Above and Below DTLA

• Walking tour
• Monday, May 16, 2011

A guided historical tour of some of downtown Los Angeles's towers, tunnels, and ruins. Starting at Pershing Square, we went down through the parking garage to the "world's most expensive sidewalk." Then we made our way up Broadway to the site of the old State Building. Next, we ascended to the very tip of the City Hall beacon tower. Then it was back underground, into the depths of the County Hall of Records (where we found, appropriately enough, hallways full of records). We proceeded through the tunnel that connects the Hall of Records to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. We emerged from the parking garage to a construction fence labyrinth. We stopped for tacos at the Grand Central Market, then walked through the Third Street tunnel. We wound our way up through the skyways and the L.A. World Trade Center to our final stop, the Bonaventure Hotel. There, we took the elevator to the rotating lounge at its top for another 360 degree view of downtown before heading back to Pershing Square.

Photos

Resources

• Pershing Square and the tunnel to 606 South Olive
• State Building
• City Hall
• Civic Center tunnels
• Civic Center of yore and Broadway Tunnel
• Downtown grid alignment
• Homer Laughlin Building and the Grand Central Market
• Third Street Tunnel
• Bonaventure Hotel and the postmodernist and post-postmodernist take on it