Hyperion question

[indri]

Do we know in which part of Los Angeles the Hyperion is? Or would anyone care to guess?

Thanks in advance.

Edited to add: Actually, would anyone familiar with LA be willing to beta sometime soon? Just for geographical plausibility, if you prefer.

Comments

[indri]

I only ever seem to go to the Bay Area, as that's where most of my friends are in California, so I've never yet been to LA, not even LAX.

I want to take a character for a walk in LA, which is bit of a problem unless I'm quite vague or do masses of research.

just about everyone in Downtown LA is of Latino descent

See? That's useful for me to know. My trusty Lonely Planet says that Downtown also includes Chinatown, Little Tokyo and the Financial District, but maybe they're defing Downtown quite broadly.

[onetwomany.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. People don't seem to walk very much in LA...In fact, during the weekdays there are surprisingly few people wandering up and down the streets. Bumper to bumper traffic, but.

Going from my scatty memory...

Downtown is that area with all the skyscapers you see on the movies and TV shows. It's kind of set back from the beach cities of Santa Monica and Venice and Long Beach and such, and south of Hollywood. A couple of freeways whiz by, so you often pass the skyline driving back to Hollywood from some other destination or something...LA is so weird like that, you seem to spend more time of Freeways whizzing from area to area then doing anything much else.

The financial area and inner city of LA was pretty much 'standard big city', which a combination of towers concentrated about the middle and lower buildings in between and around the edges. It's kinda scrappy and a bit chaotic, like Sydney, and I could see the Hyperion fitting into the architecture. The really tall tower is Library Tower, which has a cable car kinda thing running up from the street and, I think, a park at the bottom and maybe a market or grocery store or something across the road - but, man, that was about three or four years ago I was there! The Town Hall is pretty to look at, and there are several other impressive, tall architectural pieces. I don't remember the Chinatown area being as hugely faux China-y as the ones in Sydney and SF, but there are a lot of the usual kinds of stores - gold-laden jewelry stores, electronics and that kind of thing. There's definitely also a sign with dragons. There's also lots of Chinese people in the Jewellry district, and lots and lots of gold! Broadway has all the major shopping, from memory. I also visited the fashion district area on the weekend on my trip last year, and my memories of that are of lots and scattered carparks, surrounded by mediumish tall concrete buildings, and many, many Spanish-speaking people. I think Alisa and I may well have been the only Anglos, and we got a few curious looks! Also, the streets actually had people on them!

Really, Downtown LA isn't much of a tourist destination, though. Most of the pretty areas, the good shopping, the nice restaurants and the inhabitable hotels seem to be elsewhere – Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, heck even icky West Hollywood. Still, if the traffic is anything to go by, a lot of people clearly work there, and it undoubtedly caters well to them on weekdays.

[indri]

Well, I'll have to cobble this together from bits of cities that I know. If the Hyperion is on the fringe of Downtown and it's largely Hispanic, I can draw on SF's Mission plus bits of San Jose and San Antonio. The Financial Center I'll imagine as a bigger version of SF's, maybe. Freeways-Austin, given that we saw quite a few of them on foot. Chinatown should be easy enough, from your description. I can probably also draw from memories of bits of NYC and Oakland.

Thanks very much for this.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

On the SF comparison - I'd just add that the financial district in LA is a bit more spread out. Buildings in general are just farther apart. (Part of the reason why no one walks, I guess.)

[indri]

I'll google for pics, but I was wondering what was between the buildings then? Plazas? Car parks? Enormously wide roads?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

As I recall, usually some ornamental lawn or plaza space between buildings. They're just not butted up as closely as in older cities, like San Francisco or New York.