Downtown LA Housing Bus Tour

On Saturday 3/8/08, I went on the Downtown Los Angleles Business Improvement District's Downtown Housing Bus Tour.

We visited

• The Mandel (for lease),
  
• The Union Lofts (for lease),
  
• Barker Block (for sale),
  
• The Chapman (for sale),
  
• Market Lofts (for sale), and
  
• 1100 Wilshire (for sale).

The photos are here on Flickr

Gotta Visit Sometime

After Will Campbell's post on LA Metblogs, I want to visit:


Photo courtesy of Coco's Variety Store

Two Films, Same Story

The Los Angeles ImaginAsian Center is showing a double-feature this week. Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. If you're wondering why an Asian center would be showing a spaghetti western, remember that A Fistful of Dollars is based on Yojimbo. This double-feature allows you to compare the original with the remake. Interestingly enough, Yojimbo is based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest.

Yahoo Maps Shows Downtown Neighborhoods

Over the weekend I needed to map at a route and went over to Yahoo Maps. I was noticed the map for downtown Los Angeles included color shading. When I zoomed in, I noticed labels for the neighborhoods:



It's not just downtown, or even just Los Angeles, but also in many other cities (such as San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, to name a few).

Shaking my head at this...

The website for the 2008 LA Times Festival of Books is now on-line and slowly being updated. Hopefully someone rethinks some of the color choices on the public transportation page. Please?

Big Doin's on Sunday -- LA Marathon & LA Heritage Day

Sunday morning is the Los Angeles Marathon. If you know folks racing, you can track their progress. Since the portion of the course on 11th St. passes one block south of my apartment, hopefully I'll get enough warning to cheer on some friends of mine as they pass by.

Besides the marathon (which also includes an early morning bike ride and a 5k fun run/walk for those that don't want to run over 26 miles), tomorrow is the first ever LA Heritage Day at the Heritage Square Museum. This is an opportunity to visit with historical societies and museums from all over southern California presenting their communities' and Los Angeles’ heritage. The museum is open from 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM with tours on the hour from noon to 3:00 PM. Admission to the museum is $10 for adults, $5 for children aged 6-12, and free for museum members and children under 6. See the museum website for more details, including directions.

I've never been to Heritage Square, so this is as good a reason an any to visit.