- Yellow Productions presents
my top 10 favorite things to do in downtown Los Angeles.
For two of the best cultural attractions in downtown LA,
come up to the top of the hill on Grand Avenue.
The first one is The Broad,
it's this contemporary art museum.
Admission is free,
though you have to get a time ticket
on the website to go in.
Make sure you do that a bit ahead of time
'cause if not there can be
pretty long lines for stand by tickets.
The art's really neat,
the have this like balloon animal
and this really big table.
Lots of cool stuff in there,
probably worth an hour,
an hour and a half inside.
And also, just next to The Broad,
just this way,
is the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
And the Walt Disney Concert Hall is the location
of the LA Philharmonic and you can also take
free guided tours and self guided tours
of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Most of the guided tours are typically in the morning,
you can check their website to see
the times for those as well.
Walt Disney Concert Hall with its
sweeping metal architecture is somewhat
reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House.
Take a stroll through downtown LA's Historic Core district
and check out the theaters along Broadway.
Broadway, there were 14 original Los Angeles theaters,
almost all of them are now defunct,
but the architecture is pretty neat.
It's cool to see the old awnings,
some of them like this one,
The Million Dollar Theatre,
is used for private events.
But a stroll down Broadway I think is really neat
to check out old Hollywood before it
moved up to actual Hollywood where most of the theaters
that are still in operation in LA are today.
A really neat site in downtown Los Angeles
that's kinda hard to find is the Bradbury Building,
but you're definitely gonna wanna come in it.
It's right behind the Grand Central market
and let me show you what's inside.
Inside is a beautifully restored
1893 Los Angeles office building.
You can come in between 9:00 and 6:00 weekdays,
9:00 to 5:00 on weekends,
and admire the splendor of this 1893 craftsmanship.
Actually, this building is famous
because the movie Blade Runner was filmed in this building.
For some pretty neat free views
of downtown Los Angeles come into city hall.
You can come up to the tower on the 27th floor
and see all of downtown Los Angeles.
You come in off Main Street,
you pass through several metal detectors,
you go up to the 22nd floor,
you take another elevator up to the 26th floor
and then you can walk up here to the 27th floor.
Some pretty neat things you can see up here.
You can see Union Station,
you can see the Walt Disney Concert Hall,
and it's just really neat.
It's open air so I like that as well.
And it's free, can't beat free.
Another really cool part about the City Hall Observatory
is inside the observatory there's
this neat velvet-curtained room,
you can feel like you're making a city hall address.
Ladies and gentlemen,
every hour is now lunch hour.
One of my favorite neighborhoods
in downtown Los Angeles is Little Tokyo.
The central of Little Tokyo is this cute
Japanese village with blue roofs.
There used to be 30,000 Japanese that live here
and now it's only about five large city blocks,
but it's one of the best places
to come for tasty Japanese food,
Japanese snacks,
and just Japanese culture.
So if you're in downtown LA,
definitely check out Little Tokyo.
And make sure you're hungry when you're here.
Just a hop, skip, and a jump
or five blocks of those away from Little Tokyo
is the LA arts district.
The LA arts district is famous
for having big murals of public art.
It's kind of an up and coming
neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles.
The parking is kind of tough here,
there's not a whole lot of it,
but if you are into public art,
wanna take some neat pictures in front of big murals
then check out the LA arts district.
This guy here, he wants a hug.
Aw, hug.
On your way to the LA arts district,
stop by the Angel City Brewery.
They've got some pretty tasty beers
and a public brewing house,
they open at 4:00p.m. late into the night.
But if you don't like beer,
stop here to check out the angel wings.
You'll find these angel wings
all throughout the LA arts district,
they were painted by artist Colette Miller
and you can pretend you're an angel and fly away.
If you're hanging around the LA arts district
and you're hungry check out Wurstkuche.
As you come in the front door,
they've got a refrigerated case of interesting sausages,
of course there's German bratwurst,
but there's also some more interesting items
like rattle snake and duck.
To wash your sausages down,
they've got a big Germanesque beer hall in the back.
If you want dessert,
well they've only got sausages here.
Right across the street is a place called Pie Hole
which is famous in LA for pie by the slice.
It's not cheap though,
those pies are gonna cost you about six bucks a slice,
almost the same price as a sausage will at Wurstkuche.
Visit downtown Los Angeles' Chinatown district,
originally built in 1938 for a home
of some of LA's Chinese culture.
While this isn't the biggest collection
of Chinese culture in LA now,
that's over in the San Gabriel Valley,
there is a neat little old Chinatown plaza
that has these old lantern lights,
particularly picturesque at night,
still a lot of good Chinese restaurants too.
And in the background you can hear
some interesting old Chinese music.
They've got a little Chinatown gate at the front
and a statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen,
the founder of the Republic of China,
known to most people as Taiwan.
In addition to tasty Chinese,
two of you can pick up some Chinese souvenirs.
I'm thinking of getting a nice
yellow qipao and a yellow hat,
I hear it's my color.
What do you think?
There's also the Chinatown wishing well
where you can wish just not for generic wishes,
but they have these little plaques and areas
that you can wish for things like good luck,
serenity,
or down here what I should wish for,
to win the lotto and money for vacation.
Just between Chinatown and Union Station is Olvera Street,
which is part of the El Pueblo
de Los Angeles National Monument.
This is where the city of Los Angeles was founded
in 1781 by Spanish settlers as a pueblo.
So there's kind of like this bandstand,
there's often music on weekends.
And then the other big attraction, Olvera Street,
is the street directly behind me,
this like pedestrian street that you go down
and it's got shops and restaurants.
You can get a lot of Mexican souvenirs,
Mexican food,
and this is also home to Los Angeles' oldest structure,
the adobe that's in there which is standing since 1818.
So once you're done experiencing your China culture,
Chinese culture in Chinatown,
you can experience the Mexican culture on Olvera Street.
Take a visit to Union Station to see one of
downtown Los Angeles' nicest public buildings.
If you were in city hall earlier,
Union Station is actually much nicer.
You can imagine what it was like to ride a train
probably you had to have a bit of money
to ride the train back in the day
and this is how most people would come
into downtown Los Angeles.
And it is really quite a nice train station.
I actually think one of the nicest
train stations that I've been into,
so don't leave downtown LA
without checking out Union Station
and you can hop on the subway here
to take you to other parts of the city as well.
In addition the the nicest building,
these seats are some of the nicest seats
I've seen in a train waiting area,
nice high-back leather seats.
And look, pretty relaxing.
Take a walk on over to Los Angeles' LA live district
it's where the Staple Center is,
the Microsoft Theater,
there's a number of restaurants here,
Wolfgang Puck is here,
and the JW Marriot, the Ritz Carlton hotels are in the back.
This LA live district is most lively at night
with the nightclubs that are here
and often the sporting events.
LA live is also home to the Grammy Museum
and the Grammy Walk of Fame,
kind of like the Hollywood walk of Fame,
except this walk of fame is all grammy awards.
And there's interesting video presentations here
and just kind of a lively place to be.
LA live.
Thanks for watching.
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Thanks, buh-bye.
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