the greater works of Man.” But driving can complicate a solo trip, and those who would rather not brave Los Angeles traffic should know that they need not see the city from behind a wheel to relish it. Some of its most beloved citizens, including the author Ray Bradbury, never drove. And while walking is common downtown and in Venice Beach and Santa Monica, in cooler months one can just as easily traverse Los Angeles between West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Miracle Mile and Larchmont Village by putting one foot in front of the other (with help now and then from mass transit and Last year the City of West Hollywood’s marketing arm posted “Walkable WeHo” tours on its Granted, strolling Los Angeles can be anything but picturesque. There are wide, noisy boulevards with scant shade. If you’re a woman, men in cars may greet you with “Yowza!” as they whiz by. Sometimes, to borrow a phrase from Shel Silverstein, the sidewalk ends. But just when you think walking these interminable avenues is for East Coast chumps, something makes you smile. Take the white Tudor-style building that caught my eye on an otherwise humdrum stretch of North La Brea Avenue. A second glance revealed a trompe-l’lœil image of a grinning Charlie Chaplin leaning on a cane. From there my gaze traveled up the building to a 12-foot-tall Kermit the Frog tipping a bowler hat atop what turned out to be the Jim Henson Company, formerly Charlie Chaplin Studios (hence Kermit’s “little tramp” get-up). Walk east on Franklin Avenue and you’ll be rewarded with postcard views of the Hollywood sign over your left shoulder, or the French-Normandy-style 1920s hotel Château Élysée (now the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International) rising above the trees near Tamarind Avenue. Walk long enough and you realize that here in this megalopolis of cars are quiet wonders, like the surprisingly ubiquitous sight of hummingbirds hovering around storefronts and terraces. When you’re car-free and solo, one of the easiest places to nest is West Hollywood. There’s plenty of shopping, dining and night life, and the central location makes it a great base for jaunts to other neighborhoods. Hotels dot the Sunset Strip (once the stamping grounds of numerous larger-than-life personalities including members of the Doors and Led Zeppelin) and a walk from here to the For a tranquil morning stroll past bungalows and Mediterranean-style homes with cactuses in the yard, turn off Sunset onto Sweetzer Avenue. Make your way to the From there head south to the At the yawning Lake Pit, where fiberglass mammoths evoke their unlucky predecessors, the smell of asphalt hangs in the air; on the other side of the fence, cars fly by on Wilshire Boulevard, seemingly invincible. If you’d rather gawk at shop windows than tar pits, stay in West Hollywood, where you can walk North Robertson Boulevard past the little red awnings of Dorrington Avenue between North Robertson Boulevard and North San Vicente Boulevard is too lovely to resist: hydrangea, azaleas, bird of paradise, cottages in Mediterranean and Spanish bungalow styles — and not a car in sight. You could spend hours weaving up and down the surrounding tree-lined streets, where front lawns are small but lovingly manicured. Among the succulents and roses, security and video surveillance signs bloom on stakes. As an Uber driver jokingly put it to me: “If you look at a tree too hard, they’re going to prosecute you.” Consider it a Hollywood seduction: As much effort is put into making you want to look as it is in keeping you at bay. One afternoon I momentarily paused on the sidewalk and a man ran up to me. He kept asking if I had a ticket. I kept looking at him blankly. “I’m just ­ standing,” I finally said. It took a minute for it to dawn on me that he was a valet and for him to realize that I was — of all things, a pedestrian. I was reminded of Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Pedestrian,” which takes place in the year 2053, when people no longer stroll. The protagonist embarks on an evening walk and is swiftly arrested and taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. Among the joys of walking is refueling. At The Gracias Madre team is also behind the vegan fare at But back to West Hollywood. The boutiques on Melrose Place are polished, yet those on a budget are better served on Santa Monica Boulevard at places like the Should you happen to be an architecture buff, find your way to the nearby As I was heading back to reality, a couple of local men at the foot of the driveway were remarking on the peaceful breeze moving through the trees. “Sometimes,” said one, “I just sit out here and smoke my weed and pray.” When the sun disappears, there are plenty of clubs, lounges and theaters in which to while away the night. Or maybe you just want to thumb through CDs and LPs at As for me, I was two and a half miles west, at the intimate, candlelit The air becomes fragrant near the corner of Fern Dell Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard on the edges of Near the top of the trail to the The view at the top took the sting out of my ungainly arrival. Hawks circled and plunged toward the enormous silver city basin. In the distance, the ocean beckoned. I will not recount how I began skidding down yet another shortcut off the Mount Hollywood hiking trail, but suffice it to say that when it came time to leave, I wanted the most direct, not the scenic, route out. And I thought I was on it as I followed the sidewalk down from the observatory parking lot. Alas, the sidewalk eventually disappeared, and I was suddenly darting Road Runner-style from one curve to another to ensure I would be seen and not hit by oncoming cars. Lesson 1: Wear proper footwear. Lesson 2: Know when to summon Uber. Uber has had plenty of clashes with California regulators (not to mention with those in other states and countries) and is facing safety concerns. Nonetheless, it’s convenient in sprawling Los Angeles as well as surprisingly affordable. And as a solo traveler I was delighted to have drivers who shared their favorite haunts (note: they are also willing to stop at drive-throughs) and asked questions that encouraged me to reflect on my travels. “What’s the best thing you saw inside?,” said the driver who picked me up at the As it happened, I was at the Getty for more than three hours before looking at a single painting. With works by Monet, van Gogh and Rembrandt, it’s easy to forget that the ivory and honey center, designed by Richard Meier, along with the gardens, are works of art in their own right. The museum offers free walking tours of both. “This,” said an architecture docent as we stood amid the Santa Monica Mountains peering down at what looked like rows of toy cars, “is the notorious 405 freeway.” And what a contrast it was to the ancient travertine stone on the Getty facade, harvested from the same Roman quarry that provided travertine for the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain. By 11:30 the center was bustling and about 10 of us were descending toward the maze of azaleas in the Central Garden. “On the walk down I’m not going to talk to you because I want you to really enjoy the experience,” said our guide for the garden tour. We zigzagged across teak bridges, over a stream toward bougainvillea and the pungent scent of society garlic. There were no tiny signs with the names of the plants and trees we passed, and our group agreed that this was something of a relief. “If all we want to know is the name of the thing,” said our guide, “then we’ve really lost the experience.” Looking into the bowl of the garden is not unlike observing the orchestra from the balcony of the Reserve a seat in the center of the last row, the best spot to admire the hardwood-paneled auditorium and pipe organ, designed by Frank Gehry. It’s also convenient if you want to let your eyes drift close as I did during Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” It’s worth spending time downtown in the surrounding streets, eating in the “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a man holding his phone up to an illuminated tunnel made of books as we inadvertently photo-bombed each other. Up here books are not just read; they are used to make art installations, walls and portholes. You’ll find a smattering of little art galleries along with tomes for $1 and weird fare like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” If you can tear yourself away, you’re not far from discovering the roots of this town. Across the road from Los Angeles Union Station, completed in 1939 when such majestic stations would soon become a thing of the past, you’ll spot a Mexican marketplace. Look beyond the stalls hawking colorful trinkets to the historic buildings. On Olvera Street, there’s Afterward I sat on the porch overlooking the market, imagining what life was like before the car was king. Yet as rich as this area is, any car-free tour of Los Angeles must, at some point, lead to the beach. When the sun shines on the soft, fine sand of Santa Monica, everything shimmers. In the white-blue light of morning, I passed sea gulls and surfers with boards tucked under their arms. It is here, after a $20 Uber ride from West Hollywood, where I end my trip, listening to the comforting thunder of waves, walking east, without a destination.