It’s difficult for us, in the present day, to picture what the 1920’s were like, but we all have iconic images stamped in our minds from history books and movies and PBS documentaries and, of course, cartoons.

We think of a college kid in a raccoon coat and pork pie hat, waving a pennant and saying nonsensical things like “23 Skidoo”.  We think of a flapper in strands of beads, madly dancing the Charleston on a marble-topped bar.  We think of big tin automobiles with hand-cranks, juddering and clanking along dirt roads that were even then being paved and laced with electrical and telephone wires.  We think of champagne and gin and hot jazz, a party that never seemed to end.  We think of the stock market, soaring up and up, no one dreaming it could crash so hard.

By and large, these images have truth.  You can hear the mad, mobile merriment of the age in its music, and you can hear the music on Buena Vista Street, peppy tunes like “Shake That Thing”.  We had won World War I, and everyone was dancing in the 1920’s. Progress was in full swing, and the thing to be was modern. Everyone moved to the cities and talked slang and played the market and moved fast and had unlimited confidence in the future. We were industrializing, electrifying, motorizing, refrigerating,
agitating, and animating.  Cartoons were the perfect medium to communicate the zany speed of the new age, and the possibility of the impossible that it promised.

Los Angeles was humming with endless possibility when Walt arrived in 1923.  Former ditch-digger William Mulholland had brought water to LA—seemingly all the water it would ever need—by 1913.  Dirt roads had given way to paved roads, gas to electricity, horses to automobiles—Downtown LA had installed more than 30 traffic signals by 1923.  Real estate was booming, oil was flowing, and the moving picture industry was about to explode.

Walt Disney moved to LA at a golden moment, a perfect match of personality and place.  He was an optimist among optimists, a dreamer and doer among dreamers and doers ...

[From "Buena Vista Street" in "The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2015 - DCA" - To be released Sep. 2015.]

Summer is here.  It doesn't begin officially until June 21, but with June glooms burning away to long sunny days, and the kids out of school, summer has already started.  The question now is what to do with your summer.  One answer:  Explore your city.

Los Angeles is an ever-changing puzzle box of delights--many of them free.  Plan summer city excursions with your kids and family.  The possibilities are endlessly varied.  A simple walk down Broadway or Hill Street, for example, carries you past historic landmarks and architectural treasures.

A city excursion doesn't have to be complicated or expensive.  It can be as light and effervescent as sun on water, as well as a fun learning experience for you and your kids.  Break your adventures over multiple weekends.  Map your general route or destination in advance.  Don't forget the sunblock, hat, comfortable walking shoes/sneakers--and your curiosity.

Some suggestions to kick-start your adventures:

LA's Central Library - FREE - A historic landmark that offers art exhibits, architectural tours, story time and free lunches for kids--and, oh, yeah:  books.

LA's City Hall - FREE - A portrait gallery of LA's past mayors, and an observation deck offering 360 degrees of stunning views of your city.

LA Times - FREE Tours - LA's venerable flagship newspaper offers free tours--check the website for details.

The Last Bookstore - FREE to browse - Bargain books and vinyl records, concerts, book signings, art exhibits, poetry readings and oh-so-much-more.  One of the hipster cultural hearts of renaissance LA.

Grand Central Market - FREE to browse - Classic produce stands and mom-n-pop stalls interspersed with hip new restaurants.  A long-time LA landmark not-to-be-missed.

Grand Park - FREE - Throw a frisbee, catch a concert or late-night outdoor movie, grab a bite at a food truck, meditate, read a book, or take a stroll.  One of LA's newest green spaces, where your tots are allowed to run through the fountain.

Bradbury Building - FREE ground level - One of LA's most iconic and dreamlike structures, used frequently in films and TV shows.  Check the Bradbury Building website for information about free tours on the ground-floor level.

Million Dollar Theatre - $10 - One of LA's first theatres, the beautiful and partially refurbished space has begun showing classic films in partnership with "Vintage LA".

St. Vincent's Court - FREE to browse - This Jewelry District gem is tucked away--you have to make an effort to find it.  Nosh deli treats while soaking in the old-world European atmosphere.

Olvera Street - FREE to browse - Wander one of LA's oldest thoroughfares, perusing the imported fabrics, toys and bags, eating delicious Mexican food, exploring one of LA's oldest adobe residences, and visiting the Church of Our Lady Queen of the Angels.

Chinatown - FREE to browse - Everything from bargain T shirts and sunglasses to live poultry, delicious Chinese cuisine, and lovely Chinese architecture and history.  Take the time to chat with the shop owners, some of whom have been in Chinatown for many decades.

Little Tokyo - FREE to browse - Japanese food and imports, a large Japanese supermarket, the Japanese American Cultural Center--and a ukelele store!

Summer is here--where will it lead you?

Leslie is the author of Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2013 and Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2014--Broadway, available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
  

In celebration of  National Record Store Day on April 19, 2014, I'm blogging my never-published  "LA City Guide" piece about the beauties of vinyl and the shops that sell it. 

If you grew up spinning Floyd and Zepp way too loud on turntables in the basement, you understand the near-mystic allure of  listening to music on vinyl.  The warmsizzle-pop-hiss of an LP isn’t a flaw– it’s a strand of music.

Angelenos and tourists who miss the hiss can rediscover the natural beauty of records at one of the music shops – mostly mom-n-pop, pocket-sized caves – where L.A.’s vinyl renaissance thrives.  The city that launched bands as diverse as the Doors, the Beach Boys, N.W.A., the Go-Gos, the Byrds, Black Flag, Metallica, Tierra, and the Runaways is, not surprisingly, a center of old, new, and rare vinyl.

You don’t have to be a hipster-of-a-certain-age to understand vinyl’s appeal. 
Digital technology paints every overproduced note with unsettlingly perfect clarity, so music lovers of all ages turn to vinyl for a toothy sound  that feels deeper and more real.  For oldsters it might be nostalgia.  For the D.I.Y. generation, the sizzle of vinyl feeds a craving for authenticity.

Art lovers worship vinyl’s eye-popping cover art (which is never as seductive when shrunk to fit CD sleeves or clickable “download” icons).  Album covers
make an ideal canvas across which images flow in a swoon-worthy melt of color.  There is something primal in eyeballing a great piece of cover art, picking up the album, and turning it over in your hands.  Holding an album is the musical equivalent of the hunter’s “proof of kill”.

Amoeba Music is the King Kong of L.A. music shops, boasting an encyclopedic selection, expert staff, and frequent concerts.  Amoeba came early to the
vinyl renaissance.  It launched in Berkeley in 1990, opening the Hollywood store a few blocks from the iconic Capitol Records building in 2001.  Scoping records at Amoeba on Sunset is like digging through the exhaustive vinyl collection in your cool friend’s basement pad, if he had a really big basement, say, the size of an underground NORAD hangar. In a contemporary twist, Amoeba is now digitizing a curated vinyl collection in their Vinyl Vaults.

At the other extreme, small record shops are quirky labors of love launched by owners who share the magic of vinyl with their neighbors in historic districts that have tumbled into decay – hello, reasonable rents! – but are trying to rise from the ashes.  Local culture – art, eats, and vinyl – often play a big part in steering a depressed neighborhood back from the brink.  These little shops can feel held together by twine, tape, and wishful thinking – but deep music passion and knowledge are there.

Small music shops excel at handcrafted touches like the silver labels affixed to many records at Mount Analog, album descriptions ranging from the workmanlike to the poetic (consider “bubbling funk,” or comparing an album’s sound to time spent “in Laurel Canyon”).  Mid-size shops have their charms and treasures too, like the bargain bins at the Last Bookstore, where a discerning customer can purchase the “Carousel” LP (cover graced by an impossibly young Shirley Jones) for 99 cents.
 
Four fabulous vinyl destinations for music lovers in L.A.:
 
1. Everything and the Kitchen Sink

 Amoeba
Music –
6400 W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA  90028
 (323) 245-6400  |  www.amoeba.com 
  Hours:  10:30 am – 11:00 pm Mon – Sat, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm Sun

 CDs, DVDs, and armadas of vinyl.  Buy, trade, sell.  Concerts and events. Vast selection.

 
2. Shoot from the Hipster

 The
Last Bookstore
–
453 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA  90013
(213) 488-0599  |  http://lastbookstorela.com 
Hours:  10 am – 10 pm Mon – Thu, 10 am – 11 pm Fri – Sat, 9 am – 9 pm Sun

 Used books and vinyl.  Art galleries.  Events. Quirky, artsy, gritty downtown hipster-haven.

 
3. On the Dark Side

 Mount
Analog –
5906 ½ Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA  90042
 (323) 474-6649  |  www.climbmountanalog.com
 Hours:  12 pm – 8 pm Tue – Sat, 12 pm – 6 pm Sun, Closed Mon

 New, indie, and rare vinyl.  Dark and edgy, with occult wares like Tarot cards.

 
4. Cheers!

 Wombleton
Records –
5123 York Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA  90042
 (213) 422-0069  |  www.wombletonrecords.com
 Hours:  12:00 pm – 10:00 pm Thu, Fri & Sat, 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm Wed & Sun, Closed Mon & Tue

 Classic, imported, and rare vinyl, with a heavy British inflection.

Walking a city is always more raw, and authentic, and authentically raw, than driving through it.

Skimming through a city in a climate-controlled bubble with heated seats and cupholders and  favorite-song playlists programmed into the onboard computer, one is too insulated to engage with the city in any meaningful way.

To experience a city, walk it.  Suck in lungfulls of smoky-smoggy air.  Feel the texture of it under your feet and at the end of your fingertips.  Sweat.  Pulse with its music, and its sirens.  There will be some level of discomfort.  There will be some level of surprise.  Rather the point.

You might stumble across an art show, a street fair, a long-lost friend, a person in need, a new flavor, a new song, a roiling protest march.  Drink it, breathe it, pure and unfiltered.  This is your city.  These are its people.  You have never been closer to your city than here, at the center of its adrenalized heart.

Author Update:  "Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2014" will focus on Broadway, one of L.A.'s oldest and most important thoroughfares.


The street owes its existence to Lt. Edward Ord, who named it Fort Street.  From 1849 until 1890, Fort Street connected L.A.'s downtown with Fort Moore.  In 1890, the thoroughfare was re-christened "Broadway".  And, yes--the name was a nod to New York City's Broadway.


One of North Broadway's cross streets is "Ord"--named in honor of the famed surveyor.  Fort Moore is gone, but an impressive (if decaying) monument to the fort remains atop Hill Street.  Pedestrians on Broadway who wish to visit the monument can climb a narrow staircase connecting Broadway to Hill.


Today Broadway stretches from Lincoln Heights, a neighborhood north of Downtown Los Angeles, past the sprawling rail yards and newest downtown park, through the last vestiges of "Little Italy" and through still-vibrant Chinatown, through the Civic Center, and thence flowing through L.A.'s famed theatre, jewelry, and fashion districts, finally terminating well south of the downtown in Carson.


"Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2014" will be, like the original book, a
collection of black-and-white photos showcasing the city's "noir" beauty, featuring historical information as well as noting anticipated changes. For Broadway is under revitalization, particularly along its historic theatre corridor.


Broadway's Chinatown remains largely untouched, a bustling community that welcomes foreign and domestic tourists.  "Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2014" will focus heavily on this fascinating enclave, where the old and new, the traditional and modern, exist in sometimes dream-like congruence.


Chinatown is perfumed with the scent of freshly cut oranges, and incense burning in rooms off shop. There is very little you cannot find in Chinatown.  Tanks of live crabs.  Glass cases of roasted pig.  Bakeries--among the best in the city--and jewelers, and banks, dentists and optometrists, cultural centers and benevolent societies.


One hears the frantic clucking of chickens behind a fence on which a sign proclaims "Pollos Vivos" ("live chickens") and "No Entry".  No entry for the public; no exit for the fowl.
 
Everything seems to be for sale.  Cardboard boxes overlowing with colorful produce--fruits and vegetables and berries.  Herbs.  Vitamins.  Irish caps.  Heavy-metal T-shirts.  High-end sunglasses.  Lucky bamboo plants.  Fresh flowers. Birthday cakes.  Fortune cookies by the bag.  And everywhere, everywhere, merchandise stamped with the adorable visage of "Hello Kitty".


Bookended by the last remnants of "Little Italy" to the north, and the Great Dragon Gate to the south, the Chinatown section of Broadway welcomes drivers and pedestrians to Downtown Los Angeles.  Tourists snap photos and queue at the Chinese restaurants.  Elderly locals take morning constitutionals, or sit languidly on benches, smoking.


In the central plaza, a golden statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen welcomes visitors entering the plaza from the Broadway side.  Here is the district's heaviest concentration of traditional Chinese architecture and decor.  Red-pink paper-lanterns strung across the courtyards link restaurants, gift shops, and importers.


Esther, a shop owner, runs two stores in the plaza, one she describes as more American, the other more traditionally Chinese; the latter is presided over by a large, lucky Buddha statue.  "Sincere Imports" has been open since 1937, when Esther's father-in-law opened it.  Esther took over the store in 1980.


While instructing an employee on the benefits of using water-and-newspaper to remove grease from the shop windows, Esther holds forth about the upcoming Lunar New Year festivities.  "The Year of the Horse" is nigh.  She recommends that the author photograph Chinatown's neon and its glowing lanterns at night, particulary during the new year festivities.


In research there is no substitute for talking to primary sources.  Esther directs the author to a somewhat hidden gem:  The Chinese Historical Society, tucked away in a tiny purple house on Bernard, just west of an abandoned gas station.  Esther also holds forth on stories of treasure hidden by Chinese residents long in the past "in vases inside of vases" and then buried by construction when the nearby freeways were built ...


     [Look for "Downtown Los Angeles in Photographs 2014"
later this year at Amazon.com or through the author's website:  www.leslielemonauthor.com.]

Riding the train between Los Angeles and  Anaheim on New Year's Day 2014, I  reflected (as I often do along that corridor) at the surreal landscape of "the between".

L.A. and Anaheim are both, in large measure, playgrounds as well as communities, known for dining and shopping and entertainment.  But where do their materials and products come from?  And where do they go when spent?

Much of what we consume or produce flows in--and then flows out--by rail.  Many of the city's raw or finished materials arrive by, depart by, or are manufactured along the rail lines.  And it is along these channels  that the city's refuse is banished, its scraps, its offal, its depleted, unwanted, and unused.

The rail lines betwween Los Angeles and Anaheim are weirdly beautiful.  They are lined with rail yards and factories and power plants.  Oil derricks nod in hypnotic rhythms as they pump the dark gold many Angelenos have long forgotten, though it continues to flow deep underground.

Glittering rubbish heaps tower stories high, gleaming like treasure hoards.

There are flat yards of *things*, of *stuff*, dozens, sometimes hundreds of them.  Armies of yellow school buses, herds of city trash trucks huddled like an armada of giant green armadillos, batallions of pallets, of flatbeds, of truck cabs, of oil drums, all aligned and stacked in fantastic arrangements like the blocks of a giant child.

There are lonely expanses under overpasses where L.A.'s mobsters might--might--quietly dump bodies which are then quietly recovered by the city's law enforcement ...

The  Surfliner South promises sea views, and along its southern leg delivers them.  But between L.A. and Anaheim the only view is of "the between," that inland industrial corridor where seemingly everything is made and mobilized and then
destroyed.

In this sleek and airbrushed digital age, we forget to some degree the gritty and sooty forums in which things are wrought with sweat, with tremendous exertion.  Traveling through "the between," a land ornamented with graffiti by the alienated, and the glimmer of broken glass, we are reminded with the force of a gut punch how things, even peoples, are made and mobilized and then cast aside ...

To read all of Leslie's blog posts, visit her Goodreads blog:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7182708.Leslie_Le_Mon/blog