Self-Guided Date

Central Library

In keeping with my Dating For Cash-Poor Folk blogs, I’d like to share another fantastic date my boyfriend and I had. It included a self-guided tour. No, not of each other. Of the city. Well, ok, and a little bit of each other. We went on a self-guided tour of downtown Los Angeles.

We drove downtown and parked at the Central Library, which validates parking when you enter the garage after 3pm: it costs $1 when you show your library card. The library’s design, thanks to architect Bertram G. Goodhue, combines modern architecture with ancient cultures including Egypt, Rome, and Spanish Colonial. If it sounds like a visual ransom note, don’t worry, it’s not. It’s a beautiful building, full of light and space.

Outside the main entrance on 5^th Street was a short, squat column with an info placard on it, giving a brief history of the library. For instance, we learned that two fires in 1986 destroyed 400,000 books (about 20% of the library’s holdings), the contents of the music department reading room, and left the remaining materials with significant water and smoke damage.

Bunker Hill Steps

Following the map provided on the column (which is how we maneuvered from site to site, treasure hunt-style), we crossed the street and walked up the Bunker Hills Steps, 103 stairs known as the Spanish Steps to anyone familiar with Roman architecture, and known as Glutes of Steel to anyone familiar with actually walking up them. And would you believe, I forgot something at the library and so we wound up climbing these steps twice. With all the heavy breathing going on, I counted that as foreplay.

Angel's Flight

The steps took us up to Bunker Hill, a historic neighborhood that now houses the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and Museum of Contemporary Art. Getting from there to the Grand Central Market on Hill Street between 3^rd and 4^th was the best part – via Angel’s Flight, a funicular (two counterbalanced cars at either end of a cable) known as the shortest railway in the world. If you’re familiar with Michael Connelly, you’ll know that his detective novel Angel’s Flight is all about this L.A. landmark, and the cars even include posters of his book (never mind that it’s about a murder that takes place here…). Two years after his book came out the funicular was closed after a fatal accident. We chose to combat that fear with heavy making out.

At the bottom of the ride we crossed the street to the historic Grand Central Market (where, by the way, Connelly’s novel ends in a bloody shoot-out in the meat section…). The European-styled market with the Latino flavor was built in 1897 and is a sprawling, colorful assembly of food stalls. Larry and I bought some mixed dried fruit which was delicious if gas-producing. Hey, those that fart together, stay together, right?

Bradbury Building

The last stop on our self-guided tour (but not the last stop on the tour itself), was the famous Bradbury building, a.k.a. the Blade Runner building. Here we read that Louis Bradbury hired an inexperienced draftsman, George Wyman, to design the building which was completed in 1893. Wyman apparently asked his dead brother via Ouija board whether he should take this job, and the answer was, “Yes, it will make you famous.” Gotta hand it to those ghosts – they know of what they speak. Too bad the ghost in my apartment isn’t as helpful; he just taps people on the arm or leg and leaves a chill.

Rather than have a sit-down meal, we just noshed every place we went, from the BookEnds café in the library to the Grand Central Market to the Starbucks across from the library with the crazy iron tornado. So the entire date cost under $20, allowed us to explore a part of our own city, gave us some exercise, and was super fun!