Los Angeles Plaza

Of course, you should start at Los Angeles’ non-Indigenous beginning. This is where 44 pobladores walked from la misión San Gabriel Arcángel to found El Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1781. To the west of the Plaza is Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church and the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. Then there’s the Pico House, the Chinese American Museum, and the Fire House. To the east is Union Station and the Twin Towers jail. Olvera Street has IAMLA (Italian American Museum of Los Angeles). Olvera Street has Chiguacle for pre-Columbian food and a line at Cielito Lindo for taquitos. But we’ve done a blind taste test, and we know where else we’d go. Even the churros and the chocolate taste delicioso at Olvera. Beautiful colors, lots of music, and a dozen languages in the air… We could just stay here all day.

Full disclosure: Parking at Olvera Street, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and much of DTLA is a challenge. You really need the decades of experience to navigate this.The Metro is a wonderful alternative. Riding the Metro also exposes you to the people of Los Angeles. But then you can’t do the rest of this “driving” tour.

Los Angeles Chinatown

North of Olvera Street and just south of Dodger Stadium is Chinatown. One of my favorite restaurants in Chinatown is Philippes, for “original” French Dipped Sandwich with pickled eggs and rich vanilla ice cream. For Chinese food, I have favorites in suburban San Gabriel Valley, but that's a different "Discover L.A. route"...

Chinatown has a wonderful vibe with people looking for ginseng, live poultry, and/or bitter melons. There are people here to play basketball, and people here to find gold jewelry. There are people coming to church, to the bank, and/or to a red egg banquet.

L.A. City Hall & Government Boxes

Let’s drive back towards City Hall. An early city ordinance mandated that the neoclassical City Hall be the tallest building. By 1964, that rule could not be sustained. The City Hall Observation Deck is still an experience. Around City Hall are the LAPD headquarters, courts, federal buildings, jails, and a super concentration of suits and attorneys. This corner of DTLA has been in a multiplicity of TV shows and movies.

Little Tokyo

A nudge south is Little Tokyo with its ramen, manga, and cultural happenings anchored at JANM and JACCC – Japanese American National Museum and Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. We come down especially for the Nisei Week Parade or a funeral at one of the Buddhist temples. One of my favorite places was the Los Angeles Times headquarters – but alas, publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong moved for efficiency.

Fisherman’s Outlet

Just a little south of Little Tokyo is Fisherman’s Outlet. You stand in line for the bestest fish with judges and criminals. You bump into Latinx who know their mariscos, African Americans with roots in the Gulf, and Southeast Asians who bring their own ginger and soy sauce.

Skid Row

Skid Row deserves a drive-through. Here you see all that Los Angeles cannot hide: racism, homelessness, mental health epidemic, undocumented, child abuse, food insecurity, etc. Skid Row is a whole city in itself. Its vastness and permanence are shocking – even to us Angelinos. LAPD is so efficient at keeping the unkempt to their corner of DTLA.

Wholesale Districts

Toys, produce, flowers, party goods, fabric, clothing, jewelry. Downtown Los Angeles is a commercial hub - each niche has its own area, generally a couple of blocks in all directions from its epicenter.

I kid you not - the wholesale flower bartering begins at 2 am. The fabric district has a niche of Persian Jews who left their homeland with the Shah. Ethnic niches are aplenty in this city of immigrants. Immigrant entrepreneurs have an earned reputation of being hard workers who globalize L.A.

L.A. Convention Center, Staples Center, & L.A. Live

Moving west, I don’t even know where to begin. On game night or concert night, tens of thousands congregate to these hallowed grounds for Lakers or Beyonce or K-Pop. L.A. Auto Show – which started in 1907 with 99 vehicles – also shares space here now. I still reminisce about that time in 1996, when the Smithsonian Museum came to the L.A. Convention Center with Lincoln’s top hat, the Hope Diamond, and even Judy Garland’s red slippers.

Broadway & Theater District

Let’s move north on Broadway. Above the shops for quincenera dresses and cheap iPhones, you can see the ghosts of the glamour of ol’ Broadway. Yes, this street was named after the one in New York City, and it was L.A.’s entertainment center before the post-War burbs. Here were twelve “movie palaces” in six blocks during the Roaring Twenties, and the finest of the fine department stores. There are many attempts to bring all that enchantment back as exclusive housing lofts and chichi rendezvous bars.

The Post-Modernism Tip

Newer developments have come to Los Angeles, especially in the northern tip of DTLA where the 110 Freeway meets the 101 Freeway. I remember when the four glass columns of the Bonaventure Hotel were all the rage in the 1970s, but now it is dwarfed by its neighbors: Disney Concert Hall, LA Music Center, MOCA, and the Broad Museum. Since 2002, stands yet another post-modern architectural wonder: COLA (Cathedral of Los Angeles).

But inbetween, there are the historic Angel’s Flight, Central Market, the Bradbury Building, The Last Bookstore, L.A.’s Main Public Library, and the Anthony Quinn Mural. I can’t not mention them… Such sparkles in a city of gems.

The next concentric circle outside DTLA includes East LA, USC/Museums, Watts Tower, Koreatown, Historic Filipinotown, Angelino Heights, Echo Park… But that’s another story upon story. Admittedly, this really isn’t a “driving tour.” It is an experience like no other. No wonder migrants and immigrants keep moving to Los Angeles to settle – just like the pobladores did in 1781.