Subway Ride to Hollywood ~ Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Wini and I visited Hollywood via the LA subway on Christmas.
We started at Olvera St (on an ordinary day I would recommend getting there via Metrolink or the green/blue/gold light rail system instead of driving downtown, but like I said, it was Christmas), where there were Aztec-costumed dancers on the town square, and a manger scene in the bandstand. From there we walked to Union Station, where we saw a cat--must have been Skimbleshanks!

We took the red line to Hollywood & Vine, which is not quite the center of activity I had imagined, but the station itself is worth a visit. It appears to be modeled on palatial 50's movie theaters.





We had a few sidewalk stars in mind to visit (you can look up their locations on this Wikipedia page). They proved to be a bit of a walk away. Hollywood Blvd is kind of scruffy but almost all the people we encountered were just other tourists who, like us, seemed to know they wanted to visit Hollywood but didn't actually know what to do when they got there.

Eventually we found some stars of people we're fans of.



These are hand and footprints of the cast of Harry Potter, in cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater.



Also, there's a penny smasher (we collect 'em) in front of Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

We returned via the Hollywood & Highland station, not quite as architecturally interesting (IMHO) as Hollywood & Vine, but not bad.



Along the way I snapped a few pictures of the type of classic American urban buildings that I think really deserve to be modeled more often.









And back at the town square is this old fire station, which I liked for the opposite reason--it looks exactly like the stereotypical small town building seen on every layout.



I liked this collection of signs. This is one seriously multicultural city!