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It’s Los Angeles California. America’s greatest city.
The Venice canals are cute. Like Toronto island homes (if all had car access from behind). Created 1905 by a developer. Some filled in. There’s @robert_ruggiero for scale. – bei Venice Canals
There’s Frank Gehry’s 1984 Norton house on the board walk. It’s neat. – bei Venice Beach Pier
Here’s Gehry’s 1980 Spiller House. So many houses inspired by this one. You see them in Toronto too, recent even.
We’re riding big soft tire bikes today. Which means our knees and bums hurt. So many bikes out today in LA but I miss my fast & light Toronto bike. Look, it’s the famous Three’s Company opening credits!
Oh. Santa Monica random street.
Pre-Twitter naming conventions – bei The Gaslite
So much great density in Santa Monica. 2 and 3 storey deals. Deep lots, lots of apartments. I don’t know if it’s annoying to locals but I keep looking “which one might be the 3’s Company walk up”. Needs to be close retail strip aka Regal Beagle. Wide roads tho!
Something of a Frank Gehry day. Here’s his own house. The former Torontonian bought it this 1920 bungalow & in 1978 or so wrapped it in chain link, plywood and corrugated steel. Never appreciated how intact the form of the old house was from pics. What a thing.
Walking up to the Gehry Residence.
Santa Monica tree tunnel! Such roots. Look at that perfect sidewalk allowance for those Medusa roots. – bei Lincoln Middle School
Santa Monica city hall. Always gotta go by the city hall. Sweet deco deal. – bei Santa Monica City Hall
Back in Venice on Abbot Kinney (main non-seafront retail strip) low rider rickshaw bike was playing Hotel California loud (true). Note: Newfoundland dog in the shadows. Good dog town, this one. Happy dogs, no salt. – bei A. Kinney Court
Friday night food truck fest in Venice. Most elaborate food trucks. One has a whole woodfired pizza over. One was for pasta. One was for hummus. Etc.
Today’s walk / bike ride. 28 human powered KMs thru LA. Mostly bike. Small sample size but so far: motorists way more respectful than in Toronto. LA is like Berlin: something looks close on map but city is so BIG takes longer to get there. Now a rest before night shift.
405 – bei I-405 / I-10 Interchange
Midnight Mulholland / North / valley
Le Chateau jam & the world’s greatest views of the world’s greatest billboards – bei Château Marmont
Another Mulholland view from top. There’s nothing like the night views from this road. The city on both side of the mountains, the lantern-like homes in the hills, appear and disappear. – bei Mulholland Scenic Overview
Yikes!
It’s warm in the sun but chilly in the shade / night (some here might call it “cold”) but all patios open and heated. So many of these burners & the kind in hockey arenas firing away.
“Ontario is such a nanny state” say people who don’t travel much.
Sausage dog / sausage lead – bei Abbot Kinney Flea Market
School. Outdoor cafeteria. Breezeway city.
I accidentally ordered avocado toast. It was called “California Avacado”. No warning. Also was supposed be lunch but they referred it as brunch. California is a minefield.
Eames House approach. Pacific Palisades. – bei The Eames House (Case Study House #8)
Omg – bei The Eames House (Case Study House #8)
The @eameshouse is on such a prominent site, didn’t appreciate before visiting. Overlooking pacific / beach. A little meadow. – bei The Eames House (Case Study House #8)
Built into the slope of the hill. Studio left. House right. – bei The Eames House (Case Study House #8)
No pics allowed on the @eameshouse interior tour so my pics stop here. Expensive but Worth it. Ask for Christina, she was great. 
Knew about every random question we asked.
Knew about every random question we asked.
Double Drake dominating Sunset Blvd on a drizz(l)y day.
Philip Marlow / Elliot Gould homage selfie at High Tower apartments. Outdoor elevator in the Hollywood Hills. 1973 The Long Goodbye.
You can climb the wonderful public staircases in the hills & get to the top of High Tower. Robert Altman wuz here! There’s @robert_ruggiero for scale.
Hollywood in the rainy mist.
Down some more public stairs to the 1923 Frank Lloyd Wright Freeman house. It’s really perched above Hollywood Blvd & Highland. Falling apart sadly.
Hollywood tiki bar - gotta get out of the rain. Radio warns of flash floods the way Midwest has tornado warnings. Beep beep fast moving water beep beep – bei Lono
Yikes! – bei Wilshire / Fairfax
Urban Light" (2008) by Chris Burden at LACMA / 200 + oldish lamp posts – bei Chris Burden: Urban Light @ LACMA
Hollywood High school / “portrait of Hollywood” mural
Hollywood has great walk ups – bei Highland Laundromat
Perfect El Camino in the pouring rain. Cars last forever in Los Angeles.
Cars last forever in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is a great American city.
1am or so L.A. – bei West Hollywood Rainbow Crosswalks
3am hill walk / so much thickness in Los Angeles & its adjacencies – bei West Hollywood Rainbow Strip
Local Rolls Royce mechanic - good to have services handy – bei Charles Agapiou - Rolls Royce Servicing
Scoooooooters everywhere. And this is just Lyft.
This is a disguised oil derrick. LA has active oil fields. – bei Whole Body Method
Note: Come From Away domination on Pico
Subway coming
OJ Made Us Famous
Weird bits of Canada, out in the world – bei Fairfax Flea Market
Ancient Ford Probe. Remember when these cars looked like the future. Star Trek was on.
Hill climb. – bei Hollywood Sign
It’s Burbank – bei Burbank Peak
Above the Hollywood sign.
The top (ish) of Los Angeles. – bei Burbank Peak
Watts Towers in the night glow – bei Metro Station 103rd St/Watts Towers
Have wanted to see these towers forever. Of course only get here late in eve. One man’s obsession.
Downtown. The last bookstore. – bei The Last Bookstore
Book tunnel – bei The Last Bookstore
Missed the last ride on the Angels Flight FUNicular as it closed at 10. Old strange thing. – bei Angels Flight - Upper Station
Pershing Square in the Sunday night rain. Famously criticized/ravaged by Mike Davis in his LA book City Of Quartz. So PoMo. – bei Pershing Square
Marie Kondo’s nightmare. Long live books. – bei The Last Bookstore
Whatever kind of house you want, Los Angeles has one for you. Every type possible is here. No wonder they can shoot any film here.
The trees are also very strong here. – bei Fairfax Flea Market
Bills across from LACMA – bei Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Gehry’s Venice Binoculars Building - designed in PoMo 90s, completed 2001. Now home to Google. “Google sees everything” says @robert_ruggiero – bei Google Los Angeles
Max laneways in Venice. Garages and couch houses. They really fit a lot on their lots here. – bei Venice Beach
Inglewood Oil Fields. In the middle of LA. This lost in time landscape. Oil fields are inherently spooky. Fossils from the ground or something. What lays below. – bei Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Look at it pump away. – bei Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Baldwin Hills look off vas unsung views of LA. Downtown - Hills - Century City in one sweep. America does good look offs. – bei Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Nakatomi Plaza!
As seen from Beverly Hills. Century City is the skyline hinterland of the stars. – bei Neiman Marcus Parking Garage
As seen from Beverly Hills. Century City is the skyline hinterland of the stars. – bei Neiman Marcus Parking Garage
The Four Seasons always fly a Canadian flag. – bei Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills (A Four Seasons Hotel)
Upwards
1924 Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House. Los Feliz hills. Famous Bladerunner house. The city appears through the gates. It’s so big in person. Such mass. – bei Ennis House
Context – bei Mabel & Charles Ennis House
Hard to keep up an old FLW
The house across from Ennis is ok too. – bei Greek Theatre
The house below Ennis is nice too. – bei Glendower Stairs
– bei 
It’s Little Bangladesh
Koreatown. So dense. Raymond Chandler apartment buildingland. – bei Cafe Mermaid
Look at these Raymond Chandlers.
Is this New York or Los Angeles? – bei The Gaylord Apartments
Former site of the grand Ambassador Hotel. The site of Robert F Kennedy’s assassination You’ve seen it in movies too. The Graduate etc. Now a school.
There is a sunken garden for RFK here. Also some bits of the old hotel driveway entrance survive on Wilshire.
Holy cantilever – bei The LINE Hotel
Monolith of Wilshire – bei Rin Pho24
Anderton Court Shops - 1952 FLW on Rodeo Drive. A kinked spiral ramp. FLW had a ramp phase. – bei Anderson Court Shops (by Frank Lloyd Wright)
More Koreatown. Always surprises in LA. Odd things, old things, curious things block by block. All the things you want from a city to explore (on foot - and in car). – bei Soopsok Karaoke
Avacados grow in middle of Santa Monica ave. The toast is supplied locally.
Above Koreatown - low rise bungalow neighbourhoods - hasn’t explored this middle part of L.A. before. Bungalows but multiunit buildings weaved in. Filled out lots. Much denser than much of Toronto’s single fam home hoods. This is a city built by streetcars. – bei Saek Dong Juh Gori 색동저고리
Some bungalow. – bei S. Normandie Avenue
Shocker. Early Frank Gehry. 1964. The Kenmore Apartments. 340 S Kenmore in Koreatown. Discovered by @robert_ruggiero on a deep research hunt for non-landmarks. – bei The Kenmore
A very old VW – bei Venice Skills Center
O’neil house - some kinda Gaudi infatuation – bei Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church
Lots of Schitt’s Creek domination in LA right now. Along w Drake it’s some kind of Canadian invasion.
Some personal news: I have purchased this bungalow. Toronto it has been fun but I think Los Angeles is the city for me. I will let you know if my pilot is picked up.
RE LA and this exploration thread from a couple weeks ago. City folk in LA forever have to fend off/put up with ignorant comments (and long for journalism) about their city. Noticed it in this thread, snarky comments about LA. It's a complicated and fascinating place. 1/2
1/2 But I think reveals a real hole in many "urbanists" thinking about what a good city is. LA will never fail to surprise. I could live there happily if a wholly formed career presented itself (too old to start over). Toronto is more like LA than not. Most N.American cities are.
*though if LA is in need of yet another writer, please do send for me. (hahahaa)
