Day 1: The Urban Hike

The drive to Los Angeles from Austin was interesting enough, but nothing to speak of compared to my experences in my first week of the city. The project staff took us on a six hour walk around downtown L.A:


In six hours of walking I learned more and experienced more than my often vibrant imagination could have anticipated.

How could I have known the incredible quantity of amazing and fascinating things, persons, ideas, streets and hallmarks of humanity (for better or worse) that lies in an area bounded by blue lines on a map, numbered 5,10 and 110.

My excursion, which began with an attitude of curiosity that would soon turn to sheer wonder, began with 6 other project members near the heart of L.A. “June Gloom” would cover the city with a thick deck of cooling grey clouds for a few hours yet. First crossing Cesar Chavez Ave. which gave a brief glimpse of home in Austin where that name also adorns the signs along a major street.

We walked past Union Station. I had been there before on my previous visit to the City of Angels…which found me hurrying across though it’s surprisingly ornate and expansive halls, attempting to make a connection to another Metrolink train that would take me to Anaheim. I was not alone this time, a concept that brought me the little comfort that I needed to relax. We entered the oldest part of the city…a center of Hispanic culture for a larger one. With my mouth absorbing a delicious churro (Strawberry, amazing) my brain worked to soak up as much sense experience as was seemingly possible. Leaving the market, we traveled toward Chinatown. This was my first visit to downtown itself, let alone Chinatown. The name of Cesar Chavez, now written in Chinese in small beautiful symbols below the more recognizable spelling, was a subtle comment that I had walked from the metropolitan center of one culture into one that was vastly different. The shift Chinatown was a stunning visual explanation of the intense blend of cultures that is so recognizable in Los Angeles. I found it amazing that I could purchase live poultry, buy Chinese music, drink a tapioca bubble tea smoothie and smell the possibly misguided, but beautifully scented incense pouring from the doorway of a Buddhist Temple in the middle of a city more commonly associated with palm trees and lifeless names of famous people carved in golden star shapes that permeate a sidewalk.

We circled Chinatown and reentered America as most people perceive it. Government Buildings and landmarks, painfully bland by comparison, were simply concrete monoliths to be passed while important people made important decisions while trapped inside them. After a brief stop for some much needed lunch, we passed Little Tokyo. Much less colorful than Chinatown, however still a cultural center in itself. I stared at the most beautiful view of the towering skyline I could conceive. The buildings shot out of the ground accompanied by brilliantly placed trees that had been planted to supplement the view. In a few blocks that capture the sharp disparity of wealth found in Los Angeles, we descended into Skid Row. Here, the undesirable inhabitants of Downtown have been corralled for who knows what purpose. Perhaps cleaning house was the goal, you know, the kind of hurrying cleaning done before guests arrive that involves throwing objects into spare bedrooms, or better yet, dark closets. Maybe the city has rounded them up to simply disappear; a purposefully ignorant conscience has far less work to do than a conscious one. Whatever the reason, there they were on display. However, in the darkness of Skid Row; amid the vagrants and beggars, the anguished and hauntingly rhythmic cries of a man desperate for a fix and the hopeless stares along the crowded sidewalk were the shining beacons of light in the forms of large missions in the heart of the castaway neighborhood. Missions where caring people work to bring whatever measure of hope that they can to the people placed there in a slow forced migration away from the tall shiny buildings above the fray.
We left Skid Row and began to ascend into the Wholesale District, a mesmerizing display of disorganized wholesale outlets spread over many blocks. I walked deep in thought, pondering the eye opening scene on Skid Row. My mind still returns there…sometimes again hearing the cries of that man that was deprived of the one thing he believed he desperately needed. I was left pondering my role in existence, my place in this superficial society. I passed more unusual and fairly unsightly wholesale stores than I could have imagined existing. The district seemed like a giant sprawling pawn shop. A couple of locals walked along side us and made a friendly conversation as I walked and pondered the circus of human misery that seemed to have followed me, although when I looked it was out of sight, but it still felt close. Toward the top of the hill we entered a market where the sight of food from many obscure parts of the world temporarily interrupted the intensity of my thought process.
The sun returned, mirroring the clearing of my cloudy mental state as we climbed toward the heart of Downtown. The shining steel towers at the top of the here were a brilliant contrast to the mess we left a few blocks back. The walls of the Biltmore hotel, were the first ever Academy Awards were given to the talent of the Big Screen, seemed to make an argument that no economic disparity exists in Los Angeles, but failed miserably. The view from the building’s zenith disguised the humanity that exists along the nearby streets, distracting us and focusing our attention on the other monuments of capitalism and the majestic mountains beyond them.
Leaving the foreign environment of the hotel we marched down the other side of the hill, away from the towers, and though Pershing Square. There on a wall behind a fountain was inscribed a poem...The final stanza said:

…It suddenly occurred to me that there would never be another place like this city of Angels. Here the American people were erupting, like lava from a volcano; here, indeed, was a place for me a ringside seat at a circus.”